The Team

We now have our new Cyberpunk 2069 Campaign under way.  Since we are using the 2020 game rules (with a few modifications), this timeline presupposes that all of the disasters that befell the world in the canonical timeline just occurred at a later date.  We will be making a few changes which at this point are irrelevant to the new Team’s situation.  The story begins in the neighborhood around the 88th Street NCART station in South Night City.  The subway stop with a Night City police station attached is next to a park that forms the backbone of this neighborhood.  The area for one block around the park is considered a “moderate zone” as the police will respond there.  It is a point of pride to the city not to close the station so the brave and often outnumbered police there try to keep order in this one small area of sanity. Everywhere else around it is your typical Combat Zone.  To the north and south of the park, smaller gangs fight for their claims over their immediate area.  West of the park is the territory of the vicious booster gang, the Blood Reign.  Only one other block in that area is controlled by a subset of the Triads which keeps them at bay.  This gang doesn’t come within one block of the park as the NCPD has sworn to destroy them if they do; in return the police leave them alone.  To the east of the park is the area claimed by the Thunder Gods Motorcycle Club.  They are a criminal 1%’er group with chapters all over the west.  In their territory is the entrance and exit ramp to Interstate 16.  The NCPD has a deal with the MC.  The club keeps the ramps open and defended and the police leave them alone.  This is an old chapter and many are second and third (or more) generation members.  The group lives in the area and is fiercely protective of it.  Many of the residents consider them more of a guardian gang and there is a bit of truth to it, but only if you live there.  A dorpher gang and a (real) guardian gang fill out the whole area along with shifting groups of juvie gangs.

All of the Player Characters (PCs) had to be the ages of 16 to 19 (everyone picked 17 thru 19).  No Special Ability could be higher than 5 to start and the highest skill number you could start with was a single 6.  Players were also limited to having only three 5’s (including their Special Ability) in skills.  Starting money was limited to two months “book” salary, and from that you had to pay a month’s lodging and at least a week’s food.  Not surprisingly many of the players decided they lived with their parent(s) or some other relative, which as the starting GM, I enjoyed twisting a bit.  Everyone on the Team starts knowing each other, mostly from the Catholic High School in the area.  St. Mary’s is surprisingly in the area of the Thunder Gods MC where many of the club’s children attend.  Most of the Team couldn’t afford much cyberware.  The solos were able to afford get processors, plugs and smartgun links and a little ammo.  The two female Team members invested in contraceptive implants, but that was about all they could afford.  The only “freebies” were a nylon kit bag with three sets of generic sub-average clothes, two set of similar foot wear, a jacket and a minimal personal grooming kit. The primary binding motivation of the Team is to stop being the victims in their crappy lives.  Some also want fame, some wish to “stick it to the man” and others just want to be rich. 

At Present the Team consists of:

  • Harlon Nayl: A 19 year old solo who has been trained as a sniper (not the best of course) by his ex-Army father.  Harlon’s mother died in child birth and he is an only child.  His father joined the NCPD in 2053 and was assigned to the 88th Street police precinct.  The old man has risen in the ranks and is now the lieutenant in charge of the third watch.  At 16, Harlon found a girlfriend and life began to look up.  Unfortunately this girl had another admirer, a young lesbian who also desired her.  After a difficult couple of months, the girlfriend’s family moved away ending both relationships.  This has left Harlon a little embittered and his romantic rival furious at him.  Fortunately all she can do is yell and scream which the young man just ignores.  Harlon still lives at home in the small moderate area around the park.  His relationship with his father is strained, but the two do love each other.

  • Jake Kitagawa:  A 17 year old “Hafu” (half Japanese, half Anglo) solo who was born in Night City, but moved to Osaka in Japan when he was one year old.  His Japanese father was a member of the Yakuza and his wife and half-breed son were not popular there.  His father wasn’t a great criminal and when Jake was four years old the man committed a fatal error that the loss of a mere finger couldn’t atone for.  The old man didn’t have many digits left anyway.  He was killed and his son Jake had his face disfigured by a knife as punishment.  His mother fled back to the United States with her son, refused any contact with her husband’s family and settled in the 88th Street neighborhood.  When Jake was 16, his mother died of cancer.  At the funeral he reconnected with his fraternal uncle, Honzo Kitagawa.  Uncle Honzo was never a member of the yakuza, but kept away to honor the mother’s wishes.  In fact Honzo works for Arasaka in Night City as a senior executive and an Arasaka Te instructor.  After living for a year with his uncle in Japan Town section of Night City Jake has returned to the old neighborhood and does a poor business as a bodyguard and muscle.

  • Mitzi Blaise:  A 17 year old “prowler” who has grown up mostly in this 88th Street neighborhood.  Her father was a low-level corporate for West Coast Bio-tech, a medium sized corporation operating mostly on the west coast of the United States.  Her father got involved with a cult that preached the coming end of the world.  Her old man fell deeper into depression and finally snapped.  Her father murdered his entire family and then killed himself.  He failed in one respect; Mitzi didn’t die.  She recovered and her record of academic achievement caught the notice of Father Joe at St. Mary’s High School.  She was sent there, but her near death experience made any academic excellence seem irrelevant.  The girl graduated but has devoted her clever mind and dexterous skills to more larcenous exploits.  As she is well known to the police now in this area, she generally hunts the center city area for marks with her prodigious pickpocketing skills.

  • Susan “Suki” Barnes:  An 18 year old NET Runner and former corp kid from Pacifica; her father, a medium level local Arasaka executive, was killed in a car crash when she was nine years old.  Her mother, who had in her youth been very beautiful, quickly remarried another Arasaka executive.  Over the next year the mother fell into drink, and her step-father started to visit the young girl at night while her mother was passed out.  Suki told her mother, but was beaten by her in a drunken rage so never spoke of it again.  Two years later at 13, the sexual abuse turned physically violent.  Suki stabbed her step-father to death.  The evidence of self-defense was clear, but Arasaka didn’t want a scandal so they hushed it up.  Arasaka tossed the mother and daughter out of corporate housing and the two settled in the 88th Street neighborhood.  Suki blossomed at St. Mary’s High School, but her mother continued her downward spiral into alcohol and drugs, finally dying of an overdose when Suki was 15.  Father Joe gave her a bed in the boarding dorm.  In her senior year disaster struck after she claimed two boys at the school attacked her, so she stabbed them both.  Neither was killed but mysteriously the ADA on the case refused to press charges.  However, Suki was expelled before graduation and denied the scholarship to Night City University that she had earned.  She now makes a living dancing at the local strip club and selling streams of data that she finds on the NET.

  • Vitale Agosti:  “Vito” is a 19 year old Medtech.  His father, who was a doctor for the Baronti Family, the local Mafia branch, taught him all he knows.  Vito is a high functioning autistic with Asperger’s Syndrome and soaked up this training like a sponge.  However, his father lost his life when a rival gang murdered him during a “dispute” so he wouldn’t be able to help any of the wounded “soldiers” in this minor mob war.  The young man has earned his certificate as a physician’s assistant and works at the local clinic/hospital.  He also serves as a deputy assistant coroner for the area.  His mother is disabled, mostly from anxiety over her husband’s death.  She and Vito live with Vito’s older sister in the Parkview South Apartments.  The sister is the hostess at Luigi’s Italian Restaurant next door.  Both locations are owned by the Baronti Crime Family.  The mob takes care of its own.     

Well, that is the cast of characters that started out tonight.  Episode 1 opened at the strip club on New Year’s Eve 2069.  I will be posting that in a day or two!