I spent today poking at additional traits, adding in some flavor elements that helped evoke a mode. I specifically went genre-agnostic, with traits like “Indie tunes soundtrack,” “Disney/Pixar influences,” and “Neon color palette.”
Speaking of which, those were the ones I rolled for this week, and with a prompt like that, I absolutely had to talk about the soundtrack. There’s most of a page of soundtrack notes for this, and if you know the songs, they really help bring out the tone I’m imagining. (I started with them, in fact.) If not, good news, I have a playlist for you.
Note: This world owes something to the setting of the Laundry novels, specifically the idea of math/computing as magic. Highly recommended.
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Antagonist faction: Magical beings summoned incomplete by rogue botnets. By computing a summoning algorithm, a computer (or a sufficiently-smart human) could open a summoning instance and populate it with elemental forces. Whether maliciously or accidentally, though, a botnet has begun doing so with slight alterations to the formula and spotty network connections, resulting in corrupted entities. They arrive in the world determined to suborn networks and turn them into more bot nets to summon more of their kind. As the series goes on, it’s revealed that they aren’t just thoughtless elementals, they have a near-religious view of the agony that the data corruption causes them, and the firm belief that humans should be taking full advantage of the learning potential of advanced technology.
The elementals of the botnet are being led by Garrison, a logical caster who came to the formula while trying to summon data of a different sort – his own lost memories. After creating the calculation, he made a simplified version of it, one that could be run constantly on a lower-powered device, which he stored on his heavily-modified cell phone. In his phone, it manifests as a companion entity, an advisor and friend. Because of both power drain and the fact that all the entities summoned by the calculation are unstable, though, the device has to dispel and refresh the entity every ten hours. The idea of losing the companion entity terrifies Garrison, and he’s named it May. While the elementals fight in a bestial style, Garrison himself is a true mage, manipulating the physical computations of the universe into alterations – sprays of color and numbers that blast at enemies, or cause walls to crumple in on themselves, or raise and throw trucks.
Savanna is also an amnesiac, finding herself on the streets of Neo-Prague with only a wallet and a skill for logical casting. Later in the series, she’ll learn that the time of her and Thread’s awakening exactly corresponds to when Garrison first turned on his botnet, which brings up the question of whether Garrison was wiped by someone else’s botnet in turn. Savanna’s specialty is the manipulation of size and distance, shrinking herself or the distance between her and her enemies; her castings are visualized as social distortions, fish-eye effects as she bends space to close distance. She’s earned a nasty scar along her forehead from earlier battles with Garrison, a feature she accentuates with eyebrow and cheekbone piercings. For all that she’s the battle-tested leader of the Chasers, she and Thread both share a distaste for actually killing anyone: They mostly face off against the elemental beasts of the botnet, which can be dispelled without (they assume) any moral qualms. If they actually get their hands on Garrison, will they kill him, or can they control him without death? And what will they do if they face other human enemies?
Thread is the other first-among-equals of the Chasers. He’s an amnesiac like Savanna – they’ll eventually compare notes and realize the timing is the exact same – but he’s driven to hunt Garrison by one of the few memories that remained, a few frames strung together of Garrison casting a blast at someone just half-in Thread’s peripheral vision, with Thread unable to get in the way in time. Thread’s nightmares are haunted by the half-image he has from his peripheral vision, just a rough sense of a few features. He’s determined to figure out who they were, and why he feels so guilty for seeing them fall. Thread’s specialty is research magic, rather than combat magic; he’s capable of pulling the data of past experiences from his surroundings, with high-energy features like neon signs an especially observant source of information. When he does need to fight, though, he’s capable of temporarily channeling some of the data that makes up one of the elementals, taking on the claws and reflexes of their form.
The Chasers are based out of an old Thai restaurant, abandoned a few years ago and run-down. The Chasers gave it a layer of red paint and polished all the imitation gold, so even though it’s still a bit rough, the Gold Star Cuisine is now a soft glow in the rainy streets of Neo-Prague. They keep their major computational power in what used to be the kitchen, while the former dining area is makeshift-separated into rooms by hanging curtains. Anyone walking by would stop for a second, the golden glow out of the windows standing out against the dark blue of the rain and the neon purple and green of other signs.
Garrison is based out of a van, though, allowing him to deploy to wherever there’s a vulnerable network. He’s made it feel like home by modding his computers and installing a surprisingly good bed. When he’s confident that no one’s actively looking for him, he slides the van’s paneling back from its moonroof, watching the rain drops drum softly on the glass. If he’s parked in a quiet area, he can fall asleep to the sound of raccoons and other animals rustling outside. He does have to change the plates every few weeks, though; a carpet inside covers the bloodstain from the previous owner.
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Soundtrack: Electronic-infused, indie-ish bands. Usually a pretty wide soundscape, lots of instrumentation at once.
Battle sequences: Heavy, slow, pounding electronica, playing over neon-bright sprays of magical power. When it’s showing a character casting a spell, the animation gets sketchy and drops to a few frames per second (almost like the drawings in the “Take On Me” video), so that it looks increasingly not-quite-real.
- Parts of “Rocksteady,” by The Bloody Beatroots.
- “Lessons In Love,” by Kaskade and Neon Trees (from Fire & Ice).
- “Winter Born (This Sacrifice),” by The Crüxshadows.
- “Phoenix Down (Zardonix Remix)” by The Unguided, Zardonix.
- “Bloodsport,” by Skold vs KMFDM.
- “Broken Bones,” by CHVRCHES.
Loud backdrop to emotional-resolution moments: Like if the two characters we’ve always shipped finally admitted they liked each other and now they’re quietly getting coffee together, or running through the city for the sheer joy of it, or the opening and closing credits sequence. Regardless of how intense things are on screen, the soundtrack to these moments is big, joyous, the instruments may only be somewhat electronic but they swagger. There’s not as much emphasis on the heaviness; it may still happen, but the emphasis is on the higher ranges, on unrestrained joy, although the tempo isn’t that much faster.
- “Glory Days,” by Betty Who.
- “Nitronic,” by Zircon.
- The nightcore version of “Fireflies” (originally by Owl City), done by NightcoreReality on YouTube.
- “Lift,” by Poets of the Fall.
- “Leave a Trace,” by CHVRCHES. This would be for a moment of mourning, like after someone sacrifices themselves to save their friends, and they grieve but honor their sacrifice… tonally, it’s very different.
Hope you guys enjoyed this one, I think it might be my favorite yet. I really enjoyed the cyberpunk names and feel, especially when I got to focus on the soundtrack.
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