Cyberpunk fantasy

This idea popped into my head when I realised there is nothing really like it in among any tabletop rpgs. Although the title suggests something like shadowrun, it does come close but in some aspects it’s exactly not what I’m looking for. The difference is I’d like a setting which first of all, isn’t our own world and second has had magic/fantasy elements since always. So basically magic, gods and possibly non-human races have existed in this world since pretty much all of history and in the last centuries technology has started developing faster and faster, which gives us the cyberpunk type. One of my ideas for the setting is that technology has developed as somewhat of an “egalitarian alternative” to magic. Advanced technology utilizes magical energy just like it does electricity in our world. Thanks to this in a sense magical powers which were once only limited to people who were born with special abilities are available to basically anyone. This also caused quite a big shift in the existing world’s power structures. Once magical users were at the top of the hierarchy were magicians in the forms of magical theocracies or powerful mage-kings. Technology created a bigger dose of equality in most society but, although off course you couldn’t them ideal. New power structures have arised in the form of corrupted governments which grew too big for their own good, while scientific communities and corporations have used their power to gain support in the form of favorable regulation from those said governments. On the other hand traditional magical groups like mystical societies or cults are trying to use the frail administrative structures to regain their power. On the other hand among the people several groups with more anarchistic streaks or ones trying to fight the monopolies academies and corporations have had over magitech research have arised.

That’s the basic idea I’ve got. Right now I’m working on a single city, which is supposed to have lots of the above mentioned components. It’s basically a city with both corporations, skyscrapers, scientists, robots and A.I.s and other hand with ancient gods, ghosts, ancient societies and mage priests. Not to mention lots of stuff in between, like hippie-sorcerers, reactors fueled with demon hearts, immortal CE Os and all the crazy magitech. So after giving a short presentation I’ll get down to my questions.

1. I’m not really sure what type of government would be suitable for the City. I’m not really keen on the typical corporate-runned cities, we always have in cyberpunk. I’d like something in which all the above mentioned factions could coexist but not one of them would be purely dominant.

2. How would a magical version of the net look like. All of the advanced technology is supposed to run on magic, so I’m wondering how the internet could look like in this setting. I guess it could either be an empty Plane which was utilized by some technomages or it could some existing one, like the astral/spirit plane (with ancestral ghosts and gods acting as viruses, or some possibly hired as “firewalls”). In what ways would this make this worlds internet different from ours.

edited 3rd Oct '13 3:53:05 PM by PacalII

Here are some more thoughts on how a magical internet could work. Basically the origins of the internet come from a plain of existence that exists side by side with the physical world, the so called astral plane, magical plane or spirit world. This plane is not unlike many similar concepts from other fantasy worlds, it's a plane from which magic originates and is inhabited by demons, gods, ghosts and so on. The only humans that were able to enter the astral plane where mages, here they could get into contact with different mystical beings, sometimes fight them if they were affecting something or someone in the material plane in a negative way. Mages with also use the astral plane for telepathy being able to transfer their thoughts in the form of information to other magicians

With magitech, technomancy, or however you call it, stuff has changed. The modern computers actually originate from magical orbs. Instead of programs, you just have enchantmenst which make use of magical constructs or actual magical entities from the astral world. With the advancement of technology, technomancers were able to establish advancements connections to the astral plane so that any, even non-magical user can use its properties. And thus we have the internet. Magical constructs can make simple task like sending information to other magical orbs (e-mails), instead of programs we have different set of enchantments which you can easily apply to you personal magical orbs (PM Os), clans of lesser spirits or more advanced magical constructs can be used or hired to protect you PMO's information (anti-virus) programs, while demons and evil spirits act as viruses. The astral world has many lesser plains which can be modified by users via different enchanting sets, and that's were we get internet sites from. Advanced technomancers can actually physically enter the astral plane (AP), with advanced magitech.

Physical transfer to the AP is possible for magicians and technomancers. Because the AP has now real physical form, what humans see is just their own projection, which depends on their type of abilities. So the AP can look differently for different typ of mages.

Art magicians, Illusionists - The AP looks like one huge acid trip, or the scenery from the catoon "Yellow Submarine"

Spritists, Ritual magicians - the most traditional way we would imagine the AP. Kind of like our world but more mystical with the ghost looking like etheral forms of humans and animals.

Elemental mages - Like a "nature/elemental plain". A fire elementalist will percieve friendly elements as made of fire, negative ones as water ant neutral ones as air or earth-formed.

Technomancers - Kind of like the Matrix or the geth domain from Mass Effect In the settings modern culture, the last one is the most popular view of how the AP looks like, although some other traditional mages will percieve it in different ways.

edited 6th Oct '13 2:15:21 AM by PacalII

This is one of the more imaginative and inventive approaches to magitech that I've seen.

Sounds a lot like the world of Final Fantasy VII.

ok let see one of my ideas:

You see, something I dont like is how not matter how it happen, magic it always separe even in concept, the evil concuil?, they are the tipical money greed people...just with magic, so I want to fuse the two, so hear two setting ideas and the other is some kind of a plot point:

The first one is simple, ¿why not the magocracie ARE the megacorp? they rule their buisness with the same protocol of their magic, consider money as another way of life, using oath as contract and bading togheder to dictate everything with tatos, marking,etc

Also the tipical cybersoldier...what about soldier bow to a magical oath for life? also their families become bound to life like some kinght, with colors and everything(of course you have to scan to see their colors)

also in case you can to have biotech or biopunk....what about elf? they are perfect biopunk:young,hansome,indulgence,racist....everything a bio dystopia wants

And for last....let said there is diferent plans of existance,hell,heaven...you name it....and the internet wasnt supuse to be that way until a ritual held and the same time conect the net with magic...what happen? the internet become a plane of his own and spread to other ones...or to put it more blunt it: the internet becomes a nexus with the worlds, not heaven,hell and all other planes are gone in the internet, this is of course have a side of joing magic with information which let the magic-corp to come on: those who control information...controls magic and life itself....

but that are some of my ideas, use it whatever you like

Corporations are prevalent in Cyberpunk to help evoke the "punk" element of it: the oppresiveness, the endless bureaucracy, that feeling of fighting against "The Man".

In a fantasy world you'd likely have guilds rather than "corporations" - conglomerates of merchants according to certain trades; powerful merchant families (Which is what a lot of corporations are in Cyberpunk - dynastic modern interpretations of merchant dynasties - which is true of, say, the Hiltons and the Rothschildes, but not of, say, Google, which is far less personal)

Also, perhaps certain societies - the aristocracy, who could be militaristic, traders, scholarly, magical or combinations of all of the above.

For tech, perhaps think "golems" and certain aspects of "steampunk" - coal powered automata for the factories, but with some form of rune power demon to give it "guidance". Finely sculpted automata which run on blood, or other living fluids? The thieves guild being not a guild at all, just a Mafia style organisation with delusions of grandeur. The assassins being more a monastic "guild" of faceless automata?

You can graft it on quite well, and that idea RE: the internet is an amazing one.

Wouldn't the corporations or whatever be able to use their technological magic to control the masses? Like, if Stalin and Voldemort had a baby.

edited 10th Feb '15 10:22:03 AM by WolfAmongGods

Potentially, although it may depend heavily on the specifics of the magic in question, and what sort of control you have in mind.

Note that sci-fi megacorps can potentially do similar things via purely technological (or at least sci-fi) means, I believe.