"Night City was the dying dream of an idealist, now it is a battleground between governments, corporations, crime syndicates and gangs. We, its citizens live on the sprawling streets and in its towering megastructures, all the while looking for a quick eurobuck and something to eat. High fashion, high tech and high violence, that's Night City."
Uncle Bob, Fixer
Since the small nuclear explosion took place downtown that helped end the 4th corporate war, Night City has been slowly pulling itself back to its feet. The Hot Zone that was the city centre is still dangerous but now because of the Rads rather than Corporate security. Life for the poorest of us didn't change that much, food is still freeze-dried krill and seaweed with flavourings, and yes it tastes as bad as that sounds. Homes are small and for the most part free now as the Megacorps that owned nearly everything fell by the wayside after the war, so at present no one officially owns a lot of the apartment blocks, though the Night City council is serving Seize and Obtain orders on buildings with no known owners, so that's changing.
When the World Net collapsed during the war it cut many of us off from the rest of the world, but Ziggurat is slowly linking everyone back together and a city-wide Net is better than no Net at all. Social media and online entertainment have become the staple for many of the poor and unemployed, but for others, gang life, crime or the Edge have become their life.
Night City is officially a Free state and not subject to American law, and that means all sorts of "extra-legal" activities going on here. The city does have law and law enforcement, but that takes a back seat so to speak. The focus at the moment is to feed the people and make the city rich.
The Black Market is now just the Market as most things you want to buy are either found in old shipping containers or outright stolen during transit. The Night Markets' are where you go to get the best, best food, best medicine, best tech and best weapons so you can defend what you've got.
Crime is everywhere, the most visible are the gangs, most are only dangerous if they catch you alone at night, but some like the Maelstrom will kill you just for not having cyberware, and have been known to attack police precinct houses. The gangs run extorsion, protection and all types of other less than healthy crimes, in short gangs are bad news. There is some hope though, gangs like the Storm Walkers of Heywood have begun to protect the people of their territory and consider it an attack on them when one is hurt by another gang, this gives some of us armed defenders that will fight for us, even if we don't want it.
The Edge, that's the slang for the little grey area between the law and the corporations, a little area that a few operate in to make sometimes huge amounts of eurobucks. Corporate headhunting requires an extraction team, Edgerunners. Need a rival in your Corp gone, Edgerunners. Need some corporate espionage doing, Edgerunners. As long as you have the guts for it there is a fortune to be made as an Edgerunner, but it is a very dangerous life and can be very short. Because of this, Edgerunners tend to have the best tech, the best guns, the best cyberware and as its part of the image, the best clothes and car too.
Life is what you can make of it Choomba, just try not to get shot.
Games Master - StormHeathen RPG
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