CORP // 01
SAFETY
The law. Sentinels patrol. Auditors sentence. Tracers with blue light behind their eyes hunt the people who disappear from the grid.
01 / YOUR WORLD
The sky went wrong.
Two generations ago, the weather turned murderous. Acts of God—storms, fires, floods—strike without warning and rewrite the map. The corporations built Shelter 1 to keep humanity alive. Then they kept the keys.
CORP // 02
INFORMATION
The old Internet is dead. Information controls what people know—and what the Roots are allowed to believe.
CORP // 03
NOURISH
Food for everyone. Nanites in every bite: healing your body, tracking your movements, reporting your life.
“If it harms the corporations, it is illegal.”
Everything costs Joules.
Money and energy are the same thing: kinetic charge stored in sheathes. Every device runs on Joules. Every purchase spends them. And every Joule was charged by hand in Reform—the labor camps for those convicted under corporate law.
Somebody burned part of their life to power yours.
Beyond the walls: The Reach.
Dangerous country. Scattered communities. Travelers who leave and are never heard from again. Beyond that, the corporations offer no answers.
No one agrees where the map ends.
02 / WHERE YOU LIVE
Welcome to the Roots.
The vertical slums of the old Green Zone. Towers stacked with lives, markets, cables, smart-paper, and ads as tall as buildings.
The sun burns skin in minutes. Everyone takes Screen, a drug that leaves a faint purple tint. Spinners dock against towers. Cycles tear through the underlevels. Mod parlors sell GIF tattoos and cyberware behind projected corporate logos.
Your root follows you.
DRAGONFLY · BY WATER
GRASSHOPPER · BY LAND
FORGED · FROM THE REACH
FOUNDATION · OLD BLOOD
TIPPER · BLAMED
Status is inherited, enforced, and rarely fair.
03 / WHO YOU ARE
You are a Glitch.
You cut Nourish's nanite tether. The system can no longer see you. You wear an obscure over your eyes and live off the grid, where freedom and survival are rarely the same thing.
You are not a hero. You are a scoundrel in a rigged game.
Maybe you steal. Maybe you sabotage. Maybe you pull someone else out before the Tracers find them. Whatever you do, the law will not protect you.
04 / HOW TO PLAY
What do you actually do?
FIELD NOTE // FOR NEW ARRIVALS
You play a Glitch: someone who broke free of the surveillance system that controls life in Shelter 1. You and your crew take dangerous jobs, steal from powerful people, make enemies, build relationships, and try to carve out a little freedom.
When an outcome is uncertain, you'll roll dice and find out what happens. Your characters are capable, but choices have consequences. You don't need to memorize rules or prepare a finished character sheet.
This is a story about what you want, what you're willing to risk, and who might pay the price.
01 / THE SCOREChoose a risky job and dive into the action.
02 / THE FALLOUTDeal with the heat, consequences, and what you earned.
03 / DOWNTIMERecover, indulge your vice, build connections, or pursue a project.
04 / THE NEXT MOVEFollow a lead, settle a score, or start fresh trouble.
You won't need to plan every detail in advance. The game can jump to the dangerous part of a job, and you'll discover what happens through your choices and the dice.
[ ARCHIVE // PEOPLE OF SHELTER 1 ]
Everyone has a story.
Everyone has a price.
Faces from the Roots: people you might trust, people you might owe, and people you should avoid. These are glimpses of the world, not assigned characters. Your Glitch is yours to invent.
Wren, Mohammed, a croci stigma grower, and a Sentinel. Not everyone in the Shelter is on your side.
A Screen dealer, a disaster bookie, and a chrome confessor. Everyone has something to sell.
A chrome-doc, a fixer, a rival runner, and someone who went corporate. Your past is never fully off-grid.
05 / CHARACTER DOSSIERS
Choose your calling.
A calling is your character’s specialty—not their whole personality. Pick the kind of trouble you’d enjoy getting into. These are story examples, not extra rules.
DOSSIER // 01 OF 09
Edge — THE MUSCLE
An enhanced fighter who meets force with force.
ON A JOB
Sentinels close in. You hold the corridor long enough for the crew to escape.
What is the one line you refuse to cross?
XP THEME // Violence or coercion
ADVANCED CALLING — discuss with the GM before choosing.
Perfect and Gone alter the usual character rules; ask your GM before choosing either. You can change your mind at Session Zero.
06 / CREW DOSSIERS
What kind of trouble will you make together?
A Glitch survives with a crew. Your crew's reputation tells the underworld what kinds of jobs you take—and the kind of trouble that follows you home. These are possibilities to imagine, not choices you need to make yet.
The hired problem-solvers
Mercenaries who make problems disappear: dangerous contracts, disappearances, and jobs nobody wants traced back to them.
Would you take a job without asking why?
The street riders
Cycle-riding gangs who defend territory, shake down rivals, and hit hard before anyone can organize a response.
What corner of the city is worth fighting for?
The skyborne thieves
Airship crews who descend on targets to steal, extract, sabotage, or uncover secrets before disappearing into the skyline.
What would you risk everything to snatch from the sky?
The convoy outsiders
Vehicle crews who venture beyond Shelter 1, making deliveries, scouting unknown places, and chasing opportunities amid the Acts of God.
What could lure you beyond the walls?
The underground suppliers
Dealers in illicit goods, influence, and connections. They know how to find what people need—and what they'll pay to get it.
What can you get that nobody else can?
// NOT A DECISION—YET
Which sounds like the most exciting kind of story? Bring a favorite or two to Session Zero. We'll choose a crew together, and every calling can contribute to more than one kind of crew.
07 / STREET DIRECTORY
Who's who in the Roots?
You don't have to know everyone. These are the kinds of people a Glitch might turn to, run from, owe, or betray. Your own friends and rivals are yours to invent.
People who can help
Chrome-Doc — patches wounds, repairs cyberware, and may ask for favors instead of Joules.
Fixer — connects crews to jobs, buyers, and people who need discretion.
Screen Dealer — supplies protection against the sun and hears street-level gossip.
Who helped you disappear—and what do you owe them?
People with history
Rival Runner — races you to a prize, a payout, or a reputation.
Old Associate — knows your secrets and now works for the corporations.
Disaster Bookie — wagers on dangerous events and remembers unpaid debts.
Who has a reason to come looking for you?
People with power
Safety Sentinel — enforces corporate law on the streets.
Auditor — decides punishments, often sending people to Reform.
Tracer — cybernetic hunter sent after Glitches.
Which part of the system knows your face?
People you pass every day
Grower — tends crops or specialty plants under artificial light.
Chrome Confessor — hears secrets amid cyberware, belief, and desperation.
Neighbor — might hide you for a night, or report you for a few Joules.
Who would notice if you never came home?
These are evocative roles and possible connections, not fixed relationships or required NPCs. The concept-art plates above show some of the people who might inhabit this world.
08 / CHARACTER VICES
What keeps you sane?
The grid takes its toll. Every Glitch needs something to return to when the job is over. Your vice is the obsession, comfort, or compulsion that helps you survive the pressure—and can get you into trouble.
Stress is the pressure you carry. You can spend it to push yourself or resist consequences. During downtime, your vice helps you recover that stress—but overindulging can complicate your life. You do not have to portray anything that makes you uncomfortable.
Believe in something
Whisper prayers to a forgotten god, follow an ancestor’s rituals, or worship a mysterious signal.
Bet against the odds
Risk your Joules on illegal races, rigged games, or predictions of the next catastrophic storm.
Live above your means
Spend everything on rare fabrics, private climate control, or a single night pretending you belong in a corporate tower.
Serve a cause
Care for your family, fund a neighborhood shelter, or give everything to a movement that needs you.
Feel something good
Lose yourself in food, art, intimacy, music, or a sensory experience you cannot find anywhere else.
Forget everything
Chase oblivion through intoxicants, brutal fighting pits, or any escape that shuts the world out.
Touch the impossible
Commune with rogue AI, experiment with forbidden technology, or study the patterns of the Acts of God.
// THREE QUESTIONS TO BRING
What do you crave? Make the vice specific to your character.
Where do you go to get it? Imagine a person or place—your vice purveyor—that provides it.
What could go wrong? Who knows your weakness, and what might indulgence cost you?
During downtime, indulging your vice helps clear stress. But too much relief can mean trouble for you or your crew. You can invent your own vice or purveyor with the GM; the seven categories are starting points, not limits.
Based on Hack the Planet, character creation (p. 53) and Vice (p. 165). Perfect characters have a different vice procedure tied to serving a patron; discuss it with the GM if choosing that advanced calling.
09 / YOUR INVITATION
Spawn a Glitch.
Before session zero, bring the beginning of a person—not a finished character sheet. We'll build the crew together.
Choose your identity
Alias, appearance, obscure, root, and the life you lived before disappearing.
Find the wound
What did the grid cost you, take from you, or nearly do to you? Why did you cut the tether?
Consider a calling
Edge · Lens · Torque · Fuse · Haunt · Faint · Quirk. Advanced options: Perfect and Gone—ask the GM.
Bring a few connections
A signature item, an old friend, a rival, a debt. We'll settle action dots and crew mechanics at the table.
Know your vice
What helps you escape the stress? Who supplies it, and what trouble could it cause?
Find a reason to trust
What would make you trust another Glitch with your life? What might you do to earn that trust?
// THE QUESTION TO BRING
What do you want badly enough to break the law for—and what might you become to get it?
SESSION ZERO // TABLE AGREEMENTS
We'll talk together about tone, boundaries, and which themes belong in our game. The setting can be harsh, but nobody needs to play out material they don't want at the table. We'll agree on how to flag and adjust uncomfortable scenes.
At the table we'll decide what kind of crew you are, how you met, where you hide, and what you're reaching for. You don't need to know any of those answers yet.
10 / BEFORE SESSION ZERO
Your five-minute prep.
Bring a spark, not a completed character. Check off whatever you’ve thought about; the rest happens together at the table.
0 of 7 considered
Nothing here is a commitment. We'll settle action dots, gear, contacts, crew type, and your shared history together.