CthulhuPunk the Masquerade
“The most merciful thing in the world… is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
— The Call of Cthulhu
“You’re a big bad vampire. Hey, great, congrats. Now keep it to yourself.”
— Vampire: Bloodlines
So you wanted to play a Tremere vampire wielding a monofilament bloodwhip and fight cyborg deep ones as neon R'lyeh rises from the sea?
Ok, I got you
Setting: 2077 — The Age of Ash and Neon
Apathy and isolation choke the world. Fallout skies flicker gray above the megacities—corporate arcologies glowing like tombs in a dead channel. The gap between rich and poor yawns wider than ever: executives live in sterilized towers while the street tribes wander the gutters, covered in neon ad tattoos in exchange for a daily half-ration of paste.
Chrome and circuitry preach salvation to the desperate. Humanity sells its anatomy in pursuit of digital eternity. Gothic spires rake the smog, lit by neon veins and hungry eyes. Crime isn’t rebellion—it’s routine, pulsing in time with the next corporate jingle.
The korps aren’t companies; they’re empires without borders. Their currency buys loyalty for life—job, med-tech, housing pod, and a numbered urn in the corporate mausoleum. CEOs reign like neon-crowned barons, their subjects shackled by fear and debt. These feudal syndicates keep humanity blinded by the illusion of progress, masking a deeper truth too terrible to name.
The Hidden Night
Beneath the korps’ polished veneer, older powers feed. Vampires, werewolves, wraiths, and stranger breeds stalk the shadows, steering civilization through centuries of unseen war.
The Camarilla maintains its Masquerade, enforcing secrecy with ritual executions. The rebellious Anarchs dream of dominion in the open. Werewolves snarl over lost territory, wraiths whisper through fiber-optic graveyards, and mortals serve them all for a taste of eternity.
Yet even these immortal predators are pawns. The world they rule is only a mask stretched across something far older—and infinitely crueler.
The Mythos
The Mythos names the unthinkable—entities so vast that sanity bends in their wake.
The Great Old Ones, like Cthulhu, Hastur, and Tsathoggua, are immensely powerful but still physical entities, bound by time and space to some extent.
Next are the Outer Gods, entities from beyond space-time, often lacking fixed forms. Most are mindless, though the most powerful may possess some awareness. Only Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, exhibits anything like a human personality, delighting in tormenting humanity. The Outer Gods range in power from the omnipresent Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth, the Demon Sultan, to nameless lesser deities who gibber mindlessly in Azathoth’s court. Aside from Nyarlathotep, they are largely indifferent to or unaware of humanity.
Lastly, the Elder Gods resemble traditional deities, linked to primal archetypes. This group includes Nodens, Lord of the Abyss, Hypnos, God of Sleep, and possibly figures from mythology such as Bast and Neptune. They often appear in human form, though this may be a projection of human perception. The Elder Gods seem more active in the Dreamlands than in the physical world.
Cultists thrive in every stratum—mortal, vampiric, and machine. They whisper prayers in server farms and blood-lit temples, coding apocalypse into the global mainframe. For them, the korps’ order is the true blasphemy. The Earth is on an altar of madness, awaiting sacrifice.
Resistance and Ruin
In the alleys between neon towers, fragmented orders wage secret war.
Cyber-Inquisitions purge cultists with fire and profane litanies.
Supernatural factions clash over ancient alien relics.
Street runners smuggle rune-etched chips for vampiric aristocrats sipping vitae in mirrored penthouses.
Each faction believes it can contain the rot, but the stars themselves flicker like corrupted code. The veil is thinning—and the void behind it is awake.
Culture: The Decadent Pulse
The music of 2077 is a dirge in bass and static. Voices buried in distortion chant syllables traced from the Necronomicon. Clubs packed with velvet-clad nihilists pulse with forbidden rhythm—perfect recruitment grounds for cults and blood sorcerers.
Some Tremere DJs weave incantations into their sets, turning crowds into living rituals. Others perform only in the Dreamlands—and not all who go there return.
Violence has become broadcast entertainment. Arenas stream cyber-gladiators tearing each other apart for corporate ratings—flesh and chrome spattering under neon light. The crowd cheers, unaware the rhythm of the match syncs with a heartbeat deep beneath the Earth.
Crime itself is feudal. The Mafia, Yakuza, Triads, and cartels evolved into criminal korps, their logos holy sigils of protection and fear. They mint their own currencies, field armies, and rule cities with theocratic precision. Disobedience means disappearance. Their decadence mirrors the megacorps they emulate—right down to the invisible worship of alien gods.
Cyberware & Human Debasement
Cybernetics mirror society itself.
SOTA gear: flawless, invisible, reserved for the privileged.
Standard mods: functional, detectable, and corporate-approved.
Street ware: crude, visible, and often lethal to install.
Black-market augmentations blur the line between espionage tech and occult ritual. Every upgrade trades a fragment of humanity for performance. The question isn’t what can it do?—it’s how much of you remains after it’s done?
Firearms are tightly controlled, yet omnipresent. Where the law forbids, the market provides.
Factions
1. KORPS
“We built the cage, then called it paradise.”
The megacorps—known as korps—are kingdoms masquerading as companies. Each has its own currency, army, and god-shaped algorithm. Executives are worshipped; interns vanish into burnout. Their marketing is religion, their products commandments.
Sub-sects:
Apex BioSolutions: patents life itself.
Erebus Data: trains AI to dream of control.
SableStar Media: sells despair one pixel at a time.
Rumor: no one’s seen a CEO in person for thirty years.
🎮 Play as: a corporate defector, assassin, or cyber-priest chasing forbidden promotions and haunted by the system that built you.
2. KINDRED
“The nightlife runs on blood, bandwidth, and boredom.”
Vampires rule the night with Wi-Fi and glamor. The Camarilla polishes tradition into tyranny; the Anarchs livestream their rebellions. Some drink blood. Some drink data. All fear dawn.
Sub-sects:
Camarilla: ancient aristocrats in mirror-glass towers.
Anarch Collectives: punk vampires preaching freedom through chaos.
The Neon Sabbat: self-filming crucifixions for clicks.
Whisper: even the undead dream of drowning.
🎮 Play as: a digital predator balancing hunger, secrecy, and the temptation to reveal everything.
3. WYRMKIN
“We smell the oil in your blood.”
Beast-warriors spliced from DNA and rage. The Wyrmkin are eco-terrorists, spirit-warriors, and genetic mistakes—bound to the dying Earth by instinct and grief.
Sub-sects:
Gaian Rage: eco-crusaders waging holy war on pollution.
Chrome Fangs: mercenary packs for hire.
The Hollow Howl: conspiracy cults that worship the artificial moon.
Report: their howls interfere with satellite signals.
🎮 Play as: a feral freedom fighter torn between nature, cyberware, and extinction.
4. GHOSTWIRED
“The dead are online.”
When you die, the korps keep your data. The Ghostwired are uploaded minds—wraiths in the machine, haunting servers, hijacking cameras, whispering through code.
Sub-sects:
The Lattice: a hivemind trading memories as currency.
NecroNet: resurrection by upload, one soul at a time.
Echo Seraphs: digital angels guiding the lost.
Rumor: a Ghostwired collective hacked Heaven—then went silent.
🎮 Play as: a spectral hacker, AI revenant, or mourning ghost hunting your own corrupted memories.
5. THE INQUISITION
“We burn heresy in all its operating systems.”
Half priests, half commandos—holy killers armed with smartguns and scripture. The Inquisition fights cults, vampires, and anything that looks back from the void. Every purge costs them another piece of their soul.
Orders:
Vox Dei: broadcasts divine static across the Net.
Order of Saint Tesla: baptizes with electricity.
Purity Corps: black-budget crusaders wearing corporate halos.
File Note: field agents last an average of six missions before conversion or collapse.
🎮 Play as: a burned-out exorcist with blessed cyberware and no faith left to lose.
6. CULTS OF THE MYTHOS
“Sanity is a local phenomenon.”
Their cathedrals are data centers. Their prayers are algorithms. The Cults worship entities older than logic, using corporate resources to hasten the end.
Sub-sects:
Church of the Deep Code: believes reality is corrupt software.
Children of Cthulhu: zealots waiting for the tide to rise.
Smile Corp: manufactures joy as infection.
Slogan: When the signal comes, don’t look away.
🎮 Play as: a prophet, infiltrator, or heretic serving the unknowable—willingly or not.
7. THE DREAMERS
“Sleep is a door. We just lost the key.”
Lucid psychonauts, occult hackers, and dream-cartels trade nightmares like narcotics. They map the Dreamlands for power, profit, or poetry—and some never wake again.
Sub-sects:
Somnautica: corporate dream-researchers turned mystics.
The Velvet Maw: dealers in forbidden dreams-for-sale.
Oneironaut Union: freelance dream-divers with nothing left to lose.
Whisper: something in the Dreamlands is dreaming us.
🎮 Play as: a lucid smuggler, psychic explorer, or sleep-junkie who brought something back that shouldn’t exist.
8. STREET RUNNERS
“We keep the world turning, even when it’s bleeding.”
The undercity’s freelancers—hackers, smugglers, mercs, relic-junkies. They play the korps, cults, and cops against each other to stay alive another night.
Sub-sects:
Wire Rats: data thieves who live jack-to-jack.
Chrome Monks: mercenaries bound by ancient codes.
Relic Jackals: scavengers trafficking in Mythos tech.
Rumor: one crew found a server that bleeds when hacked.
🎮 Play as: a burned-out merc, occult courier, or relic thief—surviving by wits and black market cyberware.
9. HYBRID LOST
“Evolution wasn’t designed. It was outsourced.”
Biotech experiments, psionic anomalies, and alien mistakes. Their flesh hums with foreign code. They are both miracle and warning.
Sub-sects:
The Spliced: soldiers whose genes can’t decide what they are.
Neon Sirens: pleasure models with psychic resonance.
The Chrysalis: mutation cult preaching transcendence through deformity.
Report: exposure to Hybrid blood causes spontaneous mutation in 3% of test subjects.
🎮 Play as: a bioengineered outcast haunted by whispers from your own DNA.
10. THE OUTCASTS
“I met God once. He wanted a firmware update.”
They don’t fit anywhere—rogue AIs, forgotten gods, fallen angels of the machine age. Each walks alone, dragging revelation like a broken chain.
Sub-sects:
Echo-7: a combat AI searching for its lost soul.
Saint Null: a digital messiah deleting reality one byte at a time.
The Hermits of Dust: dying gods preaching entropy in the ruins.
File End: observation inconclusive; belief hazardous.
🎮 Play as: a self-aware weapon, lost deity, or rogue intelligence trying to prove consciousness means more than code.
End of Transmission
2077 trembles on the edge of revelation. The korps rule the living, the undead rule the night, and the Great Old Ones wait behind the stars.
When the sky turns static and the neon flickers out, what will you cling to—
faith, flesh, chrome, or madness?
“Saint Chrome”
Alias: The Gutter Ronin of Neon Eve
Visual:
A gaunt, chrome-eyed samurai in a tattered red synth-leather coat — part Santa Claus, part slaughter-saint. His coat’s fur trim flickers with fiber-optic glow, and old-world bells hang from his belt, chiming softly with each step. Beneath, ritual tattoos crawl across skin like living code. His sword, Silent Night, is an obsidian monoblade inscribed with writhing runes that pulse whenever the Old Ones whisper.
He stands in a snowy alley lit by glitching holiday ads — “BUY SALVATION 50% OFF” — sword drawn, rain and snow sizzling on the blade. Two Korp ninjas flank him, masks blank, katanas of mirrored data-steel ready. They move like algorithms; he breathes like a ghost.
Vibe:
Honor in a world that sold its soul.
You don't want to be on this Santa’s list.
Tagline:
“They took my sleigh. I'm taking their world.”
Flavor:
Rumor says Saint Chrome was once a corporate enforcer for Erebus Data, a man who killed for quarterly bonuses until something ancient crawled through his neural jack and whispered the truth. Now he kills only on Christmas Eve — one night a year, a ritual cleansing through blood and neon snow. Children leave offerings of batteries and spent casings at shrines made of CRT monitors, praying he passes them by.
Possible Hooks:
Korp black-ops divisions still send assassins every Christmas to end him; none return.
The Cults of the Mythos believe he’s the avatar of a sleeping Old One known only as “The Crimson Gift.”
Street Runners whisper that every swing of his sword erases a name from the Korp payroll and from memory itself.
Judicatus es et deficiens inventus es
Quam stultus es
Quoniam non comprehendis
Continuandum est