Codex Spotlight – #chrome_rot.exe
All the Codex back issues are in the Patreon feed until May 31st. To support that, I’m going to do a daily post highlighting a feature from those issues.
I’m going to start with a feature from Codex – Chrome, which was the second issue of the zine. #chrome_rot.exe is a campaign starter by Fred Bednarski for the mission-based cyberpunk game The Sprawl. It presents a setup for a city that is being ravaged by a cyberware disease called chrome rot. It features three pieces of original art by Gennifer Bone (including the piece below), a set of establishing questions, a list of street impressions, a list of matrix impressions, six custom moves, and a threat clock for the chrome rot disease.
What I love about this starter is it’s designed to easily layer on top of whatever other world-building you do with your group. You can use as much or as little as you wish. If, say, you want the chrome rot disease to exist in the background, maybe to be brought forward at a later time, you can use a few impressions and maybe a question or two to introduce it into the world. If you want the disease to be a major concern in the setting, you can add the custom moves and threat clock. Like all good starters, it’s a toybox (even a playset, you might say), a themed grab-bag to enrich your game. It’s also just very well-written and evocative, and the retro-computer terminal layout by Oli Jeffery is dynamite.
You can get Codex – Chrome in our Patreon feed through May 31st. https://patreon.com/gauntlet