Ex Libris CY_BORG A directory of content, tools, and resources

PWYW

Pay What You Want

.NetSys Hacking

Concept: “H@ck the Pl@net! Use this streamlined system to hack network, or try to, as your fellow Punks take care of business in meat space. Included are rules to break into and hack systems one node at a time, activate commands in those nodes when accessed, and deal with any ICE or black ICE launched against you in addition to any other virtual denizens or invaders. Also, slot d12 new .Apps into your 'deck designed for use in virtual spaces.”
Content: A set of rules for netrunner-specific hacking procedures, along with brief stats for security/ICE NPC entities and a set of apps to kick that hacking into high gear. Full-color and black-and-white versions of the supplement are included.
Writing: Concise explanations of the hacking workflow and apps, complemented by flavorful names/labels for elements of both.
Art/Design: Full-color version resembles a green terminal UI aesthetic, with color-coded NPC info based on severity of threat and a yellow list of netrunner apps. A sample network diagram/map is included. Black-and-white version provides a clean alternative (although yellow alert symbols appear in both versions).
Usability: Text in both versions is visually identifiable and distinguishable, thanks to color and bolding/underlining to indicate certain kinds of content. Hacking workflow includes code-like line reference numbers and consistent indentation for subordinate/clarification details.

10 Things I Hate About CY

Concept: “10 urban legends whispered on the streets of CY and in the dark corners of the NET. The fact is usually worse than the fiction.”
Content: A collection of urban legends about mysterious individuals, locations, and events that might intrigue or terrify a group of punks.
Writing: Ominous tales framed as though potentially spoken by CY residents, allowing for easy slot-in ambience and plot hook/seed for GMs.
Art/Design: White, pink, and yellow text on dark blue with occasional purple circuit-board background designs and a large pair of eyeballs near the bottom of one page. Presented as three pages of single-column text.
Usability: Font choices and colors make for easy visual readability and identification of distinct content purposes (e.g., pink text for headings/labels, yellow for important details, names, and locations).

1DLE/H4NDS

Concept: “There's been a hushed-up incident at the Naiman Cybernetics factory in Bigmosse. The corpos are sweating and they need it cleaned up- fast and off-the-books. Head in and clean house, but stay on your guard: this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Content: A clearance mission at a cybernetics facility where the situation has gotten dangerously out of hand. Content provided in three versions: a “classic look” black-on-yellow scheme, a “nite mode” black-on-gray scheme, and a “squeaky clean” black-on-white scheme that uses standard fonts.
Writing: Detailed breakdowns of locations, NPCs/enemies, potential events that might unfold (including an alternate plot hook), and an optional set of bonus goals for the PCs to achieve.
Art/Design: Each version makes use of a single-column text layout, simplified location maps, and illustrations of enemy cyborgs.
Usability: Very easily readable and navigable, with consistent use of distinct headings/labels to indicate different sections and kinds of content and important elements.

3:10 to Borghold

JKW
Concept: “It's time to rob a train---CY_BORG style! Do your research, plan your approach, and extract a high-value target from a prison transport before you're overwhelmed by security forces. Get in, get out, get paid!”
Content: A job to take care of (kill or extract) a target on a prison train.
Writing: Lots of helpful and flavorful details throughout from preparation to execution to tips on how different approaches/plans might play out.
Art/Design: Three-column landscape spread with an illustration of a train in the top center and white-on-black text with yellow headings all around. 
Usability: Consistent organization and presentation of text (headings, bolded details, etc.) to make navigation and identification of desired details easy.

A Botched Delivery

Concept: “This scenario was written to tie two separate groups of PCs together into one central narrative. One group of PCs are fleeing from the Reaper Repo scenario (included in the CY_BORG Asset Pack) while another group of PCs are waiting in a getaway car.”
Content: An intricate means of integrating multiple PC parties into the same story, making skillful use of the Full Auto supplement for support (required for this adventure’s vehicular component).
Writing: Focused direction for how to set up & run the encounter components (including individual NPCs) is valuable for the GM unsure of how to handle everything. Tons of ambience provided in descriptions of the scenario location.
Art/Design: Simple three-column layout across three pages, with a map illustration and room descriptions across p. 2.
Usability: Content is pretty easily navigable thanks to simplicity of layout, with some accent color and bolding choices to help distinguish section headers and important details.

A Collection of Punks

Concept: “A collection of Sixty-Six profile images for punks in Cy_Borg. Generated using prompts for the AI image generator DALL-E 2. Images chosen for their stylistic properties.”
Content: Portraits of a diverse variety of punk characters perfect for CY residents.
Writing: Each image is labelled/named descriptively with the DALL-E 2 prompt that generated it, which offers an expressive sense of the goals for generating it.
Art/Design: Hand-drawn aesthetics (despite being AI-generated) suggest a DIY/custom creation effect that might speak to many players.
Usability: Very easy to navigate to the image(s) that seem interesting from their descriptions for examination & use.

A$$hole$ and Elbows

Concept: “A low-level, mid-tier manager type from Aegis Conglomerated—using the screen name Mr. Greensleeves—needs an Aegis BioTech prototype implant recovered. This rare tech was “mistakenly” put down the recycle chute and ended up in a Mosscroft junkyard, Big Dumpers. As reward for recovering the implant and saving his job Mr. G promises to provide a backdoor into Aegis Financial for potential debt reduction. It’s simple: get to Big Dumpers, search for the implant, get the fuck out, and return it to Mr. G. What could possibly go wrong?“
Content: A simple search and rescue operation–but the PCs aren’t the only ones performing it.
Writing: Tons of character packed into the junkyard location (with a dozen areas of interest) and NPC details.
Art/Design: Trifold pamphlet layout that includes a map of Big Dumpers and relevant specifics on the inner panels, while job and NPC information appears on the outer panels. Color scheme is a mix of black-on-white and white-on-blue/yellow-on-blue.
Usability: Organization is easily recognizable, with headers and important information consistently distinguished from body text by font choice, size, color, and inline bolding.

Abandoned Algae Farmer

Concept: “You were a cog in the massive machine that feeds the city of Cy. Now, for one reason or another, you had to abandon your algae farm. All you have is the clothes on your back, a couple pieces of gear, and whatever the fuck you found out in the emerald muck of the vast algae fields.”
Content: A class for the “rural” outsider who’s ready to make a mockery of the hero’s journey.
Writing: Really engaging, flavorful text pervades the entire document; mechanics information is distinguished by underlined phrases amidst the descriptive core content.
Art/Design: A lo-fi image of an algae farmer, surrounded by imposing stalks of their crop, supports bright green, yellow, and white text content.
Usability: A variety of visual markers–boxes, clearly labeled list items, color choices–very effectively organize the presentation of class information across a two-page spread.

Advanced Armor Iteration 1

Concept: “Gear up with a few new pieces of cyber-enhanced equipment, including some references to popular games and media.”
Content: A set of armor, weaponry, and related tech to add to the marketplace in a game of Cy_Borg.
Writing: Equipment details are offered concisely and in a straightforward fashion, allowing item names to fill in potential flavor/character (whether they’re references to media or not).
Art/Design: Black text on yellow, with a faint caution tape illustration background and a similar pattern around the edges of the page.
Usability: Text is high contrast and easily readable, with a consistent organization for each item to allow quick grasp of and reference for item details as needed, including bolded damage/armor stats and a legend at the bottom of the page for some shared attributes.

All Roads Lead to Chrome

Concept: “Being a mercenary isn't easy work. Between the gunfights, dealing with shady corps, and fending off crazed psycho's, you are bound to get hurt. Sure, you can train to get better at handling these types of situations, and maybe you can shill out some creds for a new gun or two. But eventually, no matter what path you take, if you really wanna hit the big leagues…”
Content: A set of rules to flesh out cyberware and cy_rage, along with several new drugs and a job to snag some cargo from a tech-obsessed cult.
Writing: Accessible and concise rules, with lots of detail and explanation provided for the assorted cybertech and the job.
Art/Design: A mix of white-on-dark (for the cybertech rules & drugs) and black-on-white (for the job). Occasional images complement page text, with a brain-shaped map provided (and keyed0 for the job. Bright colors and bold text highlight important information and serve as headers. A print-friendly black-on-white version of the cybertech rules is also included.
Usability: Readable fonts, visually recognizable organization of page contents thanks to spacing/grouping and section borders. Consistent application of particular color choices and bolding to help with navigating and locating desired information.

Alt-Vibed Soundfiend

Concept: “The pumping beats of the last Post-Grunge Blitz-Rave still course through your veins.”
Content: A class for the circuit-bending audiophile who’s long wanted to use their love of sick riffs and beats to obliterate the enemy.
Writing: Brief glimpses into a fully-formed lingo for the class detonate idea-bombs about how to live, and not just use, the vividly described mechanics provided here.
Art/Design: Filtered neon cityscapes and a close-up of a soundfiend on the prowl stand out as strongly as the bold, distinct headings for each set of class details/features.
Usability: General organization is quite navigable, although some font choices can make reading tricky; similarly, HP & Glitch calculation details blend into the background image.

App's 4 Elite

Concept: “A bunch of custom APP's for CyBorg, to make hacking and hackers more fun.”
Content: A set of apps for the discerning hacker, whether they work with or against the PCs.
Writing: Imaginative descriptions and mechanicals effects that feel quintessentially cyberpunk.
Art/Design: Two-column layout of white text on translucent pink over a dark blue patterned background.
Usability: Clearly distinguishable app entries provide easy navigation, and text/background contrast provides accessible readability.

Autonomous

Concept: “Under the neon sky, amid the acrid fumes and blaring advertisements, something is present. They might have come with the rock, plunging into G0; or perhaps they were here long before then. There's no telling- there never is, not when the Autonians are on your planet. They blend in, fighting a shadow war- the crushing fist of an avaricious tyrant, and those few but proud who oppose him.”
Content: A collection of NPCs for tables where players & GMs prefer their robots to be more than meets the eye.
Writing: Bombastic worldbuilding that reflects the spirit of the source material it homages, with each robot having its own unique vehicle “altform.”
Art/Design: A mix of one- two-column content layouts with black text on white background, with each NPC stat block placed beside a colorful illustration of that NPC. 
Usability: Stat blocks are provided consistently in organization and font selections, although introductory text uses a variety of fonts to indicate emphasis and proper names.

Avtozak

Concept: “Avtozak is a Cy_Borg expansion about riots.”
Content: A set of riot-related NPCs, weapons, and a table of riot causes.
Writing: Terse, frank descriptions and stats/mechanics for included content.
Art/Design: Illustrations of riot vehicles and participants (cops and protesters) with highlight colors are positioned alongside relevant high-contrast text.
Usability: Font choices are readable, with headings/labels and background colors for distinct sections that assist navigation and perusal.

Babysitting

Concept: “An easy job !  Just sit around and babysit some corpo doctor and this box. Easy money?”
Content: A gig to retrieve, guard, and escort a person and their cargo to a designated safehouse.
Writing: Prolific details to flesh out the mission and the various groups with interests in its success–or failure.
Art/Design: Trifold brochure format provides initial parameters on the inner panels and later-stage conflicts on the outer panels. Predominantly white/yellow text on black, with NPC stats in black on brightly colored boxes, with portraits and street scenes complementing text. An additional page is provided with a safehouse location map and player-facing ‘breaking news’ info. 
Usability: Color-coded text references draw attention to different NPC interactions, and consistent use of content section color and shape makes for easy identification of desired info.
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