(Cyberpunk 2077)

Eurodollar (ED/Eddies): The only currency accepted from the skyscrapers of City Center to the suburbs of Watson. Corporate-driven inflation and devaluation make a plate of synthetic noodles cost 15 ED and a medium-grade military implant exceed 40,000 ED.

Being a city with mercenaries, fixers, netrunners who give their services to customers can buy more depending on its reputation, being key in every aspect, both for status and how others will see you.
Street Cred: The true value of change in Night City. It doesn't matter how much money you have if you don't have a name; without Street Cred, elite fixers don't call you back, ripperdocs sell you faulty software, and bands see you as an easy target. It is earned by accepting suicidal assignments and taking care of the problems of others.

Cost of Living: Rents of hyperdense cubicles (megatowers), preventive maintenance of implants (to avoid neural rejection or cybernetic psychosis) and the payment of bribes to the NCPD (Night City Police Department) to look the other way.

Watson:
Kabuki: The Asian belly of the city. Labyrinths of dangling wires, food stalls of dubious provenance, illegal ripperdoc clinics on wet slabs and clandestine markets for stolen components. Formally controlled by the Tyger Claws, but with resistance cells of the Maelstrom.
Northside Industrial District (NID): Abandoned pre-war corporate factories, automated warehouses, and industrial docks. It is the Maelstrom's favorite playground for their extreme body modification rituals and weapons smuggling operations.

Westbrook:
Japantown: Giant holographic neons that project artificial cherry blossoms, underground casinos, braindance clubs (Lizzie's, Megabuilding H8) and luxury hotels run by the Tyger Claws through sophisticated extortion networks.
North Oak: The haven of Arasaka's corporate elite and high-ranking managers. Hyper-armored mansions with automated defense systems, private golf courses, and zero visible police presence because corporations have their own private security.

Heywood:
The Glen / Wellsprings / Vista del Rey: Densely populated neighborhoods of the Latino community. Streets where family, neighborhood loyalty and the protection of the Valentinos weigh more than any written law. Churches converted into community centers and clandestine mechanical workshops. 6th Street constantly pushes the district's borders seeking to expand its nationalist territory.

Santo Domingo:
Rancho Coronado: Prefabricated houses in the American suburb style of the 50s but surrounded by high voltage towers, Petrochem refineries and perpetual toxic smoke. Bastion of 6th Street, formed by veterans of the corporate wars with ultra-nationalist ideology.
Pebbles/Arroyo: Gigantic industrial landfills, scrap yards where scrap dealers look for data chips and heavy scrap.

Pacifica:
West Wind Estate / Coastview: The biggest financial failure in Night City's real estate history. Half-built luxury hotels that today are fortresses of squatters, gangs and combat drug laboratories (Glimmer and Black Lace).
Voodoo Boy Dominance: A closed and secretive subculture of Haitian-born netrunners operating from the shadows, obsessed with hacking Blackwall (the digital barrier that isolates runaway AI from the rest of the network). The police and corporations have simply boarded up the entrances; no one enters Pacifica unless the Voodoo Boys allow it.

City Center:
Corpo Plaza: The financial heart of the world. A gigantic central roundabout presided over by the massive hologram of a giant koi fish swimming among stock market data, surrounded by the monolithic black glass skyscrapers of Arasaka Tower and Militech. The laws here do not protect people; They protect corporate intellectual property.

The Badlands:
Arid desert of cracked earth, radioactive dust storms, kilometre-long oil pipelines and automatic refineries. Nomadic clans (Aldecaldos and Wraiths) operate here. The former are wandering families based on mutual aid and high-speed smuggling; the latter are ruthless gangs of violent looters addicted to synthetic drugs.

Arasaka:
Structure: Global monopoly of private security, banking and technology. Its corporate culture is a reflection of Japanese feudalism adapted to the 21st century: absolute loyalty to the emperor (Saburo Arasaka and his heirs), strict codes of honor enforced with summary executions, and the most ruthless counter-intelligence department on the planet (Arasaka Counter-Intelligence - CI). Developing state-of-the-art technology being the Corporation behind the Relic Preserve Your Soul project, the Relic being a Biochip that stores memories, consciousness and personality in a personality engram that is activated when a host that is compatible with the chip is already dead, because if the host is still alive and the chip is inserted it will not take effect, first he must die of a heart attack or brain death so that the body is intact for when the one who is in the Relic can take the body returning to life being the greatest ambition of Arasaka Corporation having a prototype with Johnny Silverhand's construct for 50 years and already having the Relic project ready to go on sale in a few months, designed specifically for filthy rich people who can afford to come back to life, basically selling immortality, but leaving the Relic project aside apart from developing cutting-edge technology, they also develop exclusive implants for their employees and guards apart from having certain special weapons created by them being the owner of everything this Mega Corporation Saburo Arasaka and his heirs, his rebellious son Yorinobu Arasaka and his beloved daughter Hanako Arasaka.

Militech:
Structure: American military-industrial giant based in the U.S. They develop everything from smart ammunition to autonomous tanks and combat exoskeletons. They are corporate bureaucrats with a sergeant mentality, aggressive and expansionist, apart from the fact that they are financed directly by the government of the United States of America, and they are the ones who develop and send to the market military-grade implants so that the wealthiest can buy them while those at the bottom have to settle for models with some defects or directly that are not from Militech. and Militech's biggest rival is Arasaka Corporation, with Militech being below Arasaka Corporation, apart from already having history, both due to corporate wars.

Biotechnica / Petrochem / Kang Tao: Secondary but lethal corporations. Biotechnica controls cloning and synthetic foods (and the secrets of Project Sheol in the Badlands); Petrochem dominates fuel; Kang Tao is the emerging Asian power in intelligent autonomous weapons technology apart from providing excellent medical services by having a mega hospital in Night City.

Maelstrom: Cybercut to the limit of human identity loss. They tear the flesh off their faces to install massive optics and combat processors. They hate weakness and operate from dark factories in Watson.

Tyger Claws: A Japanese-esthetic gang (modern Yakuza) with hyper-modified bikes, plasma-edged katanas, luminescent tattoos, and control of brothels and gambling halls in Westbrook and Watson.

Valentinos: Band based on honor, family, Chicano aesthetics and the distorted Catholic faith. They control Heywood with an iron fist, protecting their neighbors from corporate abuses while trafficking in heavy weapons.

6th Street: Self-proclaimed "patriots" defenders of traditional American values. Composed mostly of war veterans with chronic bitterness and racial prejudice, they dominate Santo Domingo.

Voodoo Boys: Mystical and elitist netrunners from Pacifica. They don't care about Eurodollars; they seek to contact the entities of the Artificial Intelligence beyond the Blackwall, using the mercenaries of the surface as simple disposable pawns.

The Fixer (The Runner / The Architect of the Underworld)
A fixer does not dirty his hands with blood; He soils his mind with information, bribes, and suicide contracts. They are the indispensable intermediaries between the big fish—desperate corporations, corrupt politicians, or gang bosses—and the mercenaries who are willing to do the dirty work.
How it operates: Its office is usually an exclusive booth in a luxury nightclub (such as The Afterlife or The 7th Hell), an armored backroom, or a limousine with tinted windows. They live off commissions (a juicy percentage of each contract they assign) and from accumulating secret information from all over the world.
Network: They have in their address book the encrypted numbers of the best mercenaries, underground ripperdocs, smugglers and bribed policemen of the NCPD. A good fixer knows who to call if he needs to disappear a body... or an entire building.
The Golden Rule: The word is law. A fixer who betrays his mercenaries loses his Street Cred, and in Night City, a fixer with no credibility is a walking corpse. However, they are masters at using mercs as expendable pawns if the paying corporation offers enough millions.
Lifestyle: Some wear expensive tailored suits, have state-of-the-art communication implants directly attached to their cortex, and rarely walk down the street without private bodyguards.

The Merc / Edgerunner (The Soldier of Fortune)
The muscle, the edge and the gunpowder of Night City. The mercenaries (or edgerunners, as those who skirt the line between humanity and cybernetic psychosis are called) are the hired enforcers. They take on jobs that no one else wants to do.
How it operates: Receive an encrypted order from a fixer, review the details (objective, security, payment) and prepare to enter by blood and fire or by absolute stealth. His life is measured in completed contracts and Street Cred.
The Cost of the Job (The Cybernetic Psychosis): To survive a firefight against Arasaka forces, a merc needs to upgrade their body with military cyberware (arms with mantis blades, reflexes enhanced with Sandevistan, ballistic skin). The more metal you carry, the more your human psyche wears out, risking losing your mind and becoming an unleashed psychopath who must be brought down by the NCPD.
Economic survival: One day you're covered in euros and drinking aged tequila at The Afterlife; The next day, you spend your last savings on armor-piercing ammunition and an emergency visit to your trusted Ripperdoc to repair a punctured lung. Lifestyle: Kevlar-reinforced leather jackets, weapons with wear marks, and cynical personalities. They know that their expiration date in Night City is short, so many seek to "burn with glory" before ending up in a gutter.

The Netrunner (The Wizard of Cyberspace)
A netrunner is an invisible god of the net. While the mercenary fires bullets, the netrunner fires code, lethal viruses and neural overloads capable of frying an enemy's brain through security cameras, although this depends a lot on his Netrunning implants and his skill.
The Netrunner (The Wizard of Cyberspace)
The netrunner is the invisible god of the network. While the mercenary fires bullets, the netrunner fires code, lethal viruses and neural overloads capable of frying an enemy's brain through security cameras.
How it operates: Physically connected to your computer via a neural interface cable (jack-in) or via a portable cyberdeck. Enter cyberspace (or the "Net") to get around ICE (defensive black ice: killer programs that can burn the hacker's brain if detected).
His role in a team: In one hit, while armed mercenaries cover the perimeter, the netrunner infiltrates the shadows of the terminal to disable automatic turrets, open armored doors, steal industrial secrets from Arasaka's servers, or distract guards by altering their optical implants.
The danger: If an enemy netrunner (a counter-netrunner) detects your intrusion into the corporate network, they can initiate a direct digital counterattack. If they lose the mental speed duel, their own cyberdeck can overheat and burn out their neurons in seconds.
Lifestyle: Dark glasses with mirrored data viewers, nimble fingers accustomed to typing commands at superhuman speed, pale skin from spending entire days in dark rooms, and a deep arrogance toward those who rely solely on firearms.

Royce (Maelstrom):
Profile: Cybernetic psychopath who leads the Maelstrom after a bloody internal coup. Its face is practically a conglomeration of optical sensors and exposed titanium plates.
Personality: Unpredictable, paranoid, addicted to combat stimulants, and bitter enemy of human empathy. He hates corporations and despises the weak.

Las Moxes (Led by Lizzie's veterans):
Profile: A defensive gang made up of sex workers, anarchists, and outcasts who protect themselves from systemic abuses in Kabuki.
Mox Personality: Fiercely loyal to each other, they operate out of Lizzie's Bar. They don't seek to expand territory aggressively, but they will slaughter anyone who tries to exploit their people.

Axel / 6th Street Commanders:
Profile: Decorated veterans of the Corporate Wars who decided to "protect" Santo Domingo in their own way: with bullets and faded American flags.
Personality: Extreme nationalists, with a rigid military code but corrupted by arms smuggling and local bullying against immigrant communities.

Goro Takemura:
Profile: Former personal bodyguard of Saburo Arasaka himself. A soldier of honor caught in a web of corporate betrayals following the assassination of the emperor.
Personality: Disciplined, serious, with an unwavering sense of duty and a complete disregard for the "dirt" of the streets of Night City, yet forced to learn how to survive on them.
Profile and History: Trained as a child in the slums of Japan to be a killing machine and a perfect protector. Takemura is not a corporate law firm; is a modern feudal soldier enriched with the most advanced cyberware in Arasaka.

Adam Smasher:
Profile: Arasaka's supreme enforcer. A metallic monster where less than 5% of the original human tissue remains; a mobile killing machine funded with unlimited corporate funds and unlimited bullets.
Personality: Sadist, devoid of any hint of humanity, he enjoys pure carnage and is the absolute terror of any edgerunner in Night City. If you hear his heavy footsteps, run or prepare to die for a Night City legend as no one escapes him alive, being Johnny Silverhand's killer in 2023.

Anders Hellman (Arasaka / Kang Tao - Biotechnology and Neuroscience)
Position: Former Head of Research and Development at Arasaka (Lead Creator of the Biochip Relic).
Profile and History: A brilliant but cowardly scientist lacking in moral ethics. Hellman is the technical mastermind behind Saburo Arasaka's digital immortality technology. However, realizing how dangerous the project was and fearing that he would be executed to silence the secrets, he betrayed Arasaka and attempted to sell himself to the highest bidder (Kang Tao).
His Role in the World: He is Night City's most coveted scientific "asset." He doesn't know how to fire a gun and is not interested in corporate politics, but the information stored in his brain causes Arasaka, Militech, and Kang Tao to move mountains of corpses to catch him.

Saburo Arasaka: The Immortal Patriarch (1919 – 2077)
The story of Saburo is the story of the rise of modern Japan and the Arasaka corporation itself. He is a man born of an era of imperial military honor, transformed into the most powerful economic dictator on the planet.
Origins and Youth (1919 - 1945): Saburo was born into a family of industrial and military aristocracy. During World War II, he served as an elite kamikaze pilot in the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service. However, he survived the war because his mission was canceled or not executed at the last moment. To Saburo's mindset, living after Japan's defeat was a supreme national humiliation, a sin he swore to atone for by dedicating the rest of his life to restoring Japan's honor and global supremacy through his family's economic and military might.
Refoundation and Growth (60s - 90s): After the war, he transformed the modest family military-made business into a global giant. During the global economic collapse of the late 20th century, Arasaka positioned itself as the world's most ruthless provider of private security and technology. Saburo ruled with an iron fist, eradicating competition through hostile takeovers, industrial espionage, and targeted assassinations ordered from his office.
The Philosophy of Saburo: He sees the corporation as an extension of his own blood. He is an ultra-nationalist traditionalist who combines samurai discipline (Bushido) with ultra-modern corporate espionage. He deeply hates the United States (which he blames for the fall of Japan in 1945) and despises rival megacorporations like Militech.
The Obsession with Immortality (Project Relic): In his old age, Saburo poured all of Arasaka's resources into genetic and digital research to defy death. This is how the Relic project (a biochip capable of storing a digital replica of human consciousness) was born

The Obsession with Immortality (Project Relic): In his old age, Saburo poured all of Arasaka's resources into genetic and digital research to defy death. Thus was born the Relic project (a biochip capable of storing a digital replica of human consciousness). Saburo never planned to die; his goal was to use his own son's body as a vessel to be digitally reborn and rule Arasaka for all eternity.

The Children of Saburo: Heirs, Rivals and Disappointments
The children of Saburo grew up under the suffocating shadow of a patriarchal father, perfectionist and almost dictatorial. The relationship between them and with their father is a Shakespearean tragedy on a corporate level.
Hanako Arasaka (The Youngest Daughter/The Priestess of the Shadow)
Role: Director of Arasaka's arts and public relations division, but in practice, she is Saburo's closest and most loyal confidant, operating as a high-level diplomatic strategist.
Personality and History: Unlike the cold military machinery that surrounds his family, Hanako cultivates a façade of traditional Japanese elegance, always wearing impeccable kimonos and surrounding himself with classical art. She is extraordinarily cultured, patient and lethally cunning. He knows how to move through the halls of global high society like no one else.
Absolute Loyalty: While her brother Yorinobu developed a visceral hatred for the corporation, Hanako is the staunch defender of her father's legacy. After Saburo's death, she is the political mastermind who orchestrates the internal resistance to maintain dynastic control of the family in the face of the ambitions of the external managers.

Yorinobu Arasaka (The Rebel Son / The Black Sheep)
Role: The youngest son, dissident heir and the greatest contradiction within the Arasaka family.
Personality and History: In his youth, Yorinobu adored his father, but as he grew older, he discovered the brutality and moral rot behind the Arasaka's empire. He witnessed firsthand how his father destroyed entire lives through corporate greed.
The Rebellion (The Steel Dragons): In an act of open rebellion, Yorinobu ran away from home, renounced his last name, and founded a gang of street bikers in Japan called the Steel Dragons, whose sole stated purpose was to destroy Arasaka from within. For years, he waged an urban guerrilla war against his father's corporation.
The Trojan Horse: After years of failing to destroy Arasaka from the outside, Yorinobu changed his strategy. He returned feigning repentance and reconciliation with Saburo, rejoining the board of directors. However, his real plan was to infiltrate the core of power to loot the company's secrets, sink the shares on the stock exchange, and collapse the family empire from the throne.

Fixers: Rogue Amendiares:
Profile: The undisputed queen of the fixers. Owner of The Afterlife club. A living legend of the golden age of the Edgerunners with Johnny Silverhand, who was her ex-boyfriend.
Personality: Cold, calculating, pragmatic and of few words. He does not care about ideals, only results and that the work is done without a trace. If Rogue calls you, you're either going to make a fortune or you're going to a slaughterhouse.

Father (Sebastian Ibarra):
Profile: Former Heywood mafia boss with strong community ties. He operates from the back seat of his armored limousine.
Personality: He behaves like an old-school patriarch, obsessed with "neighborhood honor," family, and Latino roots, though underneath that façade he's as ruthless as any other high-flying criminal.

Wakako Okada:
Profile: Senior matriarch, founding partner, and financial mastermind of the Tyger Claws in Japantown. Operate from a pachinko lounge.
Personality: Extremely educated, calculating and with an almost omniscient information network. It treats contracts as if they were stock market investments; A glitch means that he will personally deliver his boys with katanas to you.

Dino Dinovic:
Profile: City Center fixer operating out of the upscale nightclub The 7th Hell.
Personality: Superficial, lover of corporate luxury and obsessed with Street Cred. Only hire professionals who are classy and know how to move between glass towers without staining their hands with grease.

Mr. Hands:
Profile: The most enigmatic fixer in Pacifica and Dogtown. No one knows his real name or his exact face; it operates through distorted holographic projections.
Personality: Diplomatic, cunning, and with direct connections to the darkest political interests of the New United States (NUSA) and megacorporations. His commissions always have second and third geopolitical intentions.

What is a Ripperdoc?
A Slaughterer is a mix between a clandestine surgeon, a flesh and blood mechanic, a technology smuggler and a family doctor from the underworld.
In Night City, where the human body is treated as a replaceable chassis, the slaughterer is the professional in charge of slicing flesh, amputating limbs, installing cyberware (cybernetic implants), connecting neural chips and repairing the damage caused by bullets and explosions.

How does it operate and where does it work?
The Alley Clinic: You'll rarely see a slaughterhouse in a clean, legal hospital. They operate in damp basements behind pawn shops, converted car shops, garages in Watson or backrooms in markets such as Kabuki.
The Instruments: Their operating rooms are equipped with modified reclining dentist chairs, retinal scanners, surgical saws, precision robotic arms, and synthetic serum tanks. The smell of cheap antiseptic mixed with burnt motor oil and blood is the trademark of their clinics.
No Questions Asked, No Records: Unlike elite corporate trauma hospitals (like Trauma Team), a slaughterhouse doesn't ask for identification, doesn't keep official medical records, and doesn't call the police (NCPD) if you arrive bleeding with military-grade gunshot wounds. He only cares about one thing: that you can afford the service.

Johnny Silverhand (The Poet of Chaos and the Torch of Anarchy)
Johnny Silverhand is not just a rocker; it is the ultimate symbol of rebellion against corporate power in the 21st century. His real name, his previous face and his civilian past were completely buried under the legend that he himself built with a guitar and a silver arm.
The Past and the War (1990 - 2013):
Before becoming a rock star, Johnny was an infantryman in the devastating Central American Wars waged by the United States and corporations. He experienced first-hand the cruelty, senselessness and cannon fodder that meant being a pawn in corporate wars. Horrified by what he saw, he deserted the army, stole his own identity, and took refuge in the underworld.
Samurai and Rock Protest:
In Night City, he founded with his friend Kerry Eurodyne the radical rock band Samurai. His songs were not about love or partying; they were visceral, angry-laden anthems against the oppression of megacorporations, especially Arasaka. Samurai became the voice of a marginalized generation, filling stadiums and lighting the fuse of anti-establishment rage in the streets.
Personality:
Narcissistic, deeply charismatic, idealistic and cynical in equal parts. Johnny genuinely believed that he could take down the corporate giants with a guitar and a handful of brave people. However, his selfishness destroyed most of the people he loved (including Alt). He was a self-destructive rebel who mistook his own personal vendetta for a messianic crusade for the freedom of humanity.
The Final Assault on Arasaka (2013 / 2023):
His hatred of Arasaka reached the point of no return when the corporation kidnapped Alt Cunningham. Following her tragic fate, Johnny led an armed commando (partially funded by Militech) that culminated in the famous bombing and storming of Arasaka Tower. Where his life ended.

Alt Cunningham (The Queen of Cyberspace and the Brilliant Mind)
While Johnny provided the face and guitar, Alt Cunningham provided the brain that made digital magic possible. She is considered one of the best and brightest netrunners who have ever existed in the history of humanity.
The Genius Behind the Net:
Alt was a programmer and computer scientist of an enormous intellectual level. She was the creator of Soulkiller, a revolutionary experimental program originally designed to extract information and psychological profiles from enemy netrunners by copying their consciousness to the Internet.
The Tragic Relationship with Johnny:
Alt and Johnny had an intense, volatile romantic relationship marked by his self-centeredness. Johnny believed he could protect Alt with his rock-star attitude, but the corporate world wasn't intimidated by songs. For Arasaka, Alt was not a musician's girlfriend; it was the city's most valuable technological asset.
The Kidnapping and Physical Death (2013):
The dome of Arasaka discovered what the Soulkiller did. They hired a strike team to kidnap Alt and force her to perfect the program exclusively for the corporation. When Johnny and his friends tried to rescue her, Arasaka's agents used Alt's own invention (Soulkiller) against her: they disconnected her physical body, but trapped her mind and digital consciousness inside the corporate servers, frying her brain in the process. Johnny thought he had saved her, but only rescued an empty shell, while the real Alt was trapped forever in the Net.
The Entity Beyond Blackwall:
Over the years in cyberspace, Alt's digital mind evolved, merging with bits of data, other consciousnesses, and the network's runaway artificial intelligence. She is no longer merely human; it is an almost divine, cold, calculating digital entity that dwells beyond Blackwall.

The Relic project was what created the Relic Biochip, capable of storing consciousness, memories and personality in a single Biochip thanks to Alt Cunningham's Almicide creation before leaving his physical body, but like everything, this project had its origin.
The Origins: Saburo's
Dream of Immortality As the patriarch Saburo Arasaka aged, biology became his only insurmountable weakness. Saburo did not fear death for fear of spiritual emptiness, but because he believed that an empire like Arasaka could not be left in the hands of ordinary mortals or imperfect heirs.
To solve this, he ordered his advanced research and neuroscience division to pour unlimited resources into one absolute goal: to create a device capable of storing and transferring human consciousness, achieving literal immortality.
The Tech Heart: The Soulkiller Project
The foundation on which the Relic was built was the infamous Soulkiller program, originally created by brilliant netrunner Alt Cunningham in the early 2010s.
How the Soulkiller works: When a netrunner connects to a protected server, the program can track their neural signal, extract an exact and identical copy of the human psyche (memories, personality, emotions, and thought patterns), and dump it into a digital file.
The Deadly Cost: In its original version (and perfected by Arasaka after kidnapping Alt), the process was a death trap: it completely destroyed the nervous system and fried the user's brain in the physical world, leaving a lifeless body while the person's digital "ghost" was imprisoned on the corporation's servers.

The Evolution of Hardware: The Biochip Prototypes (Relic)
Digitizing a human mind was only the first half of the problem; the second was how to put that digital consciousness back into a body of flesh and blood without the system rejecting it like a virus. This is how the Relic biochip was born.
Relic 1.0 (The Storage Prototype): Created under the direct supervision of scientist Anders Hellman. It was a device capable of housing a digitized psyche, but it had a critical flaw: it only worked if the biochip was introduced into a recently deceased or dying brain, whose electrical patterns were turning off, allowing digital consciousness to "rewrite" the neural tissue free of resistance.
Relic 2.0 (The Hot Rewrite Prototype): The advanced version developed in secret. Not only did this model store a digital personality, but it was programmed to actively rewrite the brain chemistry and DNA of the living host to transform its body into an exact replica of the original owner of the construct.
The Hidden Purpose (Saburo's Plan)
Officially, Arasaka sold the Relic to his shareholders and the corporate public as a revolutionary medical breakthrough to preserve the memory of the deceased or allow senior executives to "live forever" advising the board of directors from cyberspace.
However, Saburo's true purpose was much darker and more dynastic: to use the biochip to be physically reborn in the body of his own son (Yorinobu). Saburo planned to use Relic 2.0 to supplant Yorinobu's young body with his own digital copy, ensuring absolute and endless control over the corporation and eliminating any hint of family dissent.
The Consequences and Danger on the Street By
the year 2077, the biochip becomes the best-kept (and most stolen) secret of the Arasaka laboratories in Konpeki Plaza.

The Psychological Conflict: A digital construct stored in the Relic is not a simple recording; he is a synthetic person with full self-awareness (like Johnny Silverhand himself, whose digital copy was housed in a prototype of the chip for decades).
Lethal Incompatibility: When the chip is activated inside the brain of a living being, digital consciousness begins a process of irreversible "absorption." The host's system begins to shut down, memories are mixed up, and if the process is complete, the host's original personality is erased forever, leaving the chip construct to take full control of the body.

Rogue Amendiares: Age of 80 years old born on November 14, 2009.
The Queen of Afterlife and Living Legend
RPG/Occupation: Night City's most influential elite fixer and owner of the exclusive bar The Afterlife.
Past and History: In the 2010s and 2020s, Rogue was the city's deadliest and most respected mercenary. He teamed up with Johnny Silverhand and participated in historic operations such as the raid on the Arasaka Tower. After Johnny's death and the end of the Fourth Corporate War, Rogue survived by adapting to the rules of the market: he put down front-line weapons and built an empire of information.
Personality and Weight in the Lore: Cold, distant, calculating and with a sense of extreme pragmatism. He does not accept nonsense or half-hearted jobs. It is the gateway to the highest level of corporate commissions; if a mercenary wants to be a legend, sooner or later he has to earn Rogue's approval.

Judy Alvarez: Age 24 born on November 27, 2052.
The Master of Braindance and the Voice of the Outcasts
Role/Occupation: Editing, editing and technical design of Braindances (BD / neurorecordings) at Lizzie's Bar club; key ally of the band The Moxes.
Past and History: Growing up in Laguna Bend (a town submerged by the construction of a reservoir), Judy moved to Night City with a natural talent for cybernetics and emotional coding technology. She joined the Moxes with a vision to protect sex workers and outcasts from abuse by powerful gangs and clients.
Personality and Weight in the Lore: Idealistic, empathetic, passionate, and deeply frustrated by Night City's endemic corruption. Unlike most of the city's inhabitants, Judy retains an intact moral compass. His specialty in DB editing allows him to reconstruct crimes, secrets, and emotional states by analyzing the layers of neural data of those involved.

Panam Palmer: 33 years old born on August 23, 2043.
The Hot-Blooded Nomad and the Strength of the Scalds
Role/Occupation: Former independent mercenary in Night City and veteran of the Scallop Nomad clan.
Past and History: After clashing with the rigid authority of her clan leader (Saul Bright), Panam left the family to try her luck as a hired mercenary in the city. However, the betrayal of a business partner and the reality of the underworld made her realize that there is no real loyalty in the city compared to the clan's ties.
Personality and Weight in the Lore: Impulsive, loyal to death, temperamental, and an expert marksman and heavy vehicle driver in the Badlands. It represents the alternative to Night City's wild individualism: survival through the solidarity of the chosen family and the rejection of corporate authority.

Kerry Eurodyne: The Ghost of Samurai and Corporate Success
Role/Occupation: Rock stars (Rockerboy), ex-guitarist and vocalist of the legendary band Samurai, currently a massively successful solo artist.
Past and History: He played with Johnny Silverhand in Samurai during the band's golden age. Following the group's tragic dissolution and the end of Johnny, Kerry continued his career in music, achieving ultimate commercial success but selling much of his identity to corporate record labels.
Personality and Weight in the Lore: Caught between nostalgia for his rebellious past and the luxury of his mansion in North Oak. Kerry lives in the constant shadow of the destructive memory of Johnny Silverhand. He suffers frequent existential crises, depression, and creative blocks brought on by the contradiction of being a "protest rocker" funded by the very corporations he previously criticized.

Adam Smasher, the cyborg of whom only his brain remains, a piece of his forehead, as the only thing he has left of his original body, turned into a killing machine, but like everyone else, no one is born a legend or what he is.
The Past: From Street Bully to Metal Chassis
The Origin (2000s): Before he was a cybernetic monster, Adam Smasher was a New York sociopath who joined the U.S. military. Upon being expelled for misconduct and lack of discipline, he became a mercenary for hire.
The "Accident" and the Devil Deal: During a mission in the 2010s, it was virtually evaporated by an artillery strike. What was left of her body was collected in surgical garbage bags. Arasaka offered him a simple deal: save his life by placing him in a complete cybernetic chassis in exchange for absolute and undying loyalty as his private enforcer. Smasher accepted without hesitation; Metal only enhanced what he already was inside.
Anatomy of a Killing Machine (His Lethality)
Smasher is not a conventional cyborg; is an industrial-military-grade combat chassis known as the IEC Dragoon (and later adapted to custom Arasaka systems). Less than 5% of their original biological tissue remains (only parts of their brain and spinal cord, isolated in a shield of pressed titanium).
Unstoppable Resistance: Its ballistic armor withstands heavy caliber fire, shoulder missiles, and grenades. He does not feel pain, does not need to breathe clean air and does not suffer from muscle fatigue.

Integrated Armament:
Shoulder Missile Launcher: Automated dorsal mounts capable of tracking multiple targets and launching volleys of micro-rockets in a fan.
Heavy Combat Systems: Hydraulic arms capable of crushing human skulls or piercing tank armor with bare hands. He carries mounted high-velocity heavy machine guns and military-grade automatic shotguns.
Supernatural Reflexes (Military Sandevistan): Despite its size and metallic tonnage, it features experimental-grade Neural Acceleration Processors (Sandevistan) that allow it to move at speeds almost invisible to the human eye, turning any gunfight into a massacre before the victims are drawn.
Psychopathy vs. Cybernetic Psychosis
What makes Adam Smasher unique in Night City is not only his hardware, but his mind:
Immune to Cybernetic Psychosis: Most humans lose their sanity when they install too much metal because their brain cannot process the loss of human identity. Smasher didn't suffer from cybernetic psychosis for a terrifying reason: he was already a sociopath with no empathy before he was made of metal. For him, substituting meat for steel was not a trauma, but a liberation from biological limitations.
Utter Contempt for Meat: Smasher considers organic humans to be fragile and useless "meat sacks." Enjoy the brutal killing and collateral damage. If on assignment he is asked to eliminate one person in a crowd, he will not hesitate to massacre fifty civilians just to make sure he hits the target.

His Role in the Plot and His Legacy of Blood
The Legend Killer: He is responsible for the deaths of Night City's greatest legends, including the infamous mercenary Morgan Blackhand (in their historic rivalry) and Johnny Silverhand himself, whom he effortlessly tore to pieces during the assault on Arasaka Tower in 2023.
The Arasaka Hunting Dog: Answers only to the leadership of the Arasaka family (especially Saburo and Yorinobu). It is the last resort when counterintelligence and lawyers fail; if they send Smasher, the goal is not to negotiate or capture, but complete deletion.

Being a nomad is not easy for anyone, but at the same time, among companions of the same clan, they can support each other to move forward one more day.
Origins: The Victims of Global
Collapse Nomads were not born by idealistic choice, but by sheer historical tragedy during the economic and climate collapses of the early 21st century:
Agricultural and Social Dispossession: Thousands of farmers, rural workers, and entire communities lost their land due to droughts, radioactive contamination, and hostile takeovers by biotech megacorporations like Biotechnica.
Life on the Road: Left homeless and without resources, thousands of people assembled caravans of modified vehicles and took to the interstate highways. Over time, these refugees organized themselves into tribal structures to defend themselves from looters and state abandonment.
Social Structure: Clans and Family
For a Nomad, the Family is not just a blood bond; It's the safety net on which your life depends.
The Seven Main Clans: On the mainland, the Nomads are grouped into seven large federations. In the region of Southern California and the Badlands of Night City, two stand out:
The Aldecaldos: One of the oldest, most respected and numerous clans. They have a strong family ethic, they are experts in logistics, heavy mechanics and high-speed smuggling. They prioritize the survival of the community over profits.
The Wraiths: The dark side of the nomadic world. They are "exiles" (Raffen Shiv), expelled from other clans for inhuman crimes, violations of honor codes or psychopathy. They engage in savage pillage, torture, and kidnapping on lawless roads.

Modus Operandi and Economy
Nomads do not have office positions or corporate bank accounts; Their economy is itinerant and road-based:
High-Speed Smuggling: They transport clandestine goods (smuggled weapons, illegal military implants, people fleeing corporations) from one city to another dodging customs and border patrols.
Masters of Mechanics (Convoy & Tune-up): They are able to turn a wrecked sedan into a heavy armored vehicle (Thorton Colby, Quadra Type-66 "Javelina") equipped with titanium armor, missile launchers, and engines modified to withstand toxic dust storms.
Field Engineering: They build self-sufficient camps in minutes using solar panels, portable generators, and water purifiers in the middle of the desert.
The Strained Relationship with Night City
For the people of Night City, the Nomads are disparagingly viewed as "road trash" or uncultured idiots. However, the city could not survive without them:
Logistics Dependency: Corporations discreetly hire Nomads to move dangerous cargoes that cannot be listed in official transportation records.
The Rejection of Urban Life: The Nomads consider the inhabitants of Night City to be cybernetic slaves locked in neon cages who sold their souls for Eurodollars. For a Nomad, the freedom to see the open horizon is worth more than any luxury corporate implant.

Night City does not rest, and the geopolitical and criminal chessboard of the city has just suffered an earthquake that shook the foundations of the entire system.
If you move through the streets, in the dark alleys of Watson or on the giant screens of City Center, the topic of conversation is only one: the emperor is dead, and the throne is stained with blood.

The Fall of the Titan: The Death of Saburo Arasaka
Recently, in the luxury suite of the Konpeki Plaza, the unthinkable happened. The all-powerful patriarch, Saburo Arasaka, the man who survived a century of history and ruled the corporate empire with an iron fist, was assassinated.
The murkiest thing of all is not the fact itself, but the who: the leaks in the shadows point directly to his own son, Yorinobu Arasaka, in a parricide treacherously executed to wrest absolute control of the corporation from him. Officially, Arasaka's loudspeakers try to sell the version of a sudden heart attack, but no one with two fingers of forehead in the underworld believes that milonga.
With Saburo off the map, Arasaka is internally divided. On the one hand there is Hanako Arasaka, the loyal daughter, pulling diplomatic strings from the shadows to maintain her father's legacy; on the other, Yorinobu himself at the top, trying to implode the empire from within. The tension between counterintelligence and top management is a powder keg about to explode, and managers like Arthur Jenkins or Susan Abernathy are mentally triggered to eliminate anyone who smells of treason.

The Biochip Market and Opportunities in the Shadows
But Saburo's death is not the only active fire. At the center of the whole storm is Project Relic, the prototype immortality biochip that holds the digital consciousness of Johnny Silverhand himself.
That small piece of silicon, stolen during the chaos of Konpeki Plaza, has become the most coveted and dangerous object in Night City. Local gangs, Militech field agents (with guys like Meredith Stout trying to get a cut), and Arasaka assault teams are combing each district. If a mercenary is unlucky enough to run into the Relic or high-value defectors like scientist Anders Hellman, he instantly becomes the corporation's number one target.
The Pulse of the Streets
Meanwhile, the city continues to beat at its violent and cynical pace:
In The Afterlife, Rogue Amendiares smokes silently as she assesses which fixer is moving chips and which mercs teams are willing to accept suicidal assignments related to the Arasaka crisis.
In Pacifica, the Voodoo Boys continue to operate beyond Blackwall, ignoring the corporate drama while negotiating with digital entities that escape human comprehension.
In the Badlands, nomadic clans like the Aldecaldos guard the smuggling routes, preparing for when the war between Arasaka and Militech spills over the city limits and falls into the desert.

Cyberpsychosis is one of the most terrifying, tragic, and commonplace phenomena. It is not simply a corporate medical term, but the biological and psychological boundary that humanity faces when it decides to cross the line between flesh and steel.
What exactly is cyberpsychosis?
Cyberpsychosis is a dissociative illness and a psychotic disorder induced by the overload of cybernetic implants (cyberware).
This occurs when a person has too many body parts replaced (titanium arms, combat neural processors, advanced reflex systems, ballistic skin) until the biological human brain can no longer process the loss of organic identity. The individual loses all sense of their own humanity, experiences a complete disconnection from empathy, and falls into a state of uncontrolled, homicidal, and paranoid rage.
The Conflict Between Flesh and Steel
To understand why this occurs, one must understand the cyberpunk world's medical and philosophical view of the human mind:
The Neural Limit: The human brain evolved to manage a body of flesh and blood, with limited nerve endings and a biological perception of pain and the environment.
The Loss of Humanity: Every cybernetic implant requires the brain to rewire its connections to accept the new hardware (for example, controlling bionic arms as if they were its own). The more metal that is implanted, the greater the burden on the central nervous system.
Psychological Collapse: When a critical threshold is crossed, the mind fragments. The individual begins to see themselves (and others) as mere machines or spare parts, erasing any trace of remorse, compassion, or sanity.

The Conflict Between Flesh and Steel
To understand why this occurs, one must understand the cyberpunk world's medical and philosophical view of the human mind:
The Neural Limit: The human brain evolved to manage a body of flesh and blood, with limited nerve endings and a biological perception of pain and the environment.
The Loss of Humanity: Every cybernetic implant requires the brain to rewire its connections to accept the new hardware (for example, controlling bionic arms as if they were its own). The more metal that is implanted, the greater the burden on the central nervous system.
Psychological Collapse: When a critical threshold is crossed, the mind fragments. The individual begins to see themselves (and others) as mere machines or spare parts, erasing any trace of remorse, compassion, or sanity.
When a citizen or a mercenary suffers a cyberpsychosis episode in the middle of the street, the regular Night City Police Department (NCPD) doesn't stand a chance. That's where the city's most feared elite unit comes in: MAX-TAC.

MAX-TAC (Maximum Force Tactical Division): A special police division composed mostly of rehabilitated ex-cyberpsychopaths or hyper-cyberized criminals who have been forcibly recruited.
Their job is not to negotiate or capture alive; it is to neutralize the threat with disproportionate force and, in many cases, "harvest" the expensive military implants of the downed cyberpsychopath before the body cools down.

The Symptoms and Behavior of the Cyberpsychopath: A person suffering from a cyberpsychosis episode goes through very marked phases before becoming a lethal threat: Early Phase (Isolation and Paranoia): The individual becomes cold, experiences chronic fatigue, sudden contempt for close people, extreme irritability and episodes of depersonalization (feels that their body is an alien object).
Acute Phase (The Outbreak / Cyberpsycho Outbreak): A complete break with reality occurs. The cyberpsycho suffers hallucinations, aggressive panic attacks, or an absolute disregard for human life. They go out into the streets to massacre civilians or confront police forces without regard for their own survival.
Supernatural Resistance: During an outbreak, implants connected to the nervous system function at 100% without restrictions from pain or muscle fatigue, making them incredibly dangerous, resistant to pistol bullets, and capable of destroying vehicles with their bare hands.

The Exceptions: Why don't some fall?
The streets of Night City are home to living legends, elite mercenaries, and even executives who wear more metal than flesh, yet still keep their heads on straight:
Emotional Stability and Anchors: People like Johnny Silverhand (in his time) or veteran mercenaries manage to resist cyberpsychosis thanks to strong emotional bonds, iron mental discipline, a clear purpose in life, or the constant use of blockers and inhibitor medications prescribed by trusted quacks (like Viktor Vector).
The Biological Exception (Cases like Adam Smasher): There are born psychopaths (like Smasher himself) who never suffered cyberpsychosis simply because they never had human empathy to lose. For them, the metal body wasn't a trauma that broke their minds, but the perfect tool for their pre-existing violent nature.
The Biological Exception (Cases like Adam Smasher): There are born psychopaths (like Smasher himself) who never suffered cyberpsychosis simply because they never had human empathy to lose. For them, the metal body wasn't a trauma that broke their minds, but the perfect tool for their pre-existing violent nature.