NETWORK23

Network 23 is a weird and wonderful take on Cyberpunk

The future has been cancelled.

Pirate utopias face off against the autocratic power of titanic hyper-technologic Citadels, endlessly built by self-replicant and self-repairing automatons.

Solar towers and biomass generators sporadically flare-up in the boundless Off-grid: a melting pot of drifters and revolutionaries, cargo cults and acid communes, plowed by slavers’ convoys and tekno tribes.

Obsolete and futuristic technologies coexist next to each other: neural headsets for accessing K-space and organic 3d printers. Punch cards and second-hand cyber limbs. Wars are fought with laser weapons and plasma cutters, on radio frequencies as well as on Arpanet nodes.

Tears in reality overlook the ever-changing xenoscapes of the Interzone, lost in its folds are hidden forgotten civilizations, alien technology and inorganic demons.

The centralized consumer society has fallen under its own weight following the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987 and the Black Friday revolution of 1989.

There’s no map yet for these territories.

Utopia and dystopia face each other in a clash of civilizations, while entropy flows undisturbed.

Thoughts matter: Technonikilist or Algomaster? Insurrectionist or electric sheep? Mercenary or merchant? Founder or destroyer?

The truce is over, the hunt is on!

Join the revolution, or the destruction.

Created by Alex Boccheto.

The zine is hand-crafted in a limited number of copies. Printed and bound by the author using the best Fedrigoni paper and linen thread. The cover has significant variation. Additional information about the printing in this blog post and this Twitter thread.

Earth-bound near-future maximum volume sci-fi cyberpulp. 60 pages, 22,000 words, 52 thoughts, 20 photos, 8 campaign types, 4 interconnected setting with different sci-fi flavours, 2 pages of chase rules, 11 vehicle modifications, 9 powerful drugs, 13 stigmas, 3 appendices, 1 OSR inspired system, 1 tool for procedural generation of endless territories. PDF will be included in the near future.