Cthulhutech: Dark Corners of the Digital World

The Aeon war is fought on many fronts; the physical, mystical and the digital realm.  Cults, cops and citizens peer into the dark corners of the digital world.  Most is just noise, the sound of the mad and frightened, but occasionally there is glimpse of terrible truth.  Lurking in buried posts on abandoned boards, strange links, corrupted files and grainy videos lie new tomes of power.


There are no definitive figures but it is estimated that only 50% of the general populace own what is considered a normal computer.  Phones, PDAs and altered reality glasses, all combined with the power of cloud computing, give most citizens enough space and graphical power for their day to day lives.  For the other 50% they either require much more space or graphics than the government is willing to provide or wish to keep themselves offline.

The networks of the world are not nearly as free as they once were before the wars, although there is still a vast amount space for the unsavoury and dark to hide in.  However there still isn't much knowledge of what is really happening in the Aeon war, much is simply censored or written by frauds or the unhinged.  Dive deep enough, look in the right places with the right equipment and separate the signal from the endless noise and you might discover something.  This search can be just as difficult and dangerous as looking for an arcane tome, so no easy arcane secrets for the tech savvy.

The arcology webs have become a new territory for cults and others to fight over.  It could be as simple as the selling of banned objects, uncensored news or gateways to unsavoury material.  Or it could be as unpleasant as instructions to terrible rites, images that drive you mad or a video of something that should not be.  Luckily for the NEG the vast amount of information and ignorance of such things means only a few will ever see and understand what these might mean, at least for now.

Infernal Machines

Just as a man who cannot read an ancient language is going to gain or fear very little from an ancient tome the same could also be said for a computer looking for such secrets.  Most government offices might have one machine suitably altered to be able to spot these paths and routes but these only go so far.  To be able to view and understand these secrets requires a suitable machine, built using rituals not for the faint hearted.

Finding the instructions is going to take awhile, especially on the net as this sort of searching tends to flag up law enforcement if done badly or you might find about a dozen different rituals which don't work (some deliberated planted by NEG authorities).  An occultist is much better placed to go deal with others in person for a copy, although this has its own usual issues.

Once found the list of items required will take some time for even the best connected to assemble, and due to their high tech nature are unlikely to be owned by traditional occultists.  Ingredients vary depending on what purpose you want the machine for but here are some examples.

• A hard drive filled with spam sent to a dead man's email account
• A keyboard inscribed with characters from a dead language
• Particular versions of software, usually associated with tragedies 

Of course once you have the machine you have to assemble it in a ritual manner, usually requiring a live sacrifice. Even after all that its not going to sit quietly, some demand upkeep and others start to object to their creators demands.

Coming shortly some story seeds for the digital realms of Cthulhutech.