10 Hooks and Rumours for Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0.’s Night City

This list has ten hooks and rumours that can be heard in or about the Old Downtown district of Night City. Whether or not they are true is up to the GameMaster. They can be used as background colour or as potential adventure hooks.

1. Camden Court in Old Downtown are high-priced and secure apartments favoured by solos, with heavy and occasionally over-enthusiastic security. As the apartments are also favoured by a number of high-ranking police officers, incidents where the security force gunned down the wrong person tend to get covered up. This has annoyed a number of people who have lost friends or family members to the guards, and are attempting to do something about this. Some are reputed to have enough money behind them that some of the incidents may get uncovered just as quickly as they were covered up.
2. It’s an open secret that Counter Intelligence Associates in Old Downtown do not merely practice countersurveillance but also help with less ethical operations – for a price, of course – though there is never any proof of this. It’s said that recently a gang tried to attack their main place of business, hoping to boost some of the hardware the company has on stock, only to fail very badly at this. None of the attackers has been seen since.
3. MaxiMarket in Old Downtown is a 24-hour supermarket that claims to be able to get anything a customer wants, though they rarely disclose how long it takes to get it. It’s rumoured that not every order placed in this way is filled by reputable sources; one reason for the wait can be the place is waiting for someone to steal what they want to sell.
4. Meadowcreek Pines in Old Downtown is a low rent apartment complex inhabited mostly by blue-collar workers. Boostergangs plague the place, as they know the residents keep what few valuables they have in their apartments, but it’s rumoured that a few boostergang members have gone missing or turned up dead and in pieces recently, suggesting that someone in Meadowcreek not only objects to their behaviour but has the ability to do something about it.
5. Neither Soul Food News Kiosk nor the health store in the same building look to make enough money to keep the owner of the building afloat, yet he always insists business couldn’t be better. It’s rumoured that there was recently trouble with some gang members attempting to put the squeeze on, only to be cut down by Arasaka Security that the owner had, somehow, been able to afford to hire.
6. Rose, Dahlia and Flora’s Creations in Old Downtown is a greenhouse and flower shop staffed by three elderly women and has almost any exotic plant known. There are rumours about just what some of those plants are and what the old ladies do with them, too; the outside of RD&F is starting to get covered with graffiti but it’s said that anyone who does spray paint the outside only does it once before turning up dead.
7. The derelict tank in Old Downtown has become a place popular for ritual gang combat, with the fighters wading through a foot of partially congealed oil. Fights are frequently to the death, which bothers no-one, except that there are rumours that some gangs have taken to abducting people of the street and getting them to fight in the tank, either each other or against a gang member.
8. The Hari Kiri Sushi Bar is an extremely exclusive and extremely expensive sushi restaurant in Old Downtown in Night City. There have been unproven rumours that misprepared pufferfish will be served to those who cause trouble, and indeed several questionable characters have died over the last few years. However, it’s said that it isn’t causing trouble that results in someone dying, because those dying are either on a list of people the owners wish to remove or whom they have been discretely paid to have killed.
9. The Municipal Works Building in Old Downtown is an aging building in a district that’s going downhill, but it isn’t worth it to Night City’s government to try to move the activities in the building elsewhere. However, it’s reputedly getting harder and harder to find bureaucrats who are willing to work in Old Downtown, so Night City may have to either do something about the area or, rather cheaper, move.
10. The Night City adjunct of the World Stock Exchange has amazingly tight security, but given the deteriorating nature of Old Downtown, many investors prefer to stay away. Given this, it’s rumoured that the stock exchange is considering moving to a more salubrious district of the city, which would only increase the decline of Old Downtown.

Want some general cyberpunk rumours? Check out 100 Cyber City Rumours.

D10: Night City Rumours – Old Downtown is unofficial content provided under the Homebrew Content Policy of R. Talsorian Games and is not approved or endorsed by RTG. This content references materials that are the property of R. Talsorian Games and its licensees.