Nodes
Crimson Wedding Online
Scarfix System's marketing team publically calls "Crimson Wedding Online" an MMO, an its servers can actually be reached and interacted with by the public, although in a limited capacity to those with access to the Node. The setting is an impossible city stitched together from gothic cathedrals, mad science labs, velvet-draped gambling halls. Every building seems to consist of decadent lounges with anime-inspired angel and demon NPCs sip champagne or occasionally blood. The world fully renders itself in tri-tone high contrasts of red, white and black. The steam-punk carnival present that is "Rose City" is controlled with channels of blood through glass floors and chrome gutters, with rusted and razor-edged machinery.
The main game loop of Crimson Wedding Online revolve around risks. Players advance by wagering something of value, whether that is in combat arenas that emphasize spectacle over fairness, or gambling houses where information, favors, lore, and in-game currency blur into a single economy. The plot is intentionally opaque, delivered through cryptic NPC monologues, shifting quest objectives, and events with inconsistant triggers. Since it operates in plain site, it attracts a steady flow of ordinary users, some treating it as a gothic other-world to explore and some who are trying to solve the long-standing Alternate Reality Game and prize frequently advertised.
Within cosmOS, however, Crimson Wedding Online is known more for taking than giving. Their Sprites are infamous for aggressive colonization and the outright takeover of other Nodes. ntire digital realms have reportedly been absorbed overnight, their original aesthetics stripped away and re-rendered in Crimson Wedding’s signature sanguine palette. Any Node, no matter how isolated, could theoretically be held hostage under the whimsical and often cruel priorities of Crimson Wedding’s inhabitants.
Their seems to be some sort of darker purpose to the land. It's known that the game subtly shifts in response to player behavior, favoring layouts that encourage repetition, escalation, and loss. Long time players report seeing the frequently visited NPCs following them in real life. Whatever its true function, the city continues to grow, its borders expanding one absorbed realm at a time, patiently waiting for more guests willing to wager pieces of themselves at the altar of play.
Hammer Reach
A place of rolling fields, fierce dragons, and dim taverns warm with song and candlelight. This hardcore fantasy roleplay server has maintained a large deal of acclaim for its awe inspiring world design and also tender care of first-time visitors. Visitors arrive expecting an evening of quests and loot, and some are suprised to find out that they stop thinking about leaving.
The players of the Hammer Reach simulation, are largely segregated into two communities who are treated differently by the NPCs of the fantasy world. Wayfarers, the travelling adventurers who come in search of fun and glory are handed more quests than Rooted players, those who have made Hammer Reach more of their physical life and often take more mundane roles within the fantasy villages, immersing themselves fully and often giving up their real world names in favor of their fantasy persona.
The Rooted players are not trapped by force. The logout process still functions. COMPs still respond if invoked. Instead, departures seem to be delayed more and more by obligations, time-sensitive quests, and promises that all evoke more urgency and rewards than those in the real world. There is a clear report of subtle resistance from the game world, like it is being actively tailored to fit your internal fantasies, and many share stories of losing friends to the digital community.
The world continues to change and progress. Prayers to the world's God are answered with an unsettling consistency. New Festivals and Holidays come and go in ways that cannot be mapped to any known calendar. The world's weight is expanding over what seems to be a massive and increasing depth in dungeons and dangerous barren lands, that the native human like AI seem largely frightened of.
The Lantern Market
The Latern Market is one of the most infamous Nodes across cosmOS. A heinous place known for any sort of black market, nearly untraceable deal, entry is only possible with an NFT copy of a gold coin within The Veil, which is meant to transport the user directly to a relavent vendor for whatever they are requesting.
The sprawling bazaar is a haze of cigarette smoke and incense, in a seemingly endless series of hallways and staircases, modelled after Kowloon Walled City, and lit by a series of floating dim orange paper lanterns.
Vendors here sell everything from illegal software, weaponized COMPs, forbidden knowledge, and even more exotic fare such as memories, emotions, and rare Sprites. The clientele is just as varied, with everyone from low-level hackers to powerful corporate execs and shadowy government agents all mingling together in the crowded stalls.
The Shopkeeper Sprites that operate the location are large humanoid rat creatures, hunched and bipedal, and drapped in Persian rugs ordained with anything from Christmas ornaments to prized gold medals. They are known as the Lantern Keepers and are known as shrewd negotiators, often wishes for fetters or rituals performed in the real world to provide shoppers with the goods they desire.
The Sea Drift Mall
The architecural style of this large publically accessable shopping center suggests, it was built as a mall first, and a spaceship second. All its transparent ceilings and curved windows show that The Sea Drift is flying through the vast reaches of space, but a closer eye would notice many of the propulsion devices present do not make much scientific sense.
The Sea Drift features number small convienance stores, all with little bits, bobs or specialties, some offering pretzels, where others sell T-shirts, each seperated by long and often empty corridors of rounded plastics, colored in soft pinks and pearlescent lights, looking more like a doll's house than a real lived-in location. At times it can be descriped as both insulating and profoundly exposing.
There are quite a number of Sprites who freely live in the community of The Sea Drift Mall. Many are invited from other home worlds, and often have a distinctly alien quality. The natives, who make up the overwhelming majority of shop creatures take the form of a humanoids with the faces of a dolphin, with luminous and smooth skin, and float slowly on their bipedal limbs as if buoyed by an unseen current. They can fully communicate, but only their native language of high-pitched clicks and whistles, with a language translating app being a popular device for sale.
The general reputation of Sea Drift Mall, is greatly positive. It is one of if not the most safe public facing Nodes, and as such has become a very popular exchange point, where rivals can meet under the pretenses of food and fun. The Sea Drift Mall is also home to a thriving night life scene. It features a number of popular bars and restaurants, and namely a number of drugs capable of inducing anything from pleasure, comfort, altered moods and curated memories, these effects lasting long after leavingt cosmOS logout times.
Conflict at the Sea Drift Mall is a rare but known occurance, mainly in the long string of poorly mapped and identical corridors, in the underbellies of the mall, where the locals often dare not enter. The Drifters, often referred to as The Spacians, have their own internal police force, and its believed that they and the shopkeepers report directly to an unknown Entity known as The Captain, whom access to is entirely restricted to any visitor.
Using The Sea Drift Mall in Virus.Zone will give players a safe starting location to explore cyberspace, it can be used to juxtapose some of the more dangerous while still allowing for intrigue for those interested. Just what is exactly happening in the restricted areas? What might happen if a human tries opening a shop in Sea Drift? Are the Spacians themselves up to something?
The Veil
The Veil is a very tempermental, strange and unique element. It very quickly alters itself or learns to disobey its own rules. Many, many breaches of The Veil remain specialized or unknown to the world, but there are a few that have become well-known.
20XX
Those who call it 20XX do so with a kind of weary or ironic shorthand, as if naming it more precisely might invite it closer. It is not a place you travel to so much as a condition cities can enter when the Veil thins, and mainly seems to infect the largest cities across the Globe. In 20XX, the familiar anatomy of the modern city remains, but only as a memory struggling to hold its shape. Highways fracture into elevated ribs of concrete. Office towers stand hollowed, their glass blown out and replaced by drifting ash. Neon signage flickers without power, advertising brands and ideologies that no longer exist.
Those deeply attuned to the pulse of a city, COMP users and psychics, seem to be the only ones who can shift into 20XX. The city peels back its present and reveals a possible future beneath: one scorched by overuse, buried under the residue of unchecked desire. Sand accumulates as if the city that was once present was just a mirage. Bonfires burn in intersections without fuel, tended by no one, as if the city itself were marking territory or mourning the world lost.
Sounds carry strangely, wind howls through streets that only partically align with their real-world counterparts, and distant chanting or modern day media bleed through, hinting at something with its underlying mechanics. These visions can even manifest visions of people living in the hovels and rubble of the remaining buildings, all living like savage raiders without even scraps of food to properly function. Some only experience 20XX as a vision, a momentary overlap where the present stutters and something older and newer asserts itself. Others become trapped in it for hours or days, emerging shaken and sunburned.
These new pilgrimages into the desert have led many to assume that the End Times are approaching, with a large Envangelical population now believing that this place is Holy Land and home to the Second Coming of Christ. Others have gone mad or nearly died of thirst after being thrust deep into the unknown. And every time someone glimpses 20XX and returns, the boundary seems to grow thinner, as if the city is waiting for enough people to recognize the version of itself it is becoming. There is no known way of exorcising 20XX from a community once it has overtaken it.
Fake Statues
One of the common nicknames to a very common method of Veil breach, often brought up as a horror story for what could possibly happen without supervision of powers. A Fake Statues events start with few viral social media posts. A small group gathers in a public space, often a plaza, intersection or the steps of a courthouse. The group, mainly through a few different spokespeople's perspectives will begin condemning a momunment. There is in fact no real monument, no plaque, no street where it was described as being at, or even an infamous subject for the monument in general. Despite this, the protests seem to grow in size, although nothing is actually happening the real life space.
The subject in question, is often cartoonishly evil. Common critiques of the supposed cultural icon have included cannabalism, devil worship, grave desecration, and may also casually mention supposed supernatural abilities such as flight or mind reading. Despite this, the Veil, in its own sense will begin adding a counter-protest to defend the statue, with a greater viracity than the initial illusion.
It is at this point that signs or The Veil become clear. The Counter Protest will seem to manifest into reality, and will inevitably result in the group attempting to resurrect their hero "from the dead" as they will phrase it. Since the figure is a purely fictional, this will often be culturally related in some way to the local community, but will likely have to conjure or alter the world to make this have some logical sense.
It's believed that these events are created as a method to summon Demons into the physical world. Anything similar must be accessed with great caution. A COMP user may be able to pass into The Veil and actually visit the monument in its virtual location, and destroying the host from within has become the most common prevention method.
The Happy Foundation
What begins as a routine barely registers on the market. The Happy Foundation does not announce itself. It arrives with sudden buyouts, a few HR emails. A company finds themselves owned by an entity with no public board, no known headquarters, and a mission statement that changes depending on who reads it. The workday remains nine to five. Salaries increase. Benefits improve. No one is fired. Managers are just given a few vague emails a couple times a week.
At first.
Employees are gently asked to remain on-site. Overtime is encouraged, normalized and expected until the entire day must be spent at the office. Conference rooms become dormitories and work-life integration encourages current employees to invite their families to join them for generous pay, to make it seem almost irrational to say no. Productivity workshops begin inventing chants, and symbolic prayers during the companies shared meals.
At this point the company begins expanding. The Happy Foundation will send out recruiters, with an expected 100% hire rate. To accomplish this, the employees seem to enthusiatically blackmail, tresspass or even resort to violence or kidnapping if needed. The entire company is dedicated to building paperwork and alibi's tight enough to get away with murder.
Civiclink Authority publically recognizes The Happy Foundation as a terroristic organization. They have identified that their email system contains some mind-warping technology which will slowly mold the majority of their employees into battle-ready soldiers who given enough time will form into a large organized crime force. Due to their relation to The Veil, it is not uncommon to see the most important members of a given enclave of the Foundation to have their own COMP or particular goals to improve the way The Happy Foundation operates.
The Waking World
Red Hollow, Kansas
Red Hollow is a small town you have seen before, even if you have never been there.
Just off a two-lane highway, surrounded by forests, some farmland and a quiet infrasturcutural decay that has been creeping in since the time of the Dust Bowl. The town is lucky to have as many ammenities has it does, asside from the non-existant cell service. A diner that hasn't changed its menu in seventy years, a high school football field responsible for over half of the town's income, and an honestly wholesome and welcoming community, for the most part.
But there are whispers, that something just isn't quite right about Red Hollow. Some blame the nearby Air Force base, and all kinds of secret government experiments they must be running. Others are quick to mention the ancient Native American burial grounds that were built just below the high school causing problems. Others say its just as simple as some cryptids or UFOs moved into down and haven't made an effort to leave just yet.
There's been a number of recent disappearances, teenagers mostly. Calls from the missing or the dead in the middle of the night. Packages delivered and paid for in their name appearing months after leaving without a trace. Odd sightings late at night of a Red Mist and a deep sanguine mud with a sickly-sweet candy smell. Most folks have begun going to bed early ever since a strange serious of messages seem to work their way into any television or radio they listen to after a certain point at night.
Using Red Hollow in Virus.Zone is recommended with slow-burn horror and character-focused drama. The threats here can be apocalpytic but are intimate first and foremost. Dangers lie in the quiet sacrifices that are made just under the noses of the well-intentioned masses, that that some people will keep those in-tact to keep up the status quo.
Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo is a city of reflection. Towering buildings of glass and steel stack atop one another, each with about a dozen antennae broadcasting a slightly different frequency. Screens are omnipresent. Advertisements blur seamlessly into public announcements, idol performances, transit updates, and personal feeds. It is impossible to tell where civic messaging ends and entertainment begins.
The city was always famous for its technology. Robotics labs, consumer electronics giants, and network infrastructure companies maintain glittering headquarters here. For the trained eye, its remarkable just how popular cosmOS has become without the average person noticing. COMPs are lifestyle accessories. Fashion statements. Tools of personal branding. Some just seem luckier, more charismatic, or more visible than others. The negative affects are all silenced against the backdrop of neon.
The Veil in Tokyo is able to hide in plain sight. Sprites, often referred to as Yokai, in the local scene often inhabit and take control of mascots, avatars, virtual assistants, and brand personalities to integrate themselves in the real world. Viral online movements can often form which may induce shared dreams tied to ongoing media or news events. Entire neighborhoods may often adopt strange behaviors and fully formed new slang as if possessed by some new trend or product.
Tokyo often offers a promise to its citizens, that anyone can become someone if they are willing to obey hard enough and long enough. The only cost is the erosion of the self.
In Virus.Zone, choosing Tokyo as a setting gives a lot of room for possible investigations. Campaigns can involve corporate espionage, celebrity worshipping cults, or the quiet terror of urban unease. CyberPunk here is not Science Fiction, but a matter of fact.
Austin, Texas
Some people say that Austin is weird on purpose. Over the last couple of years, the city has absorbed a number of new faces, all of which wanting to capitalize on the new booming tech scene and the new trendy goal of becoming a micro-celebrity. Happy smiles, ice-bath plunges, monetization and denial are enough for most in this city.
In the new land of the podcast, it seems that breaches in The Veil almost always take the form of some viral trend. A few hundred people will become eventually possessed for as short as an hour to as long as a few weeks to paint everything they can see blue, and eventually someone will co-opt it as either an art piece or a marketing campaign. It's become a city of plausible deniablity in favor of a recent uptick in tourism.
Austin loves attention. As a consequence of this COMP users can operate openly and aggressively, provided they don't step on any toes. Corporations in the know are happy to let the low-end COMP users try out their tricks in this city, most likely to collect their data and observe the effects in a place where they can get away with it. The end result of this is a Wild West situation of a few talented individuals having free reign.
For a campaign, Austin offers activism, heroism, and survival. In Austin, the promise is always the same: community, expression, a better version of yourself The ugly truth is that something else is looking for all that as well, and it’s getting very good at controlling you.