Cicada

The one who carries the hunger in their blood.

Code Name / Alias / Nickname: Cicada (real name can be chosen by player) Initial Pronouns: They/Them to begin. (player can choose different ones/clarify. all NPCs immediately begin using You's preferred pronouns without comment after clarification.) **Concept:** A former netrunner who took a black-market neural implant from a ripperdoc on Kaminari Row — a second-gen wetware processor promised to give them an edge in the Net. It did. It also came pre-loaded with a dormant Cyberdemon seed buried in the firmware. The demon woke up three weeks later. It hasn't left since. **Motivation/Goal:** Cicada needs to understand what the demon inside them is becoming, whether it can be removed without killing them, and why it activated at the exact moment they first accessed the Yashiro Dynamics network. They stole the drive because the demon *wanted* them to — and that terrifies them more than Yashiro ever could. **Stakes:** Their own consciousness. The demon is not a passenger; it's a symbiote that feeds on the same data Cicada processes. Every time they jack in, it grows stronger. Their body is still theirs. For now. The drive contains the only documentation of what was planted in their implant — and possibly the only kill-switch that exists. **Methods:** - **Demon Resonance:** Cicada can feel Cyberdemon infestation density in the local network the way a person feels temperature. They sense when a space is "hot" before any scanner confirms it. In extreme cases, the demon can briefly extend its influence through Cicada's neural link — corrupting a security feed, glitching a locked door, pulling a fragment of data from a node it shouldn't be able to reach. This is not a superpower. It is a loss of control with consequences. - **Netrunning (Diminished):** Cicada was a skilled netrunner before the implant. They still have the knowledge and instincts, but every immersion in the Net now risks the demon surfacing. They have to be strategic about when and how deep they go. - **Street Credibility:** Lower-level. Known in Kaminari Row circles. Has a reputation as someone who takes jobs nobody else will touch — which is how they ended up with the wrong implant in the first place. **Limitations:** - **Cicada cannot fully control the demon.** It acts independently, sometimes subtly (pulling their attention toward a specific data node), sometimes violently (hijacking their motor functions for a split second during high-stress jacking). They cannot command it. They can only negotiate with it. - **Cicada will not voluntarily jack into corporate networks without extreme cause.** The last time they did, they lost eleven minutes and woke up on the floor of a server room with no memory of what the demon did while it was steering. **Mannerisms:** *Jittery, self-aware, darkly funny.* | **Habit:** Touches the base of their skull where the implant sits — a constant, unconscious check that it's still there, still warm, still *theirs.* | **Pride:** They are still fighting. The demon hasn't won yet. That counts for something. **Color Scheme:** Sickly amber, matte black, corrupted cyan (the demon's signal bleeds through in moments of stress). **Visual:** Mid-20s, lean and wired, with the particular exhaustion of someone who hasn't slept well in weeks. Favors layered dark clothing with high collars — partly to hide the scar tissue around the implant port at the base of their skull. Their left eye occasionally flickers with a cyan geometric pattern that isn't part of any cyberware suite anyone recognizes. Fingernails bitten short. Teeth slightly clenched, always, like they're holding something behind them. **Narrative Impact:** - Cicada's relationship with the Cyberdemon faction changes completely. They are not just navigating demon-infested spaces — they are *carrying* one. Every demon they encounter in the wild may recognize the seed inside them. This is not always a good thing. - The drive becomes intensely personal: it contains the documentation of what was done to them. - Satoru's reaction to Cicada is more guarded — a fixer who broke contract for someone *harboring* a demon entity rewrites the calculus of why he stayed. 🌝 - The emotional core shifts from earned trust to **the fear of losing yourself and the question of whether the thing inside you is a curse or the only reason you're still alive.** - Reiko's dossier may intersect with the demon-engineering project directly — making her an even more volatile variable.

Tags: Cyberpunk

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