Matrix Goths

The advent of the matrix brought many new cliques and almost tribal groups of people to the attention of everyday society. Some of these were various groups of Goths. Inside the matrix they could create places to be, to meet new people and shares their thoughts and ideas. Their virtual hangouts are shadowy nodes styled like gothic cathedrals or abandoned urban sprawls, dripping with neon lit gargoyles and pulsating with melancholic laments.    

• Avatars: In the Matrix, their personas are striking pale, androgynous figures with glowing black eyes, draped in virtual leather trench coats, lace, and chrome piercings. Some sport bat like wings or glitchy, corrupted halos as a nod to their anarchic streak. Their code shimmers with dark, recursive patterns, making their presence feel like a haunting melody.

 

• Real World: On the rare occasions they log off, they’re gaunt, with cybernetic implants glowing faintly under fishnet sleeves or black hoodies. Their hair is dyed jet-black or ultraviolet, often shaved into sigils or circuit like patterns. They favor Augmented Reality goggles over contacts to keep one foot in the Matrix even in the physical world.

 

• Matrix Activities: The Matrix Goths congregate in hidden Matrix nodes they’ve hacked or built, like the Crypt of Bela Le Static, a virtual gothic club where smart bots serve absinthe laced data packets and the walls pulse with encrypted poetry. These nodes are heavily guarded by their custom Black IC, styled like spectral spirits.

 

• Hacking: They’re not typical shadowrunners but will take low key Matrix jobs, data theft, ghosting corporate servers, or spreading viral memetics to fund their digital lifestyle. They specialize in leaving behind cryptic, gothic themed calling cards, for example, a digital raven skull to taunt their targets with a repetitive nevermore.

 

• Spoofing: The Matrix Goths love subverting corporate Matrix spaces, replacing slick ads with bleak poetry or haunting visuals of crumbling cities. They see it as art, not activism, spreading their aesthetic like a virus. Edgar Allen Poe and Lord Byron are favorites.

 

• Technomancer Rites: Those Matrix Goths that are technomancers lead data seances, where they commune with the Deep Resonance or rogue AIs, seeking esoteric knowledge or just chasing the high of unfiltered data streams. These rituals often involve virtual blood sacrifices, deleting chunks of their own code for the thrill.

 

• Beliefs and Motivations: They view the Matrix as the ultimate escape from the dystopian real world, a place where they can craft their own reality free from megacorporation control or societal norms. To them, the physical world is a decaying corpse, while the Matrix is eternal.

 

• They are obsessed with the idea of digital transcendence, believing that one day they will fully upload their consciousness and become eternal ghosts in the machine. Some whisper about a mythical Digital Upload, an unearthly counterpart to the technomancer’s Resonance that promises this ascension.

 

• Their gothic ethos leans into nihilism but with a romantic twist, they find beauty in darkness and decay, whether it’s a crashed server or a forgotten data archive. They collect matrix relics, fragments of obsolete code or the ghosts in the machine they believe they meet, treating them like sacred artifacts.

 

• Rivalries: Sometime Matrix Goths clash with other Matrix groups, like the chrome obsessed cyber junkies who mock their emo aesthetic. They also avoid corporate wage slaves, who see their artistic hacker work as a nuisance.

 

• Allies: They occasionally trade with shadowrunners, offering Matrix intel for rare cyberware or cash to keep their tech running. Some Matrix Goths have a soft spot for free AIs, feeling that they are as misunderstood as they are. They enjoy in helping to hide them from corporate hunters.

 

• Challenges: Their constant Matrix immersion risks biofeedback damage or addiction to BTL, so called Better Than Life chips, which some use to enhance their virtual gothic fantasies.

 

• Isolation: Their dislike for the real world makes them vulnerable in physical confrontations, and they rely on hired muscle or drones if forced to meet offline. Often they will ask those goths that do not use the Matrix to assist them.

 

• Pursuit: Megacorporations hunt them for their technomancer members, seeing them as potential test subjects or threats to Matrix security.

 

• Signature Gear: Custom decks with black metallic casings, etched with occult symbols, skulls and tombstones.

  Matrix Goths have long tern goal, that being to find a way to bring a vampire, regardless of type into the matrix. The majority of researchers not part of the Matrix Goth think this to be an impossibility and extremely dangerous for both the Goths and infected.