NYTE City Glossary — Shadows RPG

The city
Money and identity
Getting around
The hidden world
At the table

The city

NYTE City: The megalopolis that covers the entire Eastern Seaboard in 2099, and the setting of Shadows. Corporations plot private wars from the skyscrapers, people fight to survive at street level, and something older moves underneath it all. The city is not a backdrop: it notices what you do, and it responds. The World →
Territory: One of the six regions NYTE City is divided into, and the largest division that matters. Each has its own industries, and its own corporations, paramilitaries, hacker enclaves and criminal underworlds to go with them. The Shape of the City →
Zone: The division inside a Territory, usually one metro or stretch of country: Metro Core, Liberty Yards, Magic City. Zones break down into Districts, and Districts into Neighborhoods. Naming the city →
Combat Zone: Ground the city stopped paying to fix: districts where rebuilding stopped making sense and the line item moved to containment. People live there. Nothing else works: no response, no record, no consequence. What's in the Dark →
The LINK: NYTE City's network. Payments, messages, records, and reputations all move through it, which makes it the first place anyone looks for you. Hackers work the LINK with terminal rigs; everyone else just leaves a trail in it.
SMARTbrace: The personal device most residents carry. It's how people call you, message you, and reach you through the LINK, and it's usually the thing buzzing right before a quiet night stops being quiet.
CRANK: The Contract Retrieval and Networking Knowledgebase: the gray market's answer to corporate employment. Anonymous job postings, reputation-based matching, and payment in Skrip. It connects people with skills to people with problems, no TAG required.

Money and identity

TAG: Trusted Authentication Gateway: the government-issued digital identity every resident carries. It's your ID, your wallet, your door key, and how people reach you. It's also a tracking device. A TAG means the city knows where you are, what you buy, and who you talk to. The economy →
TAGless: Living without a TAG: no government identity, no UBI, and life entirely inside the Skrip economy. It's a legitimate choice, and it comes with real limits.
Çredits (Ç): The digital currency of the legitimate economy: corporate payroll, licensed vendors, government business. Every Çredit spent leaves a record of who bought what, from whom, when, and where.
Skrip ($): Physical cash, untraceable by design and worth about the same as a Çredit. Fixers, black-market vendors, and anyone working the gray economy deal in Skrip, because a Skrip deal is a transaction that doesn't exist as far as any system is concerned.
UBI: The Universal Basic Income that comes with a TAG. It covers a coffin box, fast food, and not much else, and going TAGless means giving it up.

Getting around

Grounder: Anything that moves at street level, wheeled or hover. Automated Grounder taxis are how most of NYTE City gets around, and every fare is logged.
Jumper: Aerial vehicles working the city's vertical traffic grid, above the jams at street level. Faster than a Grounder, and a lot harder to miss when one lands.

The hidden world

Aether: The force that infuses the universe, and what magic is made of. Arcanists don't command it from a distance; they channel it through their own bodies, and it resists being shaped. Every spell is strain, focus, and risk. Magic →
Glyph: The building block of a spell: a shaped expression of Aether that stands for one idea, like Fire, Gravity or Memory. Glyphs fall into five Domains, and every Glyph added to a spell makes it do more and makes it harder to hold. Magic →
Grimoire: An Arcanist's working journal of the spells they've made their own. It has to be written by hand, because a Glyph doesn't survive being photographed or scanned. Lose it and the spells stay in your head; you just can't teach them until you write it again.
Resonance: What magic leaves behind. Aether forced through a body doesn't vanish when the spell ends: it lingers on the caster and in the place it was spent, as scorch marks and a thread in the air that anyone who knows how to look can read.
NCI: Neurocybernetic Interpreter: the implant that links flesh and machine, with a pseudo-AI managing the systems and the user's intent. Without one, you own good parts and use them one at a time. With one, you run a loadout. Professional →
The Unseen Court: The old powers of NYTE City, and the council they convene when something needs deciding. Four seats, one each for the Vampires, the Werewolves, the Deadmen and the Fae, and a matter carries when three agree. The Court has never wanted to rule the city. It wants to stay unseen, govern its own, and keep collecting what the city pays it without noticing. Arcanists have no seat and have never been offered one. Who Runs It →
The four houses: Vampire, Werewolf, Deadman and Fae: the four houses of the Unseen Court. Each governs its own people entirely, and the Court only decides what happens between them, and between any of them and the city. Vampires split further into bloodlines. Vampire →
Thin Place: Somewhere the separation between here and elsewhere has worn through. Distances don't resolve and time runs uneven. Passing through is usually fine; staying isn't. What's in the Dark →
Deadmen: The dead who didn't finish, and the oldest of the four houses on the Unseen Court. They were here first, by a margin nobody argues with: slowed and quiet, but aware, and entirely capable of holding a grudge. Who Runs It →
Goblin Market: A market in a pocket dimension attached to NYTE City, reached through access points across the Territories and findable only by people who already know it's there. It sells what can't be sold anywhere else, and it stays neutral because its Laws aren't negotiable. Who Runs It →
Fae courts: The Fae negotiate contracts with finer print than any corporation, and they never miss a clause. They also own K-pop. Their single seat on the Unseen Court rotates between Winter and Summer, so the Fae position on anything depends on when you ask. Who Runs It →

At the table

CRB: The Shadows Core Rulebook, still being written. Rules Preview is a look inside it. Rules Preview →
Synergy System: The d10 system Shadows runs on. One die resolves almost anything a scene throws at you, and it's built to keep the story moving rather than stall the table. Stats & Skills →
Archetype: Everyone in Shadows starts human. Your Archetype is the path out: Professional or Arcanist if you stay mortal, Vampire or Werewolf if you don't, or a Custom Archetype you build with your GM. Archetypes →
Power Level: The scale a campaign plays at, agreed before it starts: four tiers, from Street Level up to World Coming Down. Power Levels →

Now you speak the language. Meet the Archetypes →