I Spend An Inappropriate Amount Of Time Thinking About My Cyberpunk Ocs, So I Figured I'd Write A Little

I spend an inappropriate amount of time thinking about my cyberpunk ocs, so I figured I'd write a little about some of my design principles for making a cyberpunk character that fits well into the world! These are just some of the guidelines I use for making characters that helps me flesh them out better. This is something I’ve had the idea to do for a bit, but you all also seem to love my ocs which only furthers my insanity!! Thank you all for my interest in them, it makes me so happy 😭

-Basing around an npc

For both Kerberos and Garnett, I based their characters around npcs present in the game, but this only works well in specific cases. For both of their bases, these are characters without major significance. Garnett's base, the sniper commando in the Black Sapphire sniper nest, is an npc with no name, no reoccurrence, and no real significance outside the scene where you knock him out. While this npc can be killed, you kind of have to go out of your way to do so. This left me with a good blank slate of a character to work with! Even better, this npc has motivation I was able to use. V knocks him out, steals his gun, and he presumably faces the consequences of not detecting and dispatching an intruder. While not all of my cyberpunk ocs are based around npcs, I find that it can make things a lot easier and more fun!

-Connection to V

This is actually a principle my girlfriend came up with, and I think it's not only useful, but can also be really fucking funny. Connections to any existing character are fun to develop, but I personally find V’s connections to be most interesting. V's had an influence on the better part of Night City in one way or another, and probably on your ocs too! While this influence can be positive or negative, I think it's way funnier if it's negative. Thinking realistically though, how many people is V the antagonist to? For Garnett, she snatches his huge expensive gun and gets him demoted. He may not hate her (he's too damn nice) but she undoubtably makes his life harder. For Kerberos, V's ultimately the one that kills Slider, another powerful netrunner in Dogtown. This has no direct effect on him, but it sure sets his nerves on end, and influences his story further down the road. Of course, it can get a little unrealistic to have every one of your ocs have this sort of connection, but be real, V's fucking everywhere, and their actions in the grand scheme of things will have an effect on your oc somewhere. I find its funniest when two ocs that have had separate interactions with V get to talking and realize they’ve been fucked over by the same person 😭

-Finding your niche

Any oc, whether they're a truly original character in an original storyline, or a fan character like I'm discussing, has a distinct place they fit into their world. With cyberpunk, a pre existing universe with its own rigidities, there's a billion things to consider when trying to find just where an oc fits, but that's the fun part! Which existing characters do they know, which are their allies and which their enemies? Who do they work for currently, and who in the past? Where are they from? How'd they end up where they are now? And the all important question of why the fuck are they still in Night City There's a LOT to consider when keeping things realistic, but don't get ahead of yourself. It's cyberpunk, and realism shouldn't be all you're shooting for! If you're not finding quite the right spot, don't be afraid to change things a little! It's virtually impossible to stick to canon 100% when making ocs for anything, so you might as well do shit your own way.

-Personal pieces

Almost every major npc in cyberpunk has a custom weapon, and some have custom vehicles as well. Both of these factors, I feel, are as crucial as anything else when making a cyberpunk oc. In Night City, your iron and your wheels are second only to your life. A lot can be said about a character by the weapon they wield. Is this just something they use to protect themselves, or is their weapon something they treat as an extension of their body? A tool or their baby? The same goes for vehicles. Is this some barely functional hunk of metal that gets them around, or would they scream and cry over the smallest scratch? Garnett's custom weapon, "Houndstooth", a brass knuckle trench knife, isn't something he has a particular attachment to. Sure he named it, sure its saved his life once or twice, but to him, it's just a knife. His car on the other hand, "Courser", a highly customized Quadra type-66 640 TS, is absolutely everything to him. It gets graffitied and he clutches his chest like he's been shot. First adding these, they seemed like trivial details akin to fun facts to me, but the more I developed on them, the more they contributed to his character. I say every part is my favorite to develop, but there's something about the weapons and vehicles I have a ton of fun with.

Done reading? Thank you hehe ok go work on your ocs NOW!!

VINCE 2.0 IS DONE! I need to stop one upping myself with my character refs. im flying too close to the sun here

template, which I took a LOT of assets from, made by @elenaril

Kurt's Office Concept art by Ward Lindhout

SIGHTHOUND

Alright, I can give you all a little Garnett lore now >:)

Garnett grew up at the foot of the badlands dam, in a little neighborhood ever-consumed in the smog of burning trash. At 17, along with his brothers Adrian and Gabriel, Garnett joined 6th Street and served with them for almost a decade. He joined 6th Street with aspirations of protecting the community he knew as family, but was met with a gang like any other. Extortion, drug manufacturing, theft. He stayed to be by his brothers’ side as long as he could force himself to, determined to stay with the only family he had left, but finally left after being ordered to kill a shopkeeper who refused to pay for 6th Street’s “protection”. The soldiers he’d served beside beat him half to death for what they dubbed cowardice, and with nowhere else to turn, he went to Dogtown, where Colonel Hansen nearly finished the beating 6th Street started. But Garnett was more than determined to prove himself. A man with his combat training and experience with the public was accepted into BARGHEST with open arms, excelling through training and taking flight as a soldier. He started out in the Prevention Unit, a seeming fit for a former militia member, but Garnett’s prowess was wasted there at the gate where a scanner did all the work. He was eagle-eyed, attentive beyond belief and quick to react. Briefly he worked as a sniper with units collecting airdrops, quickly moving up to working security in the stadium, and after 2 years, Garnett would find himself in the Black Sapphire’s own sniper nest. From there on top of the world, he hardly realized how far his aspirations had gone astray. Once aiming to protect his community, he’d become a guard dog for the rich and powerful. And soon, it’d all be ripped out from under him. 

Sorry for the novel, I'm deranged about my ocs lol. Garnett's one of the protags for my PL side plot, so there'll be a lot more about him to follow!! I'm gonna be doing a little diagram of his tattoos and cyberware next, and I'll include some more facts about him for fun. I'm so obsessed with my ocs apologies in advance.

Can't look into your eyes Your twisted mind It's dark, so dark

Based on the poster of Challengers

I mean, to satisfy her lust for revenge, she'd pull me outta hell.

(Retargeted classics poses by @arcandoria, coming soon)