System

Punktown is a setting sourcebook for Call of Cthulhu (BRP) that blends the neon-lit despair of Blade Runner with the cosmic dread of the Cthulhu Mythos. Set in the city of Paxton (colloquially “Punktown”) on the planet Oasis, it completely recontextualizes the cyberpunk genre. Instead of the typical struggle of “high tech, low life” against corporate greed, you are navigating a crowded megalopolis populated by exhausted clones, mutated humans, and alien refugees, all unknowingly living on the doorstep of other dimensions. The horror here isn’t just about getting shot by a corpo death squad; it’s about discovering that the new designer drug on the street is actually a chemical compound distilled from a shoggoth, or that the cybernetic eye you just installed is allowing you to see entities that eat time.

Mechanically, it uses the familiar d100 Call of Cthulhu engine, which makes it distinct from action-heavy cyberpunk games like Shadowrun or Cyberpunk RED. Because you are playing with the lethal, fragility-focused BRP system, combat is terrifying and best avoided. You aren’t a bullet-sponge street samurai; you are an investigator—perhaps a “Health Agent” tracking alien plagues or a mutant detective—who is just as likely to die from a sanity-shattering realization as from a laser blast. The setting introduces rules for cybernetics, mutations, and alien tech, but they are treated with the same perilous weight as magic in standard Lovecraft games: powerful, dangerous, and often costing you your humanity.

Source book

Intent

There’s very little material for Punktown - there are 3 scenarios in the sourcebook, but I don’t think there is more beyond that.

I’d like to use this as a trial to see if I’m motivated to try a different cyberpunk milieu. Punktown is low cost of entry for me because I’m already familiar with Call of Cthulhu