Everything

The Computer Web stretches high over Spider City, high enough that the sky above looks like flickering static rather than the flat gray seen from below. The Computer Web is a spiritual reflection of the Internet, carrying data from every computer on Earth at some point or another. It appears like a giant, glowing spider web, holding globular nodes embodying data clusters. Each node contains a miniature electronic world all its own, and the strands represent the connections between computers.

Getting into the Web is relatively easy. Plugging a fetish computer into a Downtown terminal and rolling Intelligence + Computer (difficulty 6) can get someone to the Macro Level, as can touching a computer screen and making a difficulty 4 Gnosis roll. Technofetishes made with Informational Geomids offer access via any computer. Finally, a shapeshifter can climb the right strands of web to reach the Computer Web. Leaving the Macro Level means taking a special exit strand off the web or willing oneself out at the original entry point.

The Computer Web is divided up into the Macro and Micro Levels. The Macro Level is the actual structure of the Web where Geomids and net-spiders manage data along the lines. Shapeshifters move across the Macro Level by standing on a strand, visualizing their destination, and making a Willpower roll (difficulty 6). (Further rules for navigating the Web can be found on p. 330 of W20) Success instantly carries the shapeshifter where she wants to go. Ananasi, naturally attuned to the workings of the Weaver, can travel without need of a roll.

The Macro Level is studded with nodes of various sizes. Each node has a juncture terminal that allows access to the Micro Level with a Willpower roll (difficulty 6). Inside the Micro Level the shapeshifter must contend with Weaver-spirits called daemons that keep out anyone without proper pass codes, though some nodes are freely open to Downtown residents for recreation purposes.

Each cluster on the Micro Level is its own mini-realm shaped by the files represented there; someone’s saved game file is going to look a lot different from a realm of child pornography. A company’s secret files might take the form of physical filing cabinets easier to crack open than computer security in the material world. Data can be reshaped and altered by destroying or defacing physical representations of files. Information deleted from the mundane Internet can sometimes be found in a dusty, abandoned backup node.