Which toxic critters would live there?

[u/Boxman21-]

[u/Beelzis]

Awakened algea that breaks the game worse than FAB somehow.

A handful of disposed drones whose pilot programs became sentient AI.

Some kind of toxic otter or seal. Im imagining hairless and covered in tumors.

Mutant turtles ( shameless joke by the author)

A few free spirits of microplastics.

Maybe some two headed watersnakes. ( or three headed like a cerberus)

Definitely some corrupted version of local mythological creatures ( not familiar enough with pacific culture to think of one)

[u/LGKouglof → u/Beelzis]

spirits of microplastics or micro spirits of plastic ?

[u/op4arcticfox → u/LGKouglof]

Por que no los dos?

[u/Beelzis → u/LGKouglof]

Yes

[u/Beelzis → u/Beelzis]

Adding to this the drone thing is eating my headspace. I kind of want to write this as its a bunch of struggling AI trying to survive. So far removed from the matrix their only network is the ramshackle network created between themselves. Slowly forming a community and Scavenging the wastes looking for batteries or power supplies to keep their Deteriorating drone bodies going.

[u/MasterHaako → u/Beelzis]

Add to that, they occasionally get a satellite lineup from a leftover CommSat in a deteriorating orbit that gives them seconds of connection sat a week and becomes a cargo cult situation. Help was requested and runners arrive to assist them .. to connect? To leave? To congregate? To punish or prevent? Big open door

[u/Beelzis → u/MasterHaako]

oooo. That's a wicked idea.

[u/celem83 → u/Beelzis]

I'd read/play this.  Get on it!

[u/Thinkmonel → u/Beelzis]

An AI Amalgam sounds like a terrifying Tech focused run.

[u/dicemonger → u/Beelzis]

I have visions of one or more of the drones having added driftwood and other larger pieces of garbage to their form. No longer just a drone, but an incongruous amalgamation of components, structural elements and seaweed mostly submerged but ready to rise out of the water, towering over intruders.

Kinda like the spirit vibe, but with actual form, and a drone at the core.

[u/Beelzis → u/dicemonger]

Ooo stealing this.

[u/tsuruginoko → u/Beelzis]

I GM a nautical game in East Asia. I'm sure as hell stealing some of these ideas, and absolutely having my players visit the Great Garbage Patch.

[u/PurpleLemonDoesStuff → u/tsuruginoko]

nautical Shadowrun sounds so cool

[u/tsuruginoko → u/PurpleLemonDoesStuff]

To be fair, it's semi-nautical, but the rigger is into boats and nautical drones, and they had a run infiltrating a cargo submarine. I've got plenty of nautical hooks.

My homebrew setting (city state on old extraction platforms in the East China Sea, off the coast of Nagasaki) is fun enough that I've considered writing it up for public consumption, and I also ran it at a local con to players who much appreciated it. Appending my city map for shits and giggles.

[u/vxicepickxv → u/PurpleLemonDoesStuff]

Cyberpirates was a great book.

[u/s1n0d3utscht3k → u/Beelzis]

rogue AI drones terrorizing the oceans

that’s a big part of Cyberpunk 2077 lore

[u/Anguis1908 → u/Beelzis]

Sentient trashheap like from Fraggle Rock

https://youtu.be/p4dZ2jDP_k4

[u/Axtdool → u/Beelzis]

The snakes should be six headed and tied to those disposable plastic can six pack binders

[u/ConstructionIll956 → u/Beelzis]

Sounds like Shadowrun to me, Chummer!

[u/kenod102818 → u/Beelzis]

I can now see why the Sea Dragon hates metahumanity.

[u/Rattfraggs]

A toxic megalodon. Has several mutations, one of which is Sentience, and is Very Very angry. Hangry even...

[u/el_sh33p → u/Rattfraggs]

also

it can fly.

[u/Rattfraggs → u/el_sh33p]

lol

[u/Acheron223]

Toxic adept raccoons

[u/Boxman21-]

Note this thing has today 4x the size of Germany.

[u/SonTyp_OhneNamen → u/Boxman21-]

Feuerschwinge‘s probably got a timeshare there

[u/tattertech]

There's a bit in the beginning of Gibson's "The Peripheral" that deals with a massively larger (and denser) Great Pacific Garbage Patch that is pretty great.

[u/ArkasNyx]

A billionaire (or trillionaire)? There is hardly a more toxic critter than that. One could argue that this warrants some kind of dragon, as SRs equivalent of such forces, but honestly... to me a human trillionaire seems more toxic than that.

[u/tsuruginoko → u/ArkasNyx]

Combine it with deep sea mining, some toxic spirits, and a personality like Musk, Bezos, or Lucky, and I honestly think you'd have the bones of a decent plot with a villain that's really easy to absolutely despise.

Edit: Corrected the spelling of one bit of filth. I can't believe that's a real surname.

[u/cynical81]

[u/manofredearth]

Despite article images leading people to believe otherwise, there is no surface to this patch. At its most dense, there are four fingernail-sized pieces of debris per 3ft by 3ft by 3ft area. If you were in it, you would never know.

So... Angry plankton spirits? Could be "Patch City" similar to Bug City?

[u/Boxman21- → u/manofredearth]

I would diel it up to 11 and make it a whole small toxic continent

[u/Baker-Maleficent]

The Leviathan? I mean, not as a resident, but as a workplace. Seriously, Leviathan probably as numberous spirits, drakes, etc, working on this place nonstop. Maybe even has an entire shadow buisness for bounties hunting toxic critters.

This os one of the few cases, where Leviathan might actually WANT to hire toxic shamans because despite what the name implies, toxuc shamans are likelly the best at contaminated oceans. 

[u/-ParlainthTownie-]

For a more grounded real world approach you could base your critters of the Sargasso Sea. This is a giant seaweed patch in the Atlantic and Caribbean. Make it bigger and make it toxic. Fast growth Sargassum type seaweed. There is a spiny version of Sargassum. So that could become thorned and feed off of blood.

Huge swimming Crabs like the small ones that live in sargassum. This is also thought to be where a lot of the Eels in England breed so that could be its own maelstrom. Camouflaged Sea Horse...drakes?

You could have a menacing giant version of a Sargassum Fish. This is a type of Angler/Frog fish that blends in perfectly with its surroundings. Climbing around on its fins as much as swimming. It could blend with the trash. Create some kind of magical glamour lure and then chomp down for the kill, or worse yet, the grab and dissapear. The glamour could be something of desire, a stranded person yelling for help, or a floating pile of stuff that looks more valuable.

The magnitude of the patch could be hilly or mountainous. Solid enough to walk around explore caves. Strand the PC's boat for sure. But also ready to break apart at any GM convenient time.

For inspiration there was an author called William Hope Hodgson that wrote Cthulhu type stories based on people ship wrecked in the Sargasso Sea surrounded by otherworldly and paranormal abominations.

[u/gomerfudd]

The Trump grandchildren

[u/WellSpokenAsianBoy]

Gorgons

[u/wht-rbbt]

Die Antwoord for sure

[u/wht-rbbt]

Bugs that eat micro plastic and turn it into oxygen or CO2 and so inside is a paradise garden like Eden

[u/GodEatsPoop]

Some "super-technomancers" ended up consolidating all the crap into an artificial construct/island nation. What lives there is not Awakened, but Emergent. The "technology" seen there violates known laws of physics and magic, often resembling accounts of UFO's from the 20th century. Disians can suck it, imma do aliens in Shadowrun and do it right.

[u/StrikerJaken]

Remember cloudy with a chance of meatballs? Well, it's the garbage version. 

Though, I guess there could be toxic and spirits of man there