5 Cyberpunk Enemies

24 Jun, 2026

I've been putting too many turrets, guards, and human shaped droids with guns in my cyberpunk games, so it's time to add some creatures/monsters/messed up dudes. I struggle a little bit with finding the line where a creature is a little too whacky for my conception of cyberpunk, we will find it by approaching it and eventually crossing it.

I'll be statting for Cy_borg, but conversion shouldn't be too hard.

Arachnoid

HP: 10
Armor: -d4 (metal)
Morale: n/a
Attack d6 claw + Grapple
Stem Extraction: Extends a surgical knife from its mouth into the neck of a grappled target, extracting their Stem.

Physically identical to humans save for their steel exterior, Arachnoids are high-expense service droids used for infiltration or as low-profile guards. When threatened or ordered to attack, Arachnoids bend backward until their arms reach the ground, then extend 4 additional metal limbs from their torso.

Arachnoids use their strong front legs to wrap and hold targets, before using an extraction device stored in their throat to remove their Stem. Arachnoids are prized for their ability to extract Stems safely, making them a perfect tool for kidnappings.

Inspo

This is a riff on the geisha robots in Ghost in the Shell. In the live action movie in particular, the way they shift into moving on four limbs and then stick a wire in your neck is visually striking (read: fucked up and gross). It’s probably the only good part of the live-action movie, which, beyond this scene, enrages me. That’s a story for another post, though.

Black Mask

HP: 16
Armor: - d2 (Clockwork)
Morale: 10
Attack: Two Titanium swords, d6 each, throwable
Wind Up Soldier: A Black Mask can spend their turn winding the key on their chest. When they do so, they gain d4 Winds, which they can spend in the following ways:

• Reflect bullets: When a Black Mask is shot at with a projectile, they can spend a wind to reflect the bullet back at the shooter. The shooter can dodge by testing Agility DR 12, otherwise they take damage as normal.
• Quick Escape A Black Mask can spend all of their Winds (at least 3) to run 5 times faster than a normal human, for 1 minute, at which point they must rest for 5 minutes before using any other Winds or running further.
• Improved Reflexes: When a Black Mask is attacked, they can spend any number of winds to reduce an attack roll against them by 1.
  Self Destruct: When a Black Mask dies, if they have any Winds stored, their armor explodes, leaving the body unrecognizable and dealing a d4 of damage for each Wind left in the armor to creatures around them.

Nobody knows who commands the Black Masks, and no one wants to get close enough to ask one. Black Masks wear tight, featureless, black helmets over top of intricate clockwork armor with a Winding Key on the front. On the rare occasion they are captured on footage, the cranking of the Winding Key is the last sound the recorder hears.

In reality, Black Masks are a reclusive family that earns its living as assassins, working only for clients who have historically patronized them. Most notably, this includes the CEO of Adaora Clinics, Dr. Adaora, whose grandparents helped design the clockwork chrome of the original Black Masks.

Black Masks are trained from birth and fitted with clockwork chrome by age 10. They are expected to perform their first Job by 14. They would die before revealing their secret.

There is only one other way to become a Black Mask besides being born one. If you kill a Black Mask and salvage their armor and mask for yourself, you will be visited by others who will invite you to join their ranks, or kill you, should you decline.

Inspo

What if the cool mask guy in Hellboy, but not a nazi this time. I wrote the origin of the Black Masks in my setting here, but I think this is the sort of dude I could put in a lot of games. They don't even necessarily need a specific origin. In a fantasy game they could even just be a weird creature or malevolent spirit or something. I dunno. There's always a way to work a weird clock guy into a setting.

Replicant

HP: 8
Armor: -d2
Morale: 8
Attack: d8 Bite
Code Injection: d4 + Injected Code Corruption (see table below)
Injected Code Corruptions Any code injection can be undone by a medical professional for 500 credits. You can have more than one at a time.

1. Your skin becomes clammy. You can breathe underwater, but you must keep yourself moist at all times or suffer a -1 penalty to all Strength Tests.
2. You grow a tail. It can be used as a melee weapon, dealing 1d4 damage. when you damage someone with your tail, they roll on this table.
3. All of your hair falls out.
4. You develop lumps and tumors that painfully force you into a hunched posture, reducing your Max HP by 1.
5. Your skin becomes hardened and inflexible. It acts as armor -d2. You take a -2 Penalty to all Agility Tests.
6. Your body rejects grains and any meat that isn't raw.

Gray, hairless, moist, and clammy. Shaped like a lumpy rottweiler with an extendable pointed tail. Replicants descend from animal cloning experiments gone wrong, their bodies filled with rapidly multiplying and ever-changing genetic code. Without release, they mutate further and further, inevitably resulting in an ugly death.

Replicants don’t sleep. They roam the alleys of the slums and industrial districts, waiting for groups of humans they outnumber. Replicants use their tails to inject their corrupted genetic code into their victims, relieving their genetic overload and infecting the target with their corrupted genetic data.

5-0 keeps the gated communities and high-rise districts Replicant-free, but poorer districts are flooded with the pests.

Inspo

I thought it would be kind of fucked if Sammael, the monster from Hellboy (can you tell I watched it recently) had a stinger or an ovipositor. Instead of eggs, Replicants inject data. Feel like cyberpunk needs some animal experiments, not just human ones. I decided the yucky part of Sammy to me is the moistness. It looks so clammy! it probably makes squelching noises when it stomps on you. Shivers. I don’t like it! So that’s the part I decided to keep here.

The Crawler

HP: 18 Armor: -d4 Morale: 11 Attack d6 Slash to two targets
Disarm Test Strength DR 12 or the Crawler tears one of your arms off, dealing d8 damage.

When you hear the scraping of metal on mooncrete behind you, it's already too late.

Her upper half is hidden behind messy strands of hair, adorned with dead skin and clumped together with a mixture of congealed blood, dirt, and sweat.

A chariot of her victims makes up her lower half. tangled gears, wires, and decaying, disembodied arms and legs drag her about the city.

The Crawler doesn't speak. What's left of her mind is broken, living only to inflict her suffering on others.

After the Crawler kills a human, she tears their limbs from their body.

Where did the Crawler come from?

1. She was tortured for content. Now she hunts down anyone who watches the clip.
2. She was part of a Helianthus run experiment on new Stem technology that corrupted her mind. In a fit of insanity, she sawed off her own legs.
3. She lost her legs in a workplace accident. Since she didn't die, Helianthus refused to provide a new Frame. She built her own legs and hunts down corporate executives.
4. She was hit by the subway and split in half. No one helped her, and she crawled to a back-alley surgeon to have chrome legs installed. She takes her revenge on subway riders.
5. Her father was an illicit surgeon and chrome developer who experimented on her. He was her first victim.
6. She was part of a crew of Runners and was left to die after an explosion blew her limbs off. She is hunting her previous comrades.

Inspo

I’ve always thought the [Teke Teke](tab: https://yokai.com/teketeke/) is a neat story. In most versions, she’s just out for revenge, but in cyberpunk, I like the extra wrinkle that, in addition to vengefully killing randos, she can build a mechanical replacement for her legs from their limbs. Also, while writing this one, I realized that in cyberpunk games, limbs are fairly replaceable. You can just buy them. That means I can have enemies tear limbs off of characters much more often without feeling bad about it!

Ball Droid

HP: 8
Armor: -d4 Morale: - Attack d6a submachinegun Turret mode: Can't move, armor increases to -d6, Attack improves to d8a Machinegun

Sometimes called pill bugs or beetles, Ball Droids are the most common security droid on the market. When moving, they roll up, leaving only their armored exterior visible. Two small legs extend when they stop, stabilizing them for submachine gun fire, but exposing their mechanics to return fire.

Built for mobile and stationary needs, a Ball Droid can plant its legs into the ground and create an armored dome around its surface. In turret mode, a Ball Droid trades mobility for enhanced defenses and even more firepower.

Ball Droids are among the most common security droids in warehouses, factories, and lower-budget sub corporations. Higher-budget corporations prefer droids that look human, as they make customers more comfortable.

Inspo

These are just the ball guys from Star Wars. I felt like aesthetically, the standard security droid being human-shaped led to a lack of variety in my enemies, too many humanoids with guns. The ball droids provide a simple, recognizable enemy, while still offering a little visual variety. Turret mode adds an extra thing to think about while keeping them simple enough to be a common enemy type.