[martinl]

Cortex bombs (or "dotbombs," as they were small and round) were an important part of the arc of my CyberPony saga. Nothing that would explode your skull - just enough to reliably kill the victim. Efficiency!)

The first act was a mostly straight pony-themed Shadowrun clone, where all the corps used cortex bombs on anyone of middling importance. (Low importance Glubies weren't worth it, and the ponocracy had the means to resist it.)

This meant that all shadygallopers, by default, had them. However, in the end of the first act the PCs scored big and retired with a big wad of hay, more than enough to get their cortex bombs removed.

Between the first and the second act was the "Dotbomb Bust" where some unidentified hacker figured out a way to override the controls of all the dotbombs at once. Too bad they set them all off instead of rendering them inert or similar.

Basically everypony in any corp job that required loyalty, plus a good chunk of the remaining government security services, plus assorted extras, all died in the same second.

I seriously doubt this is in any way original, but it was a fun way to force those PCs out of retirement for the second act.