In-character introduction

Redmond, Seattle. Yeah, what a drek-hole, but it’s all you’ve got. The place is a testament to what happens when the corps suck a region dry and then abandon it. Buildings are falling apart, there’s no fresh water, no cops, barely any matrix coverage and nobody has the cred to get out.

In a place like this, you’ve gotta’ gang up if you want to survive and for the past few years you’ve been a member of The Foundry Brothers. As gangs go, they’re pretty good peeps. That’s not to say that they’re holy white, they run a protection racket and push a few street-chems but they’re the best of a bad bunch by a real stretch.

The slums you call home

The Brothers run out of a neighbourhood named New Prosperity, no joke. The corpos, lead by Mitsuhama, had a big regeneration and redevelopment drive twenty six years back. Slot me sideways but they even had the heavy construction drones out in force, building up new factories and homes. When everyone’s looking for an opportunity so hard, they’ll accept anything as evidence from on-high that change is just around the corner.

Wageslaves flocked to the neighbourhood like ticks to a swamp; they signed long-term contracts, the standard was 10 years, to rent a home that wasn’t built yet. It was all on the promised opportunity of a job at one of the big new factories, advertising for “highly skilled workers”. You can guess what comes next, right? It would have been expected if the corpos laid off all of the workers and replaced them with drones but not even that.

One day every construction project was just abandoned all at once; the construction drones all rolled off back to HQ and everything was left half-finished. Sure the newscast (when you could get a connection to the net) did some pieces about it; “shifting priorities” the suits said. Longer-term residents might remember that holovid that went around for a while; exposing how the corpos took a load of UCAS grants to rejuvenate the Redmond Barrens. Apparently they found a loophole that meant they never had to finish the project. Dunno if that’s drek or real though, who can trust anything you see in the media thesedays?

After the shutdown, Mitsuhama promised to do right by the people who’d moved into the area on the promise of work, people who were saddled with debts and contracts which they couldn’t get out from under. Don’t you think it’s strange how when you make a contract with a corpo they always make sure they get their end, but when they make their own promises it don’t mean drek? Of course none of the help ever materialised, people were stuck paying for half-built homes and relocated for jobs that never appeared.

The whole thing just dragged more honest folk out into the Redmond barrens to rot. I bet the only ones happy with the deal were the 162s. They love it when new folk turn up, clueless enough not to know that you don’t go out alone at night in Redmond. A lot of souls went out that way in the first few months, some might say they got out the easy way.

So now, New Prosperity, like most of the rest of Redmond, has been left to the wild. The infrastructure is either missing, or needs repair, or has to be jury-rigged with substandard parts. The Brothers try to keep the peace in their little part, so it’s not complete anarchy. Don’t think for a second you’re gonna’ see Lone Star down here though. If you ever do, run, because you can be sure they’re planning on scragging anything that moves.

The Foundry Brothers

You’re with The Brothers, here’s a little more about them. Trace far enough back and you’ll find out that they’re an offshoot from another Redmond gang, The Crimson Crush. The only one who could tell you for sure why the split was croaked a few months ago though. That was Davic Bonnie, the old leader of The Brothers. Davic even used to be a high-ranking lieutenant in The Crush before he split and took everyone loyal with him. Word in the gang is that The Crush gave him an order he wouldn’t follow. There’s been bad blood between The Brothers and The Crush ever since. It’s especially bad because thir turfs are so close together in Redmond.

The name of the gang was taken from New Prosperity; so many of the folk in the neighboarhood were supposed to be engineers and factory techs. The Foundry Brothers run New Prosperity and for the most part do a reasonable job. Like The Crush they strongly oppose metahuman racism but they’re much more liberal about who they admit. Almost half of the members of The Brothers are human now.

Davic was killed out on a night-time mission a few months ago though, a dumb way to die. He was caught by a stray bullet in a firefight when some ghouls attacked out of nowhere. Ever since, the Brothers have had a new leader: Sylvie Walder.

As for yourselves, you’ve risen up through the ranks of The Brothers; you’re now a trusted lietenant. Along with a few others, you make up a team who are Sylvie’s go-to-guys when it comes to missions that are either too risky or too important to send the regular goons, who might screw it all up.

The Brothers under Sylvie

Sylvie is one tough elf, she’s been with The Brothers ever since they split from The Crush and was always Davic’s right hand woman. She was really cut up when he got slotted but a day later, after nobody else put themselves forward, she stepped up and took the reins. After a few weeks, she asked around about changing the name of the gang. Nobody was really interested and nobody wanted to re-paint all of the street tags. Eventually she conceded and exclaimed that “women can be brothers too”.

Things seem to have been improving under her leadership. She has been putting the gang on missions to improve New Prosperity and try to give people some kind of security. The gang takes a cut from local businesses in exchange for this but it’s not even as much as the corpos charge downtown. For the most part the gang is pretty even-handed.

The day of the first mission

It is early afternoon, Tuesday, 8th March 2072. There’s a commotion at the gang HQ, a building that was supposed to be a motorcycle production facility. Now there’s a small legitimate business running out of there, customising and repairing bikes.

The goons are abuzz and the chat is about seeing a member of The Crimson Crush being dragged off the street blindfolded and into a room. Sylvie wants to see all of you immediately.