Parthos Wiki: The South Side

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The South Side

Overview

The South Side gangs are, generally, a violent and chaotic lot made up of local toughs and disaffected youth drawn from poor, blighted neighborhoods. Unlike the professionalized North Side guilds, who court highly skilled individuals from a wide geographic range, most South Side gang members are not especially trained, grew up in the neighborhood, and join the gang because it offers structure, stability, and a degree of protection not found elsewhere in their lives. South Side gangs bind themselves together with elaborate -- but easily-discarded -- codes of honor that purport to maintain love, loyalty and trust within the group, but silence and hostility toward outsiders. The only group that reliably adheres to such a code, however, is Bharzak's Gang, and the gray dwarves are an anomaly in the South Side in many ways.

The South Side gangs engage in crime that is simultaneously more petty and more violent than is common on the North Side. Extortion of local businesses is common, as are attacks on those that fail to pay up. Assaults, burglaries, and muggings are also part of the standard repertoire; most South Side thugs find it easier to hit a victim over the head and take his purse rather than bother with the hassle of cutting its strings from stealth. All the South Side gangs, except Bharzak's people, sell adulterated street drugs to corner buyers, although none has the connections to obtain the raw materials direct from the source, and so they are forced to go through the Blind Ravens or another better-connected party to get their materials. Street prostitution and low-end gambling houses round out the scope of their business.

Violence between South Side gangs is a regular part of life in the city's slums. The gangs are forever challenging one another for status, territory, and in retaliation for previous attacks on their members. The city guard tends to ignore these conflicts except when bystanders are harmed (and even then, most guard captains pay little attention unless the bystander was a "real citizen" as opposed to one of the lost souls that drift through the slums) or when the fights threaten to spill out of the gang-controlled blocks.

The major South Side groups are as follows:

The Black Dogs

One of the three main neighborhood gangs, the Black Dogs have slipped to the weakest of the bunch due to uncertainty in their leadership and resultant infighting. As they lose members to brawling injuries, arrests, and the normal attrition over time, their grip on local businesses has weakened, causing a reduction in income and further loss of membership. If the cycle is not stopped soon, the Black Dogs may be routed and their territory seized by another gang -- a fate that the current Dogs are desperate to avoid.

The Bloody Knuckles

The second of the three main neighborhood gangs, the Bloody Knuckles are named for their early days as a bunch of bare-fisted fighters culled from the ranks of longshoremen and deserting sailors. They continue to pride themselves on being the best fighters out of the three South Side gangs, a claim which the others hotly dispute but have not defeated.

Bharzak's Gang

This dour band of gray dwarves runs the warehouses on the Fingers and is known throughout the city as the best source for illicit arms and armor trafficked in a long chain stretching from the Irontooths to Tartessos. The duergar keep to themselves, seldom speaking to or troubling with outsiders except as absolutely necessary for their business. Their discipline, secrecy, and non-human nature combine to make them alien and intimidating to the other South Side gangs. No one knows what sin led Bharzak's duergar to be exiled from their homeland, but their sternness was forged in circumstances far deadlier than the worst of the Coeur's underworld. The gray dwarves fight to kill, not to frighten, and no one crosses them now. Provoking them is never worth the trouble.

The Pipers

Third and last of the main neighborhood gangs, the Pipers draw most of their income from peddling smokerock to the wraith-thin addicts that haunt their decaying neighborhoods after dark. They are named for their favorite weapon, two-foot lengths of metal pipe with which they break faces and kneecaps with equal glee. It is said that the Pipers use drugs to make themselves fearless and insensible to pain before getting into a big fight, although the Pipers themselves claim that their ferocity is all-natural and they need no chemical bravery.

Parthos Wiki : SouthSide