Chapter 5: Underworld War

[Mooncalf]

Welcome to Chapter 5. This chapter will last almost 3 months, and end on the 31st of March.


Introduction

After the crackdown on crime by the new Mayor, the balance of power in the city shifted quickly. Regular gangs became less able to operate or move product, and so they began turning on one another and fighting over whichever scraps were left. Soon after, supernatural humans and vampire factions began to step in to fill the void left where many pure-blood human gangs had failed. They were able to bypass security checks with various supernatural tricks, and many didn't even need to carry a gun at all.

But the superhuman gangs of Harper Rock each had their own agenda, and many were hungry for yet more power or money or influence over what many now see as the most important city in the world. The Exiled Brotherhood - a faction of rogue vampires with no regard for vampiric secrecy - made a move to take River Rock from the sorcerer-lead Yongheng family of Triads, and a group of vampires calling themselves The Disciples of Crow began to make moves all over the city in an effort to wrest control.

After the Lionelli sent a warning to vampire-kind that the hunters of the city were planning a strike against them during daylight hours, Bancroft's Master, called the Administrator, accused the Lionelli of using vampires to ferret out human hunters, and declared his intention to take back the city's criminal underworld from those who don't respect vampiric laws or traditions. His own group of vampires, Helheim, began strikes against the Order of St. James and the Exiled Brotherhood. Meanwhile, the unified vampire hunters of the city, having got wind of the imminent war, made an announcement to humans of the city that they must take this chance to fight back themselves.

A city-wide war is breaking out in Harper Rock. Will you use this chance to wipe out one of the criminal factions in the city, or will you use it to seize control of your own territories?


Methods of Influencing the Chapter

• The main way of influencing the outcome of this chapter is to join or form a faction and use the new territory system to take control of various districts or territories. You can read a full explanation of this new system here.
• Sabotaging (business OR hacking) one of the businesses owned by the NPC factions will weaken them for a forthcoming fight. The weaker a faction is, the less fighters they'll have to help them out.
• Burglers (b&e) may break into weapons factories or warehouses in order to weaken an NPC faction for a forthcoming fight. The NPC faction you weaken will be determined by the district location of the factory in question, and which NPC currently owns this territory.
• You can boost a NPC faction's slider by paying money directly into their bank accounts. Their account names will match the name of their faction as seen on the territory map.
• If you wish to hand over an entire territory to somebody else, PM Mooncalf on the forum. Doing so for an NPC will massively improve your relationship with them, making them far less likely to attack your territory in future.
• During this chapter only, you can write roleplay impact threads in order to take control of an NPC-owned territory of your choice (once per faction). The thread must be at least 5 pages, with 6 faction members (belonging to an in-game faction), and each post must be at least 500 words long. Please be aware that if your chosen territory is taken by the time your thread finishes, you must choose another territory owned by the same target faction. If there are none left, the impact of the thread can be discussed with Mooncalf.
• You may also write impact threads intended to actually strengthen an NPC faction for their next fight. These threads have no rules, but the longer and better they are, the more you'll be able to strengthen the NPC faction in question. Summaries of impact threads must be PMed to either Azraeth, PoeticPuppy, or Mooncalf if you wish them to be counted.

Consequences
Though the long-term consequences of wiping out any of these factions are a secret, the immediate consequence of taking over every territory owned by an NPC faction is that the group in question will vanish from the game entirely. However, only the first 3 NPC factions who are destroyed (maximum) will be wiped from the game.

Note: this will not affect the balance of gameplay and leveling speeds, as new factions or raids will be added to replace the groups who are destroyed.

In addition to this, the strongest remaining NPC faction (the one with the most territories) at the end of the chapter will be given a new raid and a new sidestory straight after.

The territory system will remain after the chapter has finished, however, and NPC factions will continue to attack PC-owned territories thereafter.


Notes
- Territorial attacks against other player-run factions are allowed during this chapter. However, this won't be possible until February, as each territory can only be attacked once each month, and all territories start as owned by NPC factions.
- Yao gen sage visions have been added for this chapter. You can see them on the "Influencing the Current Chapter" page, if you have the correct power.
- Details on each of the NPC groups can be seen in the following post.

[Mooncalf]

Overview of the NPC Factions

The Sirens
Lead by the enigmatic Hebigumo foundation, who have been thwarted again and again as the chapters have progressed. Those in the know are aware that the sirens of Harper Rock do not necessarily seek to destroy vampires, but are primarily interested in ensuring that human kind survive, as the sirens cannot exist without humanity. Their ranks consist of encantado (snake-like) and jorogumo (spider-like) sirens.

Order of St. James
The Order of St. James are no longer completely aligned with the group now known as The Order (the PC faction). The original Order of St. James remained in part, and allied themselves with new hunter groups springing up. Those with contacts in their order would be aware that they now believe themselves to be taking orders directly from a very powerful fae, if that's to be believed.

Westwall Bricks
The only regular pure-blood human gang of any significance remaining in the city. They aren't too bright, but they have a lot of guns and aren't afraid to use them.

Yongheng Triads
The triads who first came over to Harper Rock eventually became aware of vampires, when a group of far-eastern sorcerers took control of their outfit and formed the Yongheng family of triads. This hasn't gone down too well with other triad groups, but the Yongheng remain quite a force in Harper Rock, who were until recently in control of the docks. They have recently began to experiment with blood thievery also, so their ranks contain both sorcerers and blood thieves. There doesn't appear to be any direct issue the Yongheng triads have with vampire kind, other than a fight for control of the criminal underworld.

Lionelli Family
The Lionelli family are one of the most powerful vampire bloodlines in the city. They are concerned with their own power, to the exclusion of all other matters. They do not care about vampiric secrecy, the quarantine zone, or the vampire race as a whole. They are a ruthless bunch of powermongers who put a great deal of effort into finding new ways to enhance their abilities.

Disciples of Crow
The Disciples of Crow are a brand new element in Harper Rock. Their ranks consist of former rogues and oddball vampires who believe they are receiving messages from Crow himself (or herself). These quasi-religious individuals believe that it is for the good of all vampire-kind if the sundering is torn open entirely, so that Crow can be freed and vampires can be truly immortal no matter where in the world they are. Though they might at first seem to be delusional, they are mostly not stupid, nor are they religious extremists in the normal sense of the word. They seem to respect laws of vampiric secrecy, even in their quest to bring about the apocalypse.

Exiled Brotherhood
The Exiled Brotherhood have been around for over a year, but only just named themselves. Before, their ranks consisted of an alliance between vampire rogues, vampire biker gangs, and those tired of the "tyranny" of vampire factions in charge of who lives or dies. They have banded together, not out of a desire to destroy the "masquerade" necessarily, but out of a need for survival. They stand opposed to groups who hunt and kill other vampires for secrecy transgressions, and in this sense they consider themselves anarchists.

Helheim
Helheim is the newest faction in the city. They are a group of vampires and supernatural mercenaries collected by the mysterious Administrator, and put to the task of destroying any group that threatens the survival of vampire kind in any way. They are highly trained and deadly, but there is something strange about them. They never speak, and will seek to kill themselves desperately if captured. These are a small group of individuals, but work well as a deadly unit.

[Mooncalf]

We're adding a further stipulation to the rules surrounding the conquest impact threads during this chapter.

Each of the 6 people must WRITE at least a total of 2000 of their own words. If it's a live chat, that's fine, and if each post has various people talking within that post, that's fine too, but each of the 6 people must write 2000+ of the total words across the entire thread, at least.

For those of you writing thread roleplay and not live roleplay this won't be much of an issue, as it will just mean each person only needs to post around 4 times (depending on the word count). For live chat roleplayers all it means is no matter who posts the transcripts to the forum, at least 2000 of the total words in the thread must be your own.

All other rules remain the same.

[Mooncalf]

Now that we've had a chance to test the waters of the chapter sliders, so to speak, we're going to make it so that each week the sliders for each faction increase by 25% per territory they hold. This is to make it more balanced and realistic overall.

[Mooncalf]

The Order of St. James have been destroyed in a final battle against Things. They are no longer a faction in roleplay or in game. Any remaining NPC paladins and sorcerers you come across will be independant supernatural beings, or members of other factions.

As a direct consequence of this update all sewer Paladins will be vanishing from the game entirely at the end of the chapter. These enemies will be replaced by a new group of enemies of equal or slightly greater strength, who will be fightable somewhere in the city.

There are still 2 more factions who can be eliminated during the course of this chapter.

[Mooncalf]

Due to the Order of St. James being wiped out via roleplay rather than a grid battle, their leader Ramiro Barros has gone on one final revenge spree around the city.

Ordinarily, when an NPC faction is down to their final territory they will send out their super powered big boss in the last fight. In this instance, however, the final territory was taken via roleplay instead, and so in order to make things more equal we decided an NPC revenge rampage in such a situation would be the best way of making the boss appear.

Ramiro Barros is attacking at random, and will be hard to kill. However, he only gets one life. Put him down to end his rampage.

[Mooncalf]

The Exiled Brotherhood have been destroyed in a final battle against Tytonidae (their leader was killed by Deux Corbeaux in a previous battle. They are no longer a faction in roleplay or in game.

As a direct consequence of this, there will be less unnamed rogue vampires in the city at the end of this chapter, and a new faction of less unruly NPC vampires will take their place in the power vacuum. There will still be general rogue vampires in the city, but they will number less and will not be a part of the Exiled Brotherhood.

There is still 1 more faction who can be eliminated during the course of this chapter, which ends on the 31st of
March.

[Mooncalf]

The Westwall Bricks have been destroyed in a final battle against Deux Corbeaux. They are no longer a faction in roleplay or in game. Any remaining NPC gangsters you come across will be members of other factions.

As a direct consequence of this update a power vacuum will mean that other surviving (or new) gangsters rise to take the place of the Bricks. You'll see new gangster types around the city by the end of the chapter. Additionally, the gangster raid will be replaced with a new raid against enemies of a similar level.

The Bricks are the final NPC faction to be destroyed during this chapter. However, the NPC faction who comes out on top at the end of this month will still be getting their own new raid and sidestory. If this is a tie then there will be some sort of deciding factor, depending on which factions have the most territory.