The Gordian Spring
According to a yearly report published by the Gotham Globe, Wayne Industries had been the single largest employer in all of Gotham City, just as it had been from the turn of the century up until the stroke of midnight on January 1st 2022, when Wayne Tower had exploded into a ball of green flame, killing hundreds of workers, poisoning thousands of citizens, and putting thousands more out of work.
Responsibility was proudly claimed by none other than Gotham's very own clown prince of crime, The Joker, who was apprehended by The Batman before being placed in police custody. In the months since, he has been undergoing rehabilitation in Arkham Asylum. In his wake, however, the city's southernmost and largest landmass, Miagani Island, has been in a state of emergency.
But none in Gotham City have felt the impact of New Year's Blaze more sharply than the city's landlords, who have simply had no choice but to evict their tenants out of the increasingly scarce properties they had been occupying. Mayor Sebastian Hady's broken window policing has done its utmost to fight the spread of vagrancy taking root but the police can only persuade so many itinerants not to make the situation worse. The jails are overpopulated and the city has had no choice but to make temporary accommodations in the low security wings of Blackgate Prison.
The Gist
In this game, we'll be taking on the roles of members of supervillain gangs in Gotham City. Usually when my friends and I play superhero games, we play global sandbox games where you can be any canon character and do anything. This isn't that. Instead of going for that sort of breadth, this game is meant to drill down into what it's like to take part in the scheming and politicking within a supervillain's gang.
For the most part, you guys will be playing original characters. Desparate men and women who have found themselves taking on incredible risk. To keep things simple and tight, we're only going to be playing two gangs for the time being. I really want this to be about the tete a tete between the members of each faction as they scramble to meet their independent goals while cross pollinating and, one way or another, complicating the operations of the other since both outfits will be rubbing elbows operating on the southern Miagani Island in the Old Gotham district, a few months after the collapse of Wayne Tower.
Nobody's going to be playing the Batman or any superheroes, though they'll probably play a role in the finale. Inspired by a couple older roleplays my friends occasionally run, this is going to be a seasonal affair running for about three months. If things go well, we'll take a break for a while and make plans for the next season, probably with different criminal organizations. Players are extremely welcome to bounce off of each other and drive your own plots as long as they tie into the overall goals of your team. Try to keep it snappy.
The Factions
Motivations for any individual player character would likely vary greatly but try to keep in mind what kind of person would be valuable to each of the following supervillains. If you have any ideas for other factions and what their organization might look like, feel free to make suggestions below. I just thought these seemed like some low hanging fruit that might be fun.
The Joker: Having just broken out of Arkham Asylum an hour prior, The Clown Prince wants to know that you've been stockpiling resources, like chemicals and weapons, for the upcoming ten year anniversary of the first time he fought The Batman. The Joker's crew would likely involve a mixture of fighters, engineers and scientists recruited by offering the opportunity to be truly free for the first time in their lives. With sky high turnover, The Joker's organization is rather unstructured beyond the fact that insubordination is usually frowned upon. And nobody wants to see a sad clown.
The Penguin: Coming from old money with lots of fingers in the political pie, Oswald Cobblepot largely facilitates transactions between other criminals as a mediator, though he has been known to offer protection from external criminal elements. While he personally has a security detail at any given time including hired muscle, his retinue includes a rainbow of businessmen, spies, and thieves. The Penguin's associates tend to operate through proxies and blackmail in one of the more multi-tiered and long standing operations.
Killer Croc: Waylon Jones is one of the more simple criminals operating in Gotham at the moment. He had once made a bid for kingpin status but it cost him an arm and a leg. Actually, two arms, but who's counting, anyway? His crew consists of blue collar working class joes taking on simple work, like stealing building materials and selling them to Mayor Hady's construction company at a discount. His operation is one of the more intimate organizations to be found on the island, familial and straightforward, though still illicit.
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