Wednesday 5 September 2018

ESCAPE FROM MURDER CITY

The year is 2018. The future predicted by 80s action films has come to pass. Murder rates have gone up every year since '81 and the East Coast megatropolis that stretches from Portland, Maine to Norfolk, Virginia is a nation unto itself - Murder City, a brutal concrete jungle where nothing is sacred but violence and the only authority is the gun. Even the capital has fallen. The White House is now a crack house, the Washington Monument is covered with graffiti and the legendary ganglord Profezr Skul N Bonez has declared himself the leader of his New United States of Crime.

The current President, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, lives in a fortified penthouse in Vegas and leaves most of the actual decisions up to his vice-president, the military supercomputer MAX. He's supposed to be just a figurehead... but he's the only man who knows MAX's override codes. When his plane goes down over the former District of Columbia, on its way to a peace summit with the Soviets, MAX goes haywire and begins to threaten global war. It has direct access to America's entire nuclear arsenal and in just seventy-two hours it intends to wipe Moscow and Red Peking off the map. The Communists will have no choice but to respond with force.

Rescuing Donald Trump will not be easy. Skul N Bonez is convening his first Criminal Congress, and every gang in Murder City has sent their elected squadron of heavily-armed delegates. The streets are already battlefields and the President could be anywhere. The military is helpless. Only a small, covert squad of loveable rogues and elite tier-one operators stands any chance of getting him out alive and saving the world.

Can you do it?

Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?

GANGS OF MURDER CITY
  1. Zombi Disciples. Militant voodoo practitioners who go into battle possessed by loa. Skul N Bonez is their leader and they believe him to be possessed by Papa Ghede.
  2. SKUM - the Society for Killing Ugly Men. Radical feminists on rollerblades, wielding tomahawks and machetes, on the hunt for male scalps.
  3. Da Muscle Machine. Six or seven greasers crammed into a muscle car, blasting rockabilly music, brandishing monkey wrenches and baseball bats.
  4. Red Faktion. Cryptic student Leninists who communicate only through explosions and  performance art. Use a lot of face paint.
  5. Hari Shiva. A procession of orange-robed chanters dragging a huge iron chariot festooned with the skulls of people they've sacrificed to the god of death.
  6. Pinball Wizards. LARPers and arcade fanatics in Renfaire costumes, with real axes and swords. Their leaders shoot lightning from Tesla-coil wizard staffs.
  7. The NYPD. Armed with tear gas and shotguns. Following the broken-windows theory, they're determined to crack down on low-level crimes like walking, talking and breathing.
  8. Morlocks. Deformed cannibal hoboes, clad in rags and filth, who lurk in the sewers and fear light. They attack from below, coming up through manholes and rotten floors.
  9. Skin Ratz. Obsessed with body modification - pierced, tattooed and scarred until they no longer look human. Armed with flechette guns and barbed-wire whips.
  10. Trashers. A secret fraternity of garbagemen in hazmat suits who command rats with special pipes and make their enemies vanish into the backs of their trucks.
  11. OrthodoXXX. Hasidic Jews with razorblades in the brims of their black hats. They lobotomise their strongest enemies, shoot them up with growth hormone and make them into slave-golems.
  12. Ghost Dragon Tong. Spiky-haired kung fu kids in bomber jackets with dragons stitched on the back, carrying handguns and nunchuks, escorting a Fu Manchu type.
  13. Black Emperors. A clan of bosozoku bikers with Rising Sun headbands and authentic Nipponese katanas. Can cut your head off without slowing down.
  14. Sumiyoshi-Kai. Tattooed yakuza with missing fingers, honour-bound to kill anyone who insults them. Famous for their love of American baseball.
  15. The Bratva. Enormous Slavic guys festooned with gold chains, equipped with surplus Red Army experimental weaponry they get from contacts in the USSR.
  16. Los Caballeros. A Mexican biker gang whose members wear scrap-metal plate armour and see themselves as noble Christian defenders of the innocent.
  17. Mosque of Moorish Science. Unorthodox Muslims who believe the white race was created by evil scientists in a lab. Ride horses and dress like Tuaregs, with scimitars and AK47s.
  18. Sanguinem Filiorum. Black-clad, death-pale Goths with daggers and makeshift crossbows who drink the blood of their victims in the belief it will make them into vampires.
  19. Dixie Kings. White supremacists who brew meth in the back of their flag-festooned pickup trucks and are constantly blowing themselves up.
  20. Meatsters. Hairy-chested union boys who tote sledgehammers and drive around in armoured steamrollers, leaving a snail trail of blood. Also bulldozers.
  21. Samoan Brotherhood. Burly Islander guys, big on tattooes and weightlifting, who like to challenge anyone they meet to a bare-knuckle fight.
  22. Cosa Nostra. A phalanx of button men in clean suits and fedoras, equipped with old-fashioned tommy guns, escorting a very fat man who's being carried in a sedan chair.
  23. Patriots. A football team turned guerrilla squad, armoured with shoulder pads and helmets, throwing ball-shaped grenades.
  24. Urchins. Cannibal children who get eaten by their younger comrades on their thirteenth birthdays. Carry knives and lay deadly traps for adults.
  25. Sharkies. A crew of fishmongers in heavy leather aprons smeared with guts, equipped with cleavers and big iron hooks. You smell them before you see them.
  26. Kingdom 69. Fur-coated pimps in Cadillacs who'll kill you for your clothes, with sword-canes and gold-plated guns. Probably not actual pimps.
  27. Spartans. Dressed as gladiators, with spears, shields, nets, loincloths, full-face helmets and trained lions freed from zoos. Do not understand the different between Sparta and Rome.
  28. Rovers. Extremely proud of their Irish heritage. Wear green. Falsely believe they are naturally lucky and take stupid risks because of it.
  29. Pinheads. Punks with mohawks, metal teeth, safety pins stuck through their ears and baseball bats with nails in. Have no chiefs, worship anarchy, impale politicians on spikes.
  30. Disco Lizards. Psychotics in blood-stained jumpsuits with knives in their afros and exploding hand-held mirror balls that spray shards of broken glass everywhere.
  31. Big Nut Posse. Rastafarian outlaws who cruise around in monster trucks, blasting reggae, and go from chilled-out to rabid lunacy at the drop of a hat.
  32. Jaguars. Feather-clad warriors with razor-studded clubs who want to capture you alive so they can carve out your heart and offer it up to their god. They also like basketball.
  33. Black Illuminati. Creeps in golden robes who claim to secretly control the entire universe. Their leaders wear pyramids on their heads.
  34. Sentinels. Guys in camo and war paint who model themselves after what they think the Green Berets are supposed to be like. Use garbled military language and talk about freedom a lot.
  35. Los Muertos. Believe they're already dead and trapped in Hell. Faces are permanently tattooed to look like calaveras.
  36. Kobra Krew. Pentecostals who prove their loyalty to the gang and the faith in the Holy Ghost by handling live snakes. Often missing fingers.
  37. People's Army. Essentially the Viet Cong. Masters of trap and ambush, with punji sticks, explosive booby traps and labyrinthine tunnel complexes.
  38. Outlaws. Wild West cowboys with hats and six-shooters. Massively overconfident, sure they're the heroes of every situation. Ride around on horseback.
  39. Teutonic Order. Leather-clad SS cosplayers, tattooed all over with mystic pagan runes. Refuse to use anything but authenticated Nazi weaponry, which is always too old to work.
  40. BLVDKVLT. Flamboyant Satanists in full-face makeup who bite the heads off bats and compete to see who can be the most performatively shocking.
  41. Babushkas. Hardbitten Russian grandmothers in headscarves whose legions of loyal daughters will tear you limb from limb with iron fingernails.
  42. Elves. Eco-anarchists with stone tools who plant seeds everywhere they go. Accompanied by half-tame predators liberated from zoos. Cut their ears into points.
  43. Stokers. Former firefighters who've become pyromaniacs, spraying flame from the hoses of converted firetrucks and plotting to burn all of Murder City to the ground.
  44. Grin and Tonic. A violent improv troupe who subject you to a fate worse than death by kidnapping you and making you watch their idiot sketches.
  45. Lanyards. Enlightened centrists in white shirts who have a plan to fix all of Murder City's problems with logic and reason, after they've killed all the radicals.
  46. Elohim. Alien sex cultists in tinfoil hats who claim to be abducted by UFOs on a regular basis. No-one knows where they get their weird energy guns.
  47. Squeakies. Drugged-out hippies who follow the teachings of Charles Manson, listening to the Beatles and trying to bring about race war through acts of ritual sacrifice.
  48. North Bay Wolves. Bateman-style Wall St. maniacs with blood between their teeth, hopped up on cocaine and designer steroids. Often confused with the South Bay Wolves, to their chagrin.
  49. South Bay Wolves. Furries who hunt in packs and never take off their full-body animal suits, no matter how sticky they get. Have an ongoing rivalry with the North Bay Wolves.
  50. Captains of Industry. Steampunk gang with blunderbusses and gears glued to their top hats. Every other gang hates them and kills them on sight.
OTHER STUFF
  1. Pith-helmeted aristocrat here to hunt the most dangerous game.
  2. Armoured superjudge who kills criminal-seeming types on sight.
  3. Senile old lady who can't remember the way home and thinks it's still 1979.
  4. Blind homeless ranter who shouts terrible cryptic prophecies at you.
  5. Streetwise taxi driver who'll take you anywhere... for a price.
  6. Pigeon keeper, surrounded and defended by their birds.
  7. Elite computer hacker, almost helpless in the physical world.
  8. Hulking masked slasher who just wants to chop up horny teens.
  9. Muscular idiot ridden around by sly, intelligent dwarf.
  10. Outlaw street ronin with epic katana, here to defend the weak.
  11. Family of terrified urban peasants just trying to get by, hoping you'll leave them alone.
  12. Street market with vendors selling rags, junk, fried rats, broken guns.
  13. Street carnival with fire-eaters, sword-swallowers, orgies of self-mutilation.
  14. Site of recent mass suicide, one or two poisoned survivors having second thoughts.
  15. Sinkhole in street, concealed beneath tarpaulin, full of sewer alligators.
  16. Collapsed skyscraper with scavengers picking through the rubble.
  17. Crashed stealth bomber with atomic warhead leaking radiation into the street.
  18. Pack of ferocious wild dogs, their leader mutated to near-human intelligence.
  19. White tentacles of sewer octopus poking up through manholes, feeling for prey.
  20. Floating psychic brain escaped from government lab, on quest for world domination.

3 comments:

  1. Oooh you are going to catch so much shit for this!

    This is basically a giant pile of '80 to 2010 gang, sub-cultures and stereotypes rolled into a giant ball of kitsch seemingly designed to have the level of ridicule out of the best 2000 AD strips and '80 action movies-crossed-with-grindhouse exploitation flicks. Was that the intent?

    ReplyDelete
  2. How do the Trashers use pipes with HAZMAT suits on?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Escape from New York turned up to 11? I love it.

    ReplyDelete