User blog:T42/The Gangs of Lupercal's Folly

Alright, so as anyone whose been on this wiki a while knows I have my numero uno article the Storm Draugar, who are in the process of expansion on this wiki. As the page itself is already overstuffed with lore, I will be making several other articles related to the Storm Draugar in an attempt to make them more of a confederation of articles as opposed to a single monolith. Within a short period of time I will being one of the most important pages of this soon to be confederation, Lupercal's Folly.

What is Lupercal's Folly? Well newfriends and party members, Lupercal's Folly is what happens when you take the festering cesspool of a Hive City, slap it smack dab into the near center of the Maelstrom, and build a gigantic fortress around it. It's like Commorragh, but smaller and chaosy. Lupercal's Folly is a simply massive structure, its thick outer hull bedecked with ancient and arcane weaponary powerful enough to fight off an invading fleet and so infused with daemonic power that Warpstone literally grows in veins in the lower levels. However, she was once a simple colony, designed by a strange human gene-cult who sought to overcome the base limitations of the human form. Rumored to be related to the Gene-Cults of Luna, these people built Lupercal's Folly during the dark age of technology and isolated themselves from the rest of mankind to focus on their religous pursuit of transcendence. Of course, when the Maelstrom formed it kind of ruined their plans, and eventually the people devolved into ghoulish creatures now known as Mournscreams though a mix of their own vile tech-sorcerey and the touch of the Warp itself.

Thus, Lupercal's Folly was designed to be a more or less slef contained habitat capable of supporting a human population of about 200,000. She has a myriad of forges and mining platforms desgined to harvest mineral ores and other materials from comets and asteroids pulled from near the galatic center, and has hundreds of highly advanced automated gardens where gentically enhanced fruits and vegitables have grown long since before the rise of the Imperium, endlessly maintained by duitful robots and automated systems even as the old station crumbled around them.

Eventually the beginnings of the Storm Draugar discovered the hulk, and over the next ten thousand years, has transformed her into their own black citidel in the stars. Now the population of Lupercal's Folly is roughtly a billion souls, all crammed into both the old ancient haunts of the first inhabitants and various other haphazardly added on spries and hab-blocks. Her ravenous population is more or less supported by a constant influx of trade goods from the Storm Draugar's minor empire and the great hauls of the pirate lords who base themselves within the dark fortress.

Life under the heel of the Blackspawn brothers is harsh, with those in the lower sections of Lupercal's Folly toiling endlessly in the industrial districts to churn out weapons, armor, and vehicles for the Storm Draugar's heedless warmachine. Many turn to violent enterprises as a means of securing power and influence, desperate to rise from the endless toil of the lower hive or, as the native Lupercalian's call it, the Lowdowns. If one is tough and ambitious enough, they might see their lowly crimminal enterprise rise from a simple Lowdown Gang into a proper Family. Families are usually based in the middle of the great superstructure, dealing in both legal trade and financing as well as arms dealing and drug cartells. These great families of what the locals term as Middle Sec or MidSec may be powerful, but they are dwarfed by the Houses of Upland. High in the spires of Lupercal's Folly, the most powerful families have risen to the rank of full nobility. Now they are the great Houses of Lupercal's Folly. Merchant empires and crimminal syndicates, the Houses of Lupercal's Folly are run by powerful men and women, second only to the Storm Draugar themselves. Generally they are the administraitors of their local spires and sections, with hundreds of families at their beck and call and a cut of all the Lowdown gang profits, no matter how minor. These Houses have their own small private armies, priate fleets, and other such enterprises. Of course, all this power comes at the cost of total obedience to the Blackspawn Brothers and their enforcers.

Other than these syndicates out for profit, Lupercal's Folly is also host to a great deal of cults, worshippers of either the Chaos Gods, Storm Cult, or a varity of other lesser daemons and warp entities. These cults differ from the gangs and families in that they are not exactly profit driven entities, usually being more motivated by their patron. But the end result of a successful cult is the same, they gain power an influence, and rise up in the hierarchy of Lupercal's Folly. First a cult is identified as a Cell, a small collection of individuals under the thrall of a particular god or gods. These bands can generally be found in either the Lowdowns or MidSec, though small cults can also arise within the Uplands as well. Cells are more like roving gangs of zealous or lunitics than a proper cult, and generally hang around a particular haunt or turf. If a Cell gains enough members, it moves to a Creed, a well sized organization of cultists who have a considerable amount of influence and poltical power on a local level, but are still rather minor in the grand scheme of things. Creed's may have their own churces and covens, and may even enter into block wars with rival creeds of families that have offended their faith. Finally, a Creed may grow to become a full blown Conspiracy, a massive cult that may be hundreds or even thousands of members strong. Some are proper poltical movments and organizations, capable of pressuring the powerful Houses into making certain legislative changes within their territories, and generally acting as the dominant faith of their region. However, event the most powerful Conspiracies must bend at the knee to the Storm Draugar's Dark Apostles and officals, lest they be exterminated. (A special note is that Nurglite cults are forced by Lupercalian law to subsist in the Barrows, a region below even the Lowdowns, where only hidesous monsters and Mournscreams reside. This is to reduce the possibility of infection amongst the rather enclosed population of Lupercal's Folly, and avoid it the chance of the whole fortress becomming little more but a rotting plaugeship)

Alright, a lot of info to take in right? Well here is where you fellow wiki users come in. I need ideas and suggesstions for various cults and gangs, families and conspiracies. I need the community to assist me in populating this potentially ritch setting with various factions clawing to one up one another and the powerful at the top. Please leave your ideas in the comments section below and thank you very much in advance.