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In a cloud enshrouded city, where the gap between rich and poor is wide, depair on one side, and greed on the other, allow crime to flourish.
The Lords and the Syndicate came at about the same time. The Lords, rolling in from Washington D.C. took the disorganized small gangs, dealers, junkies, and petty criminals and forced them under their control; anyone who resisted their might was executed, their mutilated bodies put on display as a lesson to others. They soon took control of all of southside. Within that territory, they are judge, jury, and, quite often, executioner. Nobody disrespects them, nobody crosses them.
The Lords had every intention of spreading their influence to the rest of New Haven, but before they could solidify their hold on southside and begin to expand, another force moved in. The Syndicate took advantage of the corrupt, the greedy in the places in New Haven where law and order still (technically) ruled. There is little in the government that they don't control, few schemes in which they haven't stuck their fingers, and anyone who gets in with them had better stay loyal, because their justice against betrayers is swift and inescapable.
The Lords and the Syndicate mostly stay out of each others way, but occasionally one will attempt to incur on the territory of another. When this happens, violence is inevitable, and the streets run with blood.
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