[Magnaric]

So, there's a part of my game coming up where I need some violently racist anti-metahuman guys working for a Human is cell as part a run involving missing kids and possibly some viral bioweapons. Obviously Alamos 20k came up as a good choice, but I also read about how the Hand of Five was responsible for firebombing warehouses full of metahumans on the Night of Rage.

The thing is, I can't find much info about them. Or anything really. Other than that reference to the NoR incident, there's nothing to explain if they all got killed or absorbed into other groups (Alamos 20k, Human is,  etc), or basically anything about them. I always assumed they got their name from the five leaders of Alamos 20k and that they had close ties, but yeah, nothing there either.

Does anyone know of any older 1-3E source books or adventures that had info on them or involved them in some way? Otherwise I'll just have to make stuff up (which as the GM I'm okay with).

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I don't specifically know how the (relative) hierarchy works, but I usually play it as Humanis Policlub > Human Nation > Hand of Five.  I have Alamos 20K being another, but essentially different, sub-set of the Human Nation - their 'totally uneducated, wack-job arm', so to speak.

That said, as I recall many of the the top echelon of the Human Nation got whacked - but for your game's purposes, that might be because they were wandering away from the 'core guidelines' of the Hand of Five.

[Shaidar]

DNA/DOA is an SR1 adventure featuring the Hand of Five, billing them as a Tacoma branch of Alamos 20K.

[Magnaric]

Groovy, that's what I needed to know. Thanks to both of you, I read the section on the Human Nation from 2E Threats after I posted that, and I'll check out DNA./DOA tonight. Time for some GM research followed by prepping shenanigans.   

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I'd honestly ignore DNA/DOA - it was something put together before almost anything about the game world was developed, and most of it is, in a word, wrong - superceded by later publications.

[Longshot23]

So, there's a part of my game coming up where I need some violently racist anti-metahuman guys working for a Human is cell as part a run involving missing kids and possibly some viral bioweapons. Obviously Alamos 20k came up as a good choice, but I also read about how the Hand of Five was responsible for firebombing warehouses full of metahumans on the Night of Rage.

The thing is, I can't find much info about them. Or anything really. Other than that reference to the NoR incident, there's nothing to explain if they all got killed or absorbed into other groups (Alamos 20k, Human is,  etc), or basically anything about them. I always assumed they got their name from the five leaders of Alamos 20k and that they had close ties, but yeah, nothing there either.

Does anyone know of any older 1-3E source books or adventures that had info on them or involved them in some way? Otherwise I'll just have to make stuff up (which as the GM I'm okay with).

There's the possibility that the Hand of Five never existed in their own right, it was a convenient label to blame with the firebombing of warehouses full of metahumans on the Night of Rage. I'd go with 'super-secret Humanis strike group' myself, but each to their own . . .   

[Magnaric]

Hmm, okay. Reading through DNA/DOA, it looks like it says the Hand of Five are the Tacoma/Seattle - based arm of Alamos 20k, but they act with a fair bit of autonomy (since elements of Alamos are pretty independent and decentralized anyways). But yeah, they have their own salute and at least in the early 2050s had members among Lone Star and the Metroplex Guard. So that works.

Plus I can always steal maps and stuff from the adventture and just say a lot of stuff from it had been long abandoned, forgotten,  and repurposed.

I'd honestly ignore DNA/DOA - it was something put together before almost anything about the game world was developed, and most of it is, in a word, wrong - superceded by later publications.

Out of curiosity, what parts have been superceded or corrected since then? If it's regarding the organization's and details of what happened when, that doesn't matter as much since I'm just using it as a rough guide.

[Nath]

Seattle sourcebook, page 17
Later [in 2036], 20 people, most of them Metahumans, were killed in the small town of Liberty Village, Ohio, when a well-organized gang of hooded thugs firebombed a church. Alamos 20,000, a branch of the Humanis Policlub and also the largest anti-Metahuman terrorist organization, claimed responsibility for the attack. As a wave of similar attacks swept North America, the vicious terrorism further widened the gulf between Humans and Metahumans. From that gulf sprang the hellfire that has come to be known as the "Night of Rage."
On the night of February 7, 2039, the Seattle Metroplex Guard, under order of Governor Allenson, systematically rounded up all Metahumans and transported them under armed guard to a series of huge warehouses on the waterfront. They were told that this was the final processing place before deportation to camps near San Francisco - all part of the governor's grand plan for "improved racial harmony."
What happened next is still unclear. With all the city's Orks, Trolls, Elves, and Dwarfs herded into these cavernous buildings, the level of anger and fear rose to a fever pitch. From on the buildings came a series of screams. Then gunfire, Panic and hysteria swept over the scene. A series of explosions erupted, and flames began to rip through the old, wooden warehouses.
Some witnesses claimed that members of the Hands of Fire terrorist group were on the scene just as the explosions went off. What is known is that the Metropole Guard simply stood by and let the inferno blaze. [...]
The people's anger quickly focused on Governor Allenson himself, and rumors spread that Allenson was actually a member of the Hands of Five. Local politicians, with heavy prodding from the United Corporation Council, demanded that the governor step down. Allenson refused, vehemently denying any wrongdoing. The next day, he was found murdered in his office.
A special election was held to choose a new governor. Though all district mayors were eligible candidates, most assumed that Ivar Lindstrom, mayor of the downtown district and son of Seattle's first governor, would win easily. Instead, it was Marilyn Schultz, mayor of Bellevue and a relative unknown, who won the election by a surprisingly large margin. What apparently clinched her nomination were reports that she had been one of the first city officials to appeal to the UCC for help during the Night of Rage.
The new governor immediately gave Lone Star an ultimatum: arrest the leaders of the Hands of Five or else face a breach of contract lawsuit for their criminal refusal to stop a crime in progress during the Night of Rage. The police officers of Lone Star, fearful of the governor's threat, and perhaps a bit ashamed of themselves, turned out in force to hunt down the terrorists. The next seven days became known as the "Week of Sirens" because of the countless raids conducted by suddenly efficient Lone Star forces. Within a few days, most Hands of Five leaders were either dead or behind bars.

Seattle Sourcebook, page 145
Some policlubs are strictly banned from representation in city because of their blatant violence and affiliation with terrorist organizations. Of these, the largest and most vicious is the infamous Hands of Five arm of the Alamos 20,000 Humanis Policlub [sic].

The Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America
In 2029, the waves of anti-metahuman violence set off by Seattle's Night of Rage swept through the country. It was widely believed that the most radical arm of Alamos 20,000, the Hand of Five, was responsible for the warehouse fires that caused the tragic deaths of hundreds of Seattle's metahuman population on that night.

New Seattle, page 79-80
Publicly, the Humanis Policlub works against metahuman-rights legislation and lobbies for laws that favor humans over metahumans. Behind the scene, the policlub is responsable for a great deal more.
Humanis operates as a front organization for anti-Awakened terrorist groups like Alamos 20,000, Human Nation, the Hand of Five and others.

New Seattle and Seattle 2072 also reproduced extensively the text from Seattle Sourcebook (except that, as in the quote above, in New Seattle it is a singular "Hand of Five"). Seattle 2072 also add an odd characterization of the group ("Rumors surfaced that Governor Allenson was actually a member of the Hands of Five, a humanist policlub.")

[Magnaric]

Ah, okay, that makes sense.I knew that after the Night of Rage they took a big hit to their numbers and leadership as a result of Lone Star's raids, and that by the time of DNA/DOA they sounded like they were more underground and not fully recovered. But yeah, I know that they were considered essentially a terrorist group alongside Alamos 20k, so any ties they had with the still-legal Humanis Policlub would have to be well hidden.

[Kincaid]

They're still around and still bad news.

[Mirikon]

Hand of Five are in the new 10 Terrorists pdf. Seems like they were pretty thoroughly wiped out after the Night of Rage, but have resurfaced lately as the bigger groups are trying to be more subtle (and Alamos 20K has had most of its leadership fall to internal bloodletting). They're rising up, and looking to do the whole mass-killing thing, like in the 'good old days' of the Night of Rage or the Sears Tower bombing that made the Shattergraves in Chicago.

[Sendaz]

Well you go with what you know I guess.

[Magnaric]

New PDF you say? I will have to check that out, thanks.