[Sendaz]

Cutters.

Ancients.

Halloweeners

Gangs, all of them.

Love them or hate them, these streetpunks are part of the setting, whether your ducking some, shooting others, or rose up from their ranks yourself.

We all know the big boys from lore, but every table has a gang or two their GM has created for flavour and it's these we want to hear about.

So tell us about some of the more original or out there gangs you have butted heads with.

For example, at one table we had one oddball bunch calling themselves Saito Tipilhuan, or Sons of Saito though they got the nickname of Az-Yaks.

Basically they supposedly started out as a bunch of Azzie corp-brats during the CFS occupation.  Now officially Aztechnology was barred from operating there at the time, but the corp did a workaround in LA, Sacramento and the rest of the region with a minor name change and general bribing local officials to turn a blind eye.

Anyway, these corp punks in a bit of a Stockholm syndrome turned to hero worship of the Japs in general because they had basically tossed back the Azzies and Elves forces to take Cali for it's own, may macho in their mind, so they wanted to emulate them and thus take on their attributes. 
Somehow the messages got crossed and they picked up a lot of flowery reading material about the yakuza which they integrated with their own Aztlan mythos and created an unholy blend of pseudo-samurai bullshito, Aztlanic brainwashing and fitting both group's belief in a super race genetics to form the baseline of the own mini-mafia.
Thus you had Azzie corp-cubs strutting about with Azzie and Japanese tats, topknots, synthetic obsidian edged weapons as well as a fierce warrior instinct with little fear of death as they are hung up on dual diet of legends impressing on them to die a flowery death in glorious combat.

All of which was compounded when the Japs officially withdrew from the CFS in 2061, but Saito gave the Land of the Rising Sun two fingers and stayed. 

Now the gang had a figurehead to romanticize about, going on about how he had the warrior spirit to fight on -blah blah blah and they took on their title of being the Sons of Saito.

Which is quite amusing as Saito would have gutted them like fish back then for associating his name and the yaks in the same breath.

Anyway, roll forward a few years and they are surprisingly still around and even expanded into other regions where Aztechnology has a foothold as they recruit from the dissatisfied corp young within Azzie turf, including Seattle.

Then came the big Kick Out, when Saito and his forces were ousted from their little California Protectorate. 

Now no one has seen Saito since and everyone is looking for him and his lot of war criminals.

Shortly thereafter various branches of the Sons (or Az-Yaks as many have taken to calling them, though rarely to their face) up and down the coast , including Seattle, started sporting some shiny mil-spec toys, and a harder attitude.
Rumours circulated that there was a new head, but there is not much said about him, beyond the title Tota, or Our Father who supposedly wields a synthetic obsidian katana(how that is supposed to work I am not sure-but it's probably more ceremonial), who they feverishly follow and in some cases have literally died while being held for questioning without giving this mysterious head up.

In one spectacular case, the Az-Yak, who was supposed to be a mundane according to one investigator, triggered one of his tats to create a black mirrored magical blade that he promptly used to commit seppuku in the holding cell.

Now we are not saying Saito himself is manning that particular helm, but it would not be impossible for him or at least one of his subordinates to maybe picked up the reins on this lot since they literally worship him and his crew.

[CitizenJoe]

I like to track down IRL high school teams in the Barrens and then twist them into gangs under the guise of booster clubs and neighborhood watch. 

Down in Graham Cracker City in Puyallup,  the local high school team is The Eagles.  So the gang member are alumni of the school, usually the football team.  I've set up the town as the retirement community for a Mafia consigliere.   The Eagles try to do stuff to curry his favor and they act as the defacto law of the land.  The gang boss is that creepy middle aged guy that dates high school girls because he gets older but they stay the same age.

[Tarislar]

I like to track down IRL high school teams in the Barrens and then twist them into gangs under the guise of booster clubs and neighborhood watch. 

Down in Graham Cracker City in Puyallup,  the local high school team is The Eagles.  So the gang member are alumni of the school, usually the football team.  I've set up the town as the retirement community for a Mafia consigliere.   The Eagles try to do stuff to curry his favor and they act as the defacto law of the land.  The gang boss is that creepy middle aged guy that dates high school girls because he gets older but they stay the same age.

I was about to ask if the gang leader's name is Swayze, but then you went all Mathew with it, LOL.
Now I can't stop hearing "Wolverines" but at the same time I'm hearing JD Dorian yell "Eagle!".
This is going to mess with my head today, I can tell.   

[CitizenJoe]

Further up the road (closer to Puyallup proper) is another school, Firgrove, with the Hawks as their mascot.  The Hawks and Eagles are school rivals, but there it is a third neighborhood separating them so you don't see direct fighting between clubs.  Firgrove is primarily low income military brats from Ft Lewis enlisted personnel.  Most of what the ok aren't make gets funneled into the school to give the kids a fair shake in an otherwise dog eat dog district.  Former military patrol the neighborhood, watching for people that don't belong.   Strangers are usually reconnect for a while before being reported to the school's principal, who is a stern lady in a business skirt.  She normally shoes off strangers, but keep in mind that there are a lot of concerned military trained parents securing the area at the same time.

The intermediary school are the Thunder Field Storm.  The Dwarf go gang, Rolling Thunder, operates out of old Thun Field airport and is a bit like a communist security/paramilitary group.  The kids go to local school in hopes of getting trade jobs in the regular world, as opposed to the dwarven enclave which they live.  The Storm excels in the tech competitions, but their football team has never won a game.  Very few teams have ever won the game following a game against the Storm though, since the little runs are deceptively good at crippling key players, at least long enough to ruin the next game.

[CitizenJoe]

The Auburn Ravens are up around Stuck/Algona/Pacific.  Renraku funds them to watch over the area around the Renraku Industrial Park, now called the Alpaca Technology Center after the Arcology fiasco.  Renraku Biocomp is the anchor in the area.  That area was the prototype city for testing societal structure for the arcology.  For the large part, the whole town was scheduled to be transplanted into the arcology but that got postponed.  Renraku recruits out of Riverside and the other local schools.  They use the Ravens as initial scouts.  Then test students for talents.  Tech savvy go into the computer fields, while the athletic get offered skill wires and often become wage slave temp workers.

[CitizenJoe]

Up in the north end of Downtown district, near Shoreline, I have the Richmond Highlanders.  These are rich kids and mid life crisis guys who are car and bike fanatics.  They trick out ultra new and classics.  They long for the old days of road culture.  Aside from traffic violations, they are pretty tame, but they do clash with the Eye Fivers on Interstate 5 after rush hour some days.  This is only enough to lay stake to their own turf in the Shoreline Neighborhood.

[Lorebane24]

I took the gang "Nova Rich" that I saw briefly mentioned in the SR4 2050 book and ran wild with them.  Mostly a bunch of rebelious rich kids going through a phase, I gave them some of the best gear on the streets, but no skills to back it up with.  This generally made them prime targets for other gangs in Seattle, with many joking that Nova Rich were their best arms suppliers.  Common practice was to never kill them in gang wars, but to capture them and then ransom them back to their families, which is when most of them would decide to get out of the gang life and become a good corp kid.

[Moonshine Fox]

So in our game, one of the GMs came up with a gang we needed to work with called Da' Webs (represent!!!). A mostly ork thrill gang working out of Redmond. They don't have much in the way of territory, but unlike most gangs they are well liked by those in it. They all wear parts of spider-man costumes as their colors and tend to rumble with the Flies on a regular basis.

They gain most of their money by lifting cars. And by that I mean they surround the car, pick it up, and walk away. They also do this with other things, including quite hilariously one of the players bathrooms. From the middle of her house. We never opened that door again.

[Mr. Black]

I played in a game in which the GM's interpretation of the Halloweeners was "gangers in costumes". It didn't really sink in until we were ambushed at a meet by Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, in all their Disney glory. While they went down pretty easy, the GM backed them up with 4 guys in green turtle outfits, that fought like badass ninjas-and they killed 3-4 party members...

[kyoto kid]

...had a gang in the Smoke called the Droogs in my old UK campaign.  Of course patterned after the same in Clockwork Orange. though updated a bit.  Instead of "Milk Plus" they used a cocktail if combat drugs under the influence of which they perpetrated their "ultraviolence". They were a much larger and more orgainsed group than in the film who dressed the same though their outfits were armoured and they used a stainless steel walking stick as their primary weapon. Right nasty bunch of hooligans they were, especially the ones who were adepts.

Forget simply gunning them down as in the UK, firearms of all kinds were (at the time) highly illegal.

[Lorebane24]

I've decided to have some fun with the Roxx gang in Boston.  In my version of the gang, they have ambitions not only to the mafia, but to class.  Problem is they don't understand what class is.  One of their old bosses took a liking to "Night at the Roxbury" despite it having nothing to do with the Roxbury in Boston, and had everyone start dressing more or less how you'd expect.  He didn't last too long, but the gang kept the style and kept going with it, and now everyone pretty much looks and acts like they come out of Moonbeam City.

[freddieflatline]

I have the Jesters.  They are a prank gang based in Downtown.   I patterned them after the Bozos from Cyberpunk 2020.  Basically a bunch of deranged clowns who run around doing fatal pranks.  Paintball guns loaded with acid pellets spectacular colors, whipped cream pies laced with combat drugs and LSD, and air powered cannons that throw frozen chickens filled with explosives.  They look like a rip off of Killer Clowns from Outer Space.  They recruit by kidnapping people and subjecting them to VR, hypnotic suggestion, and magic conditioning.