Smiths

"I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, and heaven knows I'm miserable now..."
"To die by your side, well the pleasure, the privelige is mine..."

There are plenty of clever kids around. Most are from well-off corporate families, brought up in the best schools, given all the chances. Others, are not so lucky. It didn't count that you had the brains to be anything, to be somebody. You were turned down, because your family didn't move in the right circles, didn't work for the corps.

You are one of these kids. There's nothing to say that poor kids can't be clever. It's just that there is a lot to say that poor, clever kids can't be anyone in 2027 culture. And here you are now, stuck together, bitter rejects who see a life in the factories as nothing better than death.

What You Look Like

Well, you're not as fashion conscious as most other gangs. Most of you slowly found out what style of clothes you liked as kids, and developed those tastes into what you wear today. Although everyone is naturally different, and there are no particular gang affectations, there is a leaning towards darker, harsher styles. Black jeans, black overcoats, maybe if you're a girl you'll wear skirts. In that respect, you're unique as a gang, because skirts went out years ago for everyday life.

There is no particular style you can define the gang by, only a general similarity in tastes which no-one has an adequate explanation for.

SubCulture

The gang is quite loosely knit, while its members are very dependent on each other.

No-one likes to admit to being too close to another - it just feels wrong. Perhaps the only exception is if that person is your partner. Sex is a part of everyday life for Smiths. It's something they deal in, use as a means to quell each other's anger. No-one has ever been around them long enough to teach them any other way. As a Smith, you'd better be ready to use this to your advantage, because others will be expecting it of you. It's a dark trade after the initial exhileration wears off... but who said life is fair?

Another major part of your life will be music. It's one of the few things you take solice in, the others being your partners and drink. Your musical tastes tend to be confined to a select few groups who you feel have something to say about your life. Of these, the greatest for most is usually The Smiths. You feel priveliged to be in this gang, if only because you have access to their music when to others it is lost to time. When depression hits you particularly hard, the best solution is to take comfort from Morrissey's words.

Gang members hang out together almost all of the time, or at least all of their available time. By day, most have mindless jobs around the city. It kills you to do it, but it's a fact of life since you left home that you need cash in hand to survive. Your squats, as you elegantly call them, are cheap, but drink isn't. If you're going to spend your nights in the communal buildings (usually old warehouses or factories in the inner city), you're expected to contribute your share.

What you do in the squats is entirely up to you, but usually you will just hang around to see what is happening. If no parties are on, you will retire to your room with your partner, make love, listen to music, get drunk, get high. At first you were hesitant to embrace this lifestyle, but when you saw that everyone else here had as good a mind as you, and had abandoned it, you figured they must know it's worth doing.

Belonging

Most members joined by falling in with the right crowd, and then being invited to join after a while. This crowd, who your parents never really knew of, were mostly made up of guys already members and other kids like yourself, seeking solice from their wasted lives. If you showed an interest in the gang's activities, usually just an ability to get high and make the older kids laugh, you were invited round to the squat and introduced to a partner for the next few days.

After that, you hung around there more and more, until you found yourself staying there for days on end, finding greater comfort in this life every day, and decided you may as well leave home full stop. Some of you have left amicably, others have just disappeared. You figure it's all your parents fault anyway. If they hadn't been idiots stuck in scummy jobs, you'd be somebody now... not a junkie, all alone.

Allies & Enemies

Because your gang remains quite isolated most of the time, you don't have particular relationships either way with many gangs. You do take the occassional member from the Einsteins though, those who find that pressurised way of life too much to take. You are also on first name terms with the Squats, who are often quite gracious in sharing accomodation and information with you. You see and use them as your contact with the outside world... you don't want to involve yourself too closely with it anymore.

The only gang you have more than passing problems with are the ArcoRunners, who frequently infringe on your space and, you feel, enjoy doing so. These conflicts rarely turn to violence, but you see no problem with this in principle.

Slang

Squat : your communal home
Partner : your current sexual partner
Digs : squat
Cuss : insult jokingly or severely, depending eg. "I cuss you bad"

YoGang Skill: Solice (EMP/INT)

Your ability to keep going, to not top yourself despite it all. Along this path, you've become pretty knowledgeable about most music, more so than the most fanatical popsters. You know exactly what all the class-A drugs on the street and in the pharmacy do to you. You also like to think you're something of a stud (female equivalent).

Use this as a bonus to StreetSmarts for facedowns, street inquiries, etc. You dice with death every other day, so not much imposes upon you any more. Also make use of the information you have when appropriate and, if you could reasonably have come across such knowledge, use Solice as a bonus to INT checks in relevant situations.

If You're a Smith

Pick four things...

Drinks box
Drugs
Owned music collection
Contraception
Stun gun
Friendship with member of another gang
Home life still open for return