The underhive of hive Angelos is a brutal place. A maze of exhausted mines, decommisioned factories and hab blocks slowy falling to ruin. Black, acrid smoke belching out of the hive's steel mills is thick in the streets, perpetually shrouding it in an iron-tanged gloom, and ensuring the few who don't die in gang violence don't grow old anyway. It is chiefly populated by gangs trying to turn a dishonest profit and the poor souls trapped between those fighting. It is a lawless place. The arbites really have better things to do than stopping gangers from killing each other, and only descend here to deal with the problems that might spill into the hive's upper levels. In other words, not unlike any other underhive.
There is however, 1 notable difference. 2 decades ago, in an unprecedented show of economic common sense, dozens of gangs started banding together in a criminal cartel known as 'the Anarchs'. Somehow they have managed to make it through 2 decades without backstabbing each other (too much), and their coorporation resulted in the anarch cartel pretty much running the underhive. The cartel's individual gangs each stick to their own alotted territory, and the gang leaders refer to themselves as underbarons, or barons for short.
That doesn't mean there is less violence however. Following their example, other gangs are banding together as well, and the Anarchs's position of power is challenged on a daily basis.
The Iron Skulls
The Iron skulls are one of the smallest gangs in the Anarch cartel, boasting only about 15 members. They are mostly brawlers and rarely initiate their own operations, but are happy to be employed by other Anarch gangs as brutally efficient hired muscle. They can easily be recognised by their trade mark iron masks, which some say are hammered into shape by their baron's bare fists. This baron is Evan McMillan, a giant brute of a man suspected to have an ogryn among his not too distant ancestors. Their territory is a remote district known as the sea of scrap, and they gather there in a drinking hole called 'Ray's Happy Birthday Bar'.
The Crimson Dawn
As the Anarchs push the other gangs into the deep hive, the other gangs push back. While a source of incessant violence, this has never presented a serious challenge to the Anarchs. Until now. Little is known about the crimson dawn, not even if it is a single gang or itself some sort of cartel. But the last few months, it has had remarkable success in disrupting anarch operations and even taking out a few of the smaller anarch gangs, most recently wiping out the Iron Skulls. Hushed voices say their ascent is aided by vile, inhuman powers, but any real evidence for this has yet to surface.
The Twists
The twists don't have a symbol, they don't need one. You'll know a twist when you see one. they are the outcasts, the malformed. Not to be confused with mutants, their deformities stem from pollution exposure, malnutrition, junkie mothers and more fun like that. But they are all too aware most people can't tell the difference, so they stick to the shadows. While skulking in those shadows, they pick up things, and they made that their main business. They are hackers, forgers and information dealers. In this capacity, they are a valued member of the anarchs, employed regularly by pretty much all of them. As one would expect from a gang who views information as a valuable asset, little is known about their baron, other than his name: Golden Boy Gary. They have no single base of operations, and no territory in the usual sense. Their domain is the warrens, a hive-wide complicated web of ruined service tunnels, disused conduits and sewers used before the underhive itself became a giant sewer.
The Twin Snakes
Although there are no official tallies, the twin snakes are assumed to be the largest gang in the anarch cartel. In one part this is probably because they aren't very picky when recruiting, even for an underhive gang they have an unusually high number of junkies and psychopaths among their ranks. The vast majority of these gangers is insane to some degree, and the most insane of all is their Baroness, Jeanette Voerman. She leads from the front with no regard for her own safety, but can back it up with legendary pistol skills. If even those fall short, virually every member of the gang will take a bullet for her and thank her for the opportunity to be useful. She has no plan other than to keep shooting until there are no enemies left standing, and will start executing that plan at the drop of a hat.
By any right, the twin snakes should have destroyed themselves a very long time ago, and they most certainly would have if it wasn't for their second baroness, Therese Voerman. Twin sister to Jeanette, Therese is her polar opposite. Cool, calculated and a genius in every meaning of the word, she leads the gang from the shadows and brings a method to their madness. While Jeanette is the charismatic leadership that forges the gang into a devestating projectile, Therese is the one who points it to where it will do the most damage. She is a ruthless businesswoman, with contacts rumoured to run as high as the governor's palace, and using the manpower her sister gathers around herself, she generates a cash flow other gangs can only dream of. This is the reason why, dispite the erratic nature of their members, the main focus of the twin snakes is drug dealing, smuggling and trade in stolen goods.
Together, the twin barons have turned their gang into the most powerful player in the underhive. While all gangs in the anarch cartel are technically equal, the Twin Snakes are more equal than others. When the idea surfaced to form the cartel, it was Therese who saw the benefits of both forming it and being the largest player within it. Without her support, the anarchs would likely have never happened, a notion she happily exploits to push her own agenda and bend the rules in her favour.
Their territory is the largest in the underhive, formerly known as Saint Monica's district. At present however, Saint Monica probably wouldn't want to have her name associated with it, and today it is simply known is the central disctrict. The Twin Snakes operate from a club appropriately named 'the Asylum', where they can usually be found, and Therese even never leaves.
