| From: | "Paolo Falco, Explorer" <Falco@****.IT> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | GEMITO (Italy) - LONG POST WARNING!!! |
| Date: | Fri, 18 Apr 1997 20:53:53 +0100 |
awakened critter-ridden devastated, lawless underworld place I wanted,
_I_ am gonna sacrifice myself and my hometown (plus the two biggest
neighboring ones) to do a REALLY interesting setting... Well, I doubt
this is going to be canon, but tell me if I can do anything to make
it better without killing the really interesting part :)
NAGTW: GEMITO (Version 0.01)
OVERVIEW:
Since the end of the millenium, the north-western part of Italy has
been one of the most industialized and urbanized zones of all the
country. When the italian government finally collapsed and could no
longer afford political stability in a lineraly large and very
differentiated area, the independentist movement formerly known as the
"Lega Nord" (northern league) siezed the occasion to climb to power in
the Northwestern part of Italy. The interests of the Lega especially
for its strict views on immigration, were largely opposed by the major
industries, some of which had by then climbed up the corporate ladder,
and this resulted in a period of tension, which seemed to explode when
in the 2020es, major riots started all over the northwest, fueled by
corporations such as FIAT and OLItechnologies. These riots, which
culminated in the infamous "Five days of Milan" in 2022, saw the
consacration of the so called "Centri Sociali" (Social Centres) as a
new political force. The Social Centres, mainly gravitating around the
anarco-leftist groups of the "Leonkavallo" of Milan and "El Paso" of
Turin, were born in the '90es first as a spontaneous congregation of
people from the extreme left and from the anarchic movements, who
reunited and "occupied" empty blocks in big cities to live in and
demonstrate against "the power". Sadly, during the first years of the
2020es, they were largely manipualted in an occult way by the local
corporations so that they could be useful allies in their fight
against the stirict immigration laws proposed by the Lega. When the
Awakening began, this unlikely contrapposition of powers broke. the
first sign of the incoming awakening was the series of mysterious
murders and rituals held in the Turin Sprawl, already known for its
"magical" position according to some occult studies. The phenomenon
quickly gave way to a rapid goblinization of unprecedented size, with
as much as 30% of the population of all the northwest manifesting the
symptoms of UGE, and also to the awakening of magical powers almost
everywhere. The conservative corporations, unable to exploit the new
powers fast, found themselves cornered by the spontaneous wake of
rebellion in their working ranks, the Social Centres, unable to cope
with the diversity that they found themselves facing, largely lost
power and crediblity, and the Lega government collapsed, giving way to
the rise of several armed bands in the whole of the territory, and in
the ensuing chaos, the three cities of Genua, Milan and Turin, already
united by a very efficient transport system, spontaneously grew in
size (helped by the immigration of incredible quantities of political
refugees from Albany and the north of Africa), as far as becoming one
enormous sprawl, mostly built out of scrap, assuming the unlikey name
of GEMITO (GEnova-MIlano-TOrino), which menas "wail" in italian.
During the 2040es, the corporations adjusted their hold on the sprawl,
leving nonethelss several large areas in the hands of armed bands and
anarcoid movements, and a large portion of the former centre of Turin
in the hands of several magical groups, mainly the reborn "Knight
Templars" and the "New Wiccans". Even if the Vatican never completely
left Turin, the finding of a huge movemtn of "Satan" followers
apparently loosened its grip on the conglomerate, and therefore GEMITO
suffers little external political, religious or social inference.
GEOGRAPHY
GEMITO is unlike any other state or city-state, for many reasons. The
first is that it has no foreign standing as a power. The former
"republic" from which it was born was called "Repubblica Padana", but
nowadays, its political independence is more a result of the
unwillingness of neighboring states to let anyone cross its borders
than a true show of centralized power. The northern borders conincide
with the start of the Alpine range, which is part of the "Vallee
d'Aoste", now a small independent nation noted for its mountain
resorts comprising a large part of what was formerly Piedmont. To the
west, GEMITO degrades into an agricultural and underdevelped nobody's
land, in which the only break is the former city of Cuneo, now called
"Kuneo", which gave asylum to many of the desperados who fled Turin
and Milan during the chaos of the 40es. Kuneo is a lawless but
relatively peaceful place, where armed bands of self-appointed
marshals ensure that nobody will interfere with the affairs of the
local underworld, specialzed in natural drug trade, especially the
infamous Magikal Mutant Marijuana (MMM). To the south, the GE (GEnua)
part of the city is a long strip of coast degraded by pollution and
real estate speculation. The port of Genua is still active, especially
in "free trade" and piracy, and is the nevralgic centre for the weapon
trade that abounds in all of GEMITO. The whole of the gulf, however,
is also a safe landing for the political refugees coming from Northern
Africa and the Balkans. Turin, apart from its notorious magical
activity, is also the home of FIAT, the biggest corporation of the
area with OLIdata. FIAT specializes in the building of civilan and
military vehicles, but the industrial presence is a mere ghost of what
it was in the past. For historical reasons, the FIAT palace has never
been moved, and has instead grown disproportionately inside a "safe"
area, but manufacturing is now carried on mostly in the former third
world and in the CAS. The Agnelli family, however, still overlooks the
activity of the great industry, and partly controls trade and justice
in GEMITO. It is a widely renown urban legend that all of the Agnellis
are still alive in a basement of the palace, sustained by incredible
bio machines, and that they still somewhat rule FIAT. Milan and its
sprawl are home of the more anarchic part of the population, and yet
also home of the more racist one, thus conferring to the sprawl an air
of constant tension, much enhanced by the freedom (and quality) of
armament that can be carried in the sprawl without fear of any
superior justice. The three sprawls are united by a wide strip of
superhighways and high-velocity railroads, and sprinkled at random on
their lines are various shanties and the so called "tendopoli"
(Tent-towns), the bigger of which is of New Novara, with as many as
three million inhabitants. Many of the shanties which were
spontaneously born were built by immigrants, and have unusual names,
such as "Marrakech-Milan" and "Vercjellitsa". Incredibly, such
shanties are safer than the centres of GEMITO becauso of their
gravitating around a common culture. Strangers are usually unwelcome,
and racism can cause severe accidents, such as the 2000 dead of the
Turk-Greek dispute in the neighborhoods of Savona, but once inside,
you're probably safer than "out there"...
SOCIETY
It is very difficult to pinpoint a common centre of gravitation in a
sprawl consisting of more than 50 million people from about as many as
30 ethnic backgrounds. Since there are no (or perhaps too many) strong
political forces involved, people tend to revert to a state of
semi-anarchy, uniting in small bands and groups who try to keep (most
of the times successfully) peace with their neighbors. However, strong
cultural and social identity exists in those places where factories
are still active, mainly in weapon manufacturing. Incredibly, not as
much famine as would be expected from a sprawl of more han 50 million
people exists. This is partly due to the fact that trade remains
strong, and to the fact that the area, while being mainly covered in
buildings, still retains some rural areas, espceially on the hills,
because the congolomerate tends to stick to the valley floors. The
rural areas to the north of Turin are mostly controlled by OLIdata,
which was formerly Olivetti, and has now transformed in a
cutting-edge, if somewhat even rougher than normal, corporation active
in the field of genengeneering and biotechnologies. Workers for
OLIdata are routinely used as human tests, and even the land
controlled by them has turned in a monstruously intensive cultivation
of mutant plants. OLIdata sells food to all of GEMITO, in exchange for
weapons and human slaves, and this has resulted in the fact that the
two corps, FIAT and OLIdata themselves, have become a real military
threat, not only in the area but also in the rest of the world. Only
their relatively small size and their relative conservatorism keeps
the other corps safe. In case of a corporate war, in fact, OLIdata
could probably strike deep other corporations while being immune to
most retaliation due simply to the aggressiveness of GEMITO's
inhabitants. Turin's magical groups largely remain a mystery, but an
air of eerie mistery shrouds the centre of Turin, still uncahnged
after more than 100 years. Some say the Holy Grail itself is held in
the basement of the Gran Madre (Great Mother) church, some others say
the Holy Shroud (which has never been removed from the Guarini chapel
since the fire of 1997) is actually the Golden Fleece of the
Argonauts, some others speculate on the position of the porches in
relation to magical lines. What is widely known, however, is that the
centre of Turin is a mystical, magical place, where nobody can expect
to enter and exit unchanged, and is thus widely and usually avoided.
This makes it possible for the magical groups to be a deeply
territorial and secretive force, whose strength cannot really be
estimated. Some speculate that all of GEMITO is actually in the
clenched fist of a particularly powerful group (some identify it as
the former Damanhur adepts or as the Statanists that live in the
Alchemic Grottos below the city), but this is probably false in the
light of the continual fights that exist between the groups. Another
strong force in GEMITO is the so called "Five Corporations", which was
formerly the "Five Corporation", a broadcasting group. Its main
stregth resides in its ownership of almost a hundredth of all pay-tv
satellites. Its influence as political and military force, however, is
moltly non-existent, even if persistent claims exist that the Five
Corporations have started a research group on sub-conscient
mind-control.
(And so on, paranoia ad libitum)
Bye folks! Try to remember that this is a cyberpunk game and not the
Disney Show, et's have more dangerous countries out there! (Not like
the Israel bit... I just found that uninteresting - no changes at
all! Why should I make my players run there?)
------------------------------------------------------------
Paolo Falco | Admit it, [Kokovoko] is a sh*tty place!!!
(explorer) | (The tautological Me)
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