Set up for Vadimir (don't peek in)

This thread will solely be used to set up Vladimir in the story. I recommend that if you are not the player, don't look around. However, of course you can be curious, then fine, just take it as a sneak peek into the setting.

Before you ended up in your current troubles, you were a mayor of the great hub city of sin, magic, technology and darkness. You are raised well in the upper classes to not face the risk of being targeted as a potential victim of mugging or worse activities. You are also taught well that everything has a price, both revealed and hidden.

You advance well in your studies, and have gained the opportunity to put yourself up as the next candidate to be the mayor. Despite that this position makes you more like a puppet figure than an actual ruler, you feel that this is a good next step of your career.

Before we go on, what is the motivation for attaining such a role? Do you wish to be the one who makes the city change for the better, or are you in it for the benefits of being the city's leader?

Vadimir Grey finds himself ascending rather quickly, or rather, quicker than he had thought. He knows that it is his family that first shoved him in this direction of being involved in politics, and he has not much other inspiration for other pursuits. He has garnered quite a number of enemies as he climb the ranks, but they mostly stay in the range of passive aggressiveness and not outright sabotage. You believe that it is your family's influence that makes sure that you don't end up in trouble, and you listen well to your assortment of advices.

Then the time came for you to put yourself out there in the elections. You went out and did speeches, ones that the large variety of citizens would view you as being decent, and the more influential members of the city to consider you as not too radical. Due to how chaotic and different the lifestyles of some of the people are, it can be hard to determine how much you really care about them.

Where you live is called the Night City. This long existing place is the hub of many other worlds known as Recursions. You are taught the history of the world, where this place was created by long dead entities to be in the image of a city where a superhero was its saviour from thugs and high-tech villains. The years past, and the world advanced in technology, due to a supervillain's intellect. They invented a method to travel to other worlds, and thus started something like a space-race to colonise the vast ocean of opportunities.

In time, they accumulated so much wealth, knowledge, and influence, that they begin to degrade in their culture and individuality. Countless wars and disaster events nearly destroyed the recursion, but they rebuild every time, and eventually, everyone who is currently living here today can trace their bloodline to other recursions. Also, all the laws from many recursions have bled into here, such that even the concept of ghosts, magics, and living gods is not too strange to them.

From all of this, you would have to contend with many groups. There is the nobility/upperclass, the ones whom you are from. They are focused on improving and securing their influence in this city, and have many secret access to highly dangerous drugs, weapons, and technology that it would be a scandal to be revealed to have connections to the more extreme organisations.
Then there is the criminal groups, the one that is about as powerful as the noble classes. They make business in extremely inhumane practices, that if found out, can have their operations shut down, unless someone important tries to support them.
There is the common citizens, who find themselves in the employ of both honest and dishonest businesses. The worst of them are bound by addiction or service to the syndicates or cults, while the rest are finding jobs as merchants, mercenaries or providers of bizarre services or products.
There is also a large powerful guild of slime farmers, an old group that was one of the industries that lead to the Dark City's rise as an economic powerhouse. They rule the borders of the city, in the Wastelands, and are well defended against bandits, aliens or demonic incursions. They enjoy some independence from the drama and politics of the city.

From all of this knowledge, what are your feelings about the different social groups and the state of things?

Also, for your motivation of being passive, you are rewarded with 4xp.
1xp for response, 1xp for background: high class, 1xp for well-educated, and 1xp for morality: trouble avoider.

(These terms are just flavour, and don't have actual mechanics.)

(Sorry for the pause with you. Just pacing things.)

You gain
1xp for response, 1xp for subtly troubling the mafia, 1xp for slight concern for the citizens, 1xp for accepting the status quo.

---

You find yourself winning the elections and becoming the new mayor. The people recognise you as yet another person who will keep the dark city running as usual. You don't seem to be the type who make big promises like the last mayor, but someone who sounds genuine in their concern, but admits his abilities are limited. Also, you have not garnered any records of scandals, which is a plus to everyone's eyes.

Over time, you have gained knowledge about the trouble makers of the city. Some of the commoners feel that you are a safe individual to confide with the secret going ons with the city. From this, you may decide who you may want to make their business to not be easy.

There is the Dark Cults, the ones whose sinister activities involve human sacrifices and demon summonings. They are well hidden in the run-down or spiritually stronger parts of the city. Missing peoples are common, and demon hunters find work dealing with occasional outbreaks of evil. They are hard to completely get rid of, especially since some of them are connected with the more milder religions that exists.

The more common criminals are the Crime Lords. They perform a wide variety of activities, such as the selling of illegal products, extorting of local businesses, and the occasional gang wars on the streets. It is through these groups that some of the wealthy can find access to items that are "hard to get".

Then there are the wierd ones that have a wide variety of possible goals that involve doing things that are against a respectable degree of human rights, or possess a risk of causing another apocalypse level event to the Recursion. They are similar to cults in that they strive for selfish non-monetary gains, such as immortality, vengeance, or general mad-scientist experimentation. Such groups are intelligent, as what they are doing is testing the limits of the already weak laws of local reality, and so they form lots of secret connections with many groups that may help them. These ones are hard to find, as they commonly hide in plain sight, form a network with the elites of society(sort of Illuminati type).

How much are you going to look into and meddle with each?

It is true that there is a lack of evidence for the more esoteric organisations. Even if there has been discoveries in the past of evil cults and societies, the public hunt for them would not be efficient. Besides, some of the stories you hear seems quite bizarre, and may not be completely true.

As for the more obvious organisations, a few of the leaders have found themselves taken in by the police. It would be an understatement to say that they are displeased that their briberies did not hold up. You have been warned that while this will boost your image, you have grown to be an enemy of dangerous individuals. While you can call for more security, you are not sure if you can be fully safe.

The months went by, and a few more important criminals are either caught or killed in the arrests. A significant number of crackdowns are a failure, as some corrupted individuals manage to leak out their plans on visiting their targets. Things seem to be going well, except for a few attack attempts on you, but they are disorganised and swiftly handled by your security or the police force.

Then, all of a sudden, you are faced with allegations about being involved with a conspiracy about being an agent of another Recursion to take over the Night City. You know that it is all lies and you have not heard about such a thing. However, false evidence has been planted, and you are arrested and tried in court for multiple activities with the intention to hand over the city's authority of being a Recursion Hub away to foreign entities. Despite the efforts of your lawyers, the jury and judge have decided that you are guilty. While you are being sent to prison, the police convoy is assaulted, and you are taken away by a group that is in support of you, as for being framed.

When you are finally safe, you have a few options. You could be a runaway, and lead this group of yours. Or you could say you wish to hide out by yourself and seek their aid in changing your identity. Or maybe you would rather return to the police in a daring attempt to express that you are not running away and that you are sure you are innocent.

Vadimir, who now has become Marcus, finds that he is thrust into the street life. The one he is taught to be afraid of when he was in his lofty life. Besides evading being found and caught, he aims to hunt down the ones responsible, and bring out the evidence that he is framed all along.

This is not an easy task, as all sorts of danger and complications may come to him.

Marcus went around to trying to find leads that may point him to a good direction to investigate. Unfortunately, it is this part that gives him the most trouble. Perhaps it's because he can't convince people to talk about potential individuals who may be involved in the business of forging and planting evidence, or which organisation might be interested in framing the ex-mayor. For the bits of info you got, you are brought down a wild goose chase that kept bringing you back to square one. Even the folks who rescued you have no idea who may potentially be involved in framing you.

You went on to poke at the criminal underbelly, but you got nothing but scary looks and the occasional threats of violence or scams. You gain a better understanding of which streets and buildings to be careful of, but you are not bold enough to risk you life by confronting the gangs.

About a month pass, and hope of finding the culprits to your downfall is dwindling badly. You are also in need of finding a way to survive, since your income have fallen to zero. Would you try to get by by stealing? Would you look for a job in a gang, or a laborious but legal job? Would you try to find shelters to sleep in, or be on the lookout for generous people to let you in? Or simply seek shelter back with the people that brought you away from prison?

Vladimir has grown to become Marcus, the capable leader of a gang of his own. It turns out that the ones that rescued him are a community of honourable thieves and vigilantes as a side gig as they attempt to find decent jobs for themselves. While they don't mind having to be violent, cheat others and such, they dislike targeting helpless people.

He finds himself settling in the role of directing activities. His team of followers listen in and agree to do the work.

Time pass, and the couple of organised plans went pretty well. Of course there are hiccups along the way, but his men mostly managed to come out unscathed. Through an assortment of looting, territory lookout, and recruiting, his gang grew in numbers and have gained decent notoriety than they had before. You are sitting relatively safe in your hideout within the rows of old buildings that border the port district of the city. Of course, you don't get to enjoy the tasty warm meals you had before, but that doesn't matter.

One day, one of your men came to report to you that a small Void leakage is occurring down the street in an abandoned church. The Void is the local's name of calling the creatures that came from the cosmic gaps in the multiverse, otherwise known as The Strange. It issue is indeed dangerous, but the local exterminators could handle it well, and are doing so currently. It is just that sometimes stray Voidlings might escape for a while and cause a number of deaths if loose in the streets. However, it is also potentially profitable to explore near a leakage, as new and rare substances may be produced as the Voidlings react with the material world.

What would Marcus the leader decide to suggest to do about this?