Little Bill

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

@Binary Reign Yes! We'll need a lot of people to fill all three families.

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

@Ekreture All don positions are open, it just means I'll scrutinize your sheet more closely. Vacant positions will be played by me.
@BingTheWing There have always been soldiers who loot seized contraband, but Vietnam was the first war with popular drug use because drugs were already popular by then. For WW2, I'd say cigarettes and alcohol.

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

@Ekreture@6slyboy6@BingTheWing@The Whacko@Fisticuffs@Grimhildr@Bazmund@Inkarnate@Sleater@Afro Samurai@Dynamo Frokane

Here's the OOC! It sucks because I had to remake it after losing it, so I'll probably make it prettier within the coming days. Please submit any character sheets on the OOC, as well as any questions, comments, or concerns.

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

_{It's a link. Click it or you'll fall behind in OOC bants plot/worldbuilding discussion.}

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

don't put your sheet here until i accept it bucko

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

Reserved

𝐂𝐨𝐬𝐚 𝐍𝐨𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚

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Our story starts in New York City, in the year 1943. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" has topped the charts for three months following its December release, repeated showings of "Casablanca" are practically painted onto the projection screens of cinemas, and "Fantasia" has solidified Mickey Mouse as America's favorite rodent. For the past year, Italian-Americans have been shipped back to their mother country with rifles and bayonets, where they are either killed or return home injured and scarred, facing the same discrimination as before their deployment. Now, more than ever, there is a cultural divide between Italians and Americans. Us and Them. The United States Constitution protects Americans, but there is no such document to protect the dagos. There is only a group so secretive, it is known to Italians simply as "Our Thing" with a wink and nod. To the rest of the world, this organization is known by a much more black-and-white term: The Sicilian Mafia.

Character Sheet

_{Note: All pictures used should be of real people. Bonus points for mugshots/period-appropriate dress/black and white photography/not using strikingly handsome models.}

“Quote.”

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Name

Firstname "Nicknameiftheyhaveone" Lastname

Ethnicity

If your character isn't Italian or Italian-American, they're not in the mob, full stop.
_{Note: Non-Italians were frequently associates of the mafia.}

Age

At least eighteen.

Loyalty

The family they are a part of.
_{Note: Non-mobsters would put whatever higher agent they work for, such as the NYPD.}

Rank

Your character's rank within organized crime (Kind of unimportant unless you're a don or capo)

Appearance

You know how this works.

Personality Traits

A list with descriptions. What? It's trendy.

Skills & Talents

See above.

Weaknesses

See above.

Background Information

See above. Histories should only include their important periods/moments and their descriptions.

Rules

Pacing

• Activity will be left vague as social obligations such as employment, academics, and so forth take precedent over a shared hobby. But we should try to post with some regularity. Obligations will be reminded if needed, but this is a low stress endeavor so we shouldn't feel the need to make extreme demands regarding this. Just communicate your schedule when there are issues and keep me informed is the bulk of it.

Writing Ability

• The writing level I expect is Advanced. This means comprehensive understanding of basic grammar and spelling is expected, characterization is very important, narrative is important, and detail behind those are appreciated. I like long posts for important events, though if it fits a post that there is enough to respond to and react to within a couple of paragraphs then that’s fine, but one-liners will definitely be off-base. Keep with the fluidity and enjoy yourself; though quality posts don’t have to be textbooks. Quality over Quantity, yet have fun and make engaging moments of introspection and interaction. A solid point of reference is "Every post and character should be creative and fun to read."

• With that said, I will not be putting posts under extreme analysis nor will I be inciting a “word count”. So just use your personal judgment of quality and we’ll be awesome.

Etiquette

• Rule number zero of my perspective is pretty simple; don’t test my patience or be an ass.

• Generally, the idea here is a simplified version of any sort of rules since we are all adults and we pretty much know the big rules—follow the host site’s rules, communicate, collaborate, and don’t be antagonistic towards others or at the very least keep the toxicity to a bare minimum. Playful banter and crass jokes are one thing; but actively making somebody feel unwelcome is another one entirely. There is a difference between being blunt and being tactless.

The Three Familes

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The Pescatore Family was founded in a blood-oath on the docks of Sicily in the late 1890's, as a cover to the extensive drug-dealing and smuggling operation of the recently deceased Hugo Pescatore. Originally no more than a fleet of a dozen small boats sailing back and forth to Egypt with cheap African heroin, the Pescatore family's ease of income allowed them to increase their control over much of Italy's southern shores for years until Italy's gradual rise to fascism made their business increasingly difficult. In turn, the family moved to New York City, founding their base of operations in the strikingly less scenic South Bronx Harbor, founding Pescatore & Sons Fishery in 1934. They have since controlled The Bronx and Upper Manhattan, dealing primarily in racketeering, drug-dealing, smuggling, and prostitution. They are the wealthiest of the groups -- with the remaining Pescatore family being known for their fixation on the family's cultured history -- though they are also under the most investigations, and tread more lightly than other families. In mafioso codes, they are frequently referred to with nautical terms such as "blues" or "fishes".

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The Lombardi Family hails from Queens, the borough they have fiercely defended since their inception by Don Alfredo Lombardi following his son's return home from the Great War. In lieu of a corporation, their base of operations is thei walled-off Queens mansion, known as "Castello di Lombardi". They primarily deal in illegal document forging, counterfeiting, stolen goods fencing, and assassinations. They are associated with yellow -- Castello di Lombardi being painted extensively in it, and gold being their precious metal of choice -- as well as the rook chess piece and beehives, both for their connotations of fortification and unity. As a group, they are known for being a family of "thinkers", who are honorable if a bit reclusive and clannish.

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The Corno Family originated in New Jersey during prohibition, gaining a leg up on solo bootleggers by way of executing the first few to start making "real money", and then rapidly expanding in the face of their moonshine monopoly. The group became known for their ruthlessness and use of terrorism and psychological warfare during gang disputes, to the point that mailing the body parts of hostages is known colloquially in Brooklyn as a "Corno Delivery". After dominating the eastern half of the small state's illegal alcohol distilling businesses, they moved their base of operations across the Hudson river to Little Italy in the early 30's, fronting their dealings under the guise of a meatpacking warehouse. Since then, they have controlled Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, primarily dealing in extortion, gambling, and hired killings. They are associated with red and horned animals for their reputation as killers, and are seen by the other two families as somewhat disreputable.

Map

Saisei: The Crimson Dawn

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Iburi Kodo

Kodo woke, as was his routine, at the crack of dawn. To say that he woke with the call of a rooster would be both untrue about roosters -- who usually preferred to crow all night and day, sunrise or not -- and the Iburi, who would sooner fall on their swords en masse than allow such unwashed creatures into their carefully manicured, walled-off compund. All the same, Kodo awoke at dawn, emerging from the grip of sleep and into consciousness just early enough to witness the final moments of blue-grey night secede into daybreak's pale yellow. Thunder softly rolled in the distance, and this along with the chill in the air and the soft pitter-patter of rain on the roof shingles informed him of the day's persistent grey weather.

Dawn was the time Kodo was his most natural self, if that meant his least monklike. His white hair resembled a pale tumbleweed more than anything, while his clothes had become disheveled and loose. This was not the steelfaced monk his peers had come to know, but a shaggy-haired boy of thirteen, rubbing sand from his eyes and ascertaining his day's schedule. Most immediately, he thought, it was raining. His mother's hearth would require firewood and the means for it to be lit before he left, and so it was then and there that Kodo decided his morning would be rushed. Or at least, rushed for his standards.

Kodo rolled to his side and heaved himself off of the floor, standing up, turning, and bowing his head to the humble sage shrine at the southernmost corner of the room. In lieu of a statue or carving, Kodo's shrine had only a poster depiction of the sage tacked carefully to the wall at each corner, above a short, wide drawer. He walked over to it, wincing on the cold tiles of the floor as he left his mat, and opened the drawer's single door, procuring a matchbox and a stick of incense. He opened the box, striking a match on its side and lighting the incense, carefully waving it in the air so as to extinguish it. He recalled the words of Elder Hachi, who taught him the importance of waving incense to extinguish its fire, as opposed to blowing on it and insulting the sage with one's breath. Kodo bowed his head once more and placed the incense in a small clay bowl before he turned to leave his room, taking the matches with him. First and foremost, his mother needed a fire.

Kodo's home was not large -- After his father's disappearance, it was the elderly clan matriarch Hideyo Iburi who decided that his mother Aina would move from the home that had been given to her nephew Satoshi, intended for a family, to a smaller two-room cottage in the compound. For Kodo, this meant that the hallway from his room had three doors; The front door, the back door, and the door immediately across his, to his mother's room. He turned left, to the back door, exiting the house to grab a quartered log from the small cord of wood leaning on the wall. He looked over his garden for a moment, ignoring the soft rain on his head and at his feet. The rain would be good for his beans, which needed a good shower, but may simultaneously drown his Taro, which had begun to yellow at the leaves. He could have found a small tent for the Taro, though this day was more important than a day for gardening. It was the day he would become a Genin, and achieve the first stepping stone on his path home to the temple.

Kodo went back into the house, wiping his feet on a small straw mat and turning left to his mother's room. She was a still protrusion on the mat, her breathing invisible under the layers of thick blankets. At the opposite end of the room was a small fireplace, not unlike a small square cave built into the wall. Kodo placed the logs in a neat stack, gathering together some of the unburned tinder within the cinders of the fireplace together and lighting the pile with a match. He stoked the fire carefully with short breathes, until satisfiedly standing up and turning to his sleeping mother once more. At the table by her bedside was a small piece of parchment, which had not been there before. He and his mother would communicate back and forth through notes at times if he could not be around during her short hours of wakefulness, and this was one such note. He quietly paced to the table and picked it up, squinting to read his mother's feint handwriting in the light of the fireplace.

Congratulations on your first day as a Genin!
I am so proud of you, son.
I will brew us a congratulatory pot of tea when you come home.
Love, Mom

Kodo smiled, and tucked the paper into his shirt.

His morning routine started with grooming -- Gathering water from the short iron pump in the garden, and carrying it back to the warm comfort of his home from the crisp morning air with a measured patience, carefully making sure that the water did not spill even in the rain. He walked slower to the door than he was capable of going, though that was in many ways the point of his lessons as a young monk. To expose yourself to the elements for a few moments longer to keep your bathing water unspilled was precisely the sort of lesson ingrained in Kodo's mind as a boy.

He brought the bucket to the fireplace in his room, procuring an additional log from the cord on his way in and lighting it once more, placing the metal bucket to hang on a metal rod in the hearth. While waiting for the water to warm up, he was brought to the next part of his "rushed" morning; Prayer. Kodo sat cross-legged on his mat, arching his back straight and cupping his hands together, faced towards his shrine. He sat in this meditative posture for some moments before beginning his morning prayers in earnest. He would pray for his mother's health, and then pray for the health of the elders back at the temple. He would pray for peace throughout the nations, bountiful crops in each farm, and for the souls of all those who died the previous night. He would pray for each of the classmates whose names he knew, and then each of the Jonin. He would pray for the rabbit who frequented his garden, for the noodle vendor who would wave to him in the morning, and for the monks he fondly remembered. Then, he would pray for himself. By then, his bathwater had reached a reasonable temperature. He stood up, bowing to the shrine again and walking once more to the drawer, bringing back the matchbox and procuring a small razor.

Kodo left the door approximately an hour after waking up, having started a fire for his mother, prayed, taken a bath, shaved, exercised, and dressed himself. He wore the most formal of his clothes -- a grey-on-white geta and pair of slacks -- and left the Iburi compound before most of its inhabitants had awoken. Though the compound was a fair walk from the academy grounds, Kodo rarely walked there. Instead, he arrived early enough to be one of the first in attending, apparating from a cloud of thin gray smoke in front of the academy walls. He preferred to not enter buildings in his smoke form, as it seemed to him an unspoken breach of privacy.

COSA NOSTRA

@Sleater@Ekreture@Afro Samurai@Dynamo Frokane
Glad to see the interest! OOC should be up tonight.

COSA NOSTRA

Sorry for the radio silence. OOC should be up tonight -- If anyone has questions or ideas they want heard before this, send ya boi a PM.