<div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Resurrection (Apocalypse World: Chopper)</div><div class="spoiler_body">There'd been a dozen kegs the night they buried Hammer Pete. Good beer. The stuff no-one had anymore. There'd been half that many bottles and canteens of water at her waist when she staggered out of town into the depths of Hell to dig up his grave, and no-one had those anymore, not even her. Once, she wouldn't have had to steal water. Wouldn't have had to filch a stick to lean on. But she knew that nobody would follow her out onto the cracked surface of Hell's Anvil. They'd tried to kill her and left her strung up to the roadsign outside of town. Warning to others. They'd backed their big old rattle-trap truck three times over her hawg before somebody with a dollop of sense yelled at the driver to stop, that the old bike had been worth something as parts.<br/><br/>Her nails were broken and her knuckles were bloody from turning over the rocks of the caern. Easy rocks for a posse of drunken bikers to hoist into place beside a bonfire in the cool of night. Harder for a lone and parched woman under the scorching sun. When the rocks were gone, the time-packed sand wore at her hands until they were raw. The more of it she dug out of Pete's grave, the more of it seemed to slip and slide back in, driven by the wind that was closer kin to a blowtorch than to a cooling carress on her cheek.<br/><br/>For a time, she thought she'd remembered wrong. She stopped more than once, staring in panic around the horizon of the cracked playa. That hill there. That butte. That mound. Could the mound have moved? Wind-driven, years-shifted? Then she found his skull, tugged it out of the sand's sucking grasp, hurled it aside, out of the shallow pit she was making.<br/><br/>They'd buried the Hammer the Old Way. Standing in the saddle. Down in the cool sand between the shanks of his thighbones was a bike. An old bike. A true hawg born out of the Motor City's long-stilled furnaces with the old aitch-dee stamped on its tank. The kind of hawg that didn't quit, it just kept going so long as you kept feeding it hate and spite and scooping up the oil that drooled out of it to pour back into its pans. But it had been the Hammer's Harley, and here she was profaning his grave. And how did she think she was going to get it up and out of there?<br/><br/>She strewed yellowed, crackling ribs for a time, then took a sharp piece of broken bone and uses it to punch holes in the discolored plastic of the water bottles, tearing them open and licking at the jagged, chemical reek for any faintness of moisture. It wasn't enough. But if she could get the hawg, she wouldn't need water.<br/><br/>She wouldn't need anything.<br/><br/>---<br/><br/>Sand crackled and ground in the old bike's hubs as she leaned against it, weakly trying to shove it along with her body-weight, but she was too lean, too weak. The water had left her body, flown off to the cruel sun and she was a dried-out husk, light as a feather, barely able to shift the ancient, crusted mass of steel. Her unbooted feet sank in the shifting powder of the playa's clay tiles, feeling them crunch and give beneath her with each unsteady step. <br/><br/>The sun wasn't cooperating. It should've been setting. Should've been letting the cool night out. And it should've been over there, unless she'd turned, somehow, lost track of where she was going. <br/><br/>She cursed the sun and leaned against the bike's burning metal, embracing it. She didn't need water. She had the Hammer's hawg.<br/><br/>When she came to, the sun was behind her again. Had she slept all night? The unyielding embrace of the jagged metal beneath her ticked slowly as it heated up, drinking in the sun's fire. She tried to stand. Failed. Tried to pull the bike upright again. There was no sign of the playa's edge. No indication of her guiding hill.<br/><br/>It occurred to her in a moment of feverish clarity that she could follow the bike's wandering track back, follow the corkscrewing gouge of her deliriumed path to the hole in the ground, crawl in next to what was left of the Hammer and pull the bike in on top of her.<br/><br/>But she couldn't get the bike up again. She couldn't even cry. Not for Hammer Pete, struck down so young with such a fine ride. Not for herself here on the Anvil at the End of the World. All the tears were gone.<br/><br/>Having stolen her tears, the sun hovered in her vision, seeming close enough to reach out and touch. Bloody, it hung low ahead of her as she lay half-across the fallen hawg, unmoving.<br/><br/>After a time, it didn't even feel hot.</div></div><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Named Members of Los Buitres (aka The Big Book of Bikers)</div><div class="spoiler_body"><table class="bbc_table"><tbody><tr><td>Buttercup </td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> A giant, burly figure of a man. He makes his hawg look small and likes tearing things apart with his bare hands (hint: 'things' in this case mean people)</td></tr><tr><td>Cat</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Lithe, rangy, and somewhat feral. He is Rez's trusted lieutenant and worthy of the job.</td></tr><tr><td>Gabber</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Lost his tongue somewhere down the line, probably for speaking his mind. A dab hand with a rifle.</td></tr><tr><td>Newt</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> The new kid. Still rough around the edges, still slow to react, still easily impressed.</td></tr><tr><td>Ogre </td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> A whipcord of a woman, muscles like knotted leather shifting under her tawny skin. Wears an ancient, cracked, Japanese ogre mask.</td></tr><tr><td>Pony </td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Pony is sleek and somehow manages to always look a touch cleaner and prettier than the rest. To look at her face, you'd think she didn't spend most of her day raiding up and down the highway in the wind and grit. You'd think she couldn't haul a man by his intestines, too. You'd be wrong on both counts.</td></tr><tr><td>Rhino</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Probably the female Vulture who comes closest to Buttercup's size. They wouldn't make a cute couple, they're both far too competitive when it comes to size and muscle, and their favorite forms of competition involve getting drunk and breaking things.<br/></td></tr><tr><td>Sliver</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Sneaky weasel-worder and underminer-of-authority. A self-promoter.<br/></td></tr><tr><td>Tack </td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> As in 'tack driver'. A slim scorpion of a woman with a high-powered hunting rifle, the best of the Vultures' long-range shooters and something of an unofficial leader of the group most called on to act as snipers.</td></tr><tr><td>Vamp</td><td> <strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;">|</span></strong> Another excellent rifle shot, proud of his Rasputin beard and the way his pectorals stand out in a low-cut, frilly dress.</td></tr></tbody></table></div></div><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Rez</strong></span>(sometimes<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>"The Resurrection Lady"</strong></span>,<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>"Mama Vulture,"</strong></span>or even<span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>"Vulture Momma,"</strong></span>but outsiders had best be careful using the latter to her face)<br/><br/>Female, mid-to-late twenties (<em>who's going to ask?</em>), snake-lean and snake-cold. Except for her eyes. They're dry, cracked-amber. Far too much hyena-madness and desert sun in those eyes. No matter where she is. No matter if the sun's up or won't be up any time soon enough to save you. Her eyes burn. She's slim, wiry almost to the point of boyishness, and the lines of whipcord muscle under her brown skin lend her no air of soft femininity. Small breasts try to break that axe-edge profile, but she tends to keep them strapped down under old banded canvas. No false modesty, more the old Amazonian idea of keeping sensitive things under wraps and out of the way. With, admittedly, a little less knifework in the implementation. She keeps her dark hair shaven down, save for a single thick-braided Mongol queue that reaches her hip. Like most of her gang, she wears piecemeal oil-black leathers, thick-layered and savage, ornamented with plates and spikes of metal, ruffs of dark, wind-worn vulture feathers...and the occasional braided human scalp<strong>(2-Armor)</strong>. Snug across the small of her back is a sawn-off over-and-under gun, chopped close to the chambers and its triggers wired together like some massive devil's derringer (http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/File:IMG_1298.JPG)<strong>(3-harm close reload messy)</strong>, and resting over her shoulder or upright in its stand on her bike is the remains of a sand-blasted stop sign, its edges honed sharp as hell where they aren't jagged<strong>(sub for "machete:" 3-harm hand messy)</strong>.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Stats:</strong></span><br/><strong>Cool +1</strong>(Unimpressed by any bullet that isn't in her.)<br/><strong>Hard [+3]</strong>(Hasn't just seen Hell, has been Hell for plenty of other souls.) (Marked by SgtDan)<br/><strong>Hot -1</strong>(The desert and the lifestyle have left their marks. She's too weathered and scarred to be encompassed by a term like 'pretty.')<br/><strong>Sharp [+1]</strong>(Those eyes definitely see things.) (Marked by Cold Heritage)<br/><strong>Weird 0</strong>(Sometimes they've seen things they shouldn't. (This is as high as a Chopper can have coming out the gate...Yeah, she's a little sun-touched and the rumors about her rising from the dead, coming out of the desert alone astride a dead man's ride? Yeah, she'll probably be getting weirder as time goes on.))<br/><br/><strong>Hx:<br/></strong>Amanuel: -1 (He's just too damned spooky, but he can make an engine sing. He gets his toys, he keeps ours running. It's enough.)<br/>Rose: 0 (Errand girl. Tougher-seeming than most.)<br/>Uncle Marco: 0 (Knows enough not to put me on the spot. Good market, and deals fairly, so I don't put him on the spot. He'd be worth taking along if his walls ever fall, but he seems to like life with a fence around himself.)<br/><br/><strong>Xp:</strong><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">• • • ○ ○</span><br/><br/><strong>BARTER:</strong>4 (1 for convoy duty, 4 for 'sales' to Uncle Marco, -1 for "a night in high luxury & company")<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Chopper Moves: </strong></span><br/><strong>Pack alpha: </strong>when you try to impose your will on your gang, roll+hard. On a 10+, all 3. On a 7–9, choose 1:<br/>• they do what you want<br/>• they don't fight back over it<br/>• you don't have to make an example of one of them<br/>On a miss, someone in your gang makes a dedicated bid to replace you for alpha.<br/><br/><strong>Fucking thieves:</strong>when you have your gang search their pockets and saddlebags for something, roll+hard. It has to be something small enough to fit. On a 10+, one of you happens to have just the thing, or close enough. On a 7–9, one of you happens to have something pretty close, unless what you're looking for is hi-tech, in which case no dice. On a miss, one of you used to have just the thing, but it turns out that some asswipe stole it from you.<br/><br/><strong>Bike:</strong>Rugged, Aggressive, Vintage, Guzzler (Power +1, Looks +1, 1-Armor, Weakness +1) (Hammer Pete's old H-D)<br/><br/><strong><em>LOS BUITRES</em> MC* (3-harm gang medium savage 1-armor)</strong>are an fairly large (+Medium gang size) and nasty bunch of blood-hungry scum who seem to've knocked over at least one well-off individual's armory (+1 Harm), but since somebody killed and ate their last mechy-techy boy their bikes haven't been as well maintained as they might...And parts can be hard to come by (Vulnerable: Grounded). They look and act unsurprisingly like refugees from The Road Warrior: black leathers, armor, black vulture feathers everywhere, lots of skulls and scalps which once belonged to other people (who no longer need them) swagged onto their bikes, and precious little to no respect at all for the sensibilities of others. One of the gang's sidecars now has a nicely mounted .50 cal (3-harm close/far area messy) on it, and in damned fine condition, too.<br/><br/>(* All the good names are taken, by somebody, somewhere. So...no relation to "The Road Vultures MC"...They have better things to do after the Apocalypse.)<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Questions:</strong></span><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote from: Cold Heritage link=topic=199515.msg9754361#msg9754361  date=1395555907</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">CarnivalOfTheGoat:<br/>- Do your boys ever get themselves in trouble with Uncle Marco's?<br/>- Who is the one member of your gang you want with you at all times, and why?<br/>- Are you scared of the Black Teeth? [] Yes [] No<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>1. Yes, but only when she doesn't keep them busy making trouble for other people...And she's all about keeping her people busy. Idle hands might do some<em>other</em>devil's work. She's probably told Marco rather brusquely that when they get out of line, it's better if she kicks their asses than he does, both because they're<em>hers</em>and because it prevents any suggestion that she needs to straighten<em>him</em>out. Besides, they're more likely to think they can sneak around him and not get caught. Her? They have to live under her thumb. Who're they gonna fear? Now, whether he pays attention to that or not is on him, of course. As are the results.<br/><br/>2. Sliver. He's not her lieutenant, and he doesn't want to be...That job goes to Cat, and she knows she can trust Cat to get things done. No, Sliver gets kept on a short leash because he wants to run the show, and it seems any time Rez turns her back the maggot's trying to twist her orders to make himself look more important. He can keep a small group in line almost as well as Cat does, but where Cat's loyal, Sliver will take any opportunity to tweak things to his own advantage and Rez's disadvantage. (Sliver isn't quite on 'Makes a dedicated bid' footing just yet but he's probably the Buitre most likely to do it.)<br/><br/>3. No. Sometimes it's smarter and safer to be afraid, but Rez doesn't keep control of her people by showing fear. Their safety lies in others being afraid of them.<br/><br/>Showing some wariness? Maybe. Caution? Maybe.<br/><br/>But<em>never</em>hesitation. And never<em>fear</em>.<br/><br/>Fear is for other people.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 14pt;"><strong>Relationships:</strong></span><br/>The Vultures have established a relatively easy-going relationship with<strong>Amanuel</strong>. Relatively. They appreciate having their bikes worked on, and the louder and faster the better. And they're happy to scavenge up anything that looks like it might be Amanuel's kind of stuff. The only trouble with that is most of'em don't know weird junk from useful tech...So he gets more than a little weird junk from people who're liable to get pissy if their gifts aren't accepted. And then there's that other problem, after all...They're fuckin' thieves. Also, some of the so-called refreshments they "liberate" and want to share would probably work better for stripping cosmoline...<br/><br/>There's an uneasy beneficence between the Chopper and<strong>Uncle Marco</strong>. It's useful for the bikers to have a place to go where they're not likely to be shut out, even if there might be trouble behind them (and the only time there<em>isn't</em>trouble behind them is when there's trouble<em>ahead</em>of them). Mama Vulture is savvy enough to reckon that raiding the neighbors to weaken them is doing Marco a favor so long as it doesn't outright look like the<em>Buitres</em>are Marco's private army, so every so often she makes a damn big point of getting up Marco's nose and all but bringing it to the point of violence just to keep everybody aware that the Vultures are not at his beck and call. At least, that's the optimal way things might work out. In practice, it's always twitchy trying to judge how far is far enough, versus too far...And the bikers are probably exactly the sorts Marco doesn't want coming and going easily through his gates, while his own people are exactly the sorts the bikers consider 'prey' on any other Sunday. I see them as two predators doing a lot of growling and bristling, but each aware that if they don't get into it with each other, their backs are somewhat protected by the other's presence.<br/><br/><strong>Truth Strong</strong>...That one could become a real problem. Trouble enough when a few handfuls of the preacher-man's "family" band together against<em>Los Buitres</em>. There's a truce inside Marco's compound since the one fight where the Strong's and the Vultures sorted it out under Marco's guns...But preachers, they preach, and there's rumors that Truth wants to see other Strongs outside of Marco's little box, and when that happens, that'll be difficult to resolve. Gang's gotta loot.<br/><br/><em>Los Buitres</em>seem to have got it through their heads that<strong>Cpl. Warner</strong><em>is<del>n't prey, and while he seems to have some pretty nice shinies, they probably aren't worth the blood that would likely spill. Besides, the only thing worse than a veteran with nice guns is a loco veteran with nice guns. Most members of the gang tend to steer around him while acting like they don't see him. Rez finds him interesting, in a "Where does he get all those wonderful toys?" sort of fashion. Fortunately for Warner, it's damned near impossible for a biker gang to shadow someone in any sort of subtle fashion through the Wastes, and Rez knows it. Things weren't rosy, but there was a sort of wary respect extended to the Quarantine...Right up until he disarmed himself of all his shiny toys and tried to publicly tell Mama Vulture that her children weren't allowed to have fun, then attempted to take their paindolls away from them. Currently he's a source of internal stress in the gang, because Rez is curious to see what he'll do next, and if it will involve finding more amazing things, so she granted him his life. For now. Meanwhile the majority of her gang wants to slice him into jerky starting at the toes. Internal stress isn't something Mama likes to see, so there's no question that Warner's reprieve is a temporary situation, and she has said as much in front of the Vultures.</del> ...is best served sliced thin after being marinated in his own juices for as many days and nights as they can convince the local medico to keep him alive.<br/><br/><strong>IMPROVEMENTS:</strong><br/></em><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">• get +1 hard (max hard+3)</blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div>