Sunday, February 1st, 1925
Slightly Overcast. Fifty-Five Degrees Fahrenheit.
Newspaper Headlines:
Alaskan Diphtheria Epidemic Continues
Alaskan interior experiencing Diphtheria outbreak; no medicine available. Harbor is frozen, roads are untenable, no rail exists, and the wind conditions make air-transport impossible. The People of Nome have dispatched a dog-sled team to run the Iditerod trail to retrieve the vital antitoxin.
Ireland Needs Food
President WT Cosgrave has appealed to the United States to send food aid to help with yet another famine befalling the potato crop, brought on by heavy rainfall.
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At the mouth of the Mississippi river, in the southeast corner of New Orleans, is a bustling harbor block, and behind it, a neighborhood called the Riverbend, named for the crook in the river beside it. It is a seedy counterpart of the French Quarter, which is just over on the western side of Esplenade Avenue. Storefronts and small apartment buildings line the major east-west thoroughfares of St. Claude and Royal, much of it either old colonial or brick Victorian structures, but the side streets and alleyways are lined with slums.
Sailors, dock hands, and rail workers mingle with the locals in the busy sidewalks on their ways to or from work. Cafes are going through their morning rushes. People stand in line for streetcars. Some houses of ill repute are only just evicting their patrons into the chilly morning air, throwing hats and coats after them. Over everything hangs the shroud of organized crime; hardly seen, but always felt. It's simply understood, even by simple law-abiding citizens (what few there are) that not every crate that comes into the harbor should be looked at too closely, not every store has a back entrance you should hang around too long, and not everyone you pass in the street makes an honest living. The name Mandiz is only bravely whispered.
This morning, the Riverbend has just been introduced to the Callaghan-Beauchamp gang.
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The Beauchamp Grill, known as the Beauhamp Bar and Grill before Prohibition, is worse for wear when the Callaghan-Beauchamp Gang all meet up there at about 9 o'clock in the morning. It's a small two-story restaurant on the corner of Elysian avenue and Clathering street, by a small drainage canal. Windows are smashed in, and the back half of the building is burnt out, including the kitchen and store rooms, the stair case, and most of the second floor balcony. Only the front seating area and the street-facing office survived the fire, although with the stairs out, the office is only accessible by ladder. Buckshot and Evie were told in the probate court proceedings that the fire marshal found the remains of an illegal still in the dry storage closet, and concludes that the fire must have been caused by an alchohol-related accident. He didn't have any explanation for the broken windows or empty kerosene cans strewn about the place, nor the bullet holes in the walls of the office.
Floor Plan:
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Turn 1 Intentions: Everyone
Buckshot, Gin Witch, and Bayou Belle's parents were killed by men working on the orders of Jacques "Madcap" Mandiz, the boss of the Mandiz outfit. According to the police, no one saw a thing, but it's no mystery. Momma and Poppa Beauchamp were deep in debt, and so they started bootlegging to supplement their income. The Mandiz outfit found out, and demanded extra 'protection' money to leave them in peace. They refused, and so a crew of Mandiz thugs went around to burn the place to the ground. The old couple got in the way.
Now, the gang is left with a half-burnt restaurant that is $5,000 dollars in debt to the internal revenue service, and have until 5:00 PM on the 1st of March to pay it off. That, and a vendetta against the Mandiz outfit. However, they know enough to know that Mandiz is much too powerful to attack openly and live to tell of it.
At the same time as the Beauchamp half of the family have all that to deal with, the former Callaghan gang had their own reasons as well for coming south; relocating their criminal activities.
So, what do each of you do today? Bear in mind that you may team up to do things, or go do things seperately. The World is your oyster. Include at least the following,
Plan for the Day (could be a day-long undertaking, or just the first of many things your character plans to do):
Gear on Person (Including your specific wardrobe today, any weapons or ammo that you are carrying around with you):
Cash on Person:
If anyone doesn't respond within 36 hours, their characters are just assumed to not be doing anything of consequence to the group as a whole.