It started slow; a handful of walking dead here and there, questions without answers, normalizing the strangeness, unease, alienation.
Five years ago, The Crash hit in full force across the world. In America, the Hunter administration took two approaches to try and salvage the nation.
First: abandon everything west of the Mississippi river, use the power of nature as a hard barrier. Everyone on the western half of America was declared homo sacer: legally dead, no longer beholden to civil rights.
Second: use low-yield, targeted nuclear strikes along the northeast border with Canada to create a secure line, then deny they did any of that.
They would’ve gotten away with it too, if not for a handful of objecting soldiers and some strong-willed coders blowing the whistle. These people had root access to the global internet known as Ubiq, a free-floating network fueled by solar power and high-altitude balloon-drifting broadcasters. They had it because they helped build it, and used it to tell everyone what really happened.
When the consolidated government created the Department of Homeland Quarantine and Stewardship, the survivors of Ubiq City became public enemy #1. They entrenched themselves in the mountains, re-opened lines of communication, shored up their defenses. They called themselves the Moths.
With that, the lines were drawn. The Recession to the East vs. The Loss to the West. A new civil war; the living vs. the legally dead.
This is story is not about the Moths and the DHQS.
This is about the enclave off the coast of Seattle on the Puget Sound known as Deception Pass. This is about the siblings of the Banks family and how they fought like hell to retire.
About Deception Pass
CHARACTERS
Bastion as “Blackjack” Banks (they/them)
Weak Spot: Psychosocial
Soft Spot: Do No Harm
Tough Spot: Post
Dependent: their twin brother Toolbox.
Former Post With Honors of Deception Pass, Blackjack was an itinerant minimum wage worker taking things one day at a time until the Crash. They found peace of mind behind an old field hockey mask and a new set of skills as a squad field medic for Deception Pass’ Casualty defense force before joining their siblings in Taker work. They are Toolbox’s fraternal twin, though you wouldn’t know it without being told.
Sophie as “Roundup” Banks (she/her)
Weak Spot: Resigned to Crunching Numbers
Soft Spot: Carry the Remainder
Tough Spot: Believer (Black Math)
Dependent: Zoe, a teenage daughter of one of her former Black Math allies.
Roundup was the prodigal daughter, leaving the family during the Enclave’s infancy to strike out for her own cause. Her former work in the logging industry was put to use as a soldier in the faithful armies of the Black Math, a new religion dedicated to balancing the equation through killing Casualties and taking as many as you can with you. Then something happened, far from her family. Roundup returned with a teenage girl in tow and zipped lips, looking to start working with her siblings.
Lavender as “Snap” Banks (she/they)
Weak Spot: Am I ANNOYING YOU?
Soft Spot: The Beholder
Tough Spot: Scavenger
Dependent: Grandpa, an older gay man and mentor from the old life.
The youngest of the siblings, Snap was afforded the ability to properly go to college, something the others couldn’t. She did, for a while. Then she found comfort in the queer nightlife of Seattle, dropped out, transitioned and lived a life of partying and couch surfing until it came crashing down. Bold, brash and equipped with ten sticky fingers, Snap chafed against the conscription and work duties of Deception Pass, bouncing from position to position. Then Roundup came home and the family decided to go big to go home and become Takers, and Taker work is exactly what you need her for.
Grint as “Toolbox” Banks (he/him)
Weak Spot: Never Second Best
Soft Spot: Hands-On Learner
Tough Spot: Hustler
Dependent: his twin sibling Blackjack, his adopted seven-year-old son Harris.
The eldest sibling (by minutes) and sole brother, Toolbox is the one who remembers the way things used to be more clearly. He went from trade school to work in mechanics and repairs, lived a comfortable, albeit simple life. His social network and ability to source things kept him alive and kept him important when Deception Pass raised its walls and he was pressed into work on Processing, dredging machines and salvage from the Puget Sound to break it down and repurpose it. But “stability” isn’t enough, not when people track you down for debts you owe and you’re living hand-to-mouth to support your son. Risks pay the bills.
Red Markets: Bounty Banks is an ongoing campaign in Red Markets Second Edition by Caleb Stokes. It is a story about four siblings turned mercenaries, the jobs they take, the choices they make, and how easily money flows through your fingers.
Content warnings include, but are not limited to: murder, the undead, medical horror, medical slavery, medical prejudice/racism, torture, police brutality, police violence, gun violence, poverty, explorations of capitalist exploitation, coercive power dynamics, sex work and more.
EPISODES
Flood The Engine
The Library Policemen
Freaky Friday
Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers
If At First You Don’t Succeed…
Try, Try Again
Diplomacy Ruins Friendships
Part One and Two
Abnormal Sex Drive
Part One, Two and Three
Bounty Banks was inspired by:
- The Last Of Us games and TV show (derogatory. so fucking derogatory).
- The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
- RPPR’s Red Markets campaigns (The Brutalists, Fallen Flag, Cooper County War and more).
- Rob Zombie movies.
- 2010s military thrillers with questionable messages and intent (Sicario, Zero Dark Thirty, etc.)
- Post-punk music and revival bands such as Viagra Boys, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Talking Heads, R.E.M. and Wet Leg.
- The Offspring.
- There’s a lot of music floating around in my head for this one lemme tell you.
- My friends Copper and Quinn for being sounding boards.
- Mining the Shadowrun books for ideas.
- College courses on indigenous literature and visiting British Columbia years ago.
- The still-ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
- The nature of communities developing soft social power despite not having explicit governance that nevertheless become rules and rulings.
- All the billionaires who are smart enough to keep their mouths shut and their heads down.
- The original Haitian context of the zombie.
The Coffin Club Presents 