Wing and Sword: a d20 Modern military campaign [METAGAME]

[Bobitron]

Nice to have you, Barak. I think Shaman was sweating!

 

[Barak]

Nice to be back! I really enjoy this game, and it was one of the major driving forces behind me working on the computer. Well, that and the 17 years old daughter going: "When's the computer gonna be working? I need to talk with my friends! This is soooo lame!"

Geez I hate whining.

 

[The Shaman]

I think Shaman was sweating!

I was indeed!

Good to see you again, Barak. The silence was deafening! Sorry to hear about your computer troubles. :\

If Normand was a member of the Marseilles underworld, then he was involved with the Union Corse, the French mafia. I've been looking for info and a lot of what I find is tied to (1) Ian Fleming's novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service and (2) various RPGs! :\

However, here are a couple of snippets you might find interesting -

The great blossoming of the Corsican Mafia occurred after the Second World War. The Nazi occupation put into relief the traditional rivalry between the clans. Some Corsicans, headed by the gangsters Carbone and Spirito, collaborated with the Germans. Others, such as the Guerini brothers, Antoine and Barthelemy -- better known as Meme -- joined with the resistance....Through its agents in Paris, especially the AFL-CIO representative Irving Brown, the CIA began to transfer immense quantities of money to the Guerinis. In return, the Corsicans created an army of gorillas [as they were known] to attack the unions which were under Communist influence....As the French economy recovered, the traffic in "blonds", as the American cigarette were called, tended to be replaced by the end of the 50s by the much more lucrative business of heroin. At the beginning, morphine used to produce the heroin arrived from Turkey. It was moved in barco from there to Marseilles for its "refinement" by the unrivaled chemists of the Union Corse. It was then that the rivalry between the Corsicans and the Cosa Nostra (dominated by Sicilians) increased: the market for which they struggled was the United States, where heroin had recently been declared illegal. Around 1960, the head of the American Mafia, Charles Lucky Luciano, and Antoine Guerini divided up the heroin business in a pact that had crucial consequences for postwar history in both the United States and in France.

In 1956, Joe Profaci, in Brooklyn, was recorded talking about the export of Sicilian oranges with Nino Cottone, in Sicily. Cottone lost his life that year in the battle for Palermo with rival mafiosi, but Profaci's oranges kept on coming. The Brooklyn number rung by Cottone was the same number rung by Luciano from Naples and Coppola from Anzio. All were recorded by the Palermo Questura talking ecstatically about igh grade Sicilian oranges. In 1959, Customs intercepted one of those range crates. Hollow wax oranges, 90 to a crate, were filled with heroin until they weighed as much as real oranges. Each crate carried 110 pounds of pure heroin.

At all points, in exchange for their "anti-communist" political violence, the hoods had the protection of the local military intelligence, though, as the busts indicate, not always of the local police. But enough support was provided so that the mafiosi were enabled, for years, to feed their network of heroin labs in Italy and Marseille with morphine base supplied by a Lebanese network run by the chief of the antisubversive section of the Lebanese police.

The CIA used the Mafia's allies, the Union Corse, to take Marseille away from the independent and communist unions, leaving the Corsican hoods in
control of the most important port in France. The geopolitical rationale for this, from both the French and the American perspective, wasn't only the threat the leftists posed to control of France, but to the Indochina war. The Vietminh had considerable support among French leftists in 1947.

In an attempt to force the French government to negotiate with the Vietminh, the communist dock worker unions, which were full of former Maquis fighters, refused to load American arms destined for Vietnam. The only outfits with enough muscle to challenge the communist unions for control of the docks were the union-busting Corsican hoods and their puppet-union goon squads. The 1947 street war for control of Marseille's docks, financed and coordinated by American military intelligence, was nasty, brutish and short.

The French secret services, also financed by American military intelligence, had been using Corsican opium dealers throughout Indochina to finance their operation against the Vietminh. Thus they had a system in place for the collection and distribution of opium and morphine base from all over the Golden Triangle of Laos, Burma and Thailand.

Morphine base is easily manufactured in makeshift jungle labs. Opium's major alklaoid is precipitated out of the raw sap by boiling it in water with lime. The white morphine floats to the top. That is drawn off and boiled with ammonia, filtered, boiled again, and then sun-dried. The resultant clay-like brown paste is morphine base.

That's where the Corsicans came in. Heroin is diacetylmorphine, morphine in combination with acetic acid, the naturally-occurring acid found in citrus fruits and vinegar. Heroin is preferred by addicts because the acetic acid renders it highly soluble in blood, therefore quicker acting and more potent than unrefined morphine.

The combination process requires, firstly, the skillful use of acetic anhydride, chloroform, sodium carbonate and alcohol. Then the last step, purification in the fourth stage, requires heating with ether and hydrochloric acid. Since the volatile ether has a habit of exploding, the Union Corse had to advertise for a few good chemists.

With huge protected surpluses of morphine base available, the Corsicans built a network of labs to refine not only the Indochinese, but also the Persian and Turkish product, shipping the finished snow white #4 heroin out of a Marseille they now controlled. The Union Corse heroin was often shipped on the order of their Mafia partners, who controlled the great American retail market.

There's also a novel called The Corsican that I'm trying to track down through my local used bookstores, to tap for more ideas. (By the way, not all members of the Union Corse were Corsicans.)

I hope this is interesting and helpful!

 

[Barak]

Indeed it was! Of course, it tells -me- (but not Normand, since he was probably way too low-level to be aware of all the ramifications) that due to the pretty wide-spread network, especially in indochine and all, that being in the Legion might not make him quite as hard to reach as he might think, after all..

Union Corse it is then, it sounds pretty sensical. Normand would probably not have been really involved in any drug stuff, except perhaps as unwitting muscle in some trade. I can easily see him participating in some union busting, though.

As for levelling, especially feat-wise, it sorta depends on what would be going on when it happens. But I'd say either a weapon-related feat, or else.. Err.. That feat that let's you take an extra action 1/day. Heroic Surge or something like that.

Oh and the computer problem are pretty much resolved, btw, so I shouldn't go on another disappearing act.

Edit: Oh and..

To be honest, Barak, I would have grenaded the hell outta the barn before going in. Maybe Sgt. Kat hit his head when he fell...

Yeah, but as far as I know, France's (and therefore the Legion's) goal is not just to take out the Fells, but also to get "regular" algerians' support. Despite current events, destroying civilian buildings and possibly killing innocent hostages to get to -one- shooter is probably not the best way to achieve that..

 

[The Shaman]

Of course, it tells -me- (but not Normand, since he was probably way too low-level to be aware of all the ramifications) that due to the pretty wide-spread network, especially in indochine and all, that being in the Legion might not make him quite as hard to reach as he might think, after all..

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing...

I can easily see him participating in some union busting, though.

Me, too - union-busting, nose-busting, finger-busting...

That feat that let's you take an extra action 1/day. Heroic Surge or something like that.

One of my favorite feats, especially for a combat-oriented character.

Oh and the computer problem are pretty much resolved, btw, so I shouldn't go on another disappearing act.

...as far as I know, France's (and therefore the Legion's) goal is not just to take out the Fells, but also to get "regular" algerians' support. Despite current events, destroying civilian buildings and possibly killing innocent hostages to get to -one- shooter is probably not the best way to achieve that..

 

[Barak]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barak
Of course, it tells -me- (but not Normand, since he was probably way too low-level to be aware of all the ramifications) that due to the pretty wide-spread network, especially in indochine and all, that being in the Legion might not make him quite as hard to reach as he might think, after all..

Funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing...

It's a bit of a disturbing thought.. But could lead to interesting RP. Some Legionaires/mafioso with some local muscle, some other legionaires, and Normand, some people with dual-allegiances, what might happen? I like it. Especially with Normand possibly getting back into boxing, it might make thing easier for his old bosses.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barak
I can easily see him participating in some union busting, though.

Me, too - union-busting, nose-busting, finger-busting...

Well, that and throwing/fixing fights would be about the only talent Normand might have brought to the mob, after all.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barak
That feat that let's you take an extra action 1/day. Heroic Surge or something like that.

One of my favorite feats, especially for a combat-oriented character.

Indeed. There's just no way that feat can't turn up useful. Melee-wise, you either close quicker, or get an extra punch or whatever. Range wise, you get better positioning or an extra shot. What's not to like?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Barak
...as far as I know, France's (and therefore the Legion's) goal is not just to take out the Fells, but also to get "regular" algerians' support. Despite current events, destroying civilian buildings and possibly killing innocent hostages to get to -one- shooter is probably not the best way to achieve that..

Note that, obviously, individual legionaires and even individual officers/commanders might not care as much, and I'm sure lots of abuse would go on even if official policy would be not to do any of it, but.. I just don't see Normand acting like that. Heck, as far as he knows that farmer has kids and all, and he ain't blowing up kids just to avoid possibly taking a bullet.

 

[The Shaman]

...individual legionaires and even individual officers/commanders might not care as much, and I'm sure lots of abuse would go on even if official policy would be not to do any of it, but...

All four engagments that make up the Life During Wartime operation revolve around the civilian, government, and military responses to the war, both official and personal....

 

[Bobitron]

Marcel is the kind of guy who would toss a grenade, then cry if he found a little kid as a casualty. I'll admit the tactics would probably be quite different once they get to the farmhouse, but a barn that contains a sniper is a different story.

 

[The Shaman]

Cool Check: 20+3+3=26

He may be physically fatigued at the moment, but Vidal is mentally tough as they come!

 

[Barak]

He's just too tired to be scared.

Just a quick question.. Since the sergeants act before Normand, will they give him any orders?