The Families

Five families hold five cities, and have since before you arrived. They are not scenery. They fight for districts, they remember who took what, and they will put money on your head for it.

| City | Who runs it | |---|---| | Redgate | Scarpetta Family — the oldest. Every other family took what it holds; the Scarpettas were simply already there. Their most feared man goes by The Butcher, and nobody has used his real name in years. | | Ironholt | Vance Syndicate — the half of the family that stayed. The other half took the steel money east a generation ago and bought a park in the capital with their name on it. | | Blackwell | Rey Cartel — the newest, the only one that calls itself a cartel rather than a family, and the only one not from here. They came for the warehouses. | | Sundale | Vane Outfit — an outfit, not a bloodline. A business arrangement between people who like money, in a town built on people liking money. | | Meridian | Salvarez Family — the establishment, sitting in the city where the judges are. Don Salvarez is the highest-standing figure in the country. | | Ashport | Nobody. Which is exactly why you started there. |

How they behave

Three things are worth knowing, because they change how you play around them.

They never start it with you. No family will attack you personally, ever. What they will do is come for ground.

They only fight at home. A family contests districts inside its own city and nowhere else. Take turf in Sundale and the Vanes will answer; the Scarpettas will not cross the country about it.

They hold grudges, and grudges expire. Take a district off a family and it is personal for a couple of days: they will come back for that district, or for anything else you hold in their city, and they may put a contract on the person who did it. Leave it long enough and they lose interest. They do not hate you. They remember you.

You will hear about all of it on The Wire — they talk, they brag, and they announce it when they take something back.