Gygax’s Appendix N in the 1e DMG listed the inspirational material that informed his games of Dungeons & Dragons. Of course the Appendix Grim relates only to The Grim North.
The Warriors, Walter Hill’s 1979 cult classic, is a huge influence on the Grim North. The whole concept of stylised, thematic street gangs I stole, whole cloth, and inserted into the setting.
I didn’t want to have a Thieves Guild. It’s too lazy, straight out of the rule book lazy. Also stolen from Lankhmar and lampooned in Ankh Morpork. So, no. We’ve done that to death thanks.
If for some bizarre reason, like you’re some sort of younger person, you haven’t seen The Warriors; it’s an old, old film about street gangs in New York based on the novel of the same name by Sol Yurick; which in turn is based on Anabasis by Xenophon, detailing the Long March back from Cunaxa to Greece by Hellenic mercenaries involved in a civil war in the Persian Empire. If you’ve listened to enough 90’s hip hop and hardcore and then watch The Warriors then stand by for the origin of a lot of your favourite sampled dialogue.
This plot is one of the greatest premises for a role-playing game ever. The Anabasis version has PCs as foreign mercenaries in a war of succession between brothers when their employer-prince is killed. Fearing the PCs’ band could be used against them further, the victorious faction invites their leaders to a banquet and promptly murders them all. Faced with annihilation in a hostile empire thousands of miles from home, the PCs must get back to friendly environs with every hand turned against them. Sweet. Roll initiative, or whatever.
In The Warriors; ten representatives of every major street gang in the city are invited to a big meeting in Brooklyn under a truce. No one goes armed and non-aggression is guaranteed. Cyrus is leader of the largest gang in the city, the Gramercy Riffs, and it is his grand plan to unite all the gangs and control the streets of the city. All the gangs have to do is give up their petty rivalries and embrace the big picture. It’s a good speech, I dig it. Everyone seems into it until a single shot rings out from the crowd. Cyrus is killed and the gathering is raided by the cops. The Warriors leader, Cleon, is blamed for the murder and slain by the Riffs in retribution. The rest of the Warriors flee the police and start to make their way home; unaware that every gang in the city is out to get them for killing Cyrus.
I’ve run this exact scenario as an online convention game for BurritoCon during the pandemic. Warriors of the Grim North is a Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel that pretty much follows the plot of the film. Except the gangs and districts are Grim versions of their cinematic counterparts. The Dockside Boys in their sailor suits, the Grimball Furies with their painted faces and obsession with the eponymous game, the Fancy Lads in their affected finery and invites to exclusive parties. I also threw in some Grim North classics like the girl with no eyes, the Childcatcher (although this is more of a chitty-chitty bang-bang classic) and the psychopathic eight year olds who tend the bar at the Secret Shack of Mercenaries, Sellspears and Blades for Hire. It worked pretty well and I’d run it again if I had occasion to attend any form of convention in the future.
A common theme that I expect to establish itself as I, at some point, get round to expanding on the Appendix Grim is that many of the things I feel influenced the Grim North is that the setting, which for a city based game is predominantly a city, and the interaction with that setting is so significant that the setting/city itself is effectively a character in the drama. So it is with the Warriors. The late night trains, the elevated stations, the parks, the tunnels, the subway, the architecture and even the street corners are all features the Warriors must negotiate. New York itself is both ally and antagonist to them as they cross its grimy territory in one fateful night to make it back to Coney Island.
A further point to all this is that as ridiculous as the Warriors is; there’s nothing realistic about the gang culture presented in this film, except maybe the poverty and disaffection, it’s played straight by everyone involved. So for a game that’s not entirely serious, it has wizards for instance, this is important to bear in mind.
The Thieves Crews of the Grim North take their cues from The Warriors. Stylised and differentiated by quirks of attire as much as geography, none the less they are lethal if crossed and essentially they’re criminals. You probably shouldn’t be associating with them.
However, the Grim North does not deal in absolutes*, so other organised criminal network structures can and do feature. The Naar’s gang in the Terrace District for instance or the Spirals Residents Association in the district of the same name.
*with one exception: Absolutely no elves. No fucking exceptions there.