The Condominium (OOC; Open for Applications)

[Cylarn]

It'll open. Wanna give some time for the Black Hand to introduce themselves, and it'd be great to get those apps before the gates open - unless you guys don't intend to be at the meeting.

[Prussian Polish Commonwealth]

Stumbled upon this. Anyone got room for a rouge Fallschirmjaeger?

[Cerillium]

You know an RP is good when I log in just to praise it. Nice work so far, Cylarn.

[Skaldia]

Going to be reading the IC later and getting on discord. Been busy the last couple of days with the kid.

[Transoxthraxia]

Hmm, intriguing.

[Transoxthraxia]

• NAME: 段宝 - Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• PROFESSION: Head of the Duan Jigou.
• FACTION: 段机构 - The Duan Jigou; occasionally called the Duan Clique.
• NATIONALITY: Anglo-Chinese.
• GENDER: - M - F

• AGE & DOB: 33 - 01/24/1976.
• EDUCATION & OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY

• Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China, 01/24/1976
• Graduated Secondary School in Kaohsiung in top 10% of her class, 1994.
• Promoted to National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics & actuarial sciences; graduated top of her class, 1994-1998.
• Employed at Duan Insurance, 1998-2002.
• Inherited Duan Insurance until her mother's death, 2002.
• Usurped and possibly murdered her brother for control of the Duan Jigou, 2004.
• Following Taiwanese crackdown on organized crime in late 2008, moved the Duan Jigou to The Condominium.

• SKILLS AND TRADECRAFT: Duan Bao has extensive knowledge in accounting, business management, and ruthless politicking. Her background has led her to be ambitious to the point where it generally tends to be detrimental to her personal relationships. She is a good salesperson, but is certainly not above using intimidation in order to get her way. She is also generally well-versed in personal combat; her heritage as a t'ai chi student has manifested itself in both a healthy physique and strong hand-to-hand combat skills. She has fired guns in the past, but while experienced, is far from a "good shot". She is also fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and is also able to speak, albeit brokenly, Arabic.
• PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Appearance here. A woman of Anglo-Chinese descent, Duan Bao, better known by her alias Charlotte, is a small, relatively petite woman of incredible strength. She has bright blue almond-shaped eyes, a small, upturned nose, and relatively full lips, all accentuated with sharp and pronounced cheekbones and jaw lines. She usually keeps her jet black, straight, shoulder-length hair in an incredibly neat, tight bun. She is five feet, four inches and weighs around 114 pounds; most of the weight is concentrated in her muscular frame. She has a tattoo, "安徽", below her left eye, and a heart below her right.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: Duan Bao is a ruthless, ambitious person who is dead set on rebuilding her family's organization, from the ground-up if necessary. She is deeply infuriated at the way that the Jigou has been treated "by the Gods". She has become increasingly religious as familial troubles mounted upon her, and has begun to consider herself a Taoist. She is incredibly loyal to those she considers her "family" - i.e, the members of the Duan Jigou - and they tend to pay her back as such. Disloyalty in such spheres tends to be punished incredibly seriously. She tends to underestimate her ability to commit her organization's force to an action, generally being reluctant to risk the few lives that she has left to spare. That being said, she enjoys and tends to be quite outwardly personable to those that she needs to negotiate with. While she lacks any serious mental disorders, she is mildly dyslexic, but has generally found ways to overcome the impediment.
• PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: Bao is close to her brother, Duan Hao, who followed her and her few loyalists to The Condominuim. Her father, the only other living member of her family, is senile and estranged from the pair of siblings.
• BIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Born a matrilineal descendant of Duan Qirui (1863-1936) and a British Sinophile, Duan Bao's upbringing on Taiwan was far from a happy one. Her mother, Duan Ai, was a granddaughter of the Chinese Warlord Duan Qirui, and after her mother's death in 1971, she reverted to her mother's maiden name in order to garner legitimacy for her business among many of the exiled warlords of Taiwan. Ostensibly, Duan Ai and her bookish, uninvolved husband provided insurance for "retired soldiers" of the Beiyang Army on Taiwan, but in reality she ran a series of gambling and loansharking businesses that either involved or took advantage of former Beiyang and Kuomintang Warlords that had fled to Taiwan to avoid Communist prosecution. While Ai was out, involved in business, her husband, the feckless James Abernathy-Smithe, had to accompany her to overcome gender stereotypes in Taiwan. However, Abernathy-Smithe, despite being a relatively successful academic in East Asian Studies, had little interest in his wife's business, but also lacked the interest in raising his three children. When not entertained by his wife's business calling, he tended to live in his office, drinking and writing until the early hours of morning. Duan Bao would frequently reminisce with her two older brothers about how their father would usually be just falling asleep, caught up in a drunken stupor and mumbling in English as they were getting ready for school.

Duan Bao performed incredibly well at school, much better than either of her two brothers, who tended to view school as a waste of time - each of them expected to inherit their mother's business, and had no real reason to try in their early education. Bao, like her brothers, was interested in her mother's business, but also knew that it would take her a lot more to even be considered for the inheritance than either of her two brothers. She became an overachiever at a young age, impressing both her schoolmates and her teachers with her eagerness to learn and to participate in after school activities. She became an incredibly prolific youth t'ai chi ch'uan participant and also excelled at tennis. When she completed her secondary education, she opted to stay in her hometown of Kaohsiung and attend the National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics and actuarial sciences, in the hopes that her mother, getting on in age, would bring Duan Bao in as a junior accountant in order to help out in the legal front for her business, Duan Insurance.

In 1998, following Duan's completion of her degree at university, was hired at Duan Insurance after she asked her mother. Her tenure there would be relatively obscure - she made a positive impression on her superiors, but most her suspicious of her familial connections with their boss, Duan Ai, and many reported that her work was "average, at best". In 2002, Duan Ai passed away suddenly of heart failure. Initially, her eldest son Duan Hao took over the Duan Jigou, but soon her second son Duan Taiyo effectively usurped Hao's position and forced him into house arrest. During this turmoil, the Duan Jigou's many enemies, especially the Triads, began moving on their operations outside of Kaohsiung. A bloody gang war ensued as the Duan Jigou fought the Triads and the Yakuza for control of Taiwan's criminal underworld. While Duan Taiyo was initially successful in his dealings with the Triads especially, the tide turned against him in late 2003 when the Triads began a renewed offensive against his organization. All the while, Duan Bao had quit Duan Insurance and had begun working for her brother in the Jigou, covertly undermining his rule.

Duan Taiyo's time came when he strategically miscalculated a Yakuza weakness, breaking a truce and attacking Yakuza interests in Taipei. Disorder followed in the Jigou as the Yakuza retaliated, and as Taiyo attempted to maintain order, Duan Bao rescued her eldest brother and performed a bloody coup d'etat on October 9th, 2004. Nine Duan Jigou lieutenants laid dead, but seven more served Duan Bao and her eldest brother Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was initially put under house arrest by Duan Bao and the new Duan Jigou, and he later turned up dead as a result of a heroin overdose. While it has been strongly insinuated that Duan Bao was responsible for her brother's death, having ordered it, she vehemently denies this and used the event as a pretext to form a makeshift alliance with the Mainland Triads in order to push the Yakuza out of Taiwan. The next three years consisted of fairly effective leadership from Duan Bao, who took the moniker Charlotte, after one of the main characters in her favourite movie, The Woman in Red.

Starting in 2007 and going through 2008 and 2009, the Republic of China on Taiwan made a serious and concerted effort to eliminate organized crime on the island. Several rounds of arrests and imprisonments hit the Jigou's enemies, but also hurt Duan as well. Between 2007 and 2008, 9 of her 13 lieutenants were locked up on various charges, trumped up or not. Realizing that it would only be a matter of time before the authorities would come after her, Duan Bao liquidated her organization's worth and fled to The Condominium with as many loyal men and women as possible. Soon after her flight, Taiwanese authorities seized Duan Insurance's assets, confirming Bao's suspicions that the authorities were preparing to move on her.

Her organization greatly diminished by years of internecine war with other organized gangs, police crackdowns, and civil war, the Duan Jigou has seen better days. However, Bao's intention is to begin anew on The Condominium, branching out into "industries" that many other groups refuse to touch.

• GROUP NAME: The Duan Jigou, "Duan's Organization".
• GROUP INSIGNIA:
  
  The Jigou's lieutenants carve the insignia into the back of the necks of their "working girls" and the bodies that they produce.
• GROUP TYPE: A Chinese crime syndicate formerly based in Taiwan looking to set itself up again in the Condominium.
• GROUP LEADER: Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• GROUP MEMBERSHIP: 250. 150 members including 10 lieutenants, 50 members or associates back in Taiwan (mostly uninvolved in the crime portion of the business - they tend to work laundering and rerouting Duan money), and 50 working girls on the streets.
• ACTIVITIES:
  i) Organized prostitution - In the areas that they control, Duan pimps control prostitution, especially low-level, cheap stuff. Since their arrival, the Duan Jigou have ruthlessly taken over large amounts of "cheap whores". They allow them a decent standard of living, and, most importantly, protection from the lowlifes of the Condominium. In return, however, the Duan Jigou virtually own these women. Not coughing up the Duan's cut of their profits (which can be up to 70% of all that's earned), or acting in a "disloyal" fashion can result in mutilation, starting with fingers and toes, and ending ultimately in the face, after which they are promptly discarded by the organization. This is also the main source of territorial expansion for the fledgling syndicate, as the rest of their rackets tend to veer away from requiring extensive territory to employ. They are also attempting to get into higher quality prostitution, serving girls and escorts.
  ii) Human trafficking - Often a tie-in with prostitution, the human trafficking done by the Duan Jigou primarily comes from the ROC, the PRC, and Vietnam. However, they also are not adverse to taking on new clientele. They mostly deal in girls and boys in the teenage range, employing those that they see as "attractive" enough in their prostitution rings and passing the rest off to buyers either in the Condominium or abroad. Those who are not compliant tend to be branded, like prostitutes, on the back of their neck with the group's insignia. However, this tends to limit them to use by the Jigou as their resale value plummets; not an attractive prospect. Particularly strong-willed and obedient teenagers, mostly males, have the chance to be inducted into the Duan Jigou under extraordinary circumstances - even then, these people are indebted to the Duan Jigou and owe their market price (plus interest) to the organization before they can start making money.
  iii) Animal trafficking - If you're bringing in humans, why not bring in animals as well? Mostly the Duan Jigou deal in foreign exotics and false goods, passing off incredibly low-quality fish for luxurious meats, dog for beef, et cetera. They also import, breed, and raise a large amount of "fighting dogs" that mostly hail from the criminal underbelly of Guangdong, which they use to sell winning dogs and breeding rights as if they were horse races.
• FIGHTING METHODS: The organization is reluctant to resort to full-scale gang violence, as they are well aware of its effects, having seen it back on Taiwan. They usually initially resort to intimidatory tactics, threatening or mutilating rival associates in a bid to force them to back down. Bodies may be dumped in front of apartments of targets or their places of work; when or if that fails, the Duan Jigou attempts diplomatic resolutions before resorting to all-out gang war. In conflicts as such, hit-and-run tactics tend to be favoured by the Duan Jigou, who like to strafe a target with bullets or stab them before disappearing into crowds or into dense, winding apartments. Physical beatings and gang beatings are also used during intimidation phases.
• BASE OF OPERATIONS: The Duan Jigou's base of operations is the small, but bustling China Town district of Whitaker Island. There, out of the restaurant front Tiger's Douchi, the Duan Jigou manage their prostitution and invite clientele and rivals to talk business. In the basement of the Tiger's Douchi, animals are held in cages, often opposite to humans, deep within a maze of kitchens, storage rooms, and bunks for "waiters". However, the Duan Jigou's prostitution generally extends throughout the entire island. Whitaker Island's China Town, like the rest of the island, is abuzz with neon lights, late nights, and hedonistic lifestyles.
• ASSOCIATED BUSINESSES: Mostly just the Tiger's Douchi, as well as a pair of warehouses by the docks in order for the Duan Jigou to receive their "goods".
• GROUP HISTORY: The Duan Jigou's origins trace back to the end of the Chinese Civil War when, en masse, anti-Communist Warlords and their formerly loyal troops relocated to Taiwan rather than accept Communist rule on the mainland. Most of the warlords and their troops ended up penniless, and the former found it hard to integrate into a society which did not inherently advantage them. As such, the Duan Jigou was formed in order to take advantage of the desire for a large portion of the immediate post-civil war population of Taiwan to make large sums of money. Gambling and smuggling were the Duan Jigou's trades, though gradually, throughout the years, Duan Ai's lieutenants branched into everything from prostitution to contract killing, though most of it was done without her knowing; in fact, by the time of Duan Ai's death, most of the Duan Jigou's actions were unbeknownst to their leader. Duan Ai's leadership had transformed the Duan Jigou from a series of rabblerouser game-fixers to a ring of organized, trained, and hardened criminals. However, the Jigou remained highly decentralized until the reign of Ai's younger son, Taiyo.
  
  Duan Taiyo, second son of Duan Ai, took over the organization in a bloodless coup against his older brother, Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was conniving, and strategic, but did not necessarily understand the decentralized nature of the Duan Jigou, and caused considerable tension by attempting to rein in control of his lieutenants, many of whom were significantly older than him. During his tenure as boss of the Duan Jigou, Taiyo also instigated several gang wars, especially against the Mainland Triads and the Japanese Yakuza, both of whom were attempting to infringe upon Duan Jigou turf. (At least two paragraphs of material about your group and its origins)

[Cylarn]

• NAME: 段宝 - Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• PROFESSION: Head of the Duan Jigou.
• FACTION: 段机构 - The Duan Jigou; occasionally called the Duan Clique.
• NATIONALITY: Anglo-Chinese.
• GENDER: - M - F

• AGE & DOB: 33 - 01/24/1976.
• EDUCATION & OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY

• Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China, 01/24/1976
• Graduated Secondary School in Kaohsiung in top 10% of her class, 1994.
• Promoted to National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics & actuarial sciences; graduated top of her class, 1994-1998.
• Employed at Duan Insurance, 1998-2002.
• Inherited Duan Insurance until her mother's death, 2002.
• Usurped and possibly murdered her brother for control of the Duan Jigou, 2004.
• Following Taiwanese crackdown on organized crime in late 2008, moved the Duan Jigou to The Condominium.

• SKILLS AND TRADECRAFT: Duan Bao has extensive knowledge in accounting, business management, and ruthless politicking. Her background has led her to be ambitious to the point where it generally tends to be detrimental to her personal relationships. She is a good salesperson, but is certainly not above using intimidation in order to get her way. She is also generally well-versed in personal combat; her heritage as a t'ai chi student has manifested itself in both a healthy physique and strong hand-to-hand combat skills. She has fired guns in the past, but while experienced, is far from a "good shot". She is also fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and is also able to speak, albeit brokenly, Arabic.
• PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Appearance here. A woman of Anglo-Chinese descent, Duan Bao, better known by her alias Charlotte, is a small, relatively petite woman of incredible strength. She has bright blue almond-shaped eyes, a small, upturned nose, and relatively full lips, all accentuated with sharp and pronounced cheekbones and jaw lines. She usually keeps her jet black, straight, shoulder-length hair in an incredibly neat, tight bun. She is five feet, four inches and weighs around 114 pounds; most of the weight is concentrated in her muscular frame. She has a tattoo, "安徽", below her left eye, and a heart below her right.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: Duan Bao is a ruthless, ambitious person who is dead set on rebuilding her family's organization, from the ground-up if necessary. She is deeply infuriated at the way that the Jigou has been treated "by the Gods". She has become increasingly religious as familial troubles mounted upon her, and has begun to consider herself a Taoist. She is incredibly loyal to those she considers her "family" - i.e, the members of the Duan Jigou - and they tend to pay her back as such. Disloyalty in such spheres tends to be punished incredibly seriously. She tends to underestimate her ability to commit her organization's force to an action, generally being reluctant to risk the few lives that she has left to spare. That being said, she enjoys and tends to be quite outwardly personable to those that she needs to negotiate with. While she lacks any serious mental disorders, she is mildly dyslexic, but has generally found ways to overcome the impediment.
• PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: Bao is close to her brother, Duan Hao, who followed her and her few loyalists to The Condominuim. Her father, the only other living member of her family, is senile and estranged from the pair of siblings.
• BIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Born a matrilineal descendant of Duan Qirui (1863-1936) and a British Sinophile, Duan Bao's upbringing on Taiwan was far from a happy one. Her mother, Duan Ai, was a granddaughter of the Chinese Warlord Duan Qirui, and after her mother's death in 1971, she reverted to her mother's maiden name in order to garner legitimacy for her business among many of the exiled warlords of Taiwan. Ostensibly, Duan Ai and her bookish, uninvolved husband provided insurance for "retired soldiers" of the Beiyang Army on Taiwan, but in reality she ran a series of gambling and loansharking businesses that either involved or took advantage of former Beiyang and Kuomintang Warlords that had fled to Taiwan to avoid Communist prosecution. While Ai was out, involved in business, her husband, the feckless James Abernathy-Smithe, had to accompany her to overcome gender stereotypes in Taiwan. However, Abernathy-Smithe, despite being a relatively successful academic in East Asian Studies, had little interest in his wife's business, but also lacked the interest in raising his three children. When not entertained by his wife's business calling, he tended to live in his office, drinking and writing until the early hours of morning. Duan Bao would frequently reminisce with her two older brothers about how their father would usually be just falling asleep, caught up in a drunken stupor and mumbling in English as they were getting ready for school.

Duan Bao performed incredibly well at school, much better than either of her two brothers, who tended to view school as a waste of time - each of them expected to inherit their mother's business, and had no real reason to try in their early education. Bao, like her brothers, was interested in her mother's business, but also knew that it would take her a lot more to even be considered for the inheritance than either of her two brothers. She became an overachiever at a young age, impressing both her schoolmates and her teachers with her eagerness to learn and to participate in after school activities. She became an incredibly prolific youth t'ai chi ch'uan participant and also excelled at tennis. When she completed her secondary education, she opted to stay in her hometown of Kaohsiung and attend the National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics and actuarial sciences, in the hopes that her mother, getting on in age, would bring Duan Bao in as a junior accountant in order to help out in the legal front for her business, Duan Insurance.

In 1998, following Duan's completion of her degree at university, was hired at Duan Insurance after she asked her mother. Her tenure there would be relatively obscure - she made a positive impression on her superiors, but most her suspicious of her familial connections with their boss, Duan Ai, and many reported that her work was "average, at best". In 2002, Duan Ai passed away suddenly of heart failure. Initially, her eldest son Duan Hao took over the Duan Jigou, but soon her second son Duan Taiyo effectively usurped Hao's position and forced him into house arrest. During this turmoil, the Duan Jigou's many enemies, especially the Triads, began moving on their operations outside of Kaohsiung. A bloody gang war ensued as the Duan Jigou fought the Triads and the Yakuza for control of Taiwan's criminal underworld. While Duan Taiyo was initially successful in his dealings with the Triads especially, the tide turned against him in late 2003 when the Triads began a renewed offensive against his organization. All the while, Duan Bao had quit Duan Insurance and had begun working for her brother in the Jigou, covertly undermining his rule.

Duan Taiyo's time came when he strategically miscalculated a Yakuza weakness, breaking a truce and attacking Yakuza interests in Taipei. Disorder followed in the Jigou as the Yakuza retaliated, and as Taiyo attempted to maintain order, Duan Bao rescued her eldest brother and performed a bloody coup d'etat on October 9th, 2004. Nine Duan Jigou lieutenants laid dead, but seven more served Duan Bao and her eldest brother Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was initially put under house arrest by Duan Bao and the new Duan Jigou, and he later turned up dead as a result of a heroin overdose. While it has been strongly insinuated that Duan Bao was responsible for her brother's death, having ordered it, she vehemently denies this and used the event as a pretext to form a makeshift alliance with the Mainland Triads in order to push the Yakuza out of Taiwan. The next three years consisted of fairly effective leadership from Duan Bao, who took the moniker Charlotte, after one of the main characters in her favourite movie, The Woman in Red.

Starting in 2007 and going through 2008 and 2009, the Republic of China on Taiwan made a serious and concerted effort to eliminate organized crime on the island. Several rounds of arrests and imprisonments hit the Jigou's enemies, but also hurt Duan as well. Between 2007 and 2008, 9 of her 13 lieutenants were locked up on various charges, trumped up or not. Realizing that it would only be a matter of time before the authorities would come after her, Duan Bao liquidated her organization's worth and fled to The Condominium with as many loyal men and women as possible. Soon after her flight, Taiwanese authorities seized Duan Insurance's assets, confirming Bao's suspicions that the authorities were preparing to move on her.

Her organization greatly diminished by years of internecine war with other organized gangs, police crackdowns, and civil war, the Duan Jigou has seen better days. However, Bao's intention is to begin anew on The Condominium, branching out into "industries" that many other groups refuse to touch.

• GROUP NAME: The Duan Jigou, "Duan's Organization".
• GROUP INSIGNIA:
  (Image)
  The Jigou's lieutenants carve the insignia into the back of the necks of their "working girls" and the bodies that they produce.
• GROUP TYPE: A Chinese crime syndicate formerly based in Taiwan looking to set itself up again in the Condominium.
• GROUP LEADER: Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• GROUP MEMBERSHIP: 250. 150 members including 10 lieutenants, 50 members or associates back in Taiwan (mostly uninvolved in the crime portion of the business - they tend to work laundering and rerouting Duan money), and 50 working girls on the streets.
• ACTIVITIES:
  i) Organized prostitution - In the areas that they control, Duan pimps control prostitution, especially low-level, cheap stuff. Since their arrival, the Duan Jigou have ruthlessly taken over large amounts of "cheap whores". They allow them a decent standard of living, and, most importantly, protection from the lowlifes of the Condominium. In return, however, the Duan Jigou virtually own these women. Not coughing up the Duan's cut of their profits (which can be up to 70% of all that's earned), or acting in a "disloyal" fashion can result in mutilation, starting with fingers and toes, and ending ultimately in the face, after which they are promptly discarded by the organization. This is also the main source of territorial expansion for the fledgling syndicate, as the rest of their rackets tend to veer away from requiring extensive territory to employ. They are also attempting to get into higher quality prostitution, serving girls and escorts.
  ii) Human trafficking - Often a tie-in with prostitution, the human trafficking done by the Duan Jigou primarily comes from the ROC, the PRC, and Vietnam. However, they also are not adverse to taking on new clientele. They mostly deal in girls and boys in the teenage range, employing those that they see as "attractive" enough in their prostitution rings and passing the rest off to buyers either in the Condominium or abroad. Those who are not compliant tend to be branded, like prostitutes, on the back of their neck with the group's insignia. However, this tends to limit them to use by the Jigou as their resale value plummets; not an attractive prospect. Particularly strong-willed and obedient teenagers, mostly males, have the chance to be inducted into the Duan Jigou under extraordinary circumstances - even then, these people are indebted to the Duan Jigou and owe their market price (plus interest) to the organization before they can start making money.
  iii) Animal trafficking - If you're bringing in humans, why not bring in animals as well? Mostly the Duan Jigou deal in foreign exotics and false goods, passing off incredibly low-quality fish for luxurious meats, dog for beef, et cetera. They also import, breed, and raise a large amount of "fighting dogs" that mostly hail from the criminal underbelly of Guangdong, which they use to sell winning dogs and breeding rights as if they were horse races.
• FIGHTING METHODS: The organization is reluctant to resort to full-scale gang violence, as they are well aware of its effects, having seen it back on Taiwan. They usually initially resort to intimidatory tactics, threatening or mutilating rival associates in a bid to force them to back down. Bodies may be dumped in front of apartments of targets or their places of work; when or if that fails, the Duan Jigou attempts diplomatic resolutions before resorting to all-out gang war. In conflicts as such, hit-and-run tactics tend to be favoured by the Duan Jigou, who like to strafe a target with bullets or stab them before disappearing into crowds or into dense, winding apartments. Physical beatings and gang beatings are also used during intimidation phases.
• BASE OF OPERATIONS: The Duan Jigou's base of operations is the small, but bustling China Town district of Whitaker Island. There, out of the restaurant front Tiger's Douchi, the Duan Jigou manage their prostitution and invite clientele and rivals to talk business. In the basement of the Tiger's Douchi, animals are held in cages, often opposite to humans, deep within a maze of kitchens, storage rooms, and bunks for "waiters". However, the Duan Jigou's prostitution generally extends throughout the entire island. Whitaker Island's China Town, like the rest of the island, is abuzz with neon lights, late nights, and hedonistic lifestyles.
• ASSOCIATED BUSINESSES: Mostly just the Tiger's Douchi, as well as a pair of warehouses by the docks in order for the Duan Jigou to receive their "goods".
• GROUP HISTORY: The Duan Jigou's origins trace back to the end of the Chinese Civil War when, en masse, anti-Communist Warlords and their formerly loyal troops relocated to Taiwan rather than accept Communist rule on the mainland. Most of the warlords and their troops ended up penniless, and the former found it hard to integrate into a society which did not inherently advantage them. As such, the Duan Jigou was formed in order to take advantage of the desire for a large portion of the immediate post-civil war population of Taiwan to make large sums of money. Gambling and smuggling were the Duan Jigou's trades, though gradually, throughout the years, Duan Ai's lieutenants branched into everything from prostitution to contract killing, though most of it was done without her knowing; in fact, by the time of Duan Ai's death, most of the Duan Jigou's actions were unbeknownst to their leader. Duan Ai's leadership had transformed the Duan Jigou from a series of rabblerouser game-fixers to a ring of organized, trained, and hardened criminals. However, the Jigou remained highly decentralized until the reign of Ai's younger son, Taiyo.
  
  Duan Taiyo, second son of Duan Ai, took over the organization in a bloodless coup against his older brother, Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was conniving, and strategic, but did not necessarily understand the decentralized nature of the Duan Jigou, and caused considerable tension by attempting to rein in control of his lieutenants, many of whom were significantly older than him. During his tenure as boss of the Duan Jigou, Taiyo also instigated several gang wars, especially against the Mainland Triads and the Japanese Yakuza, both of whom were attempting to infringe upon Duan Jigou turf. (At least two paragraphs of material about your group and its origins)

Come on in.

[Skaldia]

• NAME: 段宝 - Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• PROFESSION: Head of the Duan Jigou.
• FACTION: 段机构 - The Duan Jigou; occasionally called the Duan Clique.
• NATIONALITY: Anglo-Chinese.
• GENDER: - M - F

• AGE & DOB: 33 - 01/24/1976.
• EDUCATION & OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY

• Born in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China, 01/24/1976
• Graduated Secondary School in Kaohsiung in top 10% of her class, 1994.
• Promoted to National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics & actuarial sciences; graduated top of her class, 1994-1998.
• Employed at Duan Insurance, 1998-2002.
• Inherited Duan Insurance until her mother's death, 2002.
• Usurped and possibly murdered her brother for control of the Duan Jigou, 2004.
• Following Taiwanese crackdown on organized crime in late 2008, moved the Duan Jigou to The Condominium.

• SKILLS AND TRADECRAFT: Duan Bao has extensive knowledge in accounting, business management, and ruthless politicking. Her background has led her to be ambitious to the point where it generally tends to be detrimental to her personal relationships. She is a good salesperson, but is certainly not above using intimidation in order to get her way. She is also generally well-versed in personal combat; her heritage as a t'ai chi student has manifested itself in both a healthy physique and strong hand-to-hand combat skills. She has fired guns in the past, but while experienced, is far from a "good shot". She is also fluent in Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and is also able to speak, albeit brokenly, Arabic.
• PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Appearance here. A woman of Anglo-Chinese descent, Duan Bao, better known by her alias Charlotte, is a small, relatively petite woman of incredible strength. She has bright blue almond-shaped eyes, a small, upturned nose, and relatively full lips, all accentuated with sharp and pronounced cheekbones and jaw lines. She usually keeps her jet black, straight, shoulder-length hair in an incredibly neat, tight bun. She is five feet, four inches and weighs around 114 pounds; most of the weight is concentrated in her muscular frame. She has a tattoo, "安徽", below her left eye, and a heart below her right.
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: Duan Bao is a ruthless, ambitious person who is dead set on rebuilding her family's organization, from the ground-up if necessary. She is deeply infuriated at the way that the Jigou has been treated "by the Gods". She has become increasingly religious as familial troubles mounted upon her, and has begun to consider herself a Taoist. She is incredibly loyal to those she considers her "family" - i.e, the members of the Duan Jigou - and they tend to pay her back as such. Disloyalty in such spheres tends to be punished incredibly seriously. She tends to underestimate her ability to commit her organization's force to an action, generally being reluctant to risk the few lives that she has left to spare. That being said, she enjoys and tends to be quite outwardly personable to those that she needs to negotiate with. While she lacks any serious mental disorders, she is mildly dyslexic, but has generally found ways to overcome the impediment.
• PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: Bao is close to her brother, Duan Hao, who followed her and her few loyalists to The Condominuim. Her father, the only other living member of her family, is senile and estranged from the pair of siblings.
• BIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Born a matrilineal descendant of Duan Qirui (1863-1936) and a British Sinophile, Duan Bao's upbringing on Taiwan was far from a happy one. Her mother, Duan Ai, was a granddaughter of the Chinese Warlord Duan Qirui, and after her mother's death in 1971, she reverted to her mother's maiden name in order to garner legitimacy for her business among many of the exiled warlords of Taiwan. Ostensibly, Duan Ai and her bookish, uninvolved husband provided insurance for "retired soldiers" of the Beiyang Army on Taiwan, but in reality she ran a series of gambling and loansharking businesses that either involved or took advantage of former Beiyang and Kuomintang Warlords that had fled to Taiwan to avoid Communist prosecution. While Ai was out, involved in business, her husband, the feckless James Abernathy-Smithe, had to accompany her to overcome gender stereotypes in Taiwan. However, Abernathy-Smithe, despite being a relatively successful academic in East Asian Studies, had little interest in his wife's business, but also lacked the interest in raising his three children. When not entertained by his wife's business calling, he tended to live in his office, drinking and writing until the early hours of morning. Duan Bao would frequently reminisce with her two older brothers about how their father would usually be just falling asleep, caught up in a drunken stupor and mumbling in English as they were getting ready for school.

Duan Bao performed incredibly well at school, much better than either of her two brothers, who tended to view school as a waste of time - each of them expected to inherit their mother's business, and had no real reason to try in their early education. Bao, like her brothers, was interested in her mother's business, but also knew that it would take her a lot more to even be considered for the inheritance than either of her two brothers. She became an overachiever at a young age, impressing both her schoolmates and her teachers with her eagerness to learn and to participate in after school activities. She became an incredibly prolific youth t'ai chi ch'uan participant and also excelled at tennis. When she completed her secondary education, she opted to stay in her hometown of Kaohsiung and attend the National Sun Yat-sen University for mathematics and actuarial sciences, in the hopes that her mother, getting on in age, would bring Duan Bao in as a junior accountant in order to help out in the legal front for her business, Duan Insurance.

In 1998, following Duan's completion of her degree at university, was hired at Duan Insurance after she asked her mother. Her tenure there would be relatively obscure - she made a positive impression on her superiors, but most her suspicious of her familial connections with their boss, Duan Ai, and many reported that her work was "average, at best". In 2002, Duan Ai passed away suddenly of heart failure. Initially, her eldest son Duan Hao took over the Duan Jigou, but soon her second son Duan Taiyo effectively usurped Hao's position and forced him into house arrest. During this turmoil, the Duan Jigou's many enemies, especially the Triads, began moving on their operations outside of Kaohsiung. A bloody gang war ensued as the Duan Jigou fought the Triads and the Yakuza for control of Taiwan's criminal underworld. While Duan Taiyo was initially successful in his dealings with the Triads especially, the tide turned against him in late 2003 when the Triads began a renewed offensive against his organization. All the while, Duan Bao had quit Duan Insurance and had begun working for her brother in the Jigou, covertly undermining his rule.

Duan Taiyo's time came when he strategically miscalculated a Yakuza weakness, breaking a truce and attacking Yakuza interests in Taipei. Disorder followed in the Jigou as the Yakuza retaliated, and as Taiyo attempted to maintain order, Duan Bao rescued her eldest brother and performed a bloody coup d'etat on October 9th, 2004. Nine Duan Jigou lieutenants laid dead, but seven more served Duan Bao and her eldest brother Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was initially put under house arrest by Duan Bao and the new Duan Jigou, and he later turned up dead as a result of a heroin overdose. While it has been strongly insinuated that Duan Bao was responsible for her brother's death, having ordered it, she vehemently denies this and used the event as a pretext to form a makeshift alliance with the Mainland Triads in order to push the Yakuza out of Taiwan. The next three years consisted of fairly effective leadership from Duan Bao, who took the moniker Charlotte, after one of the main characters in her favourite movie, The Woman in Red.

Starting in 2007 and going through 2008 and 2009, the Republic of China on Taiwan made a serious and concerted effort to eliminate organized crime on the island. Several rounds of arrests and imprisonments hit the Jigou's enemies, but also hurt Duan as well. Between 2007 and 2008, 9 of her 13 lieutenants were locked up on various charges, trumped up or not. Realizing that it would only be a matter of time before the authorities would come after her, Duan Bao liquidated her organization's worth and fled to The Condominium with as many loyal men and women as possible. Soon after her flight, Taiwanese authorities seized Duan Insurance's assets, confirming Bao's suspicions that the authorities were preparing to move on her.

Her organization greatly diminished by years of internecine war with other organized gangs, police crackdowns, and civil war, the Duan Jigou has seen better days. However, Bao's intention is to begin anew on The Condominium, branching out into "industries" that many other groups refuse to touch.

• GROUP NAME: The Duan Jigou, "Duan's Organization".
• GROUP INSIGNIA:
  (Image)
  The Jigou's lieutenants carve the insignia into the back of the necks of their "working girls" and the bodies that they produce.
• GROUP TYPE: A Chinese crime syndicate formerly based in Taiwan looking to set itself up again in the Condominium.
• GROUP LEADER: Duan "Charlotte" Bao.
• GROUP MEMBERSHIP: 250. 150 members including 10 lieutenants, 50 members or associates back in Taiwan (mostly uninvolved in the crime portion of the business - they tend to work laundering and rerouting Duan money), and 50 working girls on the streets.
• ACTIVITIES:
  i) Organized prostitution - In the areas that they control, Duan pimps control prostitution, especially low-level, cheap stuff. Since their arrival, the Duan Jigou have ruthlessly taken over large amounts of "cheap whores". They allow them a decent standard of living, and, most importantly, protection from the lowlifes of the Condominium. In return, however, the Duan Jigou virtually own these women. Not coughing up the Duan's cut of their profits (which can be up to 70% of all that's earned), or acting in a "disloyal" fashion can result in mutilation, starting with fingers and toes, and ending ultimately in the face, after which they are promptly discarded by the organization. This is also the main source of territorial expansion for the fledgling syndicate, as the rest of their rackets tend to veer away from requiring extensive territory to employ. They are also attempting to get into higher quality prostitution, serving girls and escorts.
  ii) Human trafficking - Often a tie-in with prostitution, the human trafficking done by the Duan Jigou primarily comes from the ROC, the PRC, and Vietnam. However, they also are not adverse to taking on new clientele. They mostly deal in girls and boys in the teenage range, employing those that they see as "attractive" enough in their prostitution rings and passing the rest off to buyers either in the Condominium or abroad. Those who are not compliant tend to be branded, like prostitutes, on the back of their neck with the group's insignia. However, this tends to limit them to use by the Jigou as their resale value plummets; not an attractive prospect. Particularly strong-willed and obedient teenagers, mostly males, have the chance to be inducted into the Duan Jigou under extraordinary circumstances - even then, these people are indebted to the Duan Jigou and owe their market price (plus interest) to the organization before they can start making money.
  iii) Animal trafficking - If you're bringing in humans, why not bring in animals as well? Mostly the Duan Jigou deal in foreign exotics and false goods, passing off incredibly low-quality fish for luxurious meats, dog for beef, et cetera. They also import, breed, and raise a large amount of "fighting dogs" that mostly hail from the criminal underbelly of Guangdong, which they use to sell winning dogs and breeding rights as if they were horse races.
• FIGHTING METHODS: The organization is reluctant to resort to full-scale gang violence, as they are well aware of its effects, having seen it back on Taiwan. They usually initially resort to intimidatory tactics, threatening or mutilating rival associates in a bid to force them to back down. Bodies may be dumped in front of apartments of targets or their places of work; when or if that fails, the Duan Jigou attempts diplomatic resolutions before resorting to all-out gang war. In conflicts as such, hit-and-run tactics tend to be favoured by the Duan Jigou, who like to strafe a target with bullets or stab them before disappearing into crowds or into dense, winding apartments. Physical beatings and gang beatings are also used during intimidation phases.
• BASE OF OPERATIONS: The Duan Jigou's base of operations is the small, but bustling China Town district of Whitaker Island. There, out of the restaurant front Tiger's Douchi, the Duan Jigou manage their prostitution and invite clientele and rivals to talk business. In the basement of the Tiger's Douchi, animals are held in cages, often opposite to humans, deep within a maze of kitchens, storage rooms, and bunks for "waiters". However, the Duan Jigou's prostitution generally extends throughout the entire island. Whitaker Island's China Town, like the rest of the island, is abuzz with neon lights, late nights, and hedonistic lifestyles.
• ASSOCIATED BUSINESSES: Mostly just the Tiger's Douchi, as well as a pair of warehouses by the docks in order for the Duan Jigou to receive their "goods".
• GROUP HISTORY: The Duan Jigou's origins trace back to the end of the Chinese Civil War when, en masse, anti-Communist Warlords and their formerly loyal troops relocated to Taiwan rather than accept Communist rule on the mainland. Most of the warlords and their troops ended up penniless, and the former found it hard to integrate into a society which did not inherently advantage them. As such, the Duan Jigou was formed in order to take advantage of the desire for a large portion of the immediate post-civil war population of Taiwan to make large sums of money. Gambling and smuggling were the Duan Jigou's trades, though gradually, throughout the years, Duan Ai's lieutenants branched into everything from prostitution to contract killing, though most of it was done without her knowing; in fact, by the time of Duan Ai's death, most of the Duan Jigou's actions were unbeknownst to their leader. Duan Ai's leadership had transformed the Duan Jigou from a series of rabblerouser game-fixers to a ring of organized, trained, and hardened criminals. However, the Jigou remained highly decentralized until the reign of Ai's younger son, Taiyo.
  
  Duan Taiyo, second son of Duan Ai, took over the organization in a bloodless coup against his older brother, Duan Hao. Duan Taiyo was conniving, and strategic, but did not necessarily understand the decentralized nature of the Duan Jigou, and caused considerable tension by attempting to rein in control of his lieutenants, many of whom were significantly older than him. During his tenure as boss of the Duan Jigou, Taiyo also instigated several gang wars, especially against the Mainland Triads and the Japanese Yakuza, both of whom were attempting to infringe upon Duan Jigou turf. (At least two paragraphs of material about your group and its origins)

Come on in.

Hope we can get people to a'postin more!

[Solisian Union]

• NAME: Marisol Romero
• PROFESSION: Contract Killer
• FACTION: Gayoso clan
• NATIONALITY: Spanish
• GENDER: - M - F (Strike out the false point = M - F)

• AGE & DOB: 32 - January 21 1980
• EDUCATION & OCCUPATIONAL HISTORY Primary school, 1986-1991
Secondary school, 1992-1996
University, 1997-2001
Spanish Military Service - Spanish Legion, 2002-2004
Sicario, 2005-2008
Contract Killer, 2009-present

• SKILLS AND TRADECRAFT: Works under pressure, quick decision maker, teaching, mechanical skills and military training (infantry)
• PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Galician - Her hair is cut short (her picture here is of herself before military service) - several scars on her back and on her chest and stomach and arms from military service
• PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSESSMENT: She is described as a very casual but intelligent woman, concerned with personal cleanliness and with hard, rough action. She is happy to be with people and to be on her own. She loves it when she works with subordinates or with a team. On the other hand, she becomes incredibly happy when in extreme situations, most especially combat. So far, she has been diagnosed with no mental disorder and has been reported to be completely fine.
• PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS: So far, she has four daughters who are living in Spain. All four daughters are in college but her eldest, Angelina, is being trained by the clan back home to be her successor if she dies. She loves her daughters very much and often goes back to Spain every end of the month for 3 days before returning to the Condominium.
• BIOGRAPHY AND BACKGROUND INFORMATION:

Marisol Romero was born to the heads of the Gayoso Clan. In Spain, the Gayoso Clan was known for their loyalty to Spain and their willingness to send many of their family members to war. They were loyal once to the Spanish Republic during the Civil War but when they lost, many were forced to go to the Condominium or to other places. It was here that her parents met and married before returning to Spain with Marisol.

Fast forward to today, Marisol Romero has lost both of her parents to the Barcelona attacks. However, she is now the sole head of the Clan and has moved to the Condominium at the request of some of her relatives. Now, she is motivated to ensure that the Gayosos keep the Seco Bloc secure for the Spanish living here.

• GROUP NAME: Gayoso Clan
• GROUP INSIGNIA:
• GROUP TYPE: A clan dedicated to taking contracts from their clients in order to eliminate any target.
• GROUP LEADER: Caudillo Marisol Romero
• GROUP MEMBERSHIP: 45
• ACTIVITIES: Contract Killing - Due to the reputation of the Gayoso Clan for being composed of former Spanish Legionaries, their main approach is to kill targets, the ones that put up a fight, for their clients. Contracts also tend to get the Gayosos into contact with other groups. Sometimes it doesn't go well.
  FIGHT MANAGEMENT - Gayosos love fights. Be it to the death or anything else so long as it involves a man fighting another man, they will arrange them, manage them and get paid for them so long as the fight is entertaining.
  RACKETEERING - Gayosos try to be honorable on this. They would be willing to actually protect businesses so long as Gayosos and those close to them are given some special privileges. On the other hand, controlling turf tends to be the first thing new members of the Clan do in the Condominium.
• FIGHTING METHODS: As the Gayosos are an independent clan of former Spanish soldiers, mostly Legionaries, the Clan fights using tested and remembered military tactics. Gayosos are armed well but do not possess very heavy weapons and limit their use of grenades.
• BASE OF OPERATIONS: Seco Bloc - Home to several Spaniards, most notably Galicians, Asturians, Castilians, Extremadurans and Cantabrians. The Seco Bloc is composed of two floors occupied by the Spaniards who live here. Here, the Gayosos call this home. They protect this with their dear lives and often hold important events for the Hispanic and Latin population of the Condominium.
• ASSOCIATED BUSINESSES: N/A
• GROUP HISTORY: The Gayoso Clan was formed by Estefan Atenas and Rebeca Gayoso in 1474. In 1475, the Clan pledged themselves to Queen Isabella. For years, The Gayosos served as soldiers, earning the respect of the people for their own loyalty to those who lived near them. Galicia was the home of the Gayosos. There, they made their name not only by soldiering but also by providing security to businesses.
  
  Fast forward to the modern era, the Gayosos has become incredibly valuable to the Spanish government. On the other hand, however, the Gayosos have been secretly getting themselves into criminal ventures due to the falling Spanish economy. So they went into the Condominium, the place where many of them were exiled to after they were defeated in the Civil War, to test the waters. Soon enough, they earned their place as killers and as protectors. Once under Marisols influence, The Gayosos are looking for ways to triumph not only through economic difficulties but to also, one day, make the name of their clan glorious and feared throughout the criminal underworld. All for Spain and Galicia would the Clan fight.

[Cylarn]

Give me some more details on Marisol.

[Solisian Union]

Yessir! Will do when I got the time this week! ^^

[Cylarn]

Yessir! Will do when I got the time this week! ^^

Gotcha.

[Jessjohnesik]

Hey Cy i aint dead yet

[Tiltjuice]

whatsup Jess (fistbump)

[The Knockout Gun Gals]

What's up, Jess!

[Tytus Abaddon]

Is this dead?