Sunken Saints
You smell the salt first. Then the rust. Two massive pre-Fall warships lashed together with chain, rope, and scavenged metal rise from the water off the shattered southeast coastline, swaying in a rhythm that newcomers feel in their stomachs before they feel it in their feet. Below the hull line, if you lean over the rail and squint past the murk, the drowned skyline of old New Orleans stretches into the dark. The dead city is still down there. So are the people who built their lives on top of it.
The surface settlement is a city unto itself. Interior rooms carved from the warships' guts serve as living quarters, shops, restaurants, and small-scale operations that hum along with the commerce of any port town. The deck is loud with trade, argument, and the creak of metal under shifting weight. Captain Lemar, a Saltwise mayor, governs this layer of the Sunken Saints with a practical hand and a cultivated talent for not asking questions. Lemar knows enough about what lives below the waterline to understand that curiosity is a liability. The citizens who fill the upper decks are a mixed population of Full Dead, Saltwise, and ordinary wastelanders, not all of whom realize what kind of city they call home.
Because the Sunken Saints is two cities. The one above the water is real enough. But pass through the lower ship levels, descend through a series of passages that twist deeper than any honest cargo hold should go, and you reach the sealed chambers on the ocean floor. Saltwise engineers built these watertight metal rooms generations ago, anchored to the seabed and virtually impenetrable from outside. This is where Murder Inc conducts its true business. The underwater sanctums house the organization's main quarters, and only members in good standing are permitted entry. The innermost chambers are restricted further still, reserved for the Inner Circle alone, where Honor Hunts are sanctioned and the decisions that shape the organization across the wasteland are made behind walls of pressurized steel and silence.
Every visitor to the Sunken Saints is watched. The observation is not hostile, exactly, but it is thorough. Manners are noted. Skills are assessed. Discretion is tested in ways that most newcomers never recognize until after they have either passed or failed. The killers of the Sunken Saints do not announce themselves. They serve drinks, haggle over salvage prices, and swap stories at the rail while the sun sets over water that hides more than a drowned city.
It is, by most accounts, a fine place to visit. The hospitality is genuine, the trade is fair, and the view from the upper deck at dusk is something travelers talk about for years. Just mind your manners. Someone is always keeping count.
The surface settlement is a city unto itself. Interior rooms carved from the warships' guts serve as living quarters, shops, restaurants, and small-scale operations that hum along with the commerce of any port town. The deck is loud with trade, argument, and the creak of metal under shifting weight. Captain Lemar, a Saltwise mayor, governs this layer of the Sunken Saints with a practical hand and a cultivated talent for not asking questions. Lemar knows enough about what lives below the waterline to understand that curiosity is a liability. The citizens who fill the upper decks are a mixed population of Full Dead, Saltwise, and ordinary wastelanders, not all of whom realize what kind of city they call home.
Because the Sunken Saints is two cities. The one above the water is real enough. But pass through the lower ship levels, descend through a series of passages that twist deeper than any honest cargo hold should go, and you reach the sealed chambers on the ocean floor. Saltwise engineers built these watertight metal rooms generations ago, anchored to the seabed and virtually impenetrable from outside. This is where Murder Inc conducts its true business. The underwater sanctums house the organization's main quarters, and only members in good standing are permitted entry. The innermost chambers are restricted further still, reserved for the Inner Circle alone, where Honor Hunts are sanctioned and the decisions that shape the organization across the wasteland are made behind walls of pressurized steel and silence.
Every visitor to the Sunken Saints is watched. The observation is not hostile, exactly, but it is thorough. Manners are noted. Skills are assessed. Discretion is tested in ways that most newcomers never recognize until after they have either passed or failed. The killers of the Sunken Saints do not announce themselves. They serve drinks, haggle over salvage prices, and swap stories at the rail while the sun sets over water that hides more than a drowned city.
It is, by most accounts, a fine place to visit. The hospitality is genuine, the trade is fair, and the view from the upper deck at dusk is something travelers talk about for years. Just mind your manners. Someone is always keeping count.
History
The Sunken Saints began during the last fifty years of the Fall, when survivors anchored two massive warships above the submerged wreckage of New Orleans and started building a life from the bones of the old world. Full Dead worked the depths, salvaging what they could from the drowned city below. When third-generation Saltwise from the Nimitz settlement discovered them laboring underwater, the initial shock gave way to pragmatism. The Full Dead had pre-Fall knowledge, maps, navigation equipment, and raw resources. The Saltwise had underwater agility and labor the dead could not match. The alliance that followed gave rise to both the settlement and the organization that would become Murder Inc, binding the Nimitz, Ford, Carniva, and MaPolo tribes through a generational obligation condensed into a single phrase: "We owe the dead, lest we join them."
About three generations ago, the Full Dead announced their presence to the wider world. During a Merican Hallowed Ween celebration on the Rum Coast, hundreds of seaweed-covered bodies walked ashore from the water. Murder Inc was no longer a concept discussed in sealed chambers. It was a force on land.
The organization's unity did not survive its growth. The War of the Ironworks split Murder Inc over the enslavement of Irons and Unstable, with the Sunken Saints backing the rebellion and the Rat King supporting the Ironworks. A shadow war between agents erupted across the wasteland, and many Saltwise departed, released from the old obligation. The conflict ended with the Rat King's death in Gatorland, the first assassination ever conducted within the Mortis Amaranthine itself. Then, with stockpiles depleted and ranks thinned, a hurricane swept the gulf and tore through what remained.
Years passed before the call went out. Those who answered found the settlement changed. The Full Dead had relocated operations to the surface. Saltwise held inner ranks. A new structure distributed power to autonomous local cells rather than concentrating it in a single seat. Three factions emerged from the rebuilding: the Adherents of Betrayal for trade and travel, the Silenced Knell for political threats, and the Watch of the Bone Chapel for dangers from the Mortis Amaranthine. The Sunken Saints survived by letting go of the idea that survival required holding everything in one pair of hands.
About three generations ago, the Full Dead announced their presence to the wider world. During a Merican Hallowed Ween celebration on the Rum Coast, hundreds of seaweed-covered bodies walked ashore from the water. Murder Inc was no longer a concept discussed in sealed chambers. It was a force on land.
The organization's unity did not survive its growth. The War of the Ironworks split Murder Inc over the enslavement of Irons and Unstable, with the Sunken Saints backing the rebellion and the Rat King supporting the Ironworks. A shadow war between agents erupted across the wasteland, and many Saltwise departed, released from the old obligation. The conflict ended with the Rat King's death in Gatorland, the first assassination ever conducted within the Mortis Amaranthine itself. Then, with stockpiles depleted and ranks thinned, a hurricane swept the gulf and tore through what remained.
Years passed before the call went out. Those who answered found the settlement changed. The Full Dead had relocated operations to the surface. Saltwise held inner ranks. A new structure distributed power to autonomous local cells rather than concentrating it in a single seat. Three factions emerged from the rebuilding: the Adherents of Betrayal for trade and travel, the Silenced Knell for political threats, and the Watch of the Bone Chapel for dangers from the Mortis Amaranthine. The Sunken Saints survived by letting go of the idea that survival required holding everything in one pair of hands.
Murder Inc's birthplace and spiritual capital, built on warships chained above the drowned ruins of pre-Fall New Orleans.
