The Warlocks MC is a one-percenter outlaw motorcycle club founded in Philadelphia in February of 1967. It was the first official 1% outlaw motorcycle club founded in Pennsylvania. The club is most prominent in the Philadelphia and Delaware County area, but they have territory all throughout the Delaware Valley, including South Jersey and Wilmington Delaware, and have a heavy presence in the Lehigh Valley. There are now chapters all throughout Pennsylvania, South Jersey, and Delaware. The club's insignia is a Harpy, which in Greek and Roman mythology, was a female monster in the form of a bird with a human face. Their colors are red and white. The club rapidly expanded at the end of the Vietnam War when thousands of soldiers returned home to the United States, many to Pennsylvania.
In the years since its founding two new generations of leadership have come and gone. Some of the Originals remain within the organization, but they have long since aged out of having any real impact over day to day operations. Time and technology have changed the MC profoundly, as have the progression of laws targeting organized crime in the United States, particularly the RICO Act. In recent years, members of the MC have been brought down by police operations for crimes as various as cooking and trafficking meth, kidnapping members of rival gangs, and the murder of a uniformed police officer. It's left the MC fractured into small county and city specific chapters, each with its own governing body and membership loyalties. The decentralization has made the overall structure less influential, but wildly empowered individual chapters.
The Philadelphia Chapter, still referred to as the Originals by satellite chapters in surrounding counties, is experiencing a period of evolution and regrowth. The streets of the city are no longer conducive to crime from bike back. Any riding they do tends to be on pavement leading away from the city center. Paradoxically, they play while away and shit where they eat. They've taken to running protection rackets within their territory, particularly in south Philadelphia, and use the derelict homes of Philadelphia's poorer neighborhoods as meth dens; their two main sources of income.
Their main ally in the region is the Philly Mafia. Their main rival in the region is the Breed MC out of Asbury Park, New Jersey. They occasionally assist the Philly Mafia as hired muscle and in being the consequences imposed when people don't pay the mob their protection money. Their conflict with the Breed is typically over the meth market.
The Warlocks were founded by veterans of the Vietnam War. Their social order is strictly hierarchical and your status in the organization is reflected by the position you hold within the club. Those of lower status are to defer to those of higher status. During road runs, the Road Captain leads in the absence of the President, Vice-President, or Founder. In the absence of such leadership, the Sgt. At Arms will be deferred to by the rest of the membership. In the absence of of the Sgt. At Arms, an Enforcer may stand in his place on an ad hoc basis.
Status 0: Prospect
Status 1: Member
Status 2: Enforcer
Status 3: Sgt. At Arms, Chaplain, Secretary, Treasurer
Status 4: Road Captain, Vice President
Status 5: President, Founder
Joining the Warlocks MC
The world of outlaw biking comes with a few major content warnings. Firstly: outlaw biker culture is highly misogynistic. Women cannot be full patch members, and are largely regarded as the property of the men with whom they are affiliated. Secondly: outlaw biker culture tends to be highly racist. The Warlocks MC is not officially a whites only club, but it remains one in practice. Thirdly: outlaw biker culture, as the name implies, scoffs at convention and the law. It is violent and it is criminal. Please understand that we endorse none of these things. They are here to be explored and confronted as themes; good guys can't be good unless there are bad guys being bad after all.
If you are a Warlock, you are a portraying a bad person on some level. Society is going to regard you that way. So please be prepared for that when you get into roleplay.
Being a member in the Warlocks requires the following stats:
Status (Crime: Warlocks MC): 1
Drive: 2
Motorcycles Specialty
Streetwise: 2
Outlaw MC Specialty
The following stats are suggested, but not required.
Merits: Automotive Genius, Crack Driver, Roadkill, Air of Menace, Contacts (Philly Mob), Allies (Philly Mob)
Theme and Society
The Warlocks MC in Philadelphia is in a point of transition and general upheaval. The state has been investigating their activities for the past twenty years, and has accrued quite the list of victories over the club. They've lost weapons to raids, millions in drugs to narcotics busts, and seen founding members incarcerated for crimes as various as murder and racketeering. Moreover, the nature of life in urban Philadelphia is such that riding your band of choppers through the city is just asking for the cops to catch you at a busy intersection and ruin your day. Life in the MC is changing. But into what?
The old heads still want club runs. Cruising I-95 or rolling west down 276 into Amish Country are of particular interest, as is taking Route 1 north into the Lehigh Valley. The club is particularly well established in the Lehigh Valley, where the roads are long and winding and the people are hungry for their methamphetamine. The money making aspects of club operation are appealing to younger members far more than the road runs do, and the club's focus is turning increasingly towards meth production and distribution and away from more time honored streams of income like racketeering or weapons. Their alliance with the Philly Mob is more tradition than necessity these days, as the money earned from burglarizing mob targets for protection pales in comparison to that made from narcotics.
The Warlocks MC is primarily involved in the following criminal activities, in order of importance to the club's finances. This is not an exhaustive list.
Methamphetamine production, distribution, and sales.
