Raiders

Raiders

Universally feared or loathed, Raiders are the scourge of the Barrens, and a menace to all who meet them. Fueled by the drug Psycho, and armed with whatever weapons they can scrounge or steal, Raiders group together into bands to do just what their name implies – raid. Their most common targets are the inhabitants and travelers of the Barrens, but they often strike out into civilized areas as well, leaving only death and destruction in their wake.

Raiders engage in ritual scarification both as a matter of initiation and on a continual basis as a part of various tests of strength or fortitude. They pick up further scars as a result of their lifestyle. Raiders have no need of social graces and prefer, by a large margin, to solve problems with violence when it's an option, be it a leadership dispute, or how to have some fun on a lonely night.

Raiders are closer to a culture than a gang, with individual bands being only loosely associated with each other, and having no apparent organization or hierarchy. Their only consistent thread is the use of the drug Psycho. Psycho quickly reduces its users to violent savages, and the introduction and proliferation of the drug coincided with the emergence of Raiders in the Barrens. Raiders come from many sources. Many were natives of the Barrens who turned to Psycho as a means of surviving the violence around them, choosing to be predator rather than prey, damn the consequences. Others were once members of normal society who found themselves cast out due to Psycho-use or unrelated anti-social tendencies. A third, and especially fearsome strain of Raiders were once Shadowrunners, those who turned to Psycho to gain an edge in battle, but who succumbed to its neural-scarring and found themselves becoming beasts, shunned by johnsons and former teammates alike, and forced into the Barrens to live out their days by the only tool Psycho had left them – brutal and unending violence.

Shadowrunners tend to resent Raiders for undercutting them and giving the business a bad name. It's known that anyone can get Raiders to do a smash-and-grab, or its equivalent, for a case of guns, a passel of Psycho, or the possession of a woman who can't defend herself. And although there are even odds that such perspective employers will find themselves simply attacked on sight instead, some cheap, desperate, or unscrupulous individuals will try to use Raiders as a sort of poor-man's shadowrunners. Furthermore, the fact that Raiders don't ask questions, don't investigate on their own initiative, and are seldom taken alive makes them not only deniable assets, but trivially disposable ones. Runners with any semblance of either professionalism, ethics, or image to maintain resent being associated with Raiders, and all runners resent being undercut.

Raiders seem to come into possession of powerful arms and explosives out of proportion to what they could be looting, as well as more Psycho than they could be making themselves; it's a mystery as much as Raiders are a menace...