In this week’s Apocrypha Necromundus, delve into the history of one of the gateways by which goods enter and leave Hive Primus, the infamous Port Mad Dog.
Hive cities are macrocosms of human society, millions of citizens concentrated into a towering metropolis of plasteel and ferrocrete. Sealed (mostly at least) against the hostile atmosphere of Necromunda, these societies endure via ancient mechanical systems and brutal feudalism. Yet even a self-contained city needs connection to the outside world. Gatehouses, landing grounds and ash ports each form gateways to the toxic world beyond. One such place is the settlement of Port Mad Dog.
Gateway to Necromunda
Every cycle, whether under sickly moonlight or the feeble rays of Necromunda’s sun, billions of tons of weapons and other equipment are shipped through Hive Primus and then off-world through the Eye of Selene in low orbit. These goods come from the hive itself, the surrounding hives of the Palatine Cluster, and hundreds of other more distant hives.
The finest goods* are brought in by strato-plane heavy lifters, flown over the toxic cloud layers from one hive to the next. The most valuable mass-produced goods arrive via transit-tubes or what remains of the old underground mag-lev lines that still connect much of Necromunda. For the rest, overland convoys haul all kinds of materials and finished goods across Necromunda’s wastes. And when they reach Hive Primus, it is through the great Ash Gates that they are brought.
The largest of the gates is the one at Port Mad Dog, a settlement that clings to the edge of Hive City Primus and sprawls out into the wastes. Such is the importance of Port Mad Dog that it is ruled with an iron fist by the Coin Lords of the Mercator Gelt, the guilders given special authority by the Imperial House to ensure the flow of cargo never stops. It is a responsibility that Hagar Cripplefingers, Lord Miser of the local Mercator Gelt family, takes very seriously, and gangs from Dust Falls to Big Hole know that if you want easy creds, Hagar is always willing to pay for hired guns to keep the peace.
Law of the Wastes
Hagar’s peace, of course, usually involves making sure the Guild of Coin is making money, while his rivals go begging. Hagar’s Longshore clanners make sure that any “acceptable losses” permitted by the Imperial House are confined to the families of Guilds other than his own.
A long-standing rivalry between the Guild of Coin and the Slave Guild has seen violence erupt more than once between rival clans and gangs on the streets of Port Mad Dog. It doesn’t help that the settlement’s exposure to the wastes means it exists in a perpetual twilight of ash clouds and toxic fog, the massive stab-lights of the primary loading domes struggling to illuminate the clustered habs and slave pens that nestle among the long rows of guilder warehouses. In this poisonous gloom murder comes easy, and body peddlers make a good living clearing up the streets after each night cycle.
Most of the conflict in Port Mad Dog is centred on the massive ore conveyers. Once, these were just huge lifts, designed to transport land trains up from the ash roads. Over the centuries the conveyers have been covered with ramshackle structures that have turned them into moving shanty towns, each one a settlement in its own right. While a conveyer is making the ponderous journey from the ground to the port, its inhabitants, and passengers, are cut off, and many gangs use this opportunity to strike. However, woe to the gang who gets caught mid-heist when a conveyer reaches level with the port. Autocannon turrets and flamers prove Hagar has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to messing with Guilder trade.
This doesn’t stop the gangs. The Sump City Sirens enjoyed a long run raiding guilder convoys, ambushing them on the conveyers, before rappelling down into the wastes to safety. Their run might have continued, had Hagar not hidden hundreds of murder-servitors in the shipments targeted by the Sirens.**
Scum of the Hive
Given its location on the edge of Hive Primus – linked to the hive itself, the upper reaches of the underhive, and the Spider Points*** – Port Mad Dog is a natural habitat for scum of all kinds. For outlaws and criminals, it offers a connection to the sanctioned organisations of the hive, like the Guilds or the Clan Houses, allowing them to move illegal goods or visit established trading posts. The famous Mad Dog Fog also works in their favour, as it’s hard to identify a ganger when you can’t see more than a few yards and everyone is wearing a respirator.
Wanderers, from ash waste nomads to muties, also frequent the dust markets of Port Mad Dog, selling items they’ve found out in the wastes and buying goods only found within the hives, like reliable weapons and processed foodstuffs. Of course, Hagar doesn’t like these wanderers in the settlement proper, and so most are confined to the shanty sprawl beneath the conveyers. Known as the Ashheap, this is a warren of adobe ash-brick and corroded sheet metal huts. Periodic purges ensure the Ashheap doesn’t get too big, though even when an ash storm inevitably obliterates it, its residents emerge from their pits and build it once more.
The most interesting residents of Port Mad Dog can be found in the Hall of Bullets. Here, in an old Imperial shrine paved with spent shell casings, bounty hunters and hive scum come to sell their services to prospective gangs, crime bosses and guild families. Buyers can walk among the alcoves as the hired guns brag about their deeds, or show off their skills with pistols and blades. Fighters like Mad Dog Mono and Janus Gor got their start in the Hall of Bullets. It remains the first stop for many gangers when they come to Port Mad Dog, looking to buy some extra muscle or sell their skills at killing.
If learning about Port Mad Dog has inspired you to get cracking with some Necromunda gaming, the Rulebook and Gangs of the Underhive book give you everything you need to get started – alongside a gang or two, of course! Check out the range now.
* Such as crystal toothpicks, fancy hats and pure drinking water
** Occasionally workers still open a crate and get stabbed in the face
*** The ash road network that connects the hives of the Palatine Cluster