Gli Meccanichi di La Cosa Nostra, a GURPS Classic setting

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Genre:  Anime-esque, crime story, urban fantasy, mecha, alternate history

Premise:  Mafia drama in the present day, plus mecha and ceremonial magic

Tech Level:  As with the real world of the present day, the world is a mature TL 8

Character Creation:  150 points, up to 40 points in disadvantages, up to 5 quirks; can trade points for cash (B16, B83), trade points for equipment (CI17), and use temporary wealth (CI18)

Books:  GURPS Cabal (magic system only, there is no giant conspiracy; rival organizations such as the Yakuza or Bloods might have access to different styles of magic, just as powerful), GURPS Cops (for enemies), GURPS Grimoire, GURPS High-Tech, GURPS Magic, GURPS Mecha, GURPS Modern Firepower, GURPS SWAT (for enemies), GURPS Vehicles, GURPS Vehicles Expansion 1, GURPS Vehicles Expansion 2

The Roaring Twenties were a helluva time to be a mobster.  The Anti-Saloon League had no idea the can of worms they would end up opening.

Edward S. Ellis is the first person to have described the device now known as a "mecha" in his dime novel The Steam-Man of the Prairies.  That's much earlier than the Roaring Twenties, of course, but it took until World War I's horrifying trench warfare tactics to make Johnny Brainerd's invention real.  The first true walking mecha ~ named "Mother" ~ was built by the British in 1916, and it won the war by breaking the stalemate of the trenches.

January 1920 saw the start of Prohibition, as the "Thirsty-First" Amendment and the Volstead Act kicked in.  Crime immediately skyrocketed, and the Mafia were right there in the thick of it.  Five months later, the United States government made the fateful decision to disband the Mecha Corps entirely.  Most of the remaining mecha were distributed among the infantry, with a few falling off a truck into Italian hands.

Not all the mecha that flooded the streets during Prohibition were American-made, however.  In May of 1919, the Italian government had ordered 1400 Fiat 3000 light battle meccanichi and 50 Fiat 2000 heavy battle meccanichi (in fact, the heaviest design of all mecha at the time) from the luxury automobile company Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino.  Only 100 of the former and 2 of the latter were delivered, as the order was cancelled when the war ended.  Two years later, FIAT workers raised the red flag of communism over their factories in a major strike.  The centrist parties who worked with the trade union Confederazione Generale del Lavoro to end the strike utterly failed to prevent Benito Mussolini's coup d'état the next year.

Waves of Italian immigrants, many of them Mafia, many of them communists, streamed to New York City.  With them came the designs for the FIAT meccanichi and even a few in various stages of completion, plucked from the waste pile at the factories they seized from the capitalist bosses.  With this brainpower, the American Mafia could now produce more meccanichi and innovate.

Which they did.  And the government didn't.  The results of this reality in an age of unprecedented illegal profit were quite predictable.

Also to our benefit was the Italian history of magical practice.  From our nonne keeping alive the old folkways to the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraïm keeping alive Cagliostro's wisdom, the 1909-1910 visit of the gifted medium Eusapia Palladino, and the very contemporary writings of Arturo Reghini and Julius Evola, we had access to many secret knowledges.  Soon, our circles and our sigils adorned the meccanichi, wreathing them in powerful enchantments.  Evola's work as a mechanic and an artillerist and Reghini's mathematical genius offered the Mafia unprecedented insight in anchoring these spells into cutting edge technology.  Of course, both went on to be fundamental in the development of fascism, so fuck those guys.

Secretary of War Dwight F. Davis tried to fight the tide in 1928, but he was still a soldier at heart and no policeman.  His solution was the Experimental Mechanized Brigade, but it was disbanded after only three months.  Guess who got the benefit of its leftovers?

 

La Cosa Nostra in those days was smart.  They knew they had the freedom to flaunt their social power, but they knew the advantage the meccanichi gave them relied on them having no balance fielded by the forces of the law.  They kept the meccanichi quiet, using them in shadow and in rumor only.  Until the goddamn Mustache Petes came from Catellamare del Golfo.

Salvatore Maranzano came to this country looking to kick off a war.  His boss, Don Vito Ferro, sent him here to start one and, in February 1930, he did.  The Sicilians hadn't been, how do you say, acculturated into the mechanized Mafia of the States.  Their enthusiasm led them to make mistakes.  Visible ones.  Suddenly it wasn't just poor folks' urban legends that featured the meccanichi, but the newsreels.  Luckily for us, America was still wallowing in the depths of the Great Depression.  Frankly, Prohibition gave us the money to keep ahead of the tax-funded cops' attempts to match our armament in the streets.

Unfortunately for us, the New Deal started pumping money into police budgets the very next year after the Castellamerese War and, by the time the War rolled around, the gap had almost been closed.  Our operations were on the ropes and we were starting to scramble.  Only the newly-minted Commission and a dedication to Omertà kept us in business.

World War II saw the government essentially surrender, as they reached an agreement with the imprisoned Lucky Luciano to get a wide variety of services from the Mafia in order to defeat the Axis.  As part of this Operation Underworld, Lucky cannily negotiated to acquire upgraded designs and materials to produce more meccanichi.  Including military specs, which we could fund with the proceeds from Cuban and Vegas casinos.  Once again, the balance was in our favor and it would remain so until the Apalachin Meeting in 1957 and the Valachi trial in 1963.

As the government once again focused unbelievable amounts of effort into destroying us, the battles between our meccanichi and those of the pigs were freed entirely from the need for concealment.  The streets rang with our gunfire for three decades during which only the rise of the New Age and its magical innovations kept us alive as an outfit.  The RICO Act cost us Vegas in the 80s, but the real turning point came with the twin blows of John Gotti's trial and the fall of the Berlin Wall at the beginning of the 1990s.

Without the arms race against the Soviets, the military dumped ordinance and training into local police departments.  Finally, after 70 years of trying, the cops could match our meccanichi in the street.  Three decades of slowly losing ground has left us where we are today, a mere shadow of what we once were.

***

Each of the families of the Mafia produces its own set of meccanichi, with the Cerrito family of San Jose being one of the most prolific in doing so (and in fact, keeping current with mecha technology by intertwining themselves with the tech industry is the only thing keeping the family in existence since 2009), though the Five Families of New York, naturally enough, have the history, money, and power to pump out a good number as well.  Meccanichi are referred to by make and model, much like cars.  Like cars, specific meccanichi are often further marked by specific variations on the basic design (y'know, like the Toyota Corolla SE, the Corolla LE, etc.)

All of the weights and prices below are approximate targets, and will likely be adjusted when I actually stat out the various Mafia meccanichi.  The prices do NOT include the price of any enchantments on the meccanichi, as these tend to be after-market additions by made mages of the purchaser's crew.

1. The DeCavalcante Soprano, a very basic human-compatible $300k 1.5-ton utility mech mostly used as a cheap status symbol among made men
2. The Bufalino Teamster, a $400k 3.5-ton labor-style battlesuit often sold or gifted to unions as part of taking them over
3. The Cerrito Mustache Pete, a human-compatible $500k 2-ton light battle mech intended to be flashy and ridiculous as a distraction
4. The Colombo Soldato, a no-nonsense $600k 1.5-ton light battle battlesuit that serves as mechanical muscle for the organization
5. The Lucchese Pentito, a $750k 2.5-ton light battle battlesuit based on police designs intended to combat the Mafia
6. The Genovese Camorra, a $1.25m 6-ton scout mech designed to function as a lookout
7. The Gambino Bootlegger, a human-compatible $1.5m 5-ton scout mech intended for use as a smuggling vehicle
8. The Bonanno Gigantino, a human-compatible $1.5m 10-ton light battle mech designed to intimidate
9. The Cerrito Omertà, a $2m 5-ton transforming scout battlesuit optimized for stealth
10. The Colombo Tarantella, a jump-capable $2.5m 2-ton arachniform medical mech
11. The Genovese Mano Negro, a $3m 5-ton scout/light battle transformable battlesuit designed for use by assassins
12. The Chicago Bloody Nineteenth, a $3.5m 4.5-ton light battle mech with bombs and guns for all those times you just need someone dead and you don't care about the details
13. The Lucchese Gaetano, a jump-capable $4m 4-ton command utility mech designed for capos to better manage their crews
14. The Gambino Racketeer, a human-compatible $6m 2-ton utility mech marketed as an all-purpose machine to help business run more efficiently
15. The Bonanno Maranzano, a human-compatible $6m 6-ton command light battle mech, the only mech designed for use by underbosses
16. The Cerrito Consigliere, a flight-capable $7m 6-ton command scout battlesuit marketed to lieutenants and advisors
17. The Chicago St. Valentine's, a $7.5m 7-ton light battle mech designed to camouflage itself for the massacre
18. The Cerrito Godfather, a $8m 2-ton command light battle battlesuit worn by many a don and pretentious capo
19. The Genovese Bugsy, a human-compatible $9m 5-ton command utility mech marketed to ambitious made men who want to start their own outfit
20. The Cerrito Rispetto, a human-compatible $10m 1-ton luxury command utility mech for the don or dona that wants to impress their peers