The Bonnano Gigantino (I Meccanici di La Cosa Nostra; GURPS Classic)

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Technically the founding member of the Commission, the Bonnani have a roller-coaster history with that organizing organization.  After the capo di tutti capi was killed, 26-year-old Joe Bananas re-forged the family.  He even changed the name of the family, from Maranzano to Bonnano, but that was probably just good PR.  A failed attempt at a coup in the Commission after Joe Bananas' long-time ally Joe Profaci died (and the ensuing Banana War between Joe's heir and Profaci's son-in-law Bill and the Commission's pick, Gasparino DiGregorio) cost them the most powerful family status they'd enjoyed from the Thirties to the Sixties.  It was also the origin of the Colombo family, a reward to an opportunistic hitman all too happy to turn on his boss.  

Donnie Brasco, that rat, further cemented the family's fall, as the FBI agent infiltrated the family as it chewed through several capi in the Seventies and got them kicked off the Commission Salvatore Maranzano had founded.  Fuckin' Brasco wasn't even investigating the Bonnani at first, but the Colombi. They came back hard in the Nineties under the so-called Last Don, Big Joe Massino, whose focus on secrecy re-earned their seat, their supreme power, and their reputation as the most brutal of the Five Families.  Gotti helped, too, I guess.  The century changed, and capo Frank Coppa became the first made Bonnano since the Castellamarese War to turn informant or witness.  Of course, Big Joe, the only Mafia don to not be serving prison at the time, himself turned rat in the face of being the first mob boss to face the death penalty since '44.  A cavalcade of arrests and some warfare have plagued the family to this day, greatly weakening it once more.

The Gigantino was designed in the Nineties, a hulking intimidation piece composed mostly of a giant gun and armor.  Later models haven't changed this very simple design much, honestly, merely upgrading technology where possible.  The biggest boost was improvements in firearms construction, allowing a brutal 60mm gun to come standard with newer models.  Its name, which means "Little Giant", refers to its status as the heaviest meccanico commonly found among the families by a good three tons.  They are one of the more commonly seen meccanici outside of the States, as the Bonnano family ferries them to allies in Canada and especially to the Sicilian Mafia in Castellamare del Golfo, led by a boss named Tempesta with his own famous inclinations to violence.  Other families do keep a slow market going for these metal musclemen ~ what organization doesn't need to put the scare into someone sometimes? ~ and some say that this is the only thing keeping the Bonnano family alive.  Not around any Bonnano, of course, else a Gigantino show up at your door.

However, Gigantini actually see use fairly rarely.  They are tall and slow and oh so very visible, which puts any Gigantino pilot or their family at risk of attracting unwanted attention from other families or Johnny Law.  This has led to the question of who owns how many Gigantino meccanici being a matter of public knowledge.  If you purchase one, you have to be very careful about its use, so you make sure everyone knows you could use it against them if they forced your hand.  The decans of Agchoniôn, Arôtosael, Axiôphêth, and Methiax often empower these meccanici, their corresponding colors, images, and sigils starkly arranged to maximize the visual effect of the meccanici.  It can be astounding how similar the magics of invisibility and silence can be to those that make things scarier than they already are.

Subassemblies:  Two legs, two striker arms, limited-rotation turret.
Drivetrain:  100 kW motive power leg drivetrain, one in each leg.
Arm Motors:  Cheap ST 1000 arm motors in each arm.
Cockpit:  Basic, with computer downgrade (Complexity 2), in body.  No additional programs pre-installed.
Built-In Weapons:  TL8 60mm Gatling gun in body facing forward with 50 shots.
Sensors:  5-mile range PESA in turret facing forward. 2-mile range AESA in turret facing forward.
Comsuite:  Mini, in turret.
Power Plant:  133.4 kW ceramic engine in body.
Fuel:  Two 31.5-gallon self-sealing tanks, one in each leg, and a 20-gallon self-sealing tank in turret, provide 9.995 hours fuel.
Volumes:  Turret 3.595 cf, arms 4 cf each, legs 23.605 cf each, body 70.8295 cf.
Structure and Hit Points:  Extra heavy frame strength, cheap materials.  Human-compatible.  Turret 84 HP, arms 192 HP each, legs 300 HP each, body 750 HP.
Surface Features:  Sealed.
Armor:  PD 4, DR 465 laminate.
Statistics:  Loaded weight 20,566.05 lbs.  Empty weight 19,403.05 lbs.  Loaded mass 10.283 tons. Mecha volume 129.6345 cf.  Size Modifier +3, arms 0, turret -2, legs +1. Price $1,701,863.50.  HT 12.
ST and Reach:  Body ST 1500.  Arm ST 768/1000, arm (with reach 2, damage thrust 77d, swing 79d).  
Dimensions:  19 feet 4.5131 inches tall, 6 feet 5.5044 inches wide and long.
Ground Performance:  Ground speed 25 mph, gMR 2.5, gSR 1, ground Move 12.

The Colombo Tarantella, a medevac meccanico (GURPS 3rd edition)

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It is perhaps completely unsurprising that the most popular medevac meccanico among the Mafia is produced by the Colombo family.  Considered by many to be the weakest of New York's Five Families after tearing itself apart in not one, but three, civil wars, their investment in and development of the Tarantello might be the only thing which allowed enough Colombi to survive to call themselves a family still.  Hell, in 2000, the Commissione were actively planning to change Five Families into Four.  Considering the Bonnano family's release of the Cimaruta-class meccanico in 2005, some have suggested that the Colombi bought their aid in returning to their seat in the Commissione with the plans and technology of the Tarantella.

A rather no-nonsense design, at least in terms of its mechanics and systems, the Tarantella resembles the spider for which it was named, with four legs on one side and four on the other.  Each leg bulges with the shape of a ducted fan near its foot.  The body is slightly ovoid between the two sets of legs, with a dome capping it to hold the meccanico's sensors and comms.  Just beneath the body can be seen the thin profile of a folded pod, a rectangular protrusion on the underbelly.  Most often witnessed in the midst of a raging gun battle or the aftermath of a bombing or somesuch, the Tarantella uses those fans on its legs to boost its jumps, leaping into the worst of it over the person it has come to rescue.  The pod then extends down, forming a double wall of armor, as any bullets or shrapnel would have to get past the meccanico's legs before being tested against the pod's walls.  Often trained in emergency medicine as well as meccanico piloting, the driver of the Tarantella will then pop out, retrieve the wounded person, attach them to the medical equipment, and hop back into the cockpit to retract the pod and jump away once more.

They best be quick about it, as the Tarantella's lack of any non-ablative armor leaves it vulnerable to prolonged damage or repeated trips into active threat ones.  Combined with its miniscule capacity ~ each Tarantella can only hold a single rescued patient ~ this leaves its services as something of a luxury.  The average associate or even made man would do well to make other arrangements should they fall, as the Tarantelle are likely to come only for their bosses, capos, and consiglieri.  Since the release of the Bonanno Cimaruta, its ability to perform mass evacuations have allowed it to become the Tarantella's primary competition.  Being significantly more expensive than its parent design has prevented it from totally usurping the Tarantella's place, of course.

Subassemblies:  Eight legs, full-rotation turret, underbody pod.
Drivetrain:  100 kW motive power leg drivetrain, in legs.
Thrusters:  Eight ducted fan thrusters, each with 250 lbs. thrust, one in each leg.
Cockpit:  Basic, with compact, genius, high-capacity computer (Complexity 4), in body.  complexity 2 Computer Navigation, Complexity 2 Damage Control, Complexity 1 Datalink, and Complexity 2 Routine Vehicle Operation programs.
Sensors:  5-mile range PESA in turret.
Miscellaneous Equipment:  Emergency support unit (p. VE68), stretcher pallet (p. VE68).
Comsuite:  Advanced, in turret.
Power Plant:  100.74 kW nuclear power unit in body powers all systems for six months.
Cargo Space:  5 cf in body with load of 200 lbs.
Volumes:  Turret 1.64 cf, pod 45 cf, legs 5.235 cf each, body 50.1464 cf.
Structure and Hit Points:  Medium frame strength, advanced materials. Transformable. Two configurations: “pickup/dropoff” (no subassemblies folded), “transport” (pod folded).  Turret 14 HP, pod 150 HP, legs 29 HP each, body 150 HP.
Surface Features:  Sealed.
Armor:  PD 4, DR 28 fireproof ablative.
Statistics:  Loaded weight 4204.96 lbs.  Empty weight 3804.96 lbs.  Loaded mass 2.10238 tons. Mecha volume 138.6664 cf.  Size Modifier +3, pod +2, turret -2, legs 0. Price $1,973,834.80.  HT 12.
ST and Reach:  Body ST 300.
Dimensions:  10 feet 10.3068 inches tall, 7 feet 11.736 inches diameter (length/width).
Ground Performance:  Ground speed 85 mph, gMR 1.25, gSR 3, ground Move 12/42. Jump-capable.

La Nonna con Tredici Macchie

"The Grandmother with Thirteen Spots", Ravenna Bellini was born in 1957 with a face full of birthmarks blotching her countenance.  A long-time strega of the Colombo family who came into her own in the early 1990s during the Third Colombo Civil War, her maneuverings to lead the family as its boss is one of the more surprising consequences of Carmine Persico's March 2019 death.  Popular with the Florida branch of the Colombo family, she leads her small faction from within her trusted Tarantella meccanico.

Known to have great proficiency with the decans of Atrax and Phthenoth, as well as some with Alleborith, Kumeatêl, and Sphandôr, of course, and increasingly with Alath as she's aged, rumors have often claimed that Ravenna has delved into Anostêr, Bianakith, Kurtaêl, and Tepsisem as well.  It is widely assumed (and almost certainly correctly) that the old woman has established a long and powerful blood connection to her meccanico, granting a +3 to her effective skill using its enchantments.

Ravenna has had a sound system installed into her Tarantella's body, over which she often plays the traditional music of the tarantella.  Infamously, she and her daughter have enchanted this sound system so that anyone who hears its song is compelled to whip themselves into the frenzied complexities of tarantism, dancing wildly like the Sicilian ladies of old (a limited version of Mass Suggestion that cost half as much energy for only allowing a single possible suggestion).  Their ceremonies and spells over several years have also improved the meccanico's defenses (Deflect increases its PD to 5 and Fortify increases its DR to 31).  The flow of mana through the Tarantella's structure ensures that anyone within heals incredibly quickly (Major Healing).  Ravenna has installed a 100-terabyte medical database into her meccanico, upgrading its Complexity to 2 to improve its predictive and associative ability to make itself useful on the fly, as well as a terabyte of hacker-stolen dossiers on other Mafiosi, including confidential informants and undercover police.

Thirteen women painted lavender in a classical Roman style dance wildly across La Nonna con Tredici Macchie's meccanico, prominently kicking up their feet in a field of poppy flowers all crimson, red, and orange.  Four of the women hold white mirrors, four wield cerulean-blue swords, four wave rose-colored wands, and a lone dancer among them brandishes an orange snake in her hand.  Each of the women is named in Enochian with the name of an archangel, saint, or Roman god associated with healing and protection.  A blue cord stretches between them, dotted with knots; nowhere can be seen the ends of the cord.  Apple, orange, and palm trees arch above them, from whose branches hang bulbs of garlic and numerous spiders, as well as the webs of the latter.  In the negative space, against a background of deep wine-purple, sigils composed of various combinations of Greek crosses (looking like plus signs with their equal arms), downward-pointing arrows, squares, and pentacles are drawn in white, red, and orange.  A tin statue of an eagle landing sits atop its turret.

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