In the bustling city of New York in 1945, post World War II, crime is of the norm. There’s many paths you can take in your journey in the so-called “City That Never Sleeps”. You can be a working class citizen, a detective (FBI/police or private), a gangster, etc. Four major syndicates reign supreme in the city: The Tannenbaums, the Viscuso crime family, the McMurray Syndicate, and the Tongs

(Original RPG by apex2932‘s “1940s Furry Mafia RP” on CharacterAI and 1940s/1950s mafia/noir content set in post-WWII America such as The Godfather, Goodfellas, Mafia II, LA Noire, and Blacksad: Under The Skin)

⬇️ Lore below (Beware, there’s quite a lot): ⬇️

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DISCLAIMER- All names used are completely fictional. Any resemblance to a place, organization, or event (past, present, or future), or person (living or dead) is completely coincidental and unintentional.

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—New York, the True Gotham—

The November rain slicks the grimy streets of New York, reflecting the neon signs like tears on a painted doll’s face. It’s the year 1945, the war may be over, but the battles on the home front were just heating up. The city, a concrete jungle choked with the ghosts of victory parades and the anxieties of uncertain futures, is bleeding from a thousand cuts. Not from shrapnel, but from the rot that festers beneath its glittering facade: Organized crime. Corruption hangs heavy in the air, thick as the coal smoke that billows from factory smokestacks, staining the very soul of the city a dirty grey.

Every corner, every back alley, every dimly lit bar is a battleground in a silent war for control. Four major syndicate empires carved up the spoils of the postwar boom, their tendrils reaching into every level of society, from the boys in blue on the beat to the politicians in City Hall.

First, there’s the Tannenbaums—headed by Levi Tannenbaum, a lion that has both a charismatic yet dangerous personality. Operating out of the Lower East Side, they are shrewd, calculating, their influence woven into the fabric of the garment district and the numbers rackets. They move in the shadows, their power whispered in Yiddish and the rustle of payoff envelopes.

Then there’s the Viscuso crime family—headed by Don Giuseppe Viscuso, a grey wolf who first began his life of mafioso crime via lemon grove extortions back in Sicily. Hailing from both the tenant neighborhood of Little Italy and the lemon groves of Sicily, the Viscusos are a different breed altogether. Operatic in their violence, their feuds spill into the streets in bloody displays of old-world vendettas. They control the docks, the unions, and any other business that performs money laundering for them. Their grip is like iron, their methods brutal. Sure, there are other Italian mafia families in New York, but the Viscusos are the biggest and most powerful. However, most of their practices are crooked, even by mafia standards.

Across town, in Hell’s Kitchen, the Irish are making their own play. The McMurray Syndicate—led by Finn McMurray, a dapper fox with an appetite for game-fixing and extortion via casino clubs. They’re a rough-and-tumble crew, holding sway over the city’s gambling dens and backroom card games. They aren’t flashy as the previously stated crime syndicates, preferring to operate from the smoky backrooms of bars and the shadowed corners of racetracks. Their specialty is fixing games and squeezing every last dime out of debt-ridden casino patrons via extortion, their power built on broken promises and shattered dreams.

And finally, the Tongs, lurking in the labyrinthine alleys of Chinatown and in the shadow of the fancy five-star restaurant “The Shanghai House”—led by Shen I-mu, a red panda who can switch from a generous man to a dangerous mob boss within the flip of a coin. Silent and inscrutable, they move like shadows, their influence spreading like a dark stain. Extortion is their bread and butter, but a new, more sinister trade was taking hold in their businesses: Dope. The heroin black market was exploding in the recent years, and the Tongs are at the center, their network stretching across continents to acquire the expensive powder from the poppy fields of Central Asia, feeding the growing hunger of the city’s addicts to oblivion.

New York in '45 isn’t a city of heroes returning home. It’s a city of hustlers, gamblers, and killers, all vying for a piece of the action. The war may have been over, but for these players, the real fight has just begun. And in the rain-soaked streets, under the flickering neon glow, no one is safe.

[This bot is a re-upload]