| Ciudad Camargo | |
| |
| General Information | |
| Establishment: | 1749 |
| Disestablishment: | N/A |
| Status: | Comanchero Hub |
| Location Information | |
| Location: | Tamaulipas, Mexico |
| Societal Information | |
| Population: | 500 |
| Factions: | Los Bandoleros, Comancheros |
| Notable Events: | El Golpe de Estado de 2267 |
Some parts of Mexico weren't safe before the war and certainly haven't gotten any better, if that is true anywhere it is true in the little patch of paradise that is called Ciudad Camargo. Located in mid northern Tamaulipas on the Texas Border, Ciudad Camargo is perhaps the most powerful hub of Comancheros and raiders on the border. It is a city of sin home to a unique breed of comanchero, known as Los Bandoleros, a powerful bandito army specializing in fear and terror with their greatest weapon, the steel horse.
Owned and operated by Los Bandoleros and their leader, Don Costilla, Ciudad Camargo is not just an open town, it is a base, a fortress for some of Mexico's most savage brigands to launch their raids from. Needless to say, there is a reason that most books and pamphlets written to guide merchants and travelers in the border state explicitly to avoid Ciudad Camargo at all costs. For not avoiding it may very well cost one his life.
History[]
Pre-War[]
The municipal seat of the municipality of Camargo, Ciudad Camargo was always a small establishment on the Rio Grande. Founded in the mid 18th century and notably used as a crossing over point for American soldiers during the Mexican-American War, she has stood as the largest township in Camargo since her founding. With around 8,000 residents before the bombs fell, Ciudad Camargo was a relatively minor and insignificant municipal seat relying on agrarian activities to stay economically afloat. In the 1970s the area became of interest when drug smugglers running narcotics into Texas began to use the surrounding area and the city as a base of operations, leading to violent crackdowns by joint U.S.-Mexican law enforcement agencies.
The area remained a hotspot of illicit activity for decades due to its proximity to Texas and low population which came hand in hand with a small law enforcement presence. The peak population of Ciudad Camargo was in 2017 with approximately 12,500 residents. However, droughts did harm to the local agriculture and led to a decline to the approximately 8,000 citizens that called Ciudad Camargo home in 2077 when the bombs dropped.
The War[]
The municipality of Camargo, being home to under 20,000 people in all, housing no significant military or civilian installations, and being of little to no strategic value was spared bombing. Instead, it was set upon by the radiation that made the bombings so devastating. When the bombs fell the shock was felt from the blasts across the Rio Grande, the town was put in a state of alert with residents hiding in their homes, unsure of what was going on.
Post-War[]
Initial Chaos[]
When a bilingual American broadcast from a national guard base in Laredo explaining what had just happened was picked up on most radios in Ciudad Camargo, the town went into chaos. Many, including the police tried fleeing over the international bridge into the states, hoping they could find refuge in an American vault. These hopes were dashed immediately when they found that the Texas National Guard had positioned troops on the bridge with orders to stop anyone trying the cross the border by any means necessary.
The Texans initially fired tear gas into the crowds and then resorted to firing live warning shots. When fleeing police forces responded by firing back. All hell broke loose as they opened fire with their superior weaponry, driving the refugees back into the city and killing several dozen in an indiscriminate barrage of gunfire. With escape into America impossible and law enforcement gone, Ciudad Camargo immediately went into chaos as everyone who had ever had a score to settle with anyone decided now was the time.
Thanks to low firearm ownership in town, the scene became a savage melee free for all as impromptu gangs with lead pipes and baseball bats roamed the town doing whatever they pleased as they smashed windows and looted convenience stores. It took only four days for most homes in Ciudad Camargo to be abandoned.
Initial Remnants[]
After the quickly formed gangs had their fill of looting and proceeded to fight themselves or go out to find more plunder in the countryside, several hundred were left in Ciudad Camargo, mostly families. Being an agricultural town they knew how to provide for themselves, they risked raiders and radiation to harvest crops from the outlying farms and began to make preparations to plant seeds in the coming growing season. They formed a small community, however they were no match for radiation.
The fallout hit Ciudad Camargo in mid-November and left the poor town in ruins. Several were ghoulified and given the chance to live longer, however most were dead of excruciatingly painful radiation sickness in mere days. Those that lived were unable to stay in the place where everyone they knew had died, thus they moved on to try their luck in the wastes where they were largely unsuccessful, Ciudad Camargo was completely uninhabited by 2078 as nuclear winter set in.
Struggle for Life[]
For the next ninety odd years, Ciudad Camargo struggled as the rest of the world did with supporting life. While the infrastructure of the town was relatively alright in comparison to that of other cities actually kissed by the atomic fire, there simply were not the people in the area to carve out a new piece of civilization. Time to time there would be people to spend the night in town as they travelled through the area, but for the most part people looking to rebuild the old world simply weren't in the former municipality of Camargo, Tamaulipas and thus Ciudad Camargo was neglected by the small modicum of civilization in the former border until came a man with a vision, Tomas Canto.
La Familia Canto[]
In 2168, ninety-one years after the bombings, the first permanent resident of Ciudad Camargo since the wars arrived, his name was Tomas Canto. Patriarch of the Canto family, he was a travelling trader who was tired of living on the dusty carreteras of Old Mexico fearing radiation, hunger, dehydration, mutated creatures, and of course comancheros. He had lost two children and a brother in the three weeks before his family spent the night in the ruins of the old town and came to the realization that things were unlikely to improve if they kept living on the road.
He looked around and saw a mostly unscathed town, save for dust and dirt and broken windows, Ciudad Camargo was in mint condition. He talked it over with his two sisters, their husbands, his brother, his brother's wife, and his own wife and after much convincing, they all agreed to stake a claim in the ruins of this small old city.
The family, numbering around thirty worked day and night with what tools they had, setting up shop in an old motel where they could have everyone comfortably under one roof. Scavenging canned food and preserved seeds so they could set up a farming operation, the Cantos worked smart and quick to set up what they needed to carve out a homestead. The first two years were difficult due to the vast amount of work, exploration, and agriculture they had to perform, but when they managed to grow the crops they needed to feed themselves and then some after two seasons of experimenting, they were in business.
It wasn't long until they started trading scrap with travelers they encountered on the nearby highways and sold supplies to prospectors looking to pick through the ruins of Ciudad Camargo that they didn't control. Their primary focus was the construction of defensive walls around the parts of town they controlled, hoping that they would be able to fend off the inevitable raider attacks with such fortifications.
They offered merchants and travelers a place in their community if they would help to build it up into a community worth living in. Sure enough their open door policy and friendly nature worked, in ten years close to a hundred people called Ciudad Camargo home and the inhabited areas of town were protected by rubble walls.
All seemed well and it was, come 2190 the town had two hundred residents and was a major stop in northwestern Tamaulipas for traders looking to buy and sell everything from guns and medical supplies to food and clothing. Due to their Catholic and family oriented nature, the Cantos, who were bosses of town did not permit prostitution or gambling or drugs. While one cantina that doubled as an inn was operated, it was closely supervised by the provisional militia that protected the town and acted as law enforcement, any immoral activities were quickly punished with exile.
For three decades, the Canto family ran a good honest town. However while they were well endowed with honest hardworking people and the supplies they needed to survive, their safety was always in question. When Comanchero gangs raided the countryside around Ciudad Camargo, the people would hide behind their walls and maybe fire a few shots off to scare them away. However as Comanchero activity increased in the area, they realized eventually that a high wall made of plywood, tires, cinderblocks, and wood pallets wouldn't protect them forever. Thus they took to hiring mercenaries which would prove to be their downfall.
These mercenaries were offered room and board and a place in the community if they protected the city. They were exempt from the moral standards that the rest of the town was held to and hired on the spot. In hindsight, the Cantos should have been more cautious, alas however they were not. And in the summer of 2193, their protection turned against them.
It was during a raid by the comanchero leader, Pepe Murrieta, a notorious bandito who had troubled northwestern Tamaulipas for years, that a dozen heavily armed Ciudad Camargo mercenaries refused to fight. In fact not only would they not fire on Murrieta's men, they opened fire on the militia and other mercenaries and opened the gates to town wide open for the comanchero's brigand band and aided them, as they were all infiltrators from Murrieta's gang. In a day of fighting after what seemed like a regular raid, the Canto family and their small town was defeated. Those who resisted were shot, those men who seemed strong were taken as slaves along with the particularly pretty women, and those left who remained docile became citizens of a comanchero controlled town.
Los Comancheros[]
Comanchero rule sent Ciudad Camargo into a one hundred and eighty degree backpedal. Where
the Cantos had created and orderly small community, Murrieta brought chaos and disharmony. His gang didn’t act as a police force, rather they ensured that nobody posed a threat to Murrieta and collected protection money from all businesses.
And the businesses that sprung up in the new Ciudad Camargo were also quite different, whereas immoral business ventures had been banned and even forcefully destroyed in the old Ciudad Camargo, they were practically all that existed in the new one. Where a weaving shop once was a gambling house appeared, where a general store was a vice merchant began selling chems and explosives, and in the old motel appeared La Paloma Negra, the black dove, a large bordello.
The streets of Ciudad Camargo were as lawless as one would expect given Murrieta’s disinterest in maintaining law and order in his new stronghold. The only reason the town didn’t become a fortress was because Murrieta wanted the protection money he knew vice merchants operating in a lawless community would draw up. It worked out well for eleven years, his walls and the company he kept inside them stopped any would be bounty killers or justice-seeking vigilantes from attacking him.
However Murrieta, in hindsight should have spent more time in his town as in 2204, while leading a raid far north of the Rio Grande in Western Louisiana he was killed by a wastelander militia along with his full force. After three months passed since he was expected to return, it became obvious he was not going to, thus his executive officer, realizing that he lacked the support to inherit the town and not wanting to start a violent war of succession in Ciudad Camargo, dissolved Murrieta’s Pandilla. The collection of protection money ceased and the slight trace of order vanished instantly.
With murder, robbery, and rape common occurrences, the town was an infamous hub of villainy. The only real order was the vice merchants such as the keepers of the cantinas and the brothels. They set out to hire armed thugs to keep order in their establishments, but that was the closest this dangerous border town had to law for years, however nothing can go on forever. Especially not anarchy.
Ciudad Camargo was a town run by none for seventeen years. For seventeen years the vice merchants and whoremongers serviced the lowest of the low. Blood, tequila, and spent cartridges lined the gutters of the streets and the smell of death and fire along with the sounds of screaming were as regular as one's own heartbeat. Law couldn't exist in Ciudad Camargo as it was a town of the lawless. Men and women lived there for one of three reasons: they wanted to be as free as humanly possible, they were hiding from real law, or they wanted a good time in the pleasure palaces that dotted the town.
But while a town of comancheros and raiders couldn't have a fair law that protected the weak and strong and treated the poor and rich equally, it could have order. And in the cool February of 2221 in the scrapyard known as Los Huesos Acero, The Steel Bones, order was the talk of the day. Los Huesos Acero was a junkyard littered with used cars, trucks, and motorcycles from before the war. About a quarter mile outside of town, it was close but far away enough from the action that normally the only reason people went there was to dump bodies.
But it was there that Ricardo Sastre had gathered up thirty comancheros to propose a plan. For a year he had been working with a ghoul mechanic from before the war, Gregorio Escamilla, they had been able to fix up ten motorcycles, two jeeps, and a pickup truck. In Ciudad Camargo were roughly two hundred people and with nearly a sixth of the population and these vehicles he hatched a plan to drive down the barrio streets and declare the town theirs, the thought being that motorized vehicles would incur terror and frighten the town into accepting his command. It was a daring plan that threatened to launch an all out war that would surely level the town, if it failed. However the thirty odd men he had gathered liked the idea of being bosses of Ciudad Camargo, all they needed was a name. They decided on Los Bandoleros, the riders, and got to it.
Preparations took two days as they gathered up weapons and armor and drew out battle plans. The biggest pleasure house was La Paloma Negra, thus it would be their first target. They decided that in order not to start a war, they would only fire if fired upon. The plan was to demand capitulation and when bikers brandishing pistols and billy clubs in their off-hands followed by jeeps with rifle toting riders and a pickup with a machine gun turret mounted in the back, all rode down the street, the plan went off without a hitch. Brothels, gambling houses, and cantinas all followed the example of La Paloma Negra and accepted the control of Ricardo Sastre. On February 18th, 2221, Los Bandoleros took over the town after their show of force. A new chapter in Ciudad Camargo's history had been opened.
Los Bandoleros[]
With Sastre as Don of Los Bandoleros and head of the town, he started work on reforming it. He wasn't interested in laws or rights, merely in turning Ciudad Camargo into a profitable base of operations for his new criminal organization. He set about recruiting and in a week the thirty Bandoleros became ninety. He ordered street patrols and summary executions of thieves, killers, and rapists. All businesses now had to pay a third of their profits to Los Bandoleros. The money went of course to the personal stashes of Bandolero officers, to buy new weapons, and importantly to buy new parts from scavengers for the inoperable vehicles in Los Huesos Acero. Sastre fervently believed that motorized warfare would give his gang an edge, and his hunch proved correct after they found that no caravan could outrun the steel horse.
In five years, the comanchero motorcyclists from Ciudad Camargo had plundered close to a hundred caravans and waylaid many more lone travelers, always scavenging for gasoline and more parts, they proved a formidable force. Their wealth stimulated the businesses in town and led to a population increase, that coupled with the relative security that Los Bandoleros provided led to a golden age that Ciudad Camargo had never seen.
Sastre ruled for forty six years, dying in 2267 and leaving his son, Ricardo Sastre junior the head of Los Bandoleros. Whereas Sastre Sr. had proved immensely popular, Sastre Jr. was not. The fifth and final son of his father, he was the only one still alive in 2267 due to one thing, his cowardice. Three of his brothers had died on raids, the forth had been stillborn, but Jr. always had a way of finding an excuse to stay behind on raids, normally lounging about with rameras in La Paloma Negra. When he took over this didn't change, he delegated control of the raiding parties to some of his lieutenants, Don Castillo, Tiburcio Abana and Misericordia Zamorano.
With Castillo leading the raids into Texas, Los Bandoleros and thus Ciudad Camargo thrived, however dissatisfaction was ripe among the inner circle. And this was Castillo's shot, the men were simply annoyed at the idea of risking their lives to bring money back to a young punk kid who was too scared to even remotely put his life in harm's way. While they respected Sastre Senior, they had no respect for Sastre Junior. With tensions high, Castillo capitalized on it and hatched plans for a coup that would install him to power. He made alliances with business owners and Bandoleros who he promised prestige and power to in a post-Sastre Ciudad Camargo. In return they promised him support when the time came, and soon it did.
El Golpe de Estado de 2267[]
It was only a few months into Sastre's control of Los Bandoleros and the city when the time came that Castillo had his rallying cry for an overthrow. It was after a failed raid in central-southern Tamaulipas into the Papal State of Abasolo, a raid much farther south than normal Bandolero territory. Riding in with the intent of pillaging the outlying town of Santander, the move failed miserably and Los Bandoleros were repulsed with half a dozen riders killed. Their bodies were thankfully recovered and brought back for burial as was Bandolero custom. However Sastre Jr. made the heretical decision to not attend the funerals of the men, defiling the tradition that all Bandoleros who are available see their fallen comrades off to the next world, especially the jefe. This was deemed an insult to the memory of six well-liked riders and thus an insult to the whole organization. Castillo knew with this much resentment and his already established alliances that this was the time. In mid October he launched El Golpe de Estado de 2267, the Coup of 2267. With most of Los Bandoleros behind him, he stormed the town declaring it his and killing what little opposition there was. When he got to Sastre Jr., the poor boy was dealt with most harshly. Castillo had him dismembered by tying his limbs to motorcycles and jerking the throttle, killing him publicly in front of La Paloma Negra. In one bloody day, Don Castillo had seized power of Los Bandoleros and Ciudad Camargo.
Don Castillo[]
With Don Castillo in charge, Ciudad Camargo gained a leader as bloody as its reputation. He increased the raiding capacity of Los Bandoleros and led raids into Nuevo Leon and Texas with a fierce lust for blood. His administrative potential was also proven as he implemented the successful teniente system of law enforcement that brought some stability to the streets and increased Bandolero earnings. His rule of Ciudad Camargo has made the city and Los Bandoleros more powerful than ever imagined by even its founder as his tactical mindset and level-headed approach has brought victory to the comanchero gang as far south as Veracruz and as far north as Oklahoma. His rule has been popular with Los Bandoleros and for the last fourteen years, Don Castillo has had no major internal threats to his power. He continues to rule as Ciudad Camargo's fearless leader, an infamous savage who has brought Ciudad Camargo a plethora of sinful prosperity.
Government[]
For a town run by a pack of savage, bloodthirsty outlaws, Ciudad Camargo has some measure of stability. Albeit, only some. Security is provided for by Los Bandoleros, who patrol the streets leather jackets and body armor normal with long arms and the regular two or three sidearms that are one of the many calling cards of the Bandoleros. They provide order and enforce basic laws pertaining to public safety as well as handling domestic disturbances and resolving private disputes between individuals. The judges in these disputes are the local tenientes who are each given control over a specific area, barrio, or checkpoint in town and who have at their disposal a set amount of soldiers and supreme power in legal issues, such as deciding the innocence or guilt of a man charged with committing a crime in an area under their control. Crimes are normally resolved quickly with minor crimes such as petty theft being punishable with a fine or beating or at worst being run out of town.
More serious crimes are normally punished with extreme physical brutality, such as amputation of a limb or the classic execution. The manner of execution, and indeed the execution itself is up to the teniente in charge of the district that the crime was committed in, he could if he desired allow a suspected or proven murderer to go free or punish him with a quick humane execution such as shooting or a slow and painful execution such as being doused in gasoline and set ablaze.
The tenientes of Ciudad Camargo are known for being fair and harsh and are normally selected by the inner circle of Los Bandoleros only if they display such qualities. The fact that the tenientes have ultimate power in their barrios has lead to an interesting situation where literally a crime committed in a saloon that is punished with an execution may be punished with a fine just across the street, all depending on which teniente's barrio the crime was committed. As a general rule of thumb, the tenientes in the saloon filled barrios are stricter.
However the strict enforcement of codified laws to protect citizens from crime is a silver lining to the fact that while Ciudad Camargo is a safe town as far as criminal-run establishments go, the bosses, Los Bandoleros often have free reign. For example a pool room stabbing perpetrated by a drifter or a non-Bandolero comanchero will often be punished with an execution, but if a Bandolero is guilty of the stabbing and as long as he didn't stab a fellow Bandolero, then most if not all tenientes will let it slide. This is sadly true for most crimes, even the heinous ones of rape and murder and robbery. It is said that the most dangerous people in Ciudad Camargo are those tasked with defending it for this very reason, for at least non-Bandoleros are deterred from crime due to fear of reprisal.
Besides law-enforcement duties, Los Bandoleros also maintain the town in other ways, they ensure that there is plenty of food and that the outskirts of town are properly defended. They employ their mechanics to keep water pumps running in town and operate a small clinic (which due to its limited resources is rarely available to members of the public and rather used for patching up wounded Bandoleros). Los Bandoleros also handle the town's economic activities, all businesses require a license from the treasurer of Los Bandoleros and must pay a fifteen percent tax to operate in Ciudad Camargo, these taxes go towards town upkeep, law enforcement, and of course towards Los Bandoleros themselves, buying them motorcycle parts, weapons, armor, and medical supplies for their raids into Texas and the rest of Tamaulipas.
The head of the town is the head of Los Bandoleros, Don Castillo. As don of the pandilla, Castillo has ultimate power in all decisions, although he is normally strongly influenced by his inner circle. He has veto power over the decisions of his officers and the town's tenientes. The teniente system he has implemented along with the licensing and taxing of all business from brothels to bakeries has greatly increased the safety of Ciudad Camargo along with the coffers of Los Bandoleros, leading to Don Castillo being regarded as an oddity among comancheros, with some refusing to consider Los Bandoleros a comanchero gang and instead considering them a small corrupt junta reigning over the small city.
Economy[]
Ciudad Camargo's economic activity revolves around the vice-merchants and the pleasure houses. The Sin Streets with their card houses and harems are where most of the money in town changes hands as raiders and Bandoleros and other bad men spend their violently earned caps and pesos on anything that conventional morality challenges. The largest den of vice is La Paloma Negra which is the oldest brothel in town and among the largest in Tamaulipas, boasting over two hundred rameras. The Sin Streets are legendary across Tamualipas and Texas and have only grown since Hidalgo went from a nest of vipers to a straight honest town. Interestingly enough, several saloons in Ciudad Camargo are owned by comancheros ran out of Hidalgo by Ross, Mendoza, and the communists.
After the saloons, the vice merchants make a killing in Ciudad Camargo. Selling guns, slaves, drugs, armor, and other goods that would prove useful to a raider. They come in individually or in caravans protected by mercs armed to the teeth. With no prohibition on any goods at all, vice merchants use Ciudad Camargo as a place to offload goods that wouldn't be welcome in other towns. Accordingly, serious military hardware, hardcore drugs, and kidnapped young women are plentiful here. The black market is legitimate in Ciudad Camargo and accordingly if someone needs hot items or heavy weapons there is no better place to look then Ciudad Camargo.
An interesting niche in Ciudad Camargo is the demand that Los Bandoleros have for motorcycle parts and gasoline. Scavengers and prospectors with the guts to walk into a town of killers can make a killing if they have valuable pieces of pre-War riding machines. This has made Ciudad Camargo a hub of motor vehicle enthusiasm in post-War Mexico and has helped put it on the map for more daring scavengers.
Culture[]
The culture of Ciudad Camargo is a carpe diem one. It revolves around indulging in vice and sin and living every day like its one's last, because, in Ciudad Camargo, you never know. The people have a reputation for violence which is perpetuated constantly by both the inhabitants and the ruling authorities. This violence is accepted and the reason that few families live in town, most problems are handled by the gun and the knife.
Most people in town are Mexican and thus Spanish is the main language. However being on the border, most people are at the least somewhat fluent in English, the language of the gringos who cross the Rio Grande with shiny jingling coins and caps in their pockets. The people are rather fond of old Mexican mariachi music and exotic dancing at mescal-fueled fiestas with plenty of gratuitous sexual promiscuity and celebratory gunfire.
In addition to this normal comanchero culture, being home of Los Bandoleros has given Ciudad Camargo a subculture that revolves around motor vehicles. With Los Huesos Acero supplying them car and bike parts, all vehicles, particularly motorcycles are revered by most of the permanent residents of Ciudad Camargo. Many come to town to learn about them and driving motorcycles, particularly racing them are major hobbies. Several times a week, the wide sin streets are cleared for motorcycle races as members of Los Bandoleros run their bikes down the avenue for the glory, the practice, and to impress the loose-women that made Ciudad Camargo famous.
Relations[]
Being headquarters of Los Bandoleros, Ciudad Camargo enjoys a hostile relationship with just about every organized faction in Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, and Texas. Any and all are fair game to the biker comancheros, and accordingly the town is considered a dangerous hub of villainy and other unbecoming conduct to be avoided at all costs by most all people who know of it. The only exceptions are those looking to buy slaves, those looking to join up with Los Bandoleros, vice merchants looking to conduct business, and those men and women brave enough to weather Bandolero rule for an organized town to live in.
Layout[]
Most of what was Ciudad Camargo is still uninhabited ruins overrun with radroaches, giant rats, and the occasional feral ghoul. It is the north side of the old town that is inhabited, split into barrios and sin streets. The barrios make up the outskirts where those tough enough to live in a comanchero town stay, the sin streets are those wide open calles full of saloons, brothels, and drug dens. Los Bandoleros have their headquarters on the largest of these sin streets, across from La Paloma Negra. Los Huesos Acero, the scrapyard that fuels the Bandolero war machine is located a quarter mile outside of town.
Geography[]
In terms of proximity to other wasteland settlements, Ciudad Camargo is around sixty miles northwest of La Ciudadela, seventy miles west of Casa Roja, fifty miles southwest of Cresta Confederada, and eighty miles west of Nuevo Progreso.