The Islands
The General rules the island. Everyone else rules the street.
The people of the islands
Thirty years in power. The State, the treasury and the wanted list are his.
Walked into the jungle with forty soldiers. Posts the Frente's contracts.
Takes no side and sells Bonds to everyone, for a fee.
Fixed rifles for three governments and outlived them all.
The Republic of Las Islas
Far from the mainland, three islands sit in warm green water. The maps call them the Republic of Las Islas. The people who live there call them home, and lately, a trap.
Isla Palma is the big island: sugar fields, the old Spanish fort, the harbour and the capital. Isla Verde is smaller and wilder: jungle, oil derricks, steel works and a swamp nobody maps. Between them lies Shark Rock, a bare stone with one building on it, a prison. Nobody sails there by choice.
The General
Thirty years ago a young officer drove his tanks into Fort Town during the rainy season and announced on the radio that the Republic was "under protection." He has ruled it ever since. Today he is simply General Supremo, and his face is on every peso.
The State owns the ports, the mines and the factories, and the State is the General. The treasury is his purse. The State bounties on the board are his list of enemies. Anyone who displeases him goes to Shark Rock.
The General rarely leaves the palace. When he must be seen, he sends a double. Hunters who fight El Generalísimo in the hills are shooting at one of his look-alikes, and they know it.
The war
Three years ago the army split. A captain named Inés Varela refused an order to fire on the cane workers of Isla Palma, and walked into the jungle of Isla Verde with forty soldiers and every rifle they could carry. That night the Frente was born.
Now the war has no front line. The army holds the forts and checkpoints; the Frente holds the jungle and the night. Garrison soldiers and Commander Briggs patrol the roads. Cartel men and smugglers sell to both sides. Coalitions of islanders fight over every factory and mine, because whoever runs the factories feeds the war.
Nobody has won. Nobody expects to soon.
Pesos and Bonds
The war ate the peso. Prices change by the week; a hundred thousand pesos buy one Bond. Bonds are the only money anyone trusts: foreign-backed notes sold by Banco de las Islas for hard currency.
The bank belongs to Don Esteban Iturbe. He takes no side, sells to everyone and closes his doors when the shooting gets too close. The General and the Frente both bank with him, and neither will say so.
Who you are
You came in on the last boat before the harbour closed. Maybe you deserted from the General's conscript army. Maybe you owe money to the wrong smuggler on the mainland. Maybe you just ran.
You have no papers and no name anyone knows. The State has no file on you, so it cannot tax you, and it will not protect you either. You start with a few pesos, a cheap pistol and a bed you rent by the night.
What you become is up to you.
Three roads
Take the General's contracts: hunt his wanted men and win his coalition battles. Buy a hunting licence and collect his bounties. The pay is steady and the State protects its own, until it doesn't.
Take the Frente's contracts: run supplies to the factories and hunt cartel men and patrols. The jungle pays in cash, not promises.
Start a coalition, take factories and mines, and sell to both sides. Every warlord on the islands started out as somebody's errand boy.