I’m GMing for a crew of Hawkers. We’ve played about 7 sessions and so far they’ve shown a significant interest in supernatural stuff - the Leech crafted a ghost bomb, the Whisper helps harvest electroplasm and they’re trying to figure out why Flint is possessed. They’ve stolen some Lure, studied it and figured out how to craft it without Leviathan Oil, using electroplasm to get a different buzz. They’re working towards getting a boat so they can have Uber Drugs.
So far they’ve called themselves the “ghosts”. The Whisper, who is decked out in a purple velvet suit, thinks they’re called the “velvet ghosts”. Which I suppose is fine but I just feel like we could get something snappy. Except I can’t think of anything snappy. Can you??
My first instinct is to let namelessness become a feature of the crew’s identity. Maybe people call them different names, or mishear them. “Word on the street is they’re called the Goats. Silly name but fuck if their Lure isn’t good…”
Having a light cover identity, or just some mystery, can be a bonus in a lot of social situations (particularly if you’re moving product under the nose of the authorities). And I imagining there could be cool, tense moments when their enemies connect the rumors they’ve heard to the Crew in front of them. “Her green eyes slide from the paper bag you’re slipping the teens under the table to the Whisper’s suit, garish and unmissable in the dim light of the bar. Your customers scream and scatter as her eyes widen and she goes for the gun beneath her coat.”
If you want to put some fictional pressure on the crew, maybe there are mix-ups: A wealthy client comes looking to hire muscle from the Velveteen Rarebits, and won’t go away until the Ghosts or whoever the hell they are agree to shake down a rival for her. Or the Wraiths corner the crew in a back alley. They’re pissed that drug users keep interrupting recon ops looking for Lure. A couple of students from Duskvol University even showed up at their secret lair last week. The Crew had better deal with this, or else.
If you’re Hawkers you may want a public facing name and a private “criminal” name. The last group I GM’d for was Arnleif & Sons Fabulous Fishes Ltd., aka the Ghost Fish.
So maybe “Club Velvet” to the squares, and the Velvet Ghosts to those in the know.
I adore this concept and have a list of names that I’m working on throwing into overheard conversations and so forth. Extra points because they’ve done a lot of flashbacks to frame other crews for their hits (when they took a warehouse full of Lampblack drugs, they dropped off a Red Sash scarf, etc). Thank you!!
The only trouble I can see with this idea is that it hurts the crew’s rep gain if people don’t quite know who they are.
Which could also add to their mystique, but could also cause rivals to start operating with a similar name to muscle in on their rep and steal their jobs…
Damn, I hadn’t thought of this. Do you think Tier would be a factor?
For instance, my group just hit Tier 1. I figure that when they started, ordinary citizens & other criminals had never heard of them. At Tier 1, weak hold, most citizens in their neighborhood know to watch out, and other criminals in the same circles probably know the jobs they’ve pulled off. Mix-ups could still happen at this level (particularly if it’s ordinary citizens, not in-the-know criminals), but not once they go any higher.
You’d have to be real out of the loop to mix up the Red Sashes (Tier II) and the Bloody Neckerchiefs (Tier 0). (Though a wealthy client who’s in way over their head could be fun, too).
I like the mix-ups idea a lot. Especially if the crew is kind of wishy-washy about what they call themselves. There are lots of ways to play it, and I think that tier might come into it.
At low tier it’s probably likely no one really gives a shit about what you’re called anyway, you’re just “those guys down by the docks who sell drugs and that one guy wears a purple suit.”
BUT, if they’re really wishy-washy about what they call themselves and they seem to have a good thing going then, someone might muscle in on their turf with a same-sounding name. That’d be an entanglement, probably, or someone bigger with an axe to grind (and who wouldn’t just resort to violence) funding a smaller gang to attack your hold.
If they’re big enough, and loud enough, someone’s going to give them a name and they might not like it.
Extra! Extra! Read all about it: A deadly new drug is taking Doskvol Docks by storm!!! A mysterious gang - who we’re calling the Purple Puddings because they’re most active near Strangford’s Miracle Pudding Warehouse - patrols the docks by night pushing their pernicious product on unsuspecting dockworkers and their families!
Purple Rain 
)
especially if they’re tier 0 kids who can be hired…