TEXT: Series Pitch of the Month
  Narcocorrido
  jesse scoble
  
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  Credits
  dramasytstem 
  writer/designer/
  producer 
  robin d. laws
  series pitch 
  author 
  jesse scoble
  illustration 
  jonathan wyke
  layout 
  cathriona tobin
  based on a layout 
  theme by 
  christian knutsson
  proofreader 
  craig hargreaves
  Thanks to our Kickstarter backers, without whom this would not be possible.
  © 2013 Pelgrane PreSS ltd. all rightS reServed. 
  
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  Narcocorrido
  —Jesse Scoble
  Nutshell
  Narcotraficantes and the Border Patrol circle 
  each other on the imaginary line that separates 
  North and South, probing for weakness under 
  the merciless sun. Assassins are made the 
  heroes of pop ballad narcocorridos, and most 
  fame and fortune ends with a buzzard circling 
  a shallow grave. 
  Characters
  “Yuma sector Border Patrol agents will tell 
  you they patrol the deadliest landscape on 
  earth; Tucson sector Border Patrol agents 
  will tell you they do. It’s a peculiarity of 
  Arizona—the worse it is, the prouder they 
  get. Kings of Nowhere, they each want to 
  claim the crown. To El Negro’s boys, it was 
  just more damn desert.”
  —Luis Alberto Urrea, The Devil’s Highway
  Narcocorrido’s main cast centers around one of 
  the principal groups tied up with the border:
  •    a law enforcement group such as Border 
  Patrol or Mexican Federales
  •    a criminal element such as La EME (the 
  Mexican Mafia), Los Zetas, or the Sinaloa 
  Cartel
  •    Coyote smugglers
  •    an independent operator like Breaking 
  Bad’s Heisenberg
  •    a “Light Up the Border” citizens’ militia
  Players should also decide what draws their 
  characters to this particularly harsh and 
  unforgiving region, tying these into their 
  Desires.
  •    An officer tries his or her best to work 
  within a broken system.
  •    Or an agent has decided it’s okay to bend 
  and even break the system to his benefit, 
  as long as the right people get punished 
  at the end of the shift. And if he benefits 
  in the process? All part of the tools in his 
  kit, and his reward for creative problem 
  solving.
  •    When the once-normal workaday-world 
  of mediocrity shatters due to one of 
  life’s great tragedies, it sends the citizen 
  spiraling into chaos and crime. 
  •    A refugee from the violence and terror of 
  Latin America who isn’t afraid of gringo 
  police in his quest to take it all.
  •    A relative was lost North, or South, and 
  must be found to ease the family’s fears 
  and pain.
  •    Desperate punks looking for an easy 
  score, where every move digs them deeper 
  into the hole.
  •    Normal folks sick of the militarization of 
  the border and the arms race of the agents 
  and drug lords.
  For a law enforcement agency, players might 
  create characters such as:
  •    Signcutter: the best trackers in the field, 
  armed with GPS units and satellite 
  phones, who can read the “bug-sign” and 
  follow a man through the hungry desert.
  •    BORSTAR: Border Patrol Search, Trauma, 
  and Rescue are the highly trained medics 
  and pilots who fly in like the air cavalry.
  •    BORTAC: Search and Rescue’s dark 
  shadow, these are the SWAT members 
  or “hunter-killer units,” kitted out with 
  “You need a new kind of prayers [sic] to 
  negotiate with this land.”
  -Ofelia Zepeda 
  
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  infrared goggles, dressed in commando-
  unit blacks, and driving monstrous SUVs.
  •    DEA Agent: a special agent of the Drug 
  Enforcement Agency trying to make a 
  dent on the War on Drugs.
  •    FBI Agent: an agent on an anti-gang 
  taskforce dealing with the criminals who 
  flow back and forth across the porous 
  border.
  •    Federale: a Mexican federal officer (more 
  accurately called a Federal, but Federale 
  is a back-formation from Federales), 
  who might be on loan to a US agency, or 
  launching investigations from the South 
  side of the wire.
  •    Mexican Police Officer: someone with 
  local jurisdiction, and probably a strong 
  moral compass (if not necessarily a heart 
  of gold), trying to do the right thing and 
  preserve order in one of the greatest 
  bastions of chaos in the world.
  •    Bounty Hunter: more independent than 
  official, bounty hunters may be self-
  described good guys, who slip across the 
  border to haul criminals back avoiding 
  messy “extradition” charges. Or you might 
  be a shadier operator working for the 
  highest bidder.
  For a criminal organization, players might create 
  characters such as:
  •    The Boss: the head of the cartel, who 
  employs and controls, all the various 
  pawns beneath him. The most dangerous 
  and effective bosses have done it all, at 
  some point or another, and aren’t afraid to 
  get their hands dirty.
  •    The Lieutenant: the boss’s right-hand, who 
  often deals more directly with the day-
  to-day operations, and may have to step 
  in and run things when the heat gets too 
  intense, or if the boss is brought down. 
  •    The Cleaner: the boss’s muscle who acts 
  as protection, runs security, and performs 
  key missions, such as making payoffs, 
  cleaning up war zones, and removing 
  those who are in the way.
  •    The Cook: the key chemist of a meth 
  lab, who might be head-and-shoulders 
  smarter than his colleagues and rivals, 
  using chemistry and physics as his tools 
  and weapons.
  •    The Sidekick: assistant to the Cook, he is 
  often more street-wise and world-weary, 
  having grown up in the ghettos or the 
  slums. He may have more heart than any 
  other character, and with proper support 
  could turn his life around, or else fully 
  embrace becoming “the bad guy.”
  •    Coyote: a smuggler of flesh and guide to 
  the badlands, who knows how to survive 
  the worst of the desert and how to avoid 
  officials on both sides of the wire.
  •    Corrupt Military Soldier: originally 
  trained as a Special Forces operative to 
  combat the drug cartels, life on the side 
  of the drug empires has proven to be far 
  more lucrative.
  Setting
  “The barrio was the Wild West. The 
  missionary … told me of his Saturday 
  nights—he and the addicts in their plywood 
  church and dorms, looking into the pitch-
  black canyons below them, watching the 
  gunfire flash, listening to the yells and 
  shouting. ‘Everything happens here on 
  Saturday nights,’ he said. ‘Anything you can 
  imagine. Anything.’”
  —Luis Alberto Urrea, Across the Wire
  The US/Mexico border is 2,000 miles of 
  harsh, rugged terrain; 2,000 miles of fences, 
  guards, spotlights, rivers, cities, and deserts. A 
  solid line on a map, it bisects urban and desolate 
  areas alike, but also forms a phantom line 
  marking differences of culture, money, crime, 
  and fear.
  As night falls greedily over the border, 
  bedlam erupts across the beaches and canyons, 
  suddenly swarming with thousands of bodies: 
  illegals looking for work, or to return home; 
  smugglers moving drugs, weapons, and women; 
  and bandits preying upon the desperate and 
  powerless.
  The ever-changing, never-changing border 
  comprises the world of Narcocorrido. Key 
  locations include the twin cities of Tijuana 
  and San Diego, two metropolises of a million-
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  plus each. One is a wealthy 21st Century 
  Tomorrowland; the other is lodged a hundred 
  years or more in the past. Its river of easy money 
  buoys up a flotsam and jetsam of bodies, blood, 
  and bullets. It’s a barricade of razor-wire fences, 
  rust-colored walls, blinding spotlights, buried 
  motion and heat sensors, hunter-killer drones, 
  and black-clad guards.
  The land itself seems sinister and tormented, 
  and out to get you. The Camino del Diablo—the 
  Devil’s Highway—places you in a hostile terrain 
  of desert flats, shifting sand, and craggy lava 
  rock. Abandoned mineshafts may suddenly 
  open up into sinkholes, or worse, release 
  hidden secrets that do not want to be disturbed. 
  Unexploded munitions from long-forgotten field 
  tests, and forsaken military projects littered here 
  and there in this no man’s land, threaten silently 
  beneath the surface.
  Here you find few trustworthy landmarks 
  and no sources of safe water. Even the plants 
  are vicious and full of spines. Beware the devil 
  cholla, a type of shrub, that grows together to 
  create vast walls of spines, in myriad colors, all 
  of which end in razor-sharp quills.
  Set-Up
  “The road to justice is twisted.”
  - tagline to “The Shield”
  Start with a hook and figure out how it ensnares 
  your group and characters appropriately. 
  •    Each night as the sun sets, Coyotes lead 
  their “chickens,” the helpless and hapless 
  migrants, into the perilous desert plagued 
  by man-made terrors. US agents arrive to 
  investigate the moonlit desert and try to 
  put an end to the endless robbing, raping, 
  and killing of desperate migrants by 
  banditos.
  •    In an American border town, the drug 
  violence has flared to epic heights, and 
  the local officers find themselves caught 
  in the middle of a gang-war fueled by the 
  great stacks of drug money as the Mexican 
  cartels seek to expand northwards. Can 
  you break up the fight between La EME, 
  the Texas Syndicate, and the Latin Kings? 
  •    In Mexico, it’s not a neighborhood dispute 
  or occasional gunshot-filled night, but 
  something closer to all-out war that lasts 
  month after month and year after bloody 
  year. The Mexican government deployed a 
  US-trained commando team to deal with 
  the cartels, and instead the commandos 
  decided to take over. Now, Los Zetas have 
  carved out a blood-drenched empire 
  through brutal tactics backed by military-
  grade armaments. Rival drug lords and 
  civilians all fall to the indiscriminate 
  slaughter, and you have to navigate a 
  hot zone directly across the border from 
  Laredo, Texas.
  •    In Mexico, rugged and well-meaning 
  police officers stop a drug transport, 
  arresting the couriers and confiscating 
  some top value product. When this draws 
  the attention of a high-ranking Mexican 
  military officer, do the police officers find 
  themselves at the vanguard of a new anti-
  drug strategy, or as pawns in one corrupt 
  official’s private army?
  •    In America, a powerful politician—
  perhaps the new Drug Czar himself—
  discovers to his dismay that his daughter 
  has become involved with a bad seed and 
  developed an expensive drug addiction. 
  Can the law enforcement agents pull these 
  kids out of a bad situation, or do things 
  only get worse when the girl runs away, 
  or is kidnapped, and ends up across the 
  border?
  •    Some say there’s no end to the Devil’s 
  Highway, and that you can follow it up 
  out of the Sonoran Desert’s ironwood 
  and saguaro to end up far beyond 
  Arizona, California, or Texas. Aided by 
  the American highway system, travelers 
  can reach into Ohio, Michigan, Seattle, 
  or New England. How do these white 
  enclaves respond to an influx of Latinos, 
  and when someone is killed in seemingly 
  racial-related violence, how far back does 
  the road lead?
  
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  Themes
  “You either run from things, or you face 
  them… I learned it in rehab, it’s all about 
  accepting who you really are. I accept who 
  I am.”
  “And who are you?”
  “I’m the bad guy.”
  —Jesse Pinkman and Walter White, 
  Breaking Bad
  •    Actions Have Consequences
  •    Political and Police Corruption
  •    Glorifying the Criminal
  •    Life on the Ground is Different than the 
  High Level View
  •    Doing Your Best in a Broken System (aka 
  Giving a fuck when it ain’t your turn to 
  give a fuck)
  •    Stuck between the la Migra and the 
  Narcotraficantes (the rock and a hard 
  place)
  Tightening the Screws
  •    A famous singer of narcocorridos (drug 
  ballads) goes missing. Was he kidnapped 
  because he angered someone by making 
  fun of them in a lyric? Or was he abducted 
  by a patron who wants to increase his own 
  fame by forcing the singer to write songs 
  about his deeds and reckless fearlessness? 
  •    Crossing to the North, one might stumble 
  into a self-identified “citizen patrol.” Are 
  they farmers and ranchers just trying to 
  defend their property? Or full-on racists 
  who happily call each other “Aryan?” 
  This people’s militia patrols the scrubland 
  carrying squawking radios, high-powered 
  flashlights, and powerful rifles. While 
  perhaps effective against obvious illegals, 
  they might not have the patience or 
  temperament to deal with a delicate police 
  operation, especially if those undercover 
  officers look brown.
  •    Coyotes lead their clients (“chickens”) past 
  la migra to find shelter in drop houses. 
  These may be private houses owned 
  by friends, or abandoned properties 
  providing shelter to anyone passing 
  through. Coyotes overstuff these tiny, 
  falling-down “coops” with 10, 20, 30, even 
  100 pollo migrants. The only luxury is that 
  it is near a highway, connecting them with 
  the wider world.
  •    The great junkyard called the dompe 
  spills out of the city to birth a new, messy 
  ecosystem and social hierarchy, complete 
  with trash lords and violent psychopaths, 
  and the most abject form of victims—los 
  olvidados (the forgotten ones). Neither law 
  enforcement nor cartels can simply blaze 
  their way in. If they try, the inhabitants 
  scatter like rats, as the shantytown 
  collapses in a terrible landslide or wildfire, 
  consuming whatever MacGuffin drew 
  them in.
  •    Tortilla riots rip through the major 
  towns as tens of thousands come out to 
  protest the rising price of the foodstuff 
  that so many poor Mexicans depend on 
  to survive. As production of ethanol and 
  other biofuels sends corn prices surging 
  the people protest, hoard, and revolt.
  •    Beyond even the rock star status of the 
  BORTAC SWAT unit are the Shadow 
  Wolves. This legendary patrol unit claims 
  that every member is a full-blooded 
  Native American tracker, and that each 
  puts the best signcutters to shame. The 
  Shadow Wolves can follow a Coyote, 
  drug smuggler, and anyone else for days 
  and nights across the most unforgiving 
  terrain.
  •    Death comes in infinite shapes and sizes 
  along the Devil’s Highway. Unprepared 
  travelers freeze in the biting cold nights. 
  But some are killed by cars, or trucks, 
  or trains in the blinding dark. Or fall off 
  cliffs. Or drown. Or are bitten by deadly 
  animals. Or die by hyperthermia—death 
  by sunlight.
  •    “Blood in, blood out” is the belief of 
  most Mexican gangs. To be taken into 
  the Family, blood must be shed. And the 
  same is true of those who want to get 
  out—often this means a severe beating, 
  and even death, of the member that wants 
  to exit.
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  •    The animals come out at night, because 
  the boiling sunlight is just too deadly. 
  Coyotes, rattlesnakes, coral snakes, black 
  widows, tarantulas, brown recluse spiders, 
  giant centipedes, scorpions, Gila monsters, 
  and even killer bees! 
  •    Do you want to escalate your series into 
  a grim near-future? The Border Patrol 
  isn’t content to just watch, round up, and 
  return those who dare to cross their line 
  in the sand. They’ve moved to a high-tech 
  system of inserting computer ID chips 
  under the skin, and sending out predator 
  drones to watch for those foolish enough 
  to risk a second try. 
  Twist of the Knife
  “[the ancient inhabitants of Bogota] called 
  the victims of ritual ceremonies quihica. 
  Quihica meant ‘door;’ the death of each 
  chosen victim opened the door to a new 
  cycle of 185 moons.”
  —Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin 
  America
  While the actual border is a fascinating, deadly, 
  endlessly surprising place, a group can always 
  step sideways into a darker tale filled with urban 
  fantasy and magical realism. 
  •    A new cartel has sprung up from the 
  ashes of betrayal and bloodshed—the 
  Caballeros Templarios (Spanish for the 
  Knights Templar) are strong practitioners 
  of Santeria, that blend of Catholicism and 
  Yoruba mysticism, which is so prevalent 
  in Latin America and the Caribbean. Do 
  their history and beliefs actually go back 
  to the Templars of the Middle Ages, or the 
  18th century Freemasons, or is it simply a 
  modern group taking a cool name? 
  •    A curandera (healer and witch woman) is 
  sought out because she alone can help a 
  sick loved one. She lives in the badlands, 
  and rolls a raw egg over the infirm, then 
  breaks it into a bowl. If the yolk comes out 
  black, the disease was sucked out. If not…
  •    Before crossing the border to the North 
  to perform a hit, a pair of well-dressed 
  assassins crawl in the dust of a small 
  Mexican town, supplicating themselves 
  before a shrine to the black-robed skeletal 
  Lady of Mictlan, Santa Muerte, or Saint 
  Death. This could be the players seeking 
  a blessing before embarking on a difficult 
  mission, or the targets the players are after.
  •    Through the dompe shamble the horrors 
  called cementeros, glue and paint sniffing 
  zombies whose minds are shattered. They 
  cannot be bargained with, and swarm like 
  an angry hive if disturbed.
  •    Rich gringo vacationers come south 
  looking for adventure and whatever 
  taboos they can afford. But instead these 
  Canadian tourists get caught up in a 
  crazed cannibalistic Santeria cult drug 
  gang. Depending on your group premise, 
  you might rescue them—or seize them 
  from the cannibals to victimize them 
  yourselves.
  •    Preparing for the great journey north, 
  one can’t help but hear rumors of la 
  migra—immigration agents as terrifying 
  bogeymen. They tell of migrant workers 
  who went north to never return; rumors 
  of young women molested and murdered 
  along the riverbanks; la migra roaring up 
  out of the freezing night on monstrous 
  SUVs, ATVs, motorcycles, even horses, 
  faces distorted by huge goggles, blasting 
  their guns, running down everyone they 
  see. Those they capture are stripped 
  and sent back along the highway naked 
  and without water. And those that fight 
  back are staked out in the desert for the 
  chupacabra.
  •    Rateros is a Spanish word for thieves, 
  but it also can be translated as “rat-men.” 
  These rateros, whether simple burglars 
  or hybrid man-beasts, prey upon the 
  vulnerable in the dompes, slums, and even 
  out beyond the lights of the border towns.
  •    In certain apocryphal texts God buried 
  the rebel angels in a vast desert, called 
  Desolation. Some believe the hellish Yuma 
  Desert might be this place, where giants 
  are entombed beneath the cracked lands 
  and shifting sands; a terrible presence that 
  permeates the Devil’s Highway.
  •    The Spanish conquistadors named this 
  
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  place Dark Head, or Cabeza Prieta, for a 
  large, lava-topped, head-shaped, granite 
  peak on the western border. Is it just a 
  natural formation, or is it the face of an 
  angel, devil, or other spirit?
  •    The Spanish believed the strange natives 
  who lived in this inhospitable climate 
  must be barbaric savages who feasted on 
  human children.
  •    The indigenous Yaqui, who trace their 
  heritage back to pre-Columbian times, 
  believe their ancestors, a tiny race called 
  the Surem, lived underground in peace 
  for time out of mind, until they were 
  threatened by the savage invaders.
  •    Catholic apparitions, such as a white 
  woman bearing a cross, and la Mujer Azul 
  (the Blue Lady), haunt the region and visit 
  ragtag travelers. One folktale says the Blue 
  Lady appears once in a generation, coming 
  forth from a hidden chamber beneath 
  the Alamo, to seek out a woman of pure 
  heart, smart, wise, strong in faith, and 
  of course a native Texan. The Blue Lady 
  gifts this woman with the power to see 
  the true heart of all things. 
  •    Saint Toribio helps those trapped in 
  the desert, bringing them to food or 
  water, hiding them from la migra, even 
  giving them a ride in an ancient truck. 
  Toribio is also called Santo Pollero (the 
  Holy Chicken Wrangler), and appears 
  as a light-skinned young man with 
  blue eyes, who speaks perfect Mexican 
  Spanish, sometimes current, sometimes 
  archaic. He was a priest from Jalisco, 
  murdered in the early 20th century in 
  the town of Tequila.
  
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  Names
  Vic
  Shane
  Lance
  Jimmy
  Guillermo
  Luis
  Jorge
  Jeronimo
  Juan
  Walter
  Gustavo
  Hector
  Marco
  Tuco
  Maximino
  Tina
  Daniella
  Emolia
  Alma
  Ana
  Helena
  Rosario
  Salma
  Isabel
  Azalea
  Maria
  Teresita
  Sierra
  Shakira
  Reina
  Given Names (Men)
  El Negro / La Negra
  Lemon-Head
  Santi
  Guardo
  Cruz
  Armadillo
  el Toro (the bull)
  Juan-in-a-Million
  Bella
  Little Insane
  Big Insane
  Flaco (skinny)
  Chicken Man
  Tortuga (the turtle)
  Saint of Cabora
  Cabron (the bastard)
  el Chapo (shorty)
  Pepe
  Las Monjitas (the little nuns)
  El Pelavacas (Cow Skin Peeler)
  El Indio (the Indian)
  El Rey del Corrido (King of the Ballad)
  Aceveda
  Galas
  Garces
  Ramos
  Pezuela
  Quintero
  Sandoval
  Flores
  Mirabal
  Escobar
  Salamanca
  Gomez
  Nicknames
  Use modern names with street flare or historical weight. Nicknames are common, and of course names 
  and nicknames are both heavily flavored by Spanish culture.
  Given Names (Women)
  Surnames
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Hillfolk/Series Pitch of the Month/02 - Narcocorrido.pdf