Wild Hunt

The **Wild Hunt** is a Motor Gang that was established in the Las Vegas Metroplex of Nevada. Initially established in 1996 as a small motorcycle club for war veterans, the organization later evolved into one of the most violent and prolific biker gangs in the Free States.

## History

### Origins

The Wild Hunt Motorcycle Club (WHMC) was initially founded in the summer of 1996 by Kevin Baker and Paul Erlich. Having met in group counseling, they were veterans of the First Central American War who became fast friends over their shared traumas and experiences, as well as their passion for motorcycles. The two eventually formed the Wild Hunt with other veterans in Las Vegas as a form of therapy, bonding, and support.

While the club began with innocent-enough intentions, Paul Erlich saw potential for considerably more than charity in this rag-tag group of combat-seasoned outcasts and pushed for more self-serving practices. With a group of likeminded members, Erlich went behind the back of Baker to begin a covert campaign of intimidation, extortion, and robbery across Northside neighborhoods. Though initial claims were that this was done to protect their members from the local gangs, most of those targeted by Erlich's violence were small business owners. Inevitably, word got back to Baker of Erlich's deeds and the two had a falling out, which ultimately culminated in Baker's assassination outside of his home in October 1998.

What followed was Erlich taking over the Wild Hunt and expanding upon the criminal enterprise which he started. Though some members, upset at the shift in the club's purpose, decided to leave and start new biker groups, the majority remained either out of fear or their own desires for money and power.

### Rise and fall

   Over the course of the next twenty-five years, the Wild Hunt expanded into some of the more prolific Raffen Shiv in the United States, with chapters spread across four of the six Free States—Nevada, Utah, Texas, and Souther California—and control of long stretches of highway in these regions. A majority of the rival Motor Gangs that they faced in this frame of time were either absorbed by the Hunt or completely wiped out, leaving few besides the largest and most vicious Raffen Shiv gangs as competitors.

In all that time, the vast network of violence, trafficking, and intimidation that were so typical of the Wild Hunt continued to be coordinated out of the Northside neighborhood of Las Vegas, where the original chapter of the Hunt remained. Thor grew to be a living legend for his particular brand of violence and ability to keep the gang running with near-impunity. In fact, he grew so confident with kicking rival gangs off of their own turfs and scaring cops into passivity that his ambitions allowed him to believe he could take on the megacorporations too. This over-inflation of ego is what ultimately led to the downfall of the Wild Hunt.

In 2021, the Wild Hunt raided a Militech convoy in the Mojave Desert and made off with millions of eddies worth of hardware. Though initially viewed as a success, even sparking a rally in which thousands of bikers gathered to party, the megacorps inevitable retaliation—nearly a week after the initial raid—proved that it wasn't worth it. Militech commandos stormed every hideout, garage, and bar they frequented, neutralizing everyone in sight, while Wild Hunt convoys were obliterated with pin-point accuracy by combat drones. Immense bounties were also placed on the heads of every prominent member of the Wild Hunt, sending street mercs after the gang in droves as well.

In every state in which they operated, the Wild Hunt were being systematically hunted and eliminated. The body count rose so high so quickly that morgues couldn't keep up. Within six months, a gang that had almost 20,000 members nationwide had been reduced to roughly 2,000. Those who chose to continue as Wild Hunt were forced to flee into the badlands, hiding out in caves and crags in the hopes of outlasting the wrath or concern of the megacorp.