Ladies of the Lakes

## The Ladies of the Lakes

* **Home Base:**While the ladies try to stay on the move, generally, they do have a shared workspace and cache at the old Boyer's Mechanical building at 6825 Division St W, Bemidji, MN 56601, UCAS
* **Territory:**The Ladies run contraband through what used to be the territory of the late Chinook  chief old 'Handyman' Green (and includes several of his relations) in the Lakes Country from Brainerd to Lake of the Woods .
* **Membership:**The 'Ladies of the Lake' are a group of women, most of them local and many of them related, who run contraband through the Lakes country. Generally from the interrelated Daltons, Greens or McKennas. Since this is more an informal association of independent smugglers who look out for each other and doesn't have much in the way of formal structure, there's also no formal determination of who is and who isn't a Lady of the Lakes. Basically if the ladies let you run your contraband in their patch, you're probably one of them.
* **Rackets:**They're smugglers. Not to say that individual members don't have their own side hustles, illegal modifications, unliscenced drag racing, a bit of light hi-jacking and a lot of poaching among various members, but the thing that brings them together is smuggling. All kinds of smuggling, everything from tax-free fertilizer and poached game to telesma to the more high-profile guns and drugs.
* **Legitimate Business:**This is a new entry for the Ladies. Generally, they like to make their own nuyen and mind their own business. However, because of increasing pressure from the Chinook crews surrounding them, the Ladies have decided to invest in some outside protection, throwing their money (and connections) behind a candidate for mayor of Minneapolis  (in their case, professional hardass Jesse Ventura III), largely to slot with the recent political wrangling of their best friend/enemy Taylor West, head of the Chinook.
* **History:**This whole patch of country, pretty much everything between the Red River and the Mississippi, used to be Chinook turf. However, when the local smuggling chief, 'Handyman' Green, retired, a group of his former employees and current relations pooled their resources to form 'The Ladies of the Lakes', running their own rackets without paying West and his Chinook for the privilege.

### Relationships with Other Organizations

* **The Chinook :**One of the few losses the Chinook have taken in recent years is the loss of some of the key central and northern Minnesota routes to the Ladies. Surprisingly, rather than get into a war about this turf, Taylor seems fine to treat them as subcontractors, hiring them for jobs in that area rather than driving them out, possibly distracted by his big plans in the big cities. This live and let live approach though doesn't sit well with some of his more old-fashioned crew chiefs, who may be stirred to take independent action soon if their boss doesn't...
* **Lake of the Woods Enclave:**One of the basis of the Ladies' business is their close relationship with the Elves  of the Lake of the Woods Enclave. They get the off-the-grid, top-grade telesma from the elven survivalists and the Enclave gets their goods to market without having to interact directly with the 'roundtooth' authorities in a deal that nets them both a fair bit of nuyen, which has become the basis of an actual friendship between the smugglers and the Elves.
* **Blood Worgs :**Allies of the Lake Elves, the Ladies often back the Elves in their conflicts with Worg packs over valuable Telesma territory, this hasn't broken out into open conflict between the two smuggling groups, yet, but often they find themselves racing to claim and market the same resources, putting them in direct competition in their main markets.
* **Blind Pigs:**You'd think that, being basically the link between the Chinook and the Underberg Family in Fargo, the Blind Pigs would rank among the Ladies' chief rivals. And you'd be about half right about that. About half the time the Pigs are in competition with the Ladies, largely for Chinook contracts and about half the time they use the Ladies to run their own jobs, under the nose of the Chinook (and occasionally even the Underbergs).
* **The Lake Devils**: Minnesota's a big smuggling territory and it is a complicated one, with a lot of players on the board. The Lake Devils represent the easternmost reach of the Tiošpaye (Lakotah Mafia). They don't actually have any territory, as such, but they do ship out as far as Devil's Lake, and own several properties on that end of the route, including a taproom in Detroit Lakes and Billy's, a bar where they do business in Vergas MN, the town nearest to their landing zone. As such they don't follow the Mafia's lead, unlike a lot of other smuggler outfits, but as close business partners of the Chinook, generally follow their lead about dealing with the Ladies.

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