[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Right OK first off I guess I should go into a bit of detail of my thinking about this question.

So as a project what your really trying to do here is find, access and employ a series of pretty bespoke skills and resources in the right order. The two main parts are going to be (obvs) design and manufacture. (The later decaling etc is in terms of resources and accessibility is IMO practically an afterthought!)

Well, possibly in resource terms. On the other hand, us PCs might visit one or more of Vargas' residences or businesses and it might be interesting if the most practical way to get this done ended up being setting up some kind of workship for the last stage of the process on their property and possibly recruiting someone who had (or had developed during this process), blacksmithing and armoury skills.

I'm not trying to insert actively cinematic or implausible background elements into the campaign*, but if there are several plausible ways they could have gone about this, I'll most likely pitch to the GM the one that offers the best story hooks, possibility for interesting NPCs and cool locations.

So if there might be a SCA armourer, CNC/CAD technician/machinist, mechanical or industrial engineer or someone with some other background providing him with the skills to build medieval-esque armour incorporating modern ballistic protection who allowed his intellectual passion for the project to entice him to a life of crime... well, let's just say that I wouldn't say no.

Especially if he might be a Ukrainian or other Eastern European armourer/machinist/engineer/designer with legal problems back home, which explains why he was ready to jump into the unknown like that. His skill set might also work for less fanciful welding, machining or design work, like making improvised APCs out of trucks, which is genuinely a thing cartels do.

*The superhuman/supernatural Supers elements work best, at least for me, if the rest of the campaign world is meticulously realistic, an almost exact copy of our world with just slight ripples of changes from the secret Project Jade Serenity and the fallout that has arisen from the accidental supersoldier abilities arising a decade plus later.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Now as much as I love the armour design articles they kind of deal in raw manufacture detail. And that's fine for established mature technologies in ongoing industries. [...] The actual cost of material, workshop and tool time is not going to be the real cost here. For me the real cost is actually going to be whatever the figure is that keeps the company on the phone long enough to really consider the project.

I very much agree.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

In my mind you have two ways to go with this:

1). companies who are in an industry that just happens to involve the materials you are talking and working them into things. The problem here for you is there is no such thing as a modern day industry for plate armour of the spec you talking about.
[...]
So we are talking about them having to work out if they can do it, then working out what the value for the hassle of doing so.

I very much doubt that the couple of million dollars that are the upper bound of what Vargas is likely to have spent is likely to interest some really huge place. Especially as this would have been a hobby project over several years, not a big check with that number on it from the start.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

(The modern day equivalent is of course the modern day body armour industry which you already mentioned and repurposing what's commercial available is an option I think).

Yeah, buying existing pieces of ballistic protection and fitting them into more appropriately looking harnesses would probably be one option.

Especially for kit-bashed armour worn by young sicarios trying to impress their loco boss, not something designed especially for them.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

2). bespoke small workshops who's bread and butter is hyper specific special jobs. They'll be more accommodating but will charge you for that. [...] This might be cheaper depending on their size but I think your options for people who can do it more more limited.

Yeah, I had thought this was more likely than working with a bigger place.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

One aspect IME people with skills who use them to make stuff day to day that doesn't necessarily interest them often like fresh interesting challenges to those skills!

Yeah, that could be a good reason for someone who is flexible about laws, but not, perhaps, a ravening sociopath, to get involved with Vargas and his men, even to the point of moving to their compound to carry out the fittings and final adjustments.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

On the legality thing, OK TBH I don't think its going to be that much of issue so long as they're not daft about it.

1). Criminals and criminal organisation buy stuff all the time from legal businesses. [...] And well to be frank people are often willing to rationalise perceived grey areas in the face of wads of cash.

[...] Now some times that's because you want you drug funded mansion to be secure from the occasional cartel hit squad, but sometimes it's because you want to ensure your brothel full of child sex slaves don't escape. Many companies don't look too hard or try not to imagine the worst case scenarios.

Yeah, come to think of it, I'm sure 'Black Knight' harnesses aren't the weirdest things Vargas and his cronies have ever commissioned.

The real world Caballero Templarios were headquartered in 'Fortress Annunnaki', a ranch/castle with a casino, bull-fighting and rodeo ring, cock-fighting arena, and absolutely bonkers decorations, where sicarios dressed as knights would meet for medieval style banquets where they'd allegedly eat the hearts of their slain enemies.

Honestly, nothing I make up for Vargas' splinter faction is half as weird or terrible as the actual eyewitness accounts, new reports and even court documents from both Mexican and US cases against alleged cartel members.

They've kidnapped orphans to sell their organs on the black market, which doesn't even seem as profitable as selling the near infinite supply of meth they had at that time, so I'm forced to conclude that whichever Jefe de la plaza was behind filling a refridgerator truck with orphans (alive when they were put there, most dead when found by police) did it more for 'the Evulz' than any rational motives of profit.

Caballero Templario selection process for full-fledged sicarios has been described, in court, under oath, as consisting of murdering numerous entirely innocent people, butchering and cooking them. Those who perform best, not showing any reluctance to chop up the bodies and cooking them, get to finish the training. The rest can stay in their lowly support positions.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

We're talking about armour, not industrial chemistry sets to manufacture drugs, or spiked toddler fighting suits. [...]

Ironically, methamphetamine precursors are no problem for them. Still get them from China, if in much smaller shipments now that they don't more-or-less control a whole port, with a lot of legitimate businesses to use as cover.

Edit: Actually, China enacted tougher regulations on chemical precursors, so everyone is getting much less from them than they did in 2015 and before. This would probably explain why Vargas' income hasn't been rising faster in the last eighteen months, they are having problems trying to ramp up production to match their territory and the demand for drugs.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

2). Don't have some chap with the last supper tattooed on his face turn up on the doorstep! (not that I think you would).
[...]
Now not all parts can be kept so separate, those scary chaps with tattoos are going to have go for fittings etc, but I think you'll still be able to box off the different aspects enough so that the minimum amount of people on the project know the real story.

Well, Vargas (photo in link) himself is going to have trouble convincing anyone he's not a Mexican gangster. He's probably got a Quirk or two relating to looking like a stereotypical Mexican hard man.

Two of his bodyguards, who are likely to be among those who'd receive a simpler suit of armour as a gift, would also be the kind who'd scare anyone when they showed up for fitting. Ricardo Garza or 'El Calaca' ('The Skeleton'), and Hilario César Romo, a.k.a. 'Caballero de la sangre' ('The Blood Knight') are not the sort who can easily hide their natures.

Maybe one of their contacts who handled the Asian business in the past can work as their agent. Some smooth middle-man type, lawyer or business executive.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Right anyway sorry I realise I've gone on a different tack than most in this thread, those are my thoughts.

But again this sounds like a cool setting! Good luck with it

Thanks. And, to be honest, a large part of why I asked the forumites, instead of just tinkering with the design system on my own, is that I explicitly wanted views on what was plausible, practical, economic and effective in real world terms, as well as what could be gotten out of the system.