[tl;dr] If someone was running illegal underground blood sport fights for rich and decadent tourists, where in the Caribbean would it be most suitable to hold them?
I don't know if the PCs in my
Caribbean by Night campaign will survive their Dream Quest into the mind of the sorceress Girl With the Kaleidoscope Eyes or if they'll be Lost in Time and Space in their battle with the Monster at the End of the Dream. I am choosing to believe in their chances, however, at least to the point of preparing the next adventure.
An unnamed someone, of the naughty kind who tends to get unscheduled visits by adventurers to give them unsolicited career advice, is running bloody and violent fights at a snazzy resort in the Caribbean somewhere. The fights are unsanctioned and could never be sanctioned by any reasonable authorities, as they are violent in a way that MMA/UFC fights never are. Broken bones, crippling and death are all fairly common.
The audience consists of rich and decadent people with a distinct lack of respect for human rights or human life in general. Betting is heavy, but any theoretical profits do not justify the legal risks involved, not for someone rich enough to simply invest in legal sports with legal gambling. Less novelty appeal to decadent millionaires, perhaps, but greater volume means greater profits in the end. So, whoever is doing this is doing it for more than financial motives.
For a location, we need a tourist spot in the Caribbean. It has to have space for a large compound that includes a hotel, bars, night clubs and a range of businesses. Ideally, the local law is lenient about gambling and prostitution, with exotic dancing of the naked kind being legal.
Most of all, however, we need authorities and law enforcement who could plausibly be bribed into ignoring missing persons, reports of illegal fights and the odd murder. In addition to that, we need a local populace with a steady supply of people with martial art skills and the kind of desperate poverty that leads to signing up for a fight with a high chance of crippling or even death.
I expect that a boxing background might be expected in a lot of areas of the Caribbean, but it would be ideal if we could feature a wider range of martial art backgrounds in a plausible way.
Location-wise, as well as places I'd like to feature, Barbados or Trinidad and Tobago would be interesting. But I'm looking for any suggestions, as well as explanations of why they would be suitable.