A Beasthood · The Streets
Concrete Jungle
To be from the Jungle is to believe nothing without a receipt, then print it for everyone.
Their gift: The Record. What's printed and proven can't be denied. The cost: It prints only what's proved; printing is a choice, and final.
About 500 Beasts call Concrete Jungle home.
The place
Raw concrete stacked on itself, alleys too narrow for two, and no gates anywhere: every stack is bridged to its neighbours. The Gate Roll is read every morning at the same hour, and every Beast on it answers "here". Nights belong to three pirate stations talking over each other.
Their gift, and what it costs
The Record. Print a thing and prove it, and it can't be denied: hold up the page and the words to call it false won't come. The cost: what's printed can't be unprinted. The limit: it takes only what can be proved, and printing is a choice.
What they want, and what they fear
Want: everything hidden, out in the open. Fear: the gate, any gate, and being lied to.
People you might meet
- Femi Mwangi (Hyena, Station Zero host, on the Gate Roll). Hates hearing the Roll played back: "Don't. I was there." On the estates: "I read names outside that gate all night. I can read theirs for a week. I'd like them to hear me do it."
- Mercy Tran (Skull, receipt-keeper). Wants receipts for everything, including the receipts. "Proved means it can be printed. It doesn't mean it should be."
- Sabine Kroll (Hyena, Back Channel), who freezes at a live mic. Femi's review: "Best questions on the Beastside. On cardboard."
Neighbours and old business
- Trusty Lake Estates: the gate.
- Ramone Alley: siblings: the Alley pastes, the Jungle airs.
- Silicon Alley: the data to the Jungle's megaphone.
- Bullhattan: its Vault keeper holds the Grey Year bargain, and the Jungle asks for the terms weekly.
Books from Concrete Jungle
A Beast's Book is written from their holder's choices.
No Book from Concrete Jungle is open yet. A holder of a Beast from here can begin theirs in the game.
More about Concrete Jungle
Their scarIn the Grey Year the Jungle's first reached Trusty Lake's gates for shelter, and the gates stayed shut.
In the Grey Year the Jungle's first reached Trusty Lake's gates for shelter, and the gates stayed shut. All night they read each other's names aloud outside, and at dawn every one of them was still there. They wrote the names down: the Gate Roll, the Jungle's first print. Those Beasts are the Jungle's old-timers now. Six years ago the Reveal matched names in the mortar of the estates' oldest rooms to the Gate Roll: the Jungle's first built the walls that shut them out.
What they argue aboutStation Zero against Back Channel.
Station Zero against Back Channel. Zero hold the mornings and the rule: no proof, no air. Back Channel, on air from a van at midnight, say asking is how proofs get found. Zero call that an accusation in a hat.
This seasonTwo neighbours may ask the Jungle to carry their names this winter, five hundred a day each, for the week they go quiet.
Two neighbours may ask the Jungle to carry their names this winter, five hundred a day each, for the week they go quiet. Ramone Alley asked in the summer and got a yes before the sentence ended. Trusty Lake would be asking the Beasthood it shut out. Station Zero say a name is a name, gate or no gate; Back Channel say the price is a morning behind the oldest gate, mic and all. The Gate Roll old-timers decide, and they're split.
A customCorrection Day.
Correction Day. Once a year each station reads out, on air, everything it got wrong. Back Channel's list takes the afternoon, held up card by card by Sabine on the van roof, in a paper crown.
PlacesThe Handrail: the Gate Roll pressed into the oldest stair's rail; you touch every name climbing.
- The Handrail: the Gate Roll pressed into the oldest stair's rail; you touch every name climbing.
- Tee Cellar: every proven finding is a shirt by noon.
- The Intake: a bunk and a stove for anyone starting over.
What they think is going on"Something is waking up."
"Something is waking up." Brilliant at finding; hopeless at "we can't know yet."