7 Things about Honah Lee

1. Honah Lee

Honah Lee is both a bar and an urban development, with the bar being on the northwest corner of the development, within sight of the Pacific Ocean. The bar itself is a large establishment and has a vaguely 1980s nostalgic/whimsical vibe. Wood paneled walls, a dash of South Pacific/tiki influence, a back room with arcade games and pinball machines, and regularly flouts any general laws passed by the city. There is smoking in Honah Lee, and there is a large amount of drug dealing, criminal enterprising, and drug use in the booths and the bathrooms.

The Honah Lee development is a low-end commercial district heavily studded with suitably low-end businesses. There are several gold and jewelry fronts, pawn shops, rent to owns, payday advances, a laundry mat, and the non-seedy businesses are geared in the same vein. Dirty spoon restaurants, places where unlicensed food trucks are set up, used clothing stores, and probably a few area rescue ministries where they feed poor people on holidays.

At night, the Honah Lee boardwalk lights up, and the scuzzy little dive bars, karaoke dens, pool halls, etc turn on their neon, and the nightlife comes out. The entire area is rife with street artists, performance artists, street food vendors, and people selling beer from trucks. Live music, usually not all that good, is constant.

2. The Great Mural

Honah Lee is more famous for the massive mural that dominates the south side of the largest building. This specific building houses the Honah Lee club downstairs and has rental units on the top two floors. The wall is large and has been painted with a 35 x 120 foot mural. The mural depicts, in 1970s glory, a psychedelic-fantasy-scape complete with a Disney-esque castle, a frothing sea full of Lisa Frank sealife, a muscular bare-chested wizard flexing at a magic orb, and a pair of dragons 'fighting' in the air. The artist is unknown, but the mural is a popular attraction during the day for tourists wanting to get it in their travel pic or check it off on their bucket list for the trip to the big city.

3. Crystal

The biggest dirty secret about Honah Lee is that a large amount of crystal amphetamine and crystal methamphetamine is manufactured in basement laboratories under the largest buildings. The owner of Honah Lee is the leader of a statewide cartel, peddling crystal along a huge section of the Pacific coast. Most of the dealing is done through the bar, and deliveries are made through several of the front businesses along the development.

4. Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong Travel Company

This company is superficially a travel organizer business that also has several tanning beds, and offers discounts for Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong Nail and Hair Salon, located next door. What it does is import medical-grade supplies, illegal narcotics, and other contraband from mainland China and India into Honah Lee, including many of the ingredients required to cook meth. This also includes a healthy amount of ketamine, fentanyl, opioids, MDMA, and a cornucopia of party pills, boner pills, libido pills, and weight loss pills.

Mr. Lee doesn't exist, and the entire company is a front organization for the owner of Honah Lee and their connections to suppliers in China, the Hongse Long Tong, the Red Dragon Tong, the Red Dragon Society, or the Scarlet Wing.

5. The Red Dragon

The owner of Honah Lee is a young adult red dragon named Urubia. The dragon is the mastermind of the criminal enterprise and is working to consolidate her hold over the gangs of the city and the drug trade. Money is money, and power is power. Once she has enough of both, then she can start working her way up through the other power structures until she can challenge those in the true positions of power in the city and take over. While technically an Occidental Dragon, she has some experience in the East, and made connections there before crossing the Pacific to start building a kingdom in the west.

Urubia tends to disguise herself as Ursula Urban and is regularly seen around Honah Lee. When things of interest are happening, Ursula is typically waiting tables or manning the bar. When deals are made, she has several intermediaries handle the work, her fixers, and Mr. Johnsons. None of them know that the Queen of the Scarlet Wings is the backup bartender, and most don't know that they are working for a dragon. Some suspect, but most assume that they're working for a Chinese tong or warlord looking to get a foothold into American money.

The handful who figure out any of Urubia's secrets are either brought into her confidence (and thoroughly mesmerized for loyalty to her) or are allowed to see that they were right, and then she eats them.

6. The DA

The DA of the city, Daniel Oates, is well aware of Honah Lee, and the criminal activity running through it. Unfortunately, as a human district attorney, limited to the power and intelligence capabilities of his office, doesn't have enough evidence. Oates knows about Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong Travel Company, and that there is extensive smuggling going on, but compared to some activities, like human trafficking, heroin and cocaine smuggling, gang wars, counterfeiting, crystal empires are pushed down on the list of important things. Crystal is a drug for poor people, and gangbangers, barely more interesting than dealing with marijuana on a judicial level.

Oates is a whiskey-drinking man's man and has that strength of character and purpose. He is tight-lipped, stoic, and knows that to bring down the Red Dragon, he has to build an extensive case, provide a buffet of evidence, and do so at a time and place where there is nothing else going on to blow his presentation off the table. He's been to Honah Lee many times, sometimes posing as a customer, sometimes as part of a surveillance detail, sometimes off duty.

The redheaded bartender seems to like him, gives him local craft whiskey, and half the time doesn't charge him for it, just flirts with him.

Seems like a nice girl.

7. The Players

This is for a gaming group. The players have been, or are in the process of being recruited to work for Urubia. They don't know she is a dragon, or that they are working for one. All they know is they are meeting at Honah Lee with their fixer and picking up work dealing with gangs, moving crystal, and making money. This is the introduction to the setting, and eventually, the players will find themselves doing more than hustling rock for their nameless benefactor.

Some potential items:

Rival gangs with their own supernatural backing

A private security company with a contract to deal with the crystal problem

Urubia developing feelings toward the DA and making sure the players know that he is off limits and cannot be harmed

A rival dragon with more power in the city