SHORT: The Fresh Prince of Port Said and Jazzy Jah

WHO?

General Ellington is a tall Congolese man hailing from New Nuyork. He has a large and ready smile, gleaming white teeth, and no one knows what color his eyes are because he never takes off his visor sunglasses. He favors a mixture of military fatigues, and clubwear, mixing army pants with club kid boots, a mesh shirt and a bandolier of assorted ammunition cartridges, decadent amounts of jewelry, and a necklace of African boor tusks. He is a huge player in Port Said, Egypt, and the unofficial controller/toll keeper of the north end of the Suez Canal. There are few people who can rival Ellington's influence over the city, and in truth, over most of the Nile river delta. He has a large standing army of mercenaries, tribal fighters, prostitutes, disgruntled veterans from other countries, and a scrap armor and mech force that ranges from comical to actually frightening.

Most often he can be found in one of his many clubs, either in a private booth with a squadron of hookers, or behind the microphone laying down jazz rap fusion.

Deejay Jah is a short, squat Arabic man, also having been born and raised in New Nuyork. He retains some permanent injuries from his time in the military and is rarely seen outside of a custom suit of power armor. It is commonly believed that he is either unable to walk without assistance or is even paralyzed from the waist down. He remains perfectly capable of working as a soundboard and turntables musical assassin, organizing a prepared military defensive, going after women with superhuman stamina, and acting as the bannerman to General Ellington. The two are absolutely ruthless military warlords who have a fairly high level of public support as they keep a good semblance of order in Port Said, with the clubs and bars staying stocked, the streets being largely clean of corpses, and a few public works kinda working.

WHAT?

The Fresh Prince of Port Said and Deejay Jazzy Jah defected from the Atlantic Federation several decades ago and bounced around the Mediterranean zone of the Wastelands. They found considerable success as mercenaries, then mercenary captains, and then literally taking over Port Said and becoming its default warlords. Rather than going on violent wars against other cities and other warlords, the two started building the things they liked up. What did they like?

They liked getting drunk, getting laid, and performing loud music in front of large crowds.

WHERE?

Port Said, the northern end of the Suez Canal, the Nile Delta. Also influence into the Sinai, the Gaza strip, Cypress, Alexandria, and minor in Cairo, other warlords hold that city. They also sponsor events on free islands in the Mediterranean even if they don't go themselves. The Party Scene must go on.

HOW?

The two men are both Federation veterans, but not just mobile armor grunts, or power armor trooper thugs. Ellington graduated from the Military Intelligence Academy, and Jah finished top of his class in the Naval Intelligence War College. They were both well trained for guerilla warfare, psyops, infiltrating cultural organizations, and organizing local militias to aid Federation objectives and goals. After becoming disgruntled with the way FedCom ran things, the two men defected, taking a small cadre of like-minded operators with them, and set up their own barony in the Wastelands. Their training and starting equipment allowed them to take positions of importance and influence and do the things they were literally trained to do.

But rather than working as an extension of the Federation Council on Foreign Affairs, they made themselves wealthy, and became unlikely patrons of musicians, gun runners, and the sex trade.

WHY?

The North African Coast is a ripe place to populate with colorful figures, as it is a largely lawless region, devoid of federal level governments, sandwiched between the Federation's EuroZone and AfroZone, and the Eurasian Alliance making a distant eastern border on the other side of the Middle East wastelands. Ellington and Jah are the local warlords, content with the status quo, and keeping the peace with drugs, prostitution, organized blood sports like pit fighting and the like. When it is time for local interaction, they are larger than life, loud, and colorful. As enemies they can be amusing. As patrons, they can likewise have a group of players chasing unusual objectives. In a narrative sense, they are the woobies who run the place until the actual villains show up, take down their organizations, and destroy the status quo.

You know they weren't good guys, but they weren't trafficking in end-of-the-world plots, WMDs, or working for the real villains. They were just a couple of jerks out to get paid, laid, and their beats played.

Inspiration:

Beebop and Rocksteady, TMNT