The Chem Snakes

Overview

The Chem Snakes are a ruthless syndicate of chem-lords, dealers, and mutated enforcers who rule Sub-Level J with an iron fist and toxic breath. Their influence seeps ever deeper into Sub-Level K, where they fight brutal turf wars for dominance over the underhive’s narcotic economy.

They control the production and trade of nearly every vice that fuels the depths — obscura, spook, glowdust, stimms, boneburn, and slaught-variants — and have a hand in almost every overdose, riot, and hallucination-induced murder from the sump vents to the shadow markets.

Their motto, scrawled in chem paint across the walls of their dens:

“Fumes are truth. Flesh is currency.”

Origins and History

The Chem Snakes began as a crew of chem-refinery workers left behind after the Severance War. When the foundries sealed off, they scavenged broken filtration plants, using them to cook narcotics from industrial waste.

The earliest Snake labs were literally carved into coolant vents, where vapors thickened like clouds. Addicts who wandered too deep came back changed — their veins glowing faintly green from chemical buildup.

By the time of the Age of Silence, the Snakes had evolved from desperate scavvers to organized chem-merchants, building their empire one batch at a time. Every rival that tried to take their turf either dissolved in acid or ended up working the vats.

Today, they’re the chemical heart of the Underhive, feared by all and untouched by law.

Territory

• Sub-Level J — “The Sump Gardens”
  The gang’s stronghold: a maze of dripping pipes, neon vents, and chem pits where the air itself intoxicates. Their main lab, The Vat Temple, operates in a half-collapsed coolant tower, guarded by rebreather-masked enforcers.

• Sub-Level K — “The Creep”
  An expanding front of turf wars against the Iron Maw and Coil Dogs. Here, Snakes use chem-fire traps and neurotox clouds to hold ground.

• The Venomways
  Hidden smuggler routes through air ducts and waste lines, known only to Snake runners and chem-mules. Anyone else trying to pass usually chokes to death on toxic fumes.

Leadership

Severa Nox — “The Black Venom”

“She bleeds acid, breathes smoke, and smiles when you choke.”

Once a medicae-trainee from the upper levels, Severa Nox fell into the underhive after being accused of organ-harvesting. She learned the chem-trade from the old Snake patriarch, Varrin Koss, whom she later poisoned through his rebreather tube.

Severa is both brilliant and monstrous — she personally designs new compounds, testing them on captives, allies, and herself. Her body shows the price: her skin is translucent in patches, veins pulsing with glowing green chem-fluid.

She rules with absolute authority, combining business acumen, terror, and charisma in equal measure. Under her leadership, the Chem Snakes have gone from a gang to an empire of addiction.