The Atlantic Free State

The Atlantic Free State & The Coral Vultures

From Flotilla to Free State
What began as a desperate survival flotilla of smugglers, deserters, and rogue nomads became one of the most infamous powers of the mid-21st century — a drifting archipelago of violence, barter, and black-market sovereignty. The Atlantic Free State stretches across the mid-Atlantic — a rust-and-chrome network of fortified rigs, converted tankers, and floating refineries bound together by steel bridges, drones, and pirate radio; their law is simple: "Sink or swim. No gods. No corps. No kings."

In a world of corporate cold wars, the Free State is the ultimate wild card. They are the gatekeepers of the global sea-lanes, imposing brutal "transit taxes" on any ship daring to cross their waters. Their economy runs on loot, salvaged pre-Collapse tech, and a thriving trade in deniable services for megacorps who publicly condemn them. From their mobile fortress-cities, psycho-pirate warlords, enhanced with sub-aquatic chrome and Lazarus Group bio-modifications, command fleets that defy Militech’s navies and plunder Helios Orbital’s supply lines.

The Coral Vultures: Lords of the Drowned City
While their Atlantic cousins rule the open ocean, the Coral Vultures dominate the drowned, coastal ruins of the world. An amphibious nomad clan of chrome-raiders, they are the undisputed masters of underwater salvage and black-market trade in Night City’s flooded districts and beyond.

Specializing in high-risk dives into toxic, structurally unsound ruins, the Vultures retrieve priceless data, prototype cyberware, and corporate secrets from the depths. Their signature gill-implants and pressure-tolerant limbs make them as terrifying in the water as they are on land. They are the crucial, if untrustworthy, link between the Atlantic Free State and the mainland, running smuggled goods from offshore pirate holds to the desperate buyers in the city’s underworld. To cross them is to find your operation at the bottom of the bay, stripped for parts.