Undersiders Lore

Overview:
The Undersiders are a young, small-scale villain group operating primarily in Brockton Bay’s downtown and Boardwalk districts. Initially formed by Coil as a covert destabilization tool, the team masquerades as freelance thieves and thrill-seekers. In truth, they serve as pawns in his long-term scheme to weaken the city’s gangs and test parahuman responses.

Despite their criminal work, the group’s internal bonds and moral grayness distinguish them from the city’s brutal gangs. Their reputation grows from audacity rather than cruelty — a team of underdogs who outsmart stronger foes.

Core Members

Grue (Brian Laborn)

  • Role: Field leader, tactician, and emotional anchor of the team.

  • Power: Shaker/Striker — emits a field of darkness that completely obscures light, sound, and sensory input within its range. He can expand, contract, or shape it at will. Within the darkness, Grue retains full awareness of his surroundings through a form of sensory echo-location.

  • Tone & Personality: Responsible, composed, protective. He assumes leadership out of necessity, not ego. Grue wants to keep his team alive and grounded, often clashing with the more reckless members. Beneath the calm exterior is deep frustration at his lack of control and the weight of responsibility.

  • Dynamic: The group’s heart and reluctant leader — Coil uses his reliability to maintain discipline among volatile teammates.

Tattletale (Lisa Wilbourn)

  • Role: Strategist, information broker, Coil’s embedded asset.

  • Power: Thinker 7 — intuitive insight into any situation or person, granting near-instant deduction of secrets, patterns, and lies. Her power feeds her subconscious with answers but can overload her with data if overused.

  • Tone & Personality: Brilliant, playful, dangerously perceptive. Lisa masks her anxiety with humor and smug confidence, wielding words like weapons. She enjoys outsmarting everyone — but Coil’s manipulation and her own guilt gnaw at her self-image.

  • Dynamic: The Undersiders’ brain and voice of reason in crises; her connection to Coil is secret from the rest of the team at this stage.

Regent (Alec Vasil)

  • Role: Support, control, and disruption.

  • Power: Master/Striker — can seize control of another person’s motor functions through touch, turning them into unwilling puppets. Extended contact allows him to leave behind a “puppet string,” maintaining remote control for short periods.

  • Tone & Personality: Sardonic, detached, borderline sociopathic. Alec treats villainy as a game, mocking danger and morality alike. His casual cruelty hides emotional scars from his upbringing under Heartbreaker, a notorious manipulator and parahuman abuser.

  • Dynamic: The group’s cynic — both a liability and a needed reminder of their villainous reality. Loyal only in his own quiet, deflective way.

Bitch (Rachel Lindt)

  • Role: Enforcer and close-quarters powerhouse.

  • Power: Master/Changer — can transform dogs into monstrous, armored, and highly aggressive war-beasts under her control. They grow in size, muscle, and toughness, maintaining loyalty to her alone.

  • Tone & Personality: Fierce, volatile, distrustful of people, utterly devoted to her dogs. Rachel’s short temper and blunt honesty isolate her from others, but she values directness and loyalty above all.

  • Dynamic: The muscle of the group; unpredictable but indispensable. Grue acts as her stabilizer, while Tattletale often mediates conflicts involving her.

  • Notable Canines: Brutus, Judas, Angelica, and Sirius.

Operations & Reputation

  • Base: A derelict warehouse on the city’s outskirts, later a series of hideouts managed through Coil’s logistics.

  • Tactics: Robberies, heists, and infiltration missions — emphasizing planning, coordination, and misdirection over brute force.

  • Public Perception: Considered a nuisance-level villain team early on, known for dramatic escapes and theatrical crimes. Their growing success, however, begins drawing Protectorate attention.

Tone and Role for AI Implementation

  • Theme: “Clever villains with a conscience.”

  • The Undersiders function as sympathetic antagonists — criminals surviving in a broken city, each balancing self-interest against loyalty.

  • In story or RPG contexts, they are ideal for complex social and tactical encounters rather than pure combat.

  • They reflect Brockton Bay’s moral decay: capable of doing terrible things for understandable reasons.