Publisher: Ghost Ape Games

RISE OF THE FIVE FAMILIES: THE CAMPAIGN

A Noir Crime Campaign for 1929–1931 New York

A Bullets & Bootleggers / Ghost Ape System Campaign

New York doesn’t change all at once.
It changes one body, one deal, one bad decision at a time.

Rise of the Five Families: The Campaign is a full-length noir crime campaign built to be played inside the Rise of the Five Families citybook. It takes a living New York and pushes it forward — through the Castellammarese War, the collapse of old Mafia traditions, and the violent birth of modern organized crime.

This is not a victory lap.
This is where the bill comes due.

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WHAT THIS CAMPAIGN IS

• A complete campaign arc spanning 1929–1931
• A mission-driven framework that reacts to player choices
• A noir crime story about power, reform, betrayal, and survival
• A pressure system where history is not guaranteed to unfold cleanly

The players are not spectators to history.
They are stress fractures inside it.

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HOW THE CAMPAIGN WORKS

The campaign is structured as a series of modular missions, events, and escalation beats that GMs can run in sequence or remix freely.

Each mission:

• Advances the power struggle between factions

• Alters HEAT, Reputation, and law enforcement pressure

• Creates lasting consequences that echo into later arcs

• Pushes the city closer to an irreversible tipping point

You are not racing to an ending.
You are watching something form — and deciding who survives it.

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WHAT’S INSIDE

A Campaign With Teeth

• Dozens of play-ready missions (street jobs, political plays, hits, betrayals, cleanups)

• Transitional events that fill the space between big moments

• Escalation rules that respond to success, failure, and excess violence

• Endgame structures that resolve the war without forcing a single outcome

The War That Makes the Families

The campaign covers:

• The Castellammarese War from the ground up

• Old-guard bosses losing control

• Reformers trying to modernize crime before it eats itself

• The quiet construction of the Commission — or its collapse

Who becomes one of the Five Families is not locked.
Who gets erased from history absolutely is.

Consequences That Stick

• Law enforcement pressure that remembers patterns

• Political favors that rot over time

• Allies who become liabilities

• Violence that solves problems and creates worse ones

By the end of the campaign, the city should feel older.

Noir First, Occult Optional

The campaign is written to run as:

• Pure historical crime noir
  or

• Occult noir with grounded supernatural forces lurking behind greed, labor, money, and belief

Magic never replaces crime.
It just makes the aftermath stranger.

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HOW IT ENDS

There is no single “correct” finale.

Possible outcomes include:

• A successful consolidation of power

• A hollow victory that poisons the city

• A failed reform that leaves New York worse than before

• An ending where the players survive — but don’t win

The campaign doesn’t promise justice.
It promises closure.

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WHO THIS IS FOR

✔ GMs who want a full campaign, not a loose suggestion book
✔ Groups that enjoy moral pressure and long-term consequences
✔ Fans of Boardwalk Empire, The Godfather, Donnie Brasco, and hardboiled noir
✔ Tables that don’t need happy endings to feel satisfied

This campaign assumes your players will make mistakes.
It’s written to use them.

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SYSTEM & REQUIREMENTS

• System: Ghost Ape System (GAS)

• Required: Rise of the Five Families (Citybook), Bullets & Bootleggers Players Guide, GAS Corebook

• Recommended Levels: 2–8 (crew to power brokers)

• Format: Full-color PDF

• Length: ~530 pages

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THE POINT

If you want a campaign where:

• Success feels dangerous

• Loyalty has a shelf life

• And history doesn’t care what you meant to do

This is the book.

New York will not thank the players for what they build.
But it will remember them.

Price: $25.00