The Family Bergmann

The Bergmann Family has always been nomadic miners, moving from place to place in the cracks and looking for new deposits of metals. While the family does mine some of the metals Pittsburgh is known for, especially coal, they also mine some of the rarer metals not found in the grim. The first thing that comes to most people's minds, though, is not their mines, but the magically animated dead animals they use as guardians.

They're currently distrusted by most of the other factions because they supported the Lycaons until the end of the war, when they switched sides. That betrayal of the city's enemies has won them membership and safety, but not much friendship.

Internal Structure

The family doesn't have much in the way of internal structure. Teaching is informal—sometimes an older member takes a younger member under their wing and teaches them, but others have to actively work at piecing together an adequate education from a number of their elders. The faction has never taken any active responsibility for making sure everyone gets an education, pretty much although in practice, everyone does, one way or another.

Most family members making a living working with the mines, either as miners or managers of some kind. Few actually leave, not because anyone would stop them, but because they've been raised from birth on tales of the dangers of outsiders.

The family has a long tradition of necromancy, which they primarily use to produce the large dogs they use as guards. They probably have more ritualists than any other faction, but most of them know how to do the family's signature ritual and nothing else.

Family tradition states that day to day disputes are settled by one of three or four mediators, usually respectable members chosen to represent a range of ages and family branches (just about everyone is at least a cousin of one of the mediators). Their job is to talk to everyone in the family and be aware of everything going on. There's no formal process for selecting or removing mediators—the job is held by people recognized to hold it by the rest of the family; someone who screws up badly enough will simply be ignored by the other mediators until they recognize that they aren't one any longer.

Officially, key decisions—most especially, where to move when a given supply of metals runs out—are nominally made by the adults of the family as a whole. Any adult has the right to call a meeting, and decisions are made by a consensus of the whole family. In practice, family meetings are inconvenient, and very inefficient. So when an important decision needs to be made, the mediators will quietly talk to everyone and get together and make a decision. One of them will then call a family meeting, where the family will quickly ratify it. Sometimes there will be one or two dissenters, who are generally allowed to state their objections, and then, if they don't persuade enough others, the mediators will state that, in the face of unanimous agreement, their original proposal has been accepted (even if the objectors are still openly disagreeing).

Currently, the mediators include one of the oldest members of the faction, Zebediah Bergmann, who was a productive miner for years, until his legs broke down, and since then has hobbled into the mines with a cane to direct the younger miners; and Temperance Bergmann, who is not only a strong and effective miner, but has repeatedly managed to rescue her fellow miners when shafts have collapsed.

History

The Bergmann Family descends from Etzel Bergmann, who was one of the first miners in western PA. He and his children originally settled in New Dunston, and joined the Pittsburgh Trade Union when it was founded. In the 1890's, his children decided to leave the city and move north, having exhausted their local mines. The timing was convenient, but suspicious—only two years later, Upper Johnstown attacked the Trade Union.

The family spent the last century mining areas in northwestern PA, generally staying in a place for twenty or thirty years, depending on how much they found there, before moving on. They've never been particularly welcome anywhere, so they've come to be very suspicious of outsiders.

During this period, they became friendly with the Lycaons, mostly because the two groups moved around enough to never get in each other's way and both were at odds with more organized groups. By 2002, the Bergmann's were considering returning to the New Dunston area, where they suspected there were some mineral deposits which hadn't been found when they were last in the city. Their initial overtures to the city were rebuffed, partially because some felt the city was full enough, but mostly because of resentment over their disappearance a century earlier.

When they found out that the Lycaons planned to take the city by force, the Bergmann's offered their support. Late in the war, they struck a deal with the residents of the city and switched sides in exchange for being allowed to move into the city and become a faction.

Relationships with Others

The Bergmann's get along reasonably well with the Donnellys and Enfields, partially because neither house objects to their betrayal of the Trade Union. They don't have any other allies, and those factions that lost many members in the war haven't forgiven them. Even the Post Office openly dislikes them.