dotRP City Lore

THE HISTORY OF LOS SANTOS

1 The City of the Saints

El Pueblo de Los Santos (The city of the Saints) was officially founded June 23rd 1869. The settlement was part of Spania’s colonization during the Sheep Jesus (Oveja de Cristo) Crusades of the 1860s. According to historians the pueblo was part of a three-part plan to colonize San Andreas. According to Historians settlers would build “a string of religious missions to convert the indigenous peoples into Spanish subjects, presidios to secure Spania’s military hold on the province, and pueblos to supply the garrisons with food and establish a secular, civilian presence in the territory.”
The Los Santos residents were made up of 34 pioneers from Spanish, Mexican, Native American, and African descent. The 22 adults and 12 children settled around the area we know today as Legion Square.

2 The land of Sickness and Sunshine

You can’t beat the San Andreas sunshine, but you can sell it! With the Americanization of Los Santos during the second half of the 19th century, anglo boosters - most recently transplants themselves - began to sell what we might now refer to as the “San Andreas Dream.” There was even a magazine called Land of Sunshine dedicated to promoting and celebrating the natural, temperate beauties of the state. With its Mediterranean climate, Southern San Andreas was a place where a new immigrant could “cheer himself with her almost everlasting sunlight.”
By the 1880s, droves of chilly Midwesterners – like Michael McTony, the founder of Vinewood – were streaming into LS, as were people with all sorts of illnesses and maladies. “The overworked and over worried class,” one San Andreas promotion read, “will find here a most soothing climate to regain their lost energy or restore the nervous system to its normal equilibrium.”
And so long before Malibu became the rehab capital of the world, the Los Santos area was littered with sanitariums and health resorts. Although these sanitariums often offered little more than TLC, many who survived their maladies decided to stay permanently and soak up the sun.

6 Kingfisher

In not so distant memory an organization known as Kingfisher and their followers came to the city. Their manifesto stated that: “True freedom can only be achieved when oppressive governments are torn down.” Kingfisher wreaked havoc in the shadows, seeding the government with their operatives and spreading corruption throughout the city until, eventually, the people of Los Santos voted overwhelmingly to abolish the Police Department, moving entirely to community policing initiatives.
Chaos, mayhem, and bedlam ran amok and Kingfisher were able to move more operatives into the city’s underbelly. Eventually they took over the gangs, arms dealers, couriers and even the petty criminals were all under the direction of Kingfisher, although most don’t know they work for a centralized organization. The Kingfisher organization sends its operatives missives through invitations running more like an intelligence or paramilitary agency than a criminal organization. Only the highest operatives in the organization know Kingfishers’ true motives. Regardless, money knows no allegiance so “God save the King.” 28 August 2022

8 Lawless Los Santos

Around 2017-2018 corruption spread through the governments of several states and no one could pinpoint the cause. As a result, police departments and governments in these states were phased out; adopting community policing initiatives, authoritarian governments controlled by shadow organizations, and anarchism. Los Santos was one such city that suffered beneath this corruption and in 2019 the people of the city voted to abolish the Police Department completely. Riots broke out across the city in the subsequent weeks after the decision. Mission Row PD was vandalized, looted, and defaced. Naturally, with the spread of violence Pillbox Hospital filled to capacity. Unable to keep up with rising demand, withering supply lines, and a revolving door of patients, healthcare workers organized massive strikes and walkouts until, eventually, Pillbox could no longer afford to maintain safe working conditions.
Gangs took this opportunity to run the streets. Turf wars broke out between the Grove Street Families (GSF) and the Ballas. With no active hospital, Pillbox was also pilfered and vandalized in an effort to get medical attention to those in need. Eventually some traveling doctors started setting up clinics around Mount Zora hospital. This would become a sort of beacon of hope for the people of Los Santos as Chaos, mayhem, and bedlam ran amuck.