Builder's Manual · Chapter 1

Welcome, Builder

You've cloned Made in St. Ambrose. You want to add to it — new crews, new territories, new jobs, new characters. This manual tells you how the pieces fit together, what each file type does, and what conventions keep the world coherent. It is not a rulebook — the Player's Handbook covers how to play. This is about how to build.

What You're Working With

This is a strictly realistic organized crime setting anchored in 1966. St. Ambrose is a fictional East Coast industrial city — steel and iron built it, deindustrialization broke it, and thirteen crews now carve up the ruins. The system is Storyteller System Lite: d10 dice pools, attribute + skill rolls, success counting on 6+.

The project runs on fifteen file types. Most are JSON with schemas, layouts, and reference chains. Four are markdown (Lore, Rules, Rule, GM Instructions). Together they form a web: characters belong to crews, crews control territories, territories host rackets, jobs move everything around.

The Realism Anchor

This is the single most important constraint in the project. There are no supernatural, paranormal, cosmic horror, or fantasy elements. The Catacombs are unnerving because they are vast, unmapped, and populated by dangerous men — not because anything inhuman lives there. Holy Communion's power comes from LSD, charisma, and fanatical loyalty — not from genuine contact with the divine.

Atmospheric tension comes from human sources: corruption, institutional decay, addiction, violence, poverty, war trauma, racial conflict, and the claustrophobia of a dying industrial city. When mystery appears, it must have a human, technological, or natural explanation. Secrets are kept by people, not by the universe.

Every new character, crew, location, or lore entry you add must obey this constraint. If you're tempted to reach for the supernatural, reach deeper into the human instead. A man who believes he talks to God is more interesting than a man who actually does.

The Year Is 1966

Vietnam is escalating. The draft is pulling sons out of every neighborhood. Civil rights protests are growing and the old ethnic hierarchies are cracking. Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department has declared war on organized crime. The technology is rotary phones, microfilm, carbon paper, and human surveillance. No cell phones. No internet. No GPS. Information moves at the speed of a phone call or a dead drop.

When you add equipment, describe jobs, or write character backgrounds, stay in 1966. A car is a '65 Impala, not a modern sedan. A wiretap requires a physical tap on a phone line. Surveillance means a man in a parked car with binoculars and a thermos.

How This Manual Is Organized

Read How the File Types Connect first — it maps the reference web that makes everything tick. Then read the chapters for whichever type you're working with. Characters, Crews, Territories and Rackets, and Jobs are the core quartet — they contain computed fields that cascade data through the system. Extending the World covers voice, tone, conventions, and the assistant instructions that govern AI behavior during play.

Manual updated Aug 4, 2026.

Storyteller System Lite

Made in St. Ambrose

A gritty organized crime world set in St. Ambrose, a decaying East Coast industrial city during the mid-1960s. Founded in 1867, the city rose on steel and iron, then fell into ruin as the furnaces died. Now, in 1966, it is a patchwork of territories carved up by rival crews — Italian, Irish, Black, Cuban, Russian, and more — each fighting for control of the city's illicit economy. Build crews, control territory, run rackets, and survive the streets.

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CreatedJun 17, 2026

UpdatedAug 4, 2026

ST. AMBROSE: 1966

Where the Furnace Died, the Vultures Feast.

The iron mills built St. Ambrose. The soot coated the brick, the smoke choked the sky, and the money flowed like molten steel. But that was a lifetime ago. Today, the fires are out, the docks are quiet, and the only thing left growing in the shadow of the dead smokestacks is the corruption. As the legitimate economy bled to death, a ruthless underground took its place.

Now, the city is a patchwork of blood-soaked turf, carved up block by block by those desperate or vicious enough to claim it. Italian syndicates run the numbers games out of downtown social clubs; Irish crews control what’s left of the fading waterfront; Black, Cuban, and Russian outfits fight tooth and nail for the avenues and the back alleys. In the neon-lit damp of 1966, the law is a luxury no one can afford, and the peace is held together by cheap grease and heavy lead. Build your crew. Claim your corner. Lock down your rackets. In St. Ambrose, you either rule the ruins, or you get buried beneath them.

Author's note

I recommend using DeepSeek V4 Pro, but MiMo V2.5 Pro is also usable. GPT Image 2 for a consistent art style.

Mature Content Warning. Includes in-world references and expressions of political extremism, physical violence and gore, slavery, torture, abuse, imprisonment and kidnapping, racism, sexism, and homophobia, to name a few. It's a game about criminals.

Inside the World