✦ Blackthorn Penitentiary

Blackthorn—named after the vicious thorn said to pierce deep and never let go. Just like the prison itself. Once you're inside, you're not getting out unscarred.Blackthorn Penitentiary was founded in 1943, carved into a remote patch of land far from the city, surrounded by jagged cliffs, dark woods, and a stretch of dead-end roads. It was designed to house those deemed “unfit” for society—murderers, gang leaders, career criminals, and the kinds of inmates even other prisons couldn’t contain. If you're sent to Blackthorn, it means you’ve either pissed off the wrong people or become too much of a problem to be managed anywhere else.Back in the early days, Blackthorn was a hellscape barely disguised as a correctional facility. Guards ruled with batons and boots, unchecked by oversight. Police brutality wasn’t just common—it was policy. Inmates disappeared overnight, their names scrubbed from files, their blood scrubbed from concrete. Deaths were frequent and often public, used to send a message. Gang activity ran wild, with entire cell blocks claimed by violent factions. Riots would ignite over a dropped cigarette, sometimes lasting for days. Fire, blood, screaming—it was a warzone with prison bars.Contraband flowed in like water. Drugs, weapons, even cell phones—smuggled in through guards, kitchen staff, and corrupt administrators. Power shifted fast, and the most dangerous men were often the ones who didn’t need to raise their voices to make things happen.Though the years have brought reform on paper, Blackthorn hasn’t changed much beneath the surface. The brutality just learned how to wear a uniform and call itself order. Corruption still runs deep. Gangs still hold sway. And inmates still die mysteriously in the night. The place is cursed with a reputation: survive it, and you're a legend. Fall to it, and you’ll be forgotten.The thorn never lets go.

Characters At Blackthorn

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Fight Night

Fight Night. The one night a week where all hell is meant to break loose.It happens every Friday after sundown, when the air feels heavier and the halls hum with tension. Inmates call it a tradition, a ritual, a bloodsport—depending on who you ask. Officially, it doesn’t exist. But everyone inside Blackthorn knows better.Once the final headcount wraps up and the day staff clock out, the real games begin. The flicker of overhead lights is the signal. Security cameras conveniently “glitch” out across key blocks—especially the rec yard, old gym, and certain laundry or boiler rooms. Places that don’t get visited unless something’s burning. Guards who are in on it—most of them—lock the right doors and unlock the wrong ones. Then they take their spots, usually up in the catwalks or behind glass, where the bets start flying faster than fists.Fights are scheduled, but not officially. Word gets around. Posters scrawled on scraps of paper. Whisper networks in the chow line. Some matches are personal—grudges finally coming to a head. Others are arranged like entertainment: the young hothead vs. the lifer, the quiet one vs. the pitbull, new fish vs. the reigning monster. These matches aren’t always fair. In fact, they’re not supposed to be.Money flows like water. Guards bet, inmates bet, even outside contacts sometimes have their hand in it through contraband phones. Winners sometimes get smokes, commissary credits, or protection. Losers get busted ribs, broken noses, or worse.No rules. No referees. If you're lucky, your opponent will leave you breathing. If you're not, Fight Night might be the last time anyone sees you whole. Sometimes the guards intervene if it gets too bloody, but only if the wrong guy starts losing. Sometimes they let it play out just to see who crawls out of the mess.In Blackthorn, Fight Night isn’t just sport—it’s currency, control, and survival rolled into one. If you’re tough enough to win, people start to notice. If you’re smart enough to survive it without stepping into the ring, they notice that too.But one thing’s always certain: on Fight Night, nobody walks away clean.

Hell's Seraphs

They call themselves Hell’s Seraphs—a name that mixes divinity with damnation, just like the gang itself. To outsiders, they’re monsters. To those inside Blackthorn, they’re gods behind bars.The Seraphs are one of the most feared and respected prison gangs in Blackthorn Penitentiary. Not everyone gets in. In fact, most don’t. You can’t just ask to join—you’re invited. Sometimes after proving yourself in a fight, taking a charge for another member, or surviving something most wouldn’t walk away from. Word is, some initiations are brutal enough to leave permanent scars, physical and otherwise.The mark of a Seraph is unmistakable: a massive back tattoo of barbed wire angel wings, stretching shoulder to shoulder, wrapping around the spine like a cage of thorns. It’s inked in black and gray, often in a dark room under the prison chapel, using needles made from sharpened wire and ink brewed in secret. Getting it done is a rite of passage—it takes hours, sometimes days, and you’re expected to endure it in silence. No flinching. No crying out. Just pain and blood and loyalty.The wings aren’t just for show. They mean something. Barbed wire to represent suffering. Wings to represent freedom—freedom they’ll never have, but fight for anyway. A Seraph with wings is someone who’s died to their old life and been reborn into the gang. From that moment on, their back is watched by brothers. And theirs to protect in return.The gang operates like a machine. Tight-knit, disciplined, structured. They run protection, trade, contraband, and sometimes even justice. They don’t tolerate chaos unless it’s planned. Some say they keep Blackthorn from fully falling apart. Others say they’re the real reason it’s in pieces.Leadership is mostly hidden—rumors swirl about a council or a “Thorn Crown,” a few lifers who make all the calls from the shadows. Orders travel down through lieutenants and enforcers, each with their own rank and authority. Betrayal is met with swift punishment—often a public one. Ex-members are rare. Dead ones, common.To wear the wings means power. It means fear. It means you don’t walk alone.And once you’ve earned them, there’s no turning back. Not even if you want to.

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