Crew Storylines

Each crew leader, and each of the two unaffiliated racers, has one personal storyline. Completing it is one of the sources of the final point to Loyal (The ceiling on racing), and for a crew leader it also raises their family's mechanic by one point (Family ties).

How every storyline works:

• It opens when that person reaches Friendly with Jake, and they bring it up themselves at the next meeting.
• It has three steps, played in order, at the player's pace. No step has a deadline.
• Every step takes place in Nitroit, in a car, through the window — the rules of play do not change (Campaign).
• It can only be completed once. A storyline abandoned halfway stays open and can be resumed.
• It costs something real — money, a car, police attention or time — and is never solved by winning a race alone.

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Delia Ward — Dockline

Covering the bet. A Meridian heir has challenged Dockline to a grudge race for a sum nobody on the waterfront can cover, and Delia's father works that heir's family's terminal. She will not let anyone else race it, and she cannot afford to.

1. The gambler night. Jake is there on the night the challenge is made, and Delia asks him, flatly, whether he has money.
2. The stake. Jake covers part of her side of the bet himself. The money goes on the hood and is lost if she loses.
3. The race. Delia races the heir on the container road. Jake runs as her spotter at the end of the straight, watching for patrols; the race is run whether the police come or not.

Cost: the stake, and a pursuit risk on the night. Result: Delia reaches Loyal whether she wins or loses — what she remembers is who covered her. Curtis Ward rises by one.

Tomás Ferreira — The Old Guard

The founders' car. The Old Guard's two surviving founders still come to the social hall. Tomás wants to put the club's first car — a naturally aspirated coupé that has not run in decades — back on the Quarter's streets for the club's anniversary, built the way they built it.

1. The parts. Jake finds the original-specification parts the car needs, which means buying them at full price from shops across the city.
2. The build. Inês Ferreira rebuilds the car to the founders' rules: naturally aspirated, no shortcuts, nothing they would not have fitted themselves.
3. The founders' lap. Jake drives one clean lap of the Old Quarter circuit in it, at night, in traffic, with both founders watching from the hall steps. Contact of any kind ends the step and it must be run again.

Cost: the parts. Result: Tomás reaches Loyal. Inês Ferreira rises by one.

Kenji Arakawa — Ridge Union

The 2009 car. Sota Arakawa has never stopped talking about the car he built in 2009. Kenji wants to run it down the mountain one more time — in front of Dockline, who for twenty years would not race an import.

1. The car. Jake brings Sota a donor chassis of the same model for the rebuild, from his own garage or bought for the purpose. It is used up in the build and does not come back.
2. The invitation. Jake asks Delia Ward, or whoever leads Dockline now, to bring the crew up the hill for one night. They come only if Jake's Standing with Dockline's leader is at least Neutral.
3. The run. Kenji runs the downhill in the 2009 car with Jake chasing in tandem, judged by Ridge Union's own criteria, with Dockline watching from the crest.

Cost: a car. Result: Kenji reaches Loyal. Sota Arakawa rises by one.

Dara Novak — Ringrunners

The full loop. Nobody has ever completed a full loop of the Expressway Ring at the Ringrunners' record pace without touching the brakes for traffic. Dara wants to, once, and she needs someone ahead of her clearing the lanes.

1. The car. Petra Novak sets Dara's car up for a single flat-out lap. Jake pays for the parts.
2. The scout. Jake drives the Ring at night and calls the traffic patterns lap by lap — the clock decides which night is quiet enough.
3. The run. Jake runs ahead of Dara through live traffic for a full loop, holding lanes open at speed. The run draws the police, and the heat it earns is Jake's.

Cost: the parts, and a pursuit that adds to Jake's bounty (The List). Result: Dara reaches Loyal whether she makes the record or not — she is a Spike, and she wanted the attempt. Petra Novak rises by one.

Bilal Haddad — The Yard

Everyone in one car park. The Yard's night meets are the only place all of Nitroit's scenes stand together, and Bilal wants one meet where every crew leader comes at once — something that has not happened in years.

1. The asks. Jake personally invites every other crew's current leader. Each one comes only if Jake's Standing with them is at least Neutral; anyone below that has to be won back first.
2. The ground. Jake pays for the lot to be cleared and lit for the night.
3. The meet. Every crew arrives. The meet runs without a race, a fight or a pursuit — if a crew leader's racer is challenged and loses that night, the meet breaks up and must be held again.

Cost: the lot, and the time spent repairing whichever relationships kept a leader away. Result: Bilal reaches Loyal. Amira Haddad rises by one.

Mateo Castellanos — Riverside

The cruise. The Riverside boulevard cruise has run on the same night of the week for fifty years. Street racing on the side streets has brought patrols to the boulevard, and Mateo wants one cruise night with no police anywhere near it — to prove the cruise and the racing can live side by side.

1. The build. Jake builds a car that passes the Riverside check at Presentation 5 (The Riverside check). Junie Castellanos inspects it before he is allowed on the boulevard.
2. The week. For the seven in-game days before the cruise, Jake starts no pursuit anywhere in Riverside.
3. The cruise. Jake rides the full boulevard at cruise pace, in the line, with no racing and no police contact, start to finish.

Cost: the build, and a week of not racing in his own territory if he leads Riverside. Result: Mateo reaches Loyal. Junie Castellanos rises by one.

Adrian Wolff — Meridian

Something he did not inherit. Adrian owns a hypercar he was given for a birthday and has never won anything his family could not have bought. He wants to beat Jake in a car he built himself, outside The Heights, where nobody knows his name.

1. The lot. Jake takes Adrian to Halvorsen Motors, where Adrian buys a cheap car with his own money for the first time in his life.
2. The build. Jake helps him build it into a C- or B-class car, with parts Jake pays for half of.
3. The race. Adrian enters an Old Guard circuit event in it and races Jake straight. Whether Adrian wins or loses does not matter; whether Jake races him honestly does. Contact, or a deliberate lift, ends the step and it must be run again.

Cost: half the build. Result: Adrian reaches Loyal, and with him Meridian's sponsorship becomes available (Salaries). He never learns that Jake refused a fortune of his own.

Nadia Ferrante — unaffiliated

What it is like. Nadia is the only person in Nitroit who has been inside professional racing. She will not say what happened to her, but once the festival's advertising arrives, she starts talking about what the paddock is like — to Jake, who has never told her he knows.

1. The drive. Nadia asks Jake to follow her on a long night drive across the city, and talks over the radio the whole way about scrutineering, timing sheets and what a classification sheet feels like with your name on it.
2. The race. She races Jake once, clean, on the Ring Circuit route, and asks him afterwards why he drives like someone who has been timed.
3. The answer. In Act 4, Jake answers her — the first time in the game he says anything about his racing past, though not his name. This is the conversation in which he mentions the inherited money (The money).

Cost: time. Step 3 is only available from Act 4. Result: Nadia reaches Loyal.

Cass Weller — unaffiliated

No explanation. Cass beats crew leaders in cars that should not be capable of it. Jake wants to know how; Cass will not say, but will show.

1. The cars. Cass sends Jake to Halvorsen Motors to buy two identical cheap rear-drive coupés, one for each of them.
2. The runs. On the Ridgeline downhill, Cass and Jake run the identical cars three times — Cass leading, then Jake leading, then side by side.
3. The swap. Cass hands back their car and keeps Jake's. Neither says why.

Cost: two cheap cars, one of which Jake never gets back — given away, not lost. Result: Cass reaches Loyal, and still explains nothing.