Stay out of his territory.
A step up beyond the mere gang leader, the Gang Lord rules the streets and corners like the aristocracy of old. This is his (and it is almost certainly his) territory, and he conquered it by tooth and nail. He controls the crime here — heck, he controls everything that happens here, sometimes to the point of ruling the streets with an iron fist, and nothing happens on his turf without his knowledge and express permission. Everyone knows it, everybody respects it, and if anyone dares to challenge this or even give him less than absolute respect, then expect it to be met with swift and brutal retaliation, often in the form of extreme firepower.
The Gang Lord largely fills the same role as The Don in the narrative but fits into a very different archetype. Whereas the Don is presented as an upper-class, wealthy, professional, business-focused criminal, who is likely the patriarch of a crime family, carefully running his empire from behind the scenes and specialising in all manner of legitimate businesses and sophisticated White-Collar Crime, the Gang Lord is a working-class man of the streets, whose life revolves around its code and who rose to the top through cunning and brutality. Whilst his operation might be highly complex and influential, it is at least primarily (and most often entirely) street-level being limited to drug and gun dealing, racketeering, contraband, gambling, prostitution, extortion and potentially contract killing with no involvement in the more complex and high-class crimes you would expect any decent Don to be an old hand at (also don't be surprised if they also engage in the likes of robbery, burglary, vandalism and random violence on their turf just for the hell of it).
Whilst most Dons prefer to maintain a low profile or present themselves as legitimate businessmen, the Gang Lord wants everyone (except usually law enforcement and a number are so brazen they don't even mind them knowing, as long as they are sure they can't prove anything) to know who he is. Reputation is everything to them. Don't be surprised if he cares for his street cred as much, if not more than for his actual profits and power. It's not uncommon, if challenged, for him to do something really vicious or reckless simply to ensure no one perceives him as weak.
It is possible for the two tropes of overlap, after all, many a Don was at one point a Gang Lord before they grew so rich and powerful. Although in such cases, despite their new attempts to appear legitimate and sophisticated, they often prove to still be a vicious thug at heart.
Despite carrying himself like he's the king and being obsessed with getting the respect he feels he deserves, the Gang Lord is nearly always just a big fish in a small pond (not that anyone dares to say that to his face), who can not hope to hold a candle to the larger crime syndicates in terms of wealth and influence. However, this does often translate to them holding more direct power (and potentially more support) within their territories and as his power lies in their ability to maintain control by force he is likely still a force to be reckoned with, potentially even able to match the more upper-class gangsters in terms of raw muscle (although they usually lack the more high-quality enforcers, with their advantages often lying in numbers, local knowledge and sheer viciousness). By the same token, they're far less likely to entertain any interest in diplomacy, preferring to resolve disputes by seeing who can outshoot the other.
Fittingly, he and his gang will likely be made up of the more stereotypical poorer ethnicities and groups. Whereas the Mafia is generally presented as made up of Italians, Jews, Russians, or occasionally Chinese, Japanese, or Brits, the Gang Lord and his men will likely be Gangbangers, skinheads, bikers, Greasers, Neo-Nazis, The Yardies, and sometimes the Irish. Though depending on the time period and setting, it's possible to have them be of any ethnicity or affiliation.
In works featuring both him (and often several other Gang lords) and the Don, expect the narrative to highlight their contrasts. Their relationship can drastically differ, they might be partners (albeit usually only for business reasons, with it clear any pretence of friendship could disappear at any given moment), allies, rivals or even he might be a vassal who tithes a percentage of his earnings to the more powerful crime boss in exchange for being allowed to continue to operate and maintain their independence. Even in friendly circumstances, he'll likely have a chip on his shoulder, suspecting the more upper-class gangsters look down their noses at him as just a disposable asset and don't have the respect for him he deserves (and more often than not, he's right on the money).
In works focusing on the conflict between him and more sophisticated crime syndicates, due to his working-class background and connection to their community, he might be the lighter party in comparison to the more profit-hungry upper-class gangsters. Alternatively, he might be presented as far more sadistic and merciless due to them caring more about holding their fiefdoms and reputation, as opposed to the more professional business-focused gangsters. Although it's possible for neither party to come out as much better.
Expect him to be ambitious; after all, he built his empire and usually has his eye on any option to expand. It's not uncommon for him to have his sights on moving up from the streets and becoming a major crime boss, becoming legitimately wealthy and powerful or possibly more. However, it's also possible they have no interest in moving up and are perfectly content to rule over their own fiefdom and continue living by the rules of the streets.
Compare King of Thieves, who also often carries a similar working-class vibe and pretensions of glory, but is largely restricted to more fantastical or historical settings. Contrast the Diabolical Mastermind, who operates on the opposite end of this spectrum as far away from the street level as possible.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Ichi the Killer:
- Masao Kakihara, after burning bridges with his Yakuza bosses, becomes a standalone gang leader in his personal stretch of Tokyo. He even keeps his personal quarters in the apartment complex he had before departing the Yakuza, and he's so Ax-Crazy and brutal that hardly anyone's willing to try to make him leave (the one guy who did got Shot in the Ass).
- It turns out that Jijii's personal ambition is to be one, hence his plan to split the Yakuza and kill several of their current and former members. The film adaptation reveals that he's an ex-cop who couldn't be part of the Yakuza hierarchy even if he wanted to, and wasn't planning to break their grip on Tokyo.
Comic Books
- Batman: Depending on the Writer, Batman's rogues can be depicted as proper leaders of established crime families, or as leaders of petty Gangs Of Hats prowling the streets mugging pedestrians and such; especially if the story includes the old mobsters predating Batman's activities, like the Falcones. An increasingly popular type of storyline within the Batman mythos has the rogues with big ambitions, like the Penguin or Two-Face, rising up to become the new dons after the old conventional ones were taken out (either by Batman or by themselves), while retaining their mean, hands-on streak. On the other hand, the more chaotic or outright insane villains, like the Joker or the Riddler, stick to being the head of small outfits, carving out secluded corners of Gotham for themselves.
- Beast Wars: Uprising: Gnashteeth is an ambitious Predacon who, after being betrayed and discarded by his patron, seeks to build up his own fortune by selling Energon on the side (embezzled from the refinery where he works). After a sale goes wrong and he (and his subordinate Scorponok) is badly beaten by the Kospegos under the leadership of gang boss Thunderhoof, he swears revenge. In a brazen act, he murders his former patron, the Decepticon Double Punch, and frames the Kospegos for the deed. In desperation to clear his name, Thunderhoof tracks Gnashteeth down, but Gnashteeth convinces his bodyguards to turn on him by offering them much better working conditions. Afterwards, Gnashteeth names his new group the Darksyders and renames himself Megatron, after his personal hero and original leader of the Decepticons. He then spends much of the series in the background, slowly building his power and absorbing other gangs like the Destron Boys and the Minions of Unicron. By the end of the series, he has become so rich and powerful that he's even been offered a seat at the table of Cybertron's governing body.
- Spider-Man: Zigzagged with Wilson Fisk, better known as The Kingpin. In his backstory, he is definitely one of these, as he killed his boss and took over his organization before slowly building it up. While he is most often portrayed as being The Don or a Diabolical Mastermind, depending on the story, he may be portrayed as one of these (especially on the occasions when he has been overthrown and is attempting to regain his throne). In addition, while he does present himself as a legitimate businessman, in terms of personality he sometimes acts more like a particularly powerful version of a gang lord due to preferring to kill people with his bare hands while most other don-type criminals try to keep their hands as clean as possible (e.g. Tombstone, while more than capable of killing people thanks to his enhanced strength, generally opts to let his goons do it). In addition, while an extremely powerful crime boss, in the Marvel Universe he's strictly a Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond, as he's easily outmatched in terms of power by truly global threats like Doctor Doom, Red Skull, or the Mandarin, and also knows better than to pick fights with global-scale heroes like the Avengers or the Fantastic Four (though he might try his luck with a solo member). On one occasion, the Hand (which Fisk thought was simply a rival criminal organization) emptied his bank accounts, blew up several of his operations, and massacred a big chunk of his men. And that was simply a demonstration, intended to show the difference between his organization and the Hand's truly worldwide reach.
Fan Works
- Dungeon Keeper Ami: From "Assault on Wemos" when Jared's describing his impression of underworld city army leaders as a non-local:
Their leaders would be the strongest, most vicious thugs of each respective city. They have more in common with gang leaders than with our nobles. A certain lack of diplomatic skill is to be expected.
Films — Live-Action
- Attack the Block: The titular Block of Wyndham Towers is "owned "by Hi-Hatz, a volatile drug dealer and aspiring rapper. Hi-Hatz employs Ron, who grows weed in a fortified room at the top of the block, and recruits Moses to sell cocaine for him, but warns him not to try to mess with his turf. When Moses and his friends have to escape aliens in a stolen Police van, they crash into Hi-Hatz's car, and he's convinced this is them trying to come for his head, and keeps thinking this even after having his own encounter with the big Gorilla Wolf Motherfuckers, still shooting at Moses as he's about to be swarmed by dozens of aliens.
- Blood and Bone: James is a powerful gang leader in Los Angeles who has a major stake in underground Fight Clubbing and especially fight betting, with him putting ten million on the line, and wants to make Bone a tool in his kit, the easy way or hard way. Although he puts up some pretense of airs by wearing suits and paraphrasing Genghis Khan, Bone easily sees through his act and tears away at his plans. It was in fact James who framed Bone's friend Danny for a crime he didn't commit, and then had him murdered in prison, then got Danny's wife Angela addicted to drugs, solely so he could force her to become his.
- City of God:
- Zé Pequeno rises From Nobody to Nightmare and in his teens rules the titular neighbourhood, controlling the drug trade in Cidade de Deus, mostly by killing anyone who gets in his way.
- Mané Galinha, a bus worker and military veteran, slowly becomes one in his quest to take revenge on Zé for raping and murdering his girlfriend.
- They Cloned Tyrone: The protagonist, Fontaine is a boss of a crew dealing drugs in The Glen stuck in a turf war with a rival leader Isaac. After Fontaine is killed in the first five minutes of the film, and just wakes up at home the next day as if nothing had happened, Fontaine's attempts to collect money from the pimp Slick Charles, who saw him die, lead the pair and Charles' girl Yo-Yo to investigate what the hell is going on. Fontaine is a clone put into the community by a Government Conspiracy to keep the neighborhood in bad shape, alongside several other clones. The titular Tyrone is another clone of Fontaine's lineage, and is implied to be in the same position in a neighborhood in Los Angeles
- The Crow (1994): Top Dollar is the leader of a Gothic-style gang collective in Detroit, and has a small army of thugs to do his bidding. Whilst seemingly ruling all the crime within the city, Top Dollar is a sadistic thug at heart, with him subjecting the people living in the buildings to regular sessions of being robbed, beaten, and murdered. Worst still, it's revealed he's the mastermind behind "Devils Night", having buildings set alight, terrorising the whole city for his personal enjoyment for several years now.
- District 9: Obesandjo, the wheelchair-bound Nigerian leader of a gang who trades cat food for Alien technology, he also operates "interspecies prostitution" rings and believes he can gain mysterious powers from eating Aliens.
- Dredd: Madeleine "Ma-Ma" Madrigal is the ruthless The Queenpin of the Peach Trees slum block having systemically wiped out all the rival gangs, with her treating the Peach Trees as her own personal fiefdom, as well as having complete control over the manufacture and distribution of Slo-mo within the entire Megacity, who Judges Dredd and Anderson have to fight an uphill battle against her army of goons to stop. She's even powerful enough to have several corrupt judges on her payroll, whom she uses to carry out wetwork.
- Gangs of New York: William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting, the leader of "the Confederation of American Natives", is the vicious, bombastic and insane, yet highly cunning and articulate crime boss who rules the Five Points with an iron fist (to the point of closer resembling a warlord than a gangster). Whilst officially acting as an enforcer for Boss Tweed, everyone knows that Bill is the real power. Fittingly whilst highly cultured and making himself out as a sophisticated gentleman, Bill is still very much a working man, being an actual butcher in his day job (and utilizing his skills with knives for murder and torture) and is obsessed with his own personal warrior code of honour (that is nigh incomprehensible to anyone else) and a vibrant hatred of the Irish immigrants, convinced their displacing natural born Americans like himself.
- snatch.: Brick Top is The Dreaded among most of the ne'er-do-well characters in the movie, an unhinged gangster with a hair-trigger temper and a habit of cutting his enemies up and feeding them to pigs. Who also runs a dog fighting ring. Disturbingly, his effort to control the local underground boxing scene (which gets botched when his fighter doesn’t go down as promised) reveals despite his power and infamous reputation, even Brick Top has people above him in the criminal hierarchy that he's trying to keep happy.
- The Sting: Big Bad Doyle Lonnegan is a powerful, murder happy Irish mobster who runs a sizable criminal empire including the Chicago numbers rackets. Whilst he makes a big effort to present himself as a sophisticated straight-edged gentleman, his veneer is only paper-thin, as Doyle still talks and acts like a street thug. He likewise openly admits (even whilst playing golf at a fancy country club), that he will kill anyone, even someone who he considers a close friend who cheats, crosses, or makes him look bad. Following a single envelope out of one of his many rackets being stolen, Doyle orders a every single con man involved hunted down and killed (as well as his own man who let them steal it), leading to the murder of Hooker's mentor, Luther.
- The Warriors: Every neighbourhood in New York City has a young thug gang that makes it their "turf," and of course, each gang has a leader. Cyrus of The Riffs, the largest gang in the city, calls a meeting of these gangs, where he proposes forming a cohesive army that could outnumber and overrun the police force. This would make all of New York City into their domain, which would have each gang rule their respective turfs unchallenged by law enforcement. Unfortunately, he's murdered by Luther, leader of the Rogues, meaning his dream never materialises.
Literature
- The Hardy Boys Digests: The Mark of the Blue Tattoo case involves the increase of teen delinquent activity in their town of Bayport, and the boys further learn that all the gangs are starting to come together as one "super-gang" under the banner of a mysterious figure (unknown to even the most of the individual gang leaders) using the moniker "The Lunatic".
- The Hate U Give: Besides being Maverick's False Friend, King is the ruthless, abusive, falsely charming and notorious leader of the King Lords, dealing in drugs and prostitution in the worn down Garden Heights, and is perfectly willing to threaten Maverick's daughter Starr.
- The Outsiders: Robert "Bob" Sheldon is an unbuilt and deconstructed take on this trope. Although a committed and well-known figure in the Soc gang, he's still a young man who has to jockey against other gang leaders in the southern United States, he's way in over his head, and what influence he does have means little against an undignified end via Johnny Cade. Moreover, his fellow Socs don't even need him in the long run, and only agree to a fight with the greasers based on a matter of principle.
- Warrior Cats: Scourge is the leader of BloodClan, a "Clan" of street cats in Twolegplace (a human town) that looks to him for protection. He and his personal guard keep the other cats in line through fear, and forbid any of them to live in the same den so they can't band together and challenge him.
Live-Action TV
- Arrow: Danny "Brick" Brickwell is the notorious gang leader. Originally just a simple thug, for his gang initiation, he chose to murder Rebecca Merlyn, setting her husband Malcolm off on his path to become a supervillain. In season three, now leading the gang, Brick takes advantage of the chaos and recruits an army of criminals to forcibly take over the Glades and transform it into his own private kingdom, with him personally killing anyone who gets in his way. Returning in season 7, with them now both incarcerated in Slabside prison, Brick manipulates Oliver to get rid of the guards and then transforms the prison into his new kingdom.
- Blue Bloods: "The Bitter End" & "This Way Out" feature Santana the falsely charming, utterly vicious leader of the Los Lordes Gang. Santana is almost personally responsible for turning the impoverished Bitterman Projects housing estates into an utter hellhole, where his gang casually run their drugs and terrorise the inhabitants with near absolute impunity, to the point one mother kills herself and her baby to free themselves from them. Following the police attempt to investigate him, Santana declares war on them as if they were just another gang, setting up multiple ambushes on cops and manipulating a mentally vulnerable man into attempting to assassinate the mayor.
- Gangs of London: The London underworld is presented as being made up of a variety of gangs of varying levels of sophistication and power. Whereas the Wallace Organisation starts off as the most powerful, the other gangs and their leaders all make up their factions.
- Luan Dushaj is the leader of the Albanians, and acts as an upper-tier example, his gang controlling a large amount of territory that deals in drugs, guns and low-level property scams, with it being clear he desires to break away from the street-level crimes his gang specialises in, and into the lucrative world of White-Collar Crime that he believes will secure his family's wealth and power. Thus, throughout the first season, a large part of his struggle was in his attempts to get his Skyscraper building project on track despite all the chaos.
- Lale is the Leader of the Kurdish PKK, who despite having international connections providing her with a much higher quality of muscle, is largely content with remaining street level and focusing on drug dealing, her focus being on building funds for the cause of securing her people a homeland. However, Sean Wallace reaches out to her, proving that by working with him, he can open the door to wealth she could only otherwise imagine.
- Kinney Edwards is the leader of the Welsh Travelers, where despite the traveller's poverty, he secretly is a key player in the underworld, using the Travelers contacts and semi-nomadic lifestyle, to smuggle guns and contraband that arrives in Wales into London. Kinney and his faction get wiped out after his son is manipulated into accidentally killing Finn Wallace.
- Basem Soudani is the leader of the Algerians, the smallest and most street-level gang (with it hinting they only recently rose to prominence). A wise, compassionate man Basem's primary focus is on protecting his family. Following his death, his treacherous nephew Hakin takes over, until he is exposed and killed by his cousin Saba, who takes over running them in joint partnership with her other cousin Faz, and the two form an alliance with Elliot and the Dumani's to act as their workers and enforcers, drastically increasing their power and influence.
- Line of Duty: Tommy Hunter is the boss of multiple organised crime gangs in the city and has informants and collaborators in the police — including DCI Gates, whom he is blackmailing. He is personally involved in multiple street-level crimes, including distribution, prostitution, racketeering, extortion, and murder. Likewise, despite his vast reach and power, he's constantly presented as a sadistic thug and a prolific rapist.
- Peaky Blinders: Thomas "Tommy" Shelby, the head of the Shelby family started off as one of these, with the Shelby clan starting off as an illegal bookmaking operation, then expanding into bootlegging, drug smuggling and contraband. Over the course of the series, as the Shelbys' wealth, power, and influence continue to grow, he upgrades to becoming The Don, backing his criminal empire behind a string of legitimate businesses and charities, and later also a Corrupt Politician, however, despite this, Tommy never completely lets go of his street roots. Likewise, it seems no matter how much power and wealth Tommy gains, his business associates, adversaries, and rivals are all still convinced he's just a jumped-up street gangster they can easily deal with, with him delighting in proving them wrong.
- Prime Suspect: "Errors of Judgement'': Outside of her familiar surroundings and dealing with Manchester's ganglands, Superintendent Jane Tennison finds herself dealing with Clive Norton aka "The Street", the cocky dominant gangster within the area, who regularly runs drugs throughout the poorer districts using vulnerable teenagers as his dealers and forcing residents to let him use their homes as his drug labs. Norton makes a strong effort to protect his reputation as a man of the people when, in reality, he's a vicious psychopath who enjoys inflicting extremely horrific fates on others. When one of his dealers gets murdered, the Street goes on the warpath to find out who's distributing his business, leaving a series of bodies in his wake. He's likewise secretly in partnership with DCS Ballinger to pass him information on his rivals, ensuring his position as the most powerful gangster.
- The Rookie: Feds: "Star Crossed" features Rusty Fillmore, the leader of the Dead Bastards, the largest and most ruthless criminal motorcycle gang in California. The team attempts to engage in a surveillance operation, as he's in the process of forming a business deal with the Greek Crime boss Darius Kazan for Fillmore's men to distribute Kazan's drugs, but matters are complicated by the reveal that Fillmore's son is secretly in a relationship with Kazan's daughter and both teens quickly end up getting kidnapped, leading to their father's ripping the city apart to find them.
- SWAT: Leroy Henderson, Hondo's childhood best friend, was likewise one of the founding members and the former leader of the 20 Street Hammers, the dominant street gang within Hondo's neighbourhood. Whilst Leroy is in prison at the start of the series, he nevertheless still maintains considerable influence and respect on the streets, with it being clear it's his influence that has maintained the peace between the Hammers and their hated rivals, the 42's. Partway through the series, Leroy gets out of prison and, regretting missing so much of his son's life for so long, Leroy commits to being on the straight and narrow going forward. Nevertheless, he still possesses both his reputation and ear to the street, both of which prove to be very useful to Hondo on the occasion that the situation is dire enough that Leroy is willing to directly help the police.
- Tulsa King: Caolan Waltrip is the sadistic and hands on leader of the Black MacAdams biker gang who controlled all the crime throughout Tulsa before Dwight arrived, overseeing meth dealing, arms sales (in particular providing guns and bombs to the local militia's) and murder for hire. Caolan likewise holds himself as the king, convinced he deserves the respect applicable to a Mafia Don, though Dwight immediately recognises him as a jumped-up thug with delusions of grandeur with it soon being clear the two simply can't coexist in the same city. His attempts to kill Dwight and his growing organisation failing, he's forced onto the back foot once the ATF start seriously cracking down upon his gang. Dwight manages to exploit Waltrip's greed to lure him into a trap, leading to him and the remains of his organisation being wiped out.
- The Wire: The Baltimore underworld is ruled by a series of petty kingdoms that dominate the drug trade. One of the points of the series is despite the need for serious reform to build anything long-term, how the same mistakes keep getting repeated that lead to the destruction of the gangs and newcomers emerging to take their place, and how the cycle keeps repeating itself with the only change being that the game keeps getting more vicious.
- At the start of the series, Avon Barksdale, along with his right-hand man Stringer Bell, are the most powerful gangsters within the city, the Barksdale organization being the largest drug operation, ensuring the leaders never personally handle drugs and utilising an elaborate system of communication, having complete control of all the best territory on the Westside, holding the prized Franklin Terrace Towers high-rise housing project and the nearby low rise housing projects called "the Pit", both of which they have turned into 24-hour drug markets, as well as multiple corners throughout the West, laundering their money through buying up worthless property through shell companies, with them commanding absolute fear and respect from the populace whilst staying off the police's radar. Problems start to emerge for them after the rising violence of the drug trade leads to the police being forced to take notice of them. Throughout the seasons the pair face multiple setbacks on all fronts, most notably losing most of their quality manpower to arrests and the towers to urban renewal, as well as problems emerging from Avon's disregard for anything else than living by the rules of the street and obsession with maintaining his reputation, and Stringer's desire to rise up into the lucrative world of White-Collar Crime and overestimating his own intelligence. By the end of season three, Stringer is dead and Avon has been incarcerated for life, with their organisation a mere shadow of itself before its collapse.
- Proposition Joe is a wise Eastside drug lord, who seeing the flaws in the system, knowing that he both doesn't have the muscle to rule the way the Barksdale's do and that the police are more interested in murders than non-violent drug traffick, attempts to reform the system by setting up the New Day Co-Op where the gang leaders pool their resources to work together for larger profits and less violence, with himself acting as the chairman. Following the collapse of the Barksdales, the Co-Op emerges as the city's new dominant drug empire, until incursions from the New York crime syndicates force Joe to reach out to the rising gang leader, Marlo Stanfield, to present a united front and needing his muscle, with Joe hoping he can tame Marlo's worst impulses. Unfortunately he underestimates how vicious Marlo really is, with Marlo simply killing him and dissolving the Co-Op once he is powerful enough not to need them.
- Becoming this is the aforementioned Marlo's only drive in life, with the Stanfield Gang mercilessly slaughtering their way through the underworld to levels considered brutal even by Baltimore standards, all in Marlo's pursuit for "the crown" following lucking out in his war against the Barksdales. By the end of the series, Marlo finally has the power to become this. But the police crackdown means his empire collapses before he even manages to deliver his first shipment of heroin. Whilst Marlo manages to slip through the legal consequences due to the dubious practices of the investigation, he's nevertheless left powerless, alone, forgotten and back at square one.
- As well as them, there are likewise several lesser gang leaders including East Side drug kingpins "Fatface" Rick and Hungry Mann, both of whom become members of the New Day Co-Op in the hopes of increasing their own standing. Marlo ends up murdering Hungry Man to take his territory, but Fatface Rick manages to keep his head down, and ends up coming out on top, his property scams drastically paying off and becoming the new equal partner with Slim Charles, the series ending with them staring up a new Co-Op recognising the wisdom of Joe's vision.
Tabletop Games
- Blades in the Dark: Features a variety of examples. Due to the mechanisms, basically any leader of a Tier II gang qualifies as this, as gangs of higher tiers (like the Hive and the Unseen) tend to be led by The Don, The Queenpin, or even a Corrupt Corporate Executive, while lower-tier ones (like the Fog Hounds and Ulf Ironborn's band) can only aspire to lordship. The most prominent examples of gang lords are Bazso Baz of the Lampblacks, Mylera Klev of the Red Sashes, and Lyssa of the Crows, who fight over the Crow's Foot district and all try to enlist the Player Characters to their side.
- Call of Cthulhu: In the World War Cthulhu - London supplement, the Shepard Gang of "The Meat Trade" scenario is an East End street gang based out of Shoulder of Mutton pub, consisting of a crew of spivs, enforcers, assorted thugs and ne'er-do-wells under the leadership of would-be kingpin Frankie Shepard—who is described as being a huge fan of American mafioso. Not content with being a minor player, Frankie had ambitions of hitting the big time by taking over the black market meat trade to exploit wartime rationing, but progress was slow until a year before the events of the scenario, when his uncle Ronnie Shepard approached him with a deal he couldn't refuse, offering him resources and extra muscle in exchange for a few small favors. By 1941, the Shepard Gang has taken over numerous local businesses—including the Welch & Sons and Thompson's Builders construction companies, Meyer Fellick's print shop, and most notably Wilson's Meat Supplies—and the meat trade business is booming due to the Blitz. Unbeknownst to Frankie, he's little more than a disposable pawn for Ronnie, who is actually a disguised ghoul and leader of the Bow Cemetery tribe, with ambitions of using the Shepard Gang as a stepping stone to conquer all of London. Gradually replacing the gang members with loyal ghouls, Ronnie uses Wilson's Meat Supplies and other butcher shops to spread bacon tainted with ghoul blood throughout the East End, which will gradually mutate those who eat it into more ghouls. Ronnie then has these people-turned-ghouls abducted and tortured into swearing fealty to him and joining his tribe, with Fellick being coerced into providing them with false ID cards while Welch & Sons and Thompson's Builders construct faulty air raid shelters that collapse into ghoul tunnels, giving the ghouls a semi-steady supply of dead or soon-to-be-dead humans to eat and new faces to wear to infiltrate the surface world. Unless the investigators intervene, Ronnie will kill Frankie once he no longer needs him to act as a figurehead.
- Shadowrun: As Seattle and other major cities in the game tend to be filled with gangs of various kinds, the PC's are likely to run into these types of characters. One example from the Third Edition's Shadowrun Companion is Lord Torgo, leader of the all-troll (and virulently anti-elf) Spikes. Although both he and his underlings are almost completely uneducated and their operations mostly consist of simple highway robbery, Torgo is extremely intelligent and has familiarized himself with lessons from The Art of War (Sun Tzu) and The Prince (Machiavelli), which have helped him turn the Spikes into one of Seattle's major gangs.
Video Games
- Batman: Arkham Series: Zigzagged with Oswald Copplepot aka the Penguin; on the one hand, Penguin's reach and wealth (being one of the series' most powerful crime lords), coupled with his managing to spend much of his career presenting himself as a legitimate businessman and keeping his criminal activities unproven, are more akin to The Don. However, for all his desire to be seen as a respectable cultured gentleman and a cunning mastermind, the series makes it clear that Penguin is at heart a pretentious, crass, coarse, boorish, narcissistic, sadistic, bigoted, slovenly thuggish sociopath who whilst incredibly dangerous is nowhere near as smart or sophisticated as he believes he is, making him come across as closer to one of these. This is reflected in that, despite the reach of his criminal empire, his actual activities are quite street-level: arms dealing, the black market, racketeering, and fencing. It's even reflected in his backstory, revealing he was sent to England to attend private schooling. Penguin instead spent his time hanging out with the London street gangs, returning with nearly no formal education.
- Cyberpunk 2077:
- Night City is dominated by the Mega Corps at the very top, with a nominal city government and police force, which have largely bribed into submission, if not outright complicity, by the Corps. At the street level, Gangs of Hats rule the day, having divided the city into rough territories with the expected turf wars and inter-gang violence that entails. These gangs are ruled over by especially feared leaders, such as Royce of Maelstrom (or Patricia depending on V's actions), Maman Brigitte of the Voodoo Boys, and Campo Orta of the Valentinos. The Corps tolerates the gangs as they can be useful for eliminating certain people or acquiring certain goods without the Corps needing to get their own hands dirty.
- In the Phantom Liberty expansion, the walled-off district of Dogtown is controlled by the BARGHEST militia and ruled by former NUSA veteran, Kurt Hansen. While Kurt talks a big game about giving his subjects freedom from corporate rule, he is ultimately a petty crime lord that gets his cut through violent shakedowns, gun running, and secret deals with the outside world.
- Fallout: London: Miller, the leader of Miller's Men gang, is halfway between this and a Wasteland Warlord, with him and his gang living up to the aesthetic and having little interest in presenting themselves as anything other than a street gang who rules through force. In the chaos of post-war London, following being exiled from the Pistols for the murder, the man who would become Miller, formed his own gang out of the desperate Skin Heads, and together took over Islington (being a former Tunnel Cough quarantine camp, considered one of the absolute worst places in all of London). Whilst they are generally regarded as barely a step up above the Hooligans, they are nevertheless a force to be reckoned with and have a reputation for being tough as nails, thanks to them living in Islington. At the time of the game, they're at war with the Roundels of Hackney.
- Final Fantasy XIV:
- The Coeurlclaw King is the leader of the Coeurlclaws, one of the major gangs of poachers that have overrun the South Shroud following the Calamity. The Coeurlclaws consists mostly of women who have suffered abuses at the hands of the Wood Wailers. He wins their loyalty by offering them protection, but extorts them for sexual favors in addition to serving as his foot soldiers.
- The Alacran were a small-time gang before undergoing new management. This new gang lord turns it into a sprawling criminal organization engaged in smuggling, drug distribution, human trafficking, and hit jobs. The Alacran becomes so powerful that it even gets the attention of the Ascians. The Gladiator quests reveal that this new boss is Leavold, Aldis's former brother-in-arms, who framed him for rigging matches, disgracing both of them as gladiators. Leavold's expertise explains the Alacran's rise to power and his death at the end of the quests ends the Alacran as a threat.
- Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas: By the final stages and ending of the story, Carl "CJ" Johnson and his brother Sweet become this trope, with the Grove Street Families reclaiming their lost territory in Los Santos from their rivals the Ballas and Vagos, effectively making them the rulers of Los Santos's streets and criminal underworld. It's even an Invoked Trope, with mandatory story and Gang Warfare missions requiring CJ to take back territory from the aforementioned gangs in order to get revenge on Big Smoke and Tenpenny, the former for betraying them and the gang, the latter for constantly mistreating and attempting to kill them.
- Grand Theft Auto IV: Elizabeta Torres is a female example, the boss of the Spanish Lords, a hispanic gang that controls drug dealing in South Bohan. She grew up in the slums there, and still operates out of her rather modest apartment. She also takes part in shootouts to land deals and defend her turf. Unfortunately her hold is a lot less secure than she thinks it is, as her empire crumbles fairly quickly once the authorities clamp down.
- Grand Theft Auto V: Trevor's first few missions involve securing his hold on Blaine County's drug and gun-running operations by taking out his rivals the Lost MC and the Ortegas. However, due to causing too much trouble for them, he's unable to ally with the Triads and thus expand his business past that, and the game eventually drops focus on that aspect of his criminal career as he goes back to his true passion of being a high-stakes heister. The Online Mode establishes that he's considered a pretty influential figure out in the wastes who even has a small army of generic goons to guard his turf and serves as an early-game mission giver.
- Life Is Strange: Before the Storm: Damon Merrick is a crime boss in the small town of Arcadia Bay, and the main antagonist of the game. He is first seen berating and threatening a subordinate, and a graffiti inside the Old Mill — an abandoned sawmill turned music venue of which he is the proprietor — reads "Don't mess with Damon Merrick". According to the DA's file on him, he is wanted for larceny, extortion, distribution, assault, robbery, and murder, though in the end, a simple assault charge is what they are going after him for.
- Lost Judgment: After the dissolution of the two biggest Yakuza syndicates in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, the RK street gang rose to power led by Kazuki Soma. While Soma himself is a former Tojo Clan member and staffs the upper levels of his gang with former Yakuza, they're still ultimately a particularly large street gang (with most of them being contracted thugs). In truth, Soma is an undercover cop who was tasked with creating a new criminal organization to centralize crime, specifically to enforce his corrupt superior's will.
- Mafia III: Ritchie Doucet is the head of the Dixie Mob, a crass, racist proud neo-confederate, who acts as an ally (and in practice subordinate) to the far more powerful Salvatore Marcano and the Marcano crime family, having convinced himself he's a partner if not a peer. Gaining their favour by being instrumental in the betrayal and extermination of the Black Mob, with Richie personally killing Lincoln's brother, in the present Richie controls Delray Hollow, the city's primary black district which he uses to distribute drugs and runs a forced prostitution racket using women he's gotten addicted to his drugs, as well as running Moonshine out of the bayou. Lincoln ends up killing him to avenge his family.
- Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord: Each city has a list of local characters, divided by their "classes": notables, merchants, craftsmen... and gang leaders. In fact, there might be two of them, in an ongoing Mob War. Each of them is ruling their turf in a very literal sense and you might end up with mutually beneficial deals with them - including getting extra recruits for your army via their connections.
- In Saints Row and Saints Row 2, The Playa/The Boss becomes this over the course of each game, being a violent, sociopathic thug starting out at the bottom of the Third Street Saints and gradually taking over all crime in the city by violently putting down all their rivals. The later games have them moving past this, becoming a media mogul, the President of the US and eventually the self-declared "God-Emperor For Life of the Universe".
- The Thaumaturge: Abaurycy Niedzic, a childhood friend of Wiktor and Ligia, has grown up to become the leader of the Skavs, a major criminal gang in Warsaw, and styles himself the "King of Srdomescie".
- Watch_Dogs: Delford "Iraq" Wade is the undisputed top dog of the Black Viceroys, who rules over the dilapidated Rossi-Fremont projects as his personal fiefdom. While his military training (which he shares with his top enforcers) and aptitude for technology make him an awful lot more dangerous than your average street thug, he's ultimately stuck playing second fiddle to "Lucky" Quinn of the Chicago South Club, and serves as the Disc-One Final Boss of the game.
Webcomics
- Unsounded: Nary-a-Care Frummagem runs the criminal underworld in the town of New Tawhoque like a family business out of his base in the Midnight Cricket tavern. He's acutely aware that he's backwater small fry, especially compared to the criminal dynasties that bought their way into lordships, and is drawn into an international intrigue by his ambitions.
Western Animation
- Hazbin Hotel: The Overlords, in contrast to the aristocratic, Hellborn Goetia royalty, are damned human souls who've taken over sections of Pentagram City through sheer force and/or binding other souls to themselves through exploitative deals. Gang wars between Overlords are a regular occurrence, as are attempts by upstarts to carve out territories, since Lucifer doesn't particularly care what the Sinners do to each other or rather can't do anything about it due to the terms of his banishment.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2003): Hun is the leader of the street gang the Purple Dragons, who are involved in racketeering, smuggling, robbery, fight clubs, and random mayhem. He's a capable fighter who is arguably the only member of the gang capable of actually beating one or more of the Turtles. He's likewise Casey Jones' archenemy, having killed his father for refusing to pay them protection money. Starting as the The Dragon to the Shredder, he later branches out on his own, turning the Purple Dragons into a much more powerful criminal organisation to the point of being able to rival the New York mafia.
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012): Hun is once again the leader of the Purple Dragons, who commit multiple street-level crimes, however, he is far more independent from the Foot Clan, though he does later ally with them. He is likewise still Casey Jones' archenemy, although the two lack the personal connection and just mutually clash.