CHALLENGE: Build the world

[Techwright]

For fun,  I'd like to issue a challenge to all forumites:  build the greater Paragon City world.    What might your choice (or choices) of game expansions to other parts of the fictional world look like?  The level of detail is for you to decide.  I'll post the first one, which I've been working on for a while, so don't feel you have to create sometime so massive, but it might be nice.

Guidelines (not requirements):

1. Pick a spot anywhere in the real world.  It does not have to be a city.  It could be a national park, a wilderness, desert, mythical landmass or even the deep ocean (Rogue Islands, for example, are a mythical landmass that occupy a space that's pure ocean in the real world.)  IMPORTANT:  When you've picked a location, you may want to put a placeholder in the thread with the real world location, and fictional location name so that others don't duplicate your effort.

2. Imagine what would occupy that spot in the Paragon City universe.  Try to see it organically.  That is, try to imagine how it came to be; why people would be there, and most especially, how it diverged from the real world location.  Is it located in a spot that might have been found and settled by explorers, but wasn't, or perhaps failed?  Is it an island that never developed? Or possibly an area that no one ever tried?  Is it a national park that doesn't exist in our real world?  Etc, etc.

3. Try to imagine its growth and history. Paragon City has a fairly deep historical mythology as example.  What might your choice of place look like, and how did it change as time progressed?

4. Try to create a fictional map of the area.  Think of it in terms of what it might look like if the game created it as a new expansion.  You'll probably wish to have zones with their own descriptions, though nothing here is a requirement.

5.  Add some real details.  To add a feel of authenticity, whenever possible, do a little reading on your choice of real-world area, and try to incorporate real bits of the area's history into your story.  This will make it feel more like a divergent timeline or parallel universe rather than something created whole cloth.

6.  Try to use parts of the real world map, whenever possible, in your map creation.  Like in the previous point, this will give the feel of a parallel universe or divergent timeline, rather than made from nothing.  Of course, something made from nothing can work.  The Rogue Islands are again the poster example of this.  It may be that you'll want to create a peninsula or rechart a river, etc.

7. Populate your area.  Who might your game characters meet if they were to visit this part of the world? Note that it might be sparsely populated (like a ranger in a forest), or populated by something other than human.

OF SPECIAL NOTE:  Please keep in mind these creations are all a work of fiction.  Some of these might actually coincide with home locations of players, or places they have a past connection to.  Please do not take insult with the fictional creations should your area come up.  It also stands to reason that no one should create deliberate insults to a target area, either.

[Techwright]

Real World location:  Cairo, Illinois, USA,  site of the merger of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers

                     

Fictional Paragon City Universe (PCU) location:  Future City, Illinois, USA

 

Brief summation:
Size: roughly that of Manhattan Island, New York 
Population: (Metro stat area) 750,000+, and increasing
Notable business:  shipping/logistics, communications, network technologies, software design
Notable persons:  
    Defiance (hero supergroup) headed by Mound Builder & Rushing Water 
    New Madrid (presumed vigilante)
    Evergreen (rogue supergroup) headed by Doria N. Jung and Willis Evermoore
    The Finks (villain supergroup) headed by Big Mike

 

Extended history and description:

Spoiler

The site of current Future City, IL has always be a crossroads of transportation and communication.  For hundreds of years, it was a natural travel, meeting, and trade site for the indigenous, mound-building populations.  

In the 1800's it was an ideal location for the transfer of cargo and passengers associated with the river trade, as well as a loading base for the crops grown in the nearby fertile soils.  So fertile were they that the region gained the nickname "Little Egypt", a nickname further enhanced by the still-present large mounds looking a bit like pyramids.  The moniker lent itself to the name of the first modern town established on this peninsula between the rivers: Cairo.  In 1855, a new chapter in the region's crossroads began:  the railroad came to town.

During the American Civil War, Cairo boomed as an ideal transportation, communications,and control Hub for the Union centered around a floating naval repair yard for the Mississippi River Squadron, and Fort Defiance, which control access to both rivers.  

The boom continued post war, adding Federal sites like a  Customs House, a Circuit Court, and the third busiest post office in the reforged nation. Railroad growth continued, spurring an important sub-industry of ferrying railcars across the rivers until good railway bridges could be built. Banks opened to take advantage of the new affluence, and the wealthy built several fine Victorian mansions.

Not everything ran perfectly, however.  For one, frequent flooding caused havoc. The solution would use innovation: American engineers alongside hired Dutch engineers, experts in draining and protecting lowlands.  New innovations resulted in many marshs and swamplands were reclaimed both in the tri-state location, and floods that devastated other river ports were avoided. Many of the Dutch decided to stay and settle along the river, bringing with them their homeland's architectural styles and culture, forming the core of what is today known as Hollandtown. 

Also far from perfect was the area's historic race relations, though this is much improved now.  Cairo was the first place many slaves fleeing to Illinois landed, and several of those and free men settled, forming an unincorporated community with the forward looking name of Future City.  Unfortunately, just being in the north did not end racial conflict, and many clashes occurred for the next several decades, serving as one of the elements of a regional decline.

Another eroding element was, surprisingly, the very thing that created the strength of the locale: transportation.  Railroads replaced rivers as the major form of shipping, and strategically placed railway bridges eliminated the need for ferrying.  Eventually, a new form of transportation arose, the automobile, and with it a new road system, and new means of shipping.  Though this revived the area for a time, new bridges and a new interstate which bypassed Cairo, once again hampered the area, driving business away.
In the mid 1990's, with race relations gradually improving, the various towns and villages of the area were nevertheless in full decline.  

 

A new strategy was clearly needed, and so once again, local leadership turned to their other historic strength: communication.  These various communities decided on a major gamble of two points:  First, the communities would combine, forming a single municipal government.  Seeing the potential in the name, they named their combined city after the centralized unincorporated community: Future City.  

 

Second, they would again invoke their heritage, this time focusing on the transportation and communication of the digital world.  The internet and world wide web were just developing, and leaders wanted to be on the cutting edge.  Through wheeling and dealing, Future City rode the first wave of the Information Age, becoming a headquarters of technology development, and seeing a tremendous growth to the city as a result as well as a recovery to their banking and historic industries. They even added the small but important Two Rivers International airport, creating yet another transportation and shipping hub.  In recent years Future City has parlayed their successful gamble into other areas, including development of retro-engineered Ritki technologies following the Ritki war.  

 Notable figures:

Heroes:  Though other heroes frequently visit Future City, there currently is only one hero supergroup based in the region: Defiance, named for the historic fort in the region.  Defiance is led by Mound Builder, an earth controller, and his younger brother Rushing Water, a water sentinel.  The brothers are descendants of a Chickasaw family who returned to the area.

Vigilantes/Rogues:  Recently, an unknown man with seismic powers has been sending people to the hospital.  It is suspected this person is a vigilante and not a rogue, since he's let victims survive, but he definitely doesn't operate through legalized channels, and rogue status cannot be ruled out.  The media was quick to give him the nom de guerre of New Madrid, after the region's earthquake zone.   

Rogues: One of the first companies to take advantage of tax breaks and other benefits of the fledgling Future City, and the biggest success story, is Nile.biz.  Taking its name as a play on both the "Little Egypt" label for the region, and the local river shipping industry, Nile.biz is known the world over for its web store offering practically every product under the sun.  As it has grown, it has leveraged its power and influence to dramatically change the world as we know it.  What isn't known is that those dealings are often back-door, and made illegally. Nile.biz is actually just one of several fronts for the rogue supergroup Evergreen.  Organized into a tiered pyramid of power, Evergreen's apex is a small cadre of super powered individuals with two additional things in common:  a knack for the manipulation, legal and illegal, of economics and technology, and exceptionally long, perhaps immortal lives.  This they keep secret, choosing to use the long game to manipulate the world to their own ends.  These in turn directly control the middle tier known as the Renaissance Men.  None on this level are immortal, though they may often be super powered.  Membership requires a rigid testing process to weed out any who do not show a very high IQ, mastery of many skill sets, and an utter loyalty to their masters.  The lowest tier in Evergreen is its security tier.  Evergreen prefers to rely on contracted help, using the comings and goings of groups to mask their long play manipulations so that no one has the full picture.  As a result, clashes with Evergreen may pit a hero against several other known groups hired for the occasion, even other (manipulated) heroes.  Evergreen's cadre (and Nile.biz) is currently headed by Doria N. Jung, seconded by Willis Evermoore who runs another of Evergreen's local-based holdings, Pyramidion Capital, a venture capital business.  Those in the know may realized that these leaders' names are likely pseudonyms.

Villains:  The Finks, a criminal organization with ties to The Family, operate along the riverfront in the region. They are believed to be led by the elusive Big Mike, which rumor has is a hulking super-strength brute.  
 

 

Map zone details:

Spoiler

Though there are other zones contributing to Future City, the following are the only ones highlighted:

1. Cache - named for the small river that flows past it to the Mississippi, Cache was intended to be a growth center for the region in the early 1900s but never amounted to the ambitions, ending the initial dreams with the closing of the small post office in the area.  It has, however, rapidly returned in the years following the forming of a united Future City.  Cache holds a large percentage of the local population that eschew big homes and properties, preferring rental properties, "tiny houses", and as much outdoor activity as they can get.  As such it is in an ideal location between exercising on the trails of River Run to the south, and boating, fishing, or picnicking surrounded by the eerie beauty of cypress, swamp cottonwood, and tupelo gum trees of Horseshoe Lake (not pictured) to the west.

 
2. Mounds - named for the prehistoric monumental earthworks that have long been in the area, Mounds' formerly closed and crumbling downtown buildings have either been restored, or replace, and a destination street of upscale lunch counters, fine dining, gift shops, and clothing boutiques has emerged.  The options in restaurants, in turn, has brought several small businesses, with staff who like to eat out for lunch, to adjacent blocks.  Many of these businesses are software design businesses.  Mounds still maintains a notable residential population, with the usual support businesses: groceries, mechanics, barbers, etc.  Mounds is also located at the edge of the higher ground for the area, a perfect spot for the larger of the two hospitals serving the area. 

3. Mound City - likewise named for the prehistoric structures, Mounds' similarly-named neighbor is a major docking area for the river trade.  It's docks are also the home of Golden Lily Riverboats, Inc., a riverboat gambling organization.  As such, it sees a greater problem with the criminal organization The Finks than other parts of the city. The relatively new Single-A baseball team, the Future City Rivermen, have settled near the interstate in Mound City, replacing former farmland with a beautiful stadium in the style of early 1900s baseball fields.  

4. River Run - partially reclaimed riverfront land, partially former farmland replanted with woodlands, River Run serves as a major running, walking, and bicycle park for the region.  A number a support businesses are located on the trails offering everything from gourmet matcha tea with cheddar kale scones to bicycle repair.  Most of these places are businesses with year-round functions not necessarily needing the trails to survive winters: organic and heirloom foods markets, craft breweries, bistros with local artists works on display, etc.  Standard businesses and a few residential streets hug the highway between River Run and the airport.  Adjacent and to the south of River Run is a large, low island known as Boston Bar.  It remains undeveloped and prone to flooding, but Future City has long-range plans to reclaim the island from the river.

5. Two Rivers International Airport (airport code FTR)- finished 15 years ago, FTR Airport is somewhat small, but is vitally important as the only international airport within 150 miles. It serves not only passenger traffic but also cargo.  Several logistics corporations operate in the area, and TRI has a close connection to the railyard next door in Urbandale.  A small collection of hotels and supporting restaurants are near the entrance, and the city is in the initial stages of building a commuter monorail from the airport into other parts of the city. 

6.  Urbandale - began as a port town along the Ohio River, and still maintains that presence, though not to the level that its northly neighbor, Mound City does.  Urbandale, more than any other part of Future City focuses on the exchange of goods between forms of transit.  It contains the city's railyard, as well as part of the interstate, and is adjacent to the airport, allowing all four forms of transit (air, rail, interstate, and river) to easily exchange cargo with each other.  Urbandale also has some overflow business from Junction to the south.

7. Junction - functions as the current heart of Future City.  It incorporates the two formerly unincorporated areas of (old) Future City and Cairo Junction.  The "Junction" is a reference to the several highways that all intersect in this area.  Junction has a handful of technology companies' headquarters, and has several high-rise buildings, but is limited on how high they can build due to water tables and proximity to the New Madrid Seismic Zone.  Future City's long-range goal is to be a major center engineering center to address these issue, especially earthquake engineering.  Junction also incorporates the 10-year old Hollandtown bridge across the Ohio River to its Kentucky neighbor. 

8.  Farmville, Missouri - is the joke that caught on.  Located on converted farmland, it is the newest bedroom community in the greater Future City area, and as such is a planned city.  Much of it is still in development, but already it has a healthy population of suburbanites and the businesses that support them.  When it was being planned out, a regional contest was held to name it.  Because of the land's former use, someone latched onto the idea of naming it after the popular online game, and despite a slight distaste for the connection, the developers couldn't shake the public from the cleverness of the idea. So instead, the developers embraced the name, and have created signage and parks paying homage to a stereotypical wholesome farm image.    Part of Farmville's park systems includes a horse trail park, and there is a desire for a second traffic bridge spanning the Missouri (the interstate is currently the only one nearby).  If the second bridge becomes a reality, developers have stated a desire to extend the horse trail across the bridge and into the park path systems of River Run.

9. Cairo - formerly the most important town in the area, after several rough times, Cairo no longer serves that role.  Instead, it serves as the historical part of the city, with a few of the Victorian mansions and grounds still preserved, and a rebuilt park honoring Fort Defiance at the base of the peninsula.  Cairo has been gradually rebuilding around its history, and the more affluent members of Future City have been replacing worn-out structures with new upscale homes and gardens, many in design harmony with their Victorian sisters.    With the return of affluent society,  Cairo is also seeing a return of professional offices, such as those of lawyers and doctors.  Cairo holds one end of one of the major railroad bridges in the area, as well as bridges to Kentucky and Confluence, Missouri.

10. Hollandtown, Kentucky - Settled by Dutch engineers who aided the region in developing the best flood control and land reclamation techniques possible,  Hollandtown expanded as these founders brought extended family to the area.  It has a distinctive look and feel with architecture reflecting the core members' homeland, and a higher than normal percentage of people speaking both English and Dutch/Flemish.  Hollandtown, because of its architecture and ethnic restaurants, tends to be a tourist draw for the area, and the streets will pack with guests for tulip festivals in the spring and Oktoberfest in autumn.  

11.  Wildlife Management Area - east of Hollandtown lies a large wildlife management area.  It continues to grow as more adjacent lands are bought, and will likely limit Hollandtown's growth at some point.  Rumors have it that shady dealing is often done in this area away from the prying eyes and ears of the city.

12. Confluence, Missouri - the first of the "bedroom communities" converted from farmland, Confluence is mostly residential and standard retail area, but does contain the smaller of the two hospitals for the region, as well as the large ice rink where Future City's minor hockey team, The Icebreakers play.  Confluence is noted for keeping much of their wooded areas near the river, and building the community around them for a more natural, integrated look.

13. - Wickliffe, Kentucky - already an established town, and not really participant in the reorganization that because Future City, Wickliffe is instead part of the Paducah Micropolitan Statistical Area.  It's proximity to Future City, however does mean that a few of its residents work in the "big" city.  Wickliffe is known for Wickliffe Mounds State Historic Site.

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Techwright
apply map and descriptions

[Coyotedancer]

When I built the first version of Shonokin, I ended up doing a fair bit of world-building for the area he's from... the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Tennessee. I'll have to see if I can find the writing I did for that.

 

In essence, the area is a fair bit wilder and somewhat less developed in the City world than it is in ours... It's more like the region was before the TVA, and before a lot of the efforts that were put into infrastructure development and modernization around the middle of the last century. Like Croatoa, the lines between the physical world and the spirit world are very, very thin in places and all of that old mountain folklore about monsters, and witches and weird beasts is real. Shonokin himself being an excellent example of that. (His species are a human-like but inhuman group created in the 1940's by pulp fantasy writer Manly Wade Wellman, who's best known for writing about a wandering Appalachian singer and storyteller named John. XD)

 

 

 

Edited September 7, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Techwright]

On 9/7/2020 at 1:55 PM, Coyotedancer said:

When I built the first version of Shonokin, I ended up doing a fair bit of world-building for the area he's from... the Appalachian mountains of Eastern Tennessee. I'll have to see if I can find the writing I did for that.

 

In essence, the area is a fair bit wilder and somewhat less developed in the City world than it is in ours... It's more like the region was before the TVA, and before a lot of the efforts that were put into infrastructure development and modernization around the middle of the last century. Like Croatoa, the lines between the physical world and the spirit world are very, very thin in places and all of that old mountain folklore about monsters, and witches and weird beasts is real. Shonokin himself being an excellent example of that. (His species are a human-like but inhuman group created in the 1940's by pulp fantasy writer Manly Wade Wellman, who's best known for writing about a wandering Appalachian singer and storyteller named John. XD)

 

 

 

That is rather eerie.  I'd been thinking about that very area as my next target in world-building.  I'll defer to you, if you have something.  The world's a big place after all.

[Coyotedancer]

I'd suggest picking up a copy of Who Fears the Devil if you can find one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

 

Aside from just being good fun to read, Wellman's Silver John stories really do convey pretty well what I feel like the City version of Appalachia is like. (He never actually sets a date for any of his stories. The supposition is that they're mostly set in the 1950's, but there's a timelessness about them that jives with that "not as developed/modernized as the region is in our world" feeling I have of the place.) Cabins in the woods and isolated towns with little general stores aren't out of place.... Witch's Gap, the place Shonokin is from, is like that. 

 

 

Edited September 30, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Sakura Tenshi]

Warning: this gets kind of dark.

 

Despite being a weaboo with only secondhand knowledge on Japan, I've kicked around some ideas over the years for what Japan as a whole has become in the city of heroes universe, particularly as my live namesake was a 'too old' magical girl brought out of retirement and a traumatized Rikti War veteran. I don't have a specific zone in mind (I had a pitch on the live forums for a trio of zones, one hero, one villain, one neutral) which were purely ficticious locations, more recently I thought about Urayasu in the Chiba Prefecture in the Tokyo Bay since that area does have this stark divide of 'the traditional Japanese settlement Circa Tokugawa Shogunate' and 'Shin-Urayasu' which is expressly a modern area and includes the freaking Tokyo Disney park. But the general ideas I've had were:

 

• Japan outwardly presents itself as 'Animeland' and it's not far off from the truth, the JDSF remains on high alert since the Rikti War and have cooperated with the Vanguard making extensive useage of salvaged and reverse Engineered Rikti assault suits creating a mecha-nized national defense force, there's government trained mages who are inducted from an early age when they show potential and at taught in specialized occult schools in places like Mt. Osore.
• The hero scene in Japan, in truth, is highly bureaucratic and commercialized (think a cross between One Punch Man and Tiger and Bunny) in which even a hero capable of fighting off certain crimes will be forbidden due to it not matching their public image as well as it simply not being what they're registered to do. This in part was started due to metahuman warriors and even full lords of the the Sengoku and Edo period causing flareups in power discrepancies and civil unrest and by Meiji the Emperor sought to keep better control on these individuals, further compounded by WWII surrender agreements which brought the Super Hero Registration act to Japan and brought a hard cap on how many registered heroes were allowed to be active. Unlike the limits on Japan's military, the 'legal hero' limit would remain in place until the Rikti War.
• This, along with various injustices in the Japanese Justice System (IRL reference point: Japan has a 98% conviction rate and judges have confessed to knowingly convicting innocent people to save face of the system, crime in general is also not 'non-existent' so much as under reported due to societal pressures and police not wanting to bother) have led to a rise in Japanese Vigilantes who dub themselves 'Shin-Ronin' (New Floating Men) and operate outside the system to dispense justice as necessary. They're often reviled by the Japanese populous at large and commonly associated with Yakuza (which for some isn't always baseless) and are publicly hunted by both local police, heroes, and JDSF. (in private many have their sympathizers whether to Shin-Ronin as a whole or individual vigilante heroes)
• Despite this, many 'Shin-Ronin' are under trained, often minors, and suffer from a high mortality rate. As magic became a known weakness of the Rikti, it's estimated that young girls as young as 6 years old wielding basic magical powers were killed or captured en-masse by Rikti 'mage hunters' who could dispatch with these unprepared magi and were able to crush the more centralized hero agency of Japan at large.
• However, Shin-Ronin both magical and otherwise proved indispensable in the Rikti War and restrictions on hero registration were (largely) lifted and heroic associations were (mildly) decentralized, and in other cases, public and government opinion softened on Shin-Ronin, both as a result of the Rikti War and their aid in situations such as dismantling the Yakuza and various disasters which racked the country and the world since the start of the 21st century.
• Because of all this Japan is reluctant to accept the aid of non-Japanese heroes, though those that manage to break through the redtape and/or win over the populous are viewed with a certain awe and inspiration to the local heroes, though they are quick to try to talk to these foreigners in what is often mistaken as 'helpfulness' but rather is done in desperate attempts to avoid international incident or the high property damage western heroes are stereotyped as causing.
• Rose Star is a registered Japanese hero and on the up and up, her partner Spark Blade however is a Shin-Ronin and perhaps one of the most well-known in Japan, which, to the consternation of authorities and even his partner, means he can avoid much of the Shin-Ronin stigma on pure popularity. Spark Blade avoids registering both because it would violate his own persona as a cool, loner-badass, but mainly because he genuinely dislikes the commercialized and regulated system that could stop him from helping others.
• Mecha, piloting, and combat are done very carefully in Japan, with such heroes only being called into an urban area (or populated areas in general) if conventional hero forces are exhausted or if a 'kaiju class archvillain' has appeared within population centers with no forewarning. Engagements are urged to be taken away and dealt with outside these areas. Also regulations stipulate Mecha models are not allowed to be built higher than 7 meters (or 23 feet).

Enemies in the country

• There are dark rumors circulating that hidden circles in the Japanese government is in cooperation with Malta.
• Urban legends persist of independent 5th Column cells who sought sanctuary after the fall of Berlin or even settled in as early as Japan and Germany's initial alliance.
• More rumors still haunt the country of a remnant faction of the Imperial Wind, and relatedly experiments of Unit 731 smuggled back to Japan and having subsequently broken loose, or the dark research continued.
• Not all Shin-ronin are necessarily Heroes, sadly more than a few can best be summed as 'villains with a cause' and end up fueling public sentiment against vigilantes.
• likewise, more than a few modern 'villains' seem to be nothing more than exaggerated performance arts actors who do wild and absurd stunts for attention, meeting their favorite heroes, and generally just to act out their (hopefully non-sexual) fetishes in public, at worst they might be petty bullies and thugs with a flamboyant streak. Naturally these types of 'villains' ended up dubbed as Chuunibyou. (Japanese authorities advise heroes deal with these people with a public unmasking and calling their parents or completely ignoring them, robbing them of their power.)
• A lot of scientific disasters can, with deeper investigation, be traced to the Crey rival: Kasa Pharmaceuticals*.
• Yes, there's also oni, other youkai (just not that weirdo that has an eye in it's butt)
• And an obligatory J-horror mission
• Oh, yes, can't forget the most important type of enemy to fight: SHOKAH~! (Or rather kind of kitchy and cheesy senair baddies.)

*Yes, it's a reference. Just count yourself lucky I didn't make it Orochi Corp.

 

So, it's a rough idea that could probably be focused down into a zone, my ideal would, again be making a zone where there's that divide between the new and the old. Heroes would probably be brought in as 'Shin-Ronin' by Spark Blade to help with maybe the Fifth Column ("primarily a Paragon problem") then a storyline would continue to reveal the various forces tugging at Japan. The options of the story would focus on whether you would deal with these threats yourself, opening Japan up to the idea foreign aide better or merely serve as a guide to help the Japanese people fight against these threats on their own, encouraging independence. Villains meanwhile would be brought in to assist a remnant of the Yakuza (which you would have the option to betray and take over/wipe out) and build them back up by corrupting Shin-Ronin into a life of full crime and disrupting Japanese Authorities, ultimately culminating to robbing either a warehouse of JDSF Mechs/Drones (either to keep for yourself or unleash on the populous) or going on a heist to steal one of the Imperial Regalia, specifically the Sword of Kusanagi. (Either to keep for yourself or force the Japanese government to pay up).

 

man, I came up with those storyline synopsis on the fly, but I kind of like the choices I managed to give to them. I do admit that maybe this all seems like I'm being a little too hard on Japan as a country, but it made for some great trauma sources for my magical girl back in the day.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Sakura Tenshi

[Heraclea]

I've already done just about all of this for New Colchis, also linked in the signature; been doing this since Victory days. 

[Techwright]

2 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I've already done just about all of this for New Colchis, also linked in the signature; been doing this since Victory days. 

Wow, and I thought I was getting detailed!  Of course, I'd only worked on Future City for a couple of weeks.  Victory goes back much further.  Well done!

[Heraclea]

1 minute ago, Techwright said:

Wow, and I thought I was getting detailed!  Of course, I'd only worked on Future City for a couple of weeks.  Victory goes back much further.  Well done!

It helps that I've written for Wikipedia.....

 

[Techwright]

9 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

I'd suggest picking up a copy of Who Fears the Devil if you can find one that doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

 

Aside from just being good fun to read, Wellman's Silver John stories really do convey pretty well what I feel like the City version of Appalachia is like. (He never actually sets a date for any of his stories. The supposition is that they're mostly set in the 1950's, but there's a timelessness about them that jives with that "not as developed/modernized as the region is in our world" feeling I have of the place.) Cabins in the woods and isolated towns with little general stores aren't out of place.... Witch's Gap, the place Shonokin is from, is like that. 

 

 

The concept definitely feels pre-national park.  Out of curiosity (and because I was recently reading a history of the Cherokee during the 1700's) have you made allowances in your concept for the influence of Cherokee and other regional tribes?  Not saying you'd have to, just curious.

[Coyotedancer]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

The concept definitely feels pre-national park.  Out of curiosity (and because I was recently reading a history of the Cherokee during the 1700's) have you made allowances in your concept for the influence of Cherokee and other regional tribes?  Not saying you'd have to, just curious.

Absolutely.  And again taking cues from Wellman, there are definitely elements from native folklore involved. Things like the dakwa are as much a part of the area's lore as the tollers, mammots and flats.

 

 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[srmalloy]

On 9/7/2020 at 10:09 AM, Techwright said:

What might your choice (or choices) of game expansions to other parts of the fictional world look like?

Hmmm. I'd need to go through the backgrounds of a number of my characters and aggregate everything together and see what I'd need to do to flesh things out to make enough material to make a playable area out of. Back early in Live, I was surprised to see "для" in chat. Experimenting, I found that CoH supported the use of some sections of the Unicode characterset (not all of it; that's huge), and I started making characters with Russian backgrounds, doing Google searches to dig up genuine Russian research institutions {like the I. M. Sechenov Institute for Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry) setting up a history where the Soviet Union had its own state-sponsored superteams like Народная Армия, with villain groups like Красная Угроза opposing them. The collapse of the Soviet Union ended the support for the state superteams in the chaos of the breakup; some of their members tried to continue, others were snapped up by the newly-fragmented countries as they attempted to create their own superteams, and organizations like the Братсво sought to hire or otherwise acquire supers for their own activities. I remember some random details -- in my character-background period, Soviet researchers never managed to establish fully-stable portals to other dimensions, as Portal Corp did, the repeated failures attempting to make the БРИГАДИР program work without having the control unit become sapient... But there's not enough there to make a coherent area background without a lot more work.

[Techwright]

6 hours ago, srmalloy said:

... a history where the Soviet Union had its own state-sponsored superteams like Народная Армия, with villain groups like Красная Угроза opposing them. ...

I'm personally intrigued by what you've presented so far, if you take this path, but if I may plead on behalf of all of us who do not speak Russian, might we have a bracketed translation, at least a loose translation, after the Cyrillic characters? I thank you in advance for all us poor blokes gimped by this.

 

I look forward to what you may create, but if I may also suggest, select a small area, perhaps invent a post-Soviet country, something very commonly done by the big comic houses (ever hear of Wakanda?), and flesh in the details including one or more of your break-off supergroups.  A sweeping review of the full former Soviet territories in a Paragon world might drive you mad.      

[InvaderStych]

So many fantastic writers in this player base.  I love reading threads like this!

 

I know this technically isn't in the spirit of the thread, but I'm going to drop this here because the CoX-Verse needs a Night Vale.  Stat.

 

http://www.welcometonightvale.com/

 

And remember, No Dogs in the Dog Park.  No Humans in the Dog Park.

 

Stay Out Of The Dog Park.

 

 

Edited October 1, 2020 by InvaderStych

[tidge]

15 hours ago, Heraclea said:

I've already done just about all of this for New Colchis, also linked in the signature; been doing this since Victory days. 

I was Anonymously working on an Old Coholics, but I accepted that there were some things I couldn't change.

[srmalloy]

2 hours ago, Techwright said:

I'm personally intrigued by what you've presented so far, if you take this path, but if I may plead on behalf of all of us who do not speak Russian, might we have a bracketed translation, at least a loose translation, after the Cyrillic characters? I thank you in advance for all us poor blokes gimped by this.

The names are "People's Army" ('Narodnaya Armiya'), "Red Menace" ('Krasnaya Ugroza'), the "Brotherhood" ('Bratsvo'), and "TASKMASTER" ('BRIGADYR'), respectively.

[Patti]

I'm confused on why this is being called a challenge?

[Techwright]

5 hours ago, Patti said:

I'm confused on why this is being called a challenge?

Not challenge as in competition, but rather "let's see your creativity shine."    I usually have good word choices.  Perhaps I didn't this time?