Emerald City Makeover

[Ari]

Since the moderators have made abundantly clear that they have little interest in the Emerald City setting-expansion as-is and since it might be a good time, I'd like to offer the following: we should make Emerald City here what Opal City is to the DCU. A quirky, off-beat town with a long history protected by the latest incarnation of a line of superheroic guardians. It already is on the record as being named after the mineral wealth that created it.

 

That way, it preserves both the use of Emerald City as a landmark while making it more of its own thing and less a replacement for Freedom as the Generic Chosen Locale. It also removes the need to address, even out of character, the lack of a Silver Storm or other events tied to that side of the canon. 

 

Aside from the obvious dragon and Wizard of Oz themes, Emerald could also be rooted in the immigration of Chinese and other Asians to the Pacific states during the Gold Rush and other industry booms. A specific ethnic and cultural identity would go a long way to making it both more memorable and more versatile since it'd mean fitting plots to the theme and region instead of treating the city like a shapeless, tasteless American Jello that has to be compressed into the story.

 

It already has a legacy hero(ish) in Dragoneye and appropriate nemeses in the city's semi-mundane criminal underworld, but we could easily figure on something else if that's too Captain Ethnic-y.

[Raveled]

I'd love to have their Next-Gen equivalent be expies of Big Hero 6...

[Heritage]

I am very intrigued!

[Ari]

That'd be better for the adaption of San Angelo, Raveled. The point of this is to condense Emerald, not expand it. Right now it's at the intersection of a whole mess of stuff, and finding and picking a theme is, from my perspective, necessary for making it more than just "the not-Freedom City". That's why I suggested Dragoneye and the Mafiya, Triad and Yakuza interests as the central focus.

 

For example we could go with the Eastern "elements" and have the various players be aligned (metaphorically) with them, say with Dragoneye being air, Koschei the Deathless being void, the Steel Samurai being metal and so on.

 

Emerald could also be where the Crimson Katana has set up shop and is fighting the Katanarchists and their occult masters there. Or maybe the city is the site of covert alien immigration and there's some line of extraterrestrial defenders fighting in the shadows.

[JediDalek]

While, like you said, it should be more than just "not Freedom City", I think emphasizing the "East coast vs West coast" aspect could Emerald city some personality. You've already pointed out the more Asian influence that a city like that would have, but I think being West Coast gives it room to be "flashier" overall. 

 

Your mention ion of the Yakuza/Mafiya/Triad made me think of Shadowrun, which makes me think that placing those elements against a more "high tech"/Seattle type city would be cool, and could give it a sort of darker yet more stylized personality whose rainy, neon facade could contrast nicely with Freedom's more upbeat "shiny/metropolis" feel.

[Raveled]

1 hour ago, JediDalek said:

Your mention ion of the Yakuza/Mafiya/Triad made me think of Shadowrun, which makes me think that placing those elements against a more "high tech"/Seattle type city would be cool, and could give it a sort of darker yet more stylized personality whose rainy, neon facade could contrast nicely with Freedom's more upbeat "shiny/metropolis" feel.

 

I don't think edging into cyberpunk is a good idea. FC PbP is supposed to be four-color; while there are darker elements in the world, the good guys win at the end of the day. Making it cyberpunk/the little guy vs the megacorps feels like it would be eroding that foundation.

[Ari]

I'm with Raveled on this. While it would be a suitable irony for a city named after a shiny gem to be a blaring, sodden mess it does clash with some of the setting's core conceits. It's awkward enough having Freedom be Metropolis and Gotham-on-good-days at once.

 

For reference, here's how James Robinson and Tony Harris characterized Opal City: Opal.

 

But Emerald as a more high-tech version of Seattle, maybe built in the Japanese style that mitigates damage to tall structures by earthquakes, could be a good start. 

[Heritage]

Robinson's run on Starman is still, to me, the best use of one of DC's made-up cities I've ever seen. Back when I was planning one writing a Grimalkin comic, Opal City was going to be a MAJOR inspiration for my own Lake City; the sense of history and feeling of the Golden Age yet slightly tarnished still drives me gaga.

 

I've always felt that the early, 'William Gibson & Friends' version of cyberpunk was never captured in rpgs; they always focused too much on the pink mohawks and mirrorshades and not enough on the casual repurposing of tech in the streets, which to me whole was the whole point.

 

So yes, a bit techy and Asian without full-on SR sounds awesome to me.

[N/A]

I want to see an Emerald City superteam whose costumes all include flannel shirts (worn open over jumpsuits '90s style, tied around their waists, doesn't matter as long as it's there).

I may or may not be entirely joking...

[Raveled]

1 hour ago, ShaenTheBrain said:

I want to see an Emerald City superteam whose costumes all include flannel shirts (worn open over jumpsuits '90s style, tied around their waists, doesn't matter as long as it's there).

I may or may not be entirely joking...

 

You don't want the Underground to be a group of villains?

[JediDalek]

8 hours ago, Raveled said:

 

I don't think edging into cyberpunk is a good idea. FC PbP is supposed to be four-color; while there are darker elements in the world, the good guys win at the end of the day. Making it cyberpunk/the little guy vs the megacorps feels like it would be eroding that foundation.

Yeah, certainly not full cyberpunk, just a little more aesthetically technological, kinda like the city from BH6, actually. Lots of rain/neon/Asian influence, but still a decent place to live at the end of the day.

[The Sailor]

44 minutes ago, JediDalek said:

Yeah, certainly not full cyberpunk, just a little more aesthetically technological, kinda like the city from BH6, actually. Lots of rain/neon/Asian influence, but still a decent place to live at the end of the day.

 

So a brighter Cyberpunk... All the Tech, none of the grunge. It rains, but the PH is neutral. There's lights, but they're energy efficient LED/LCD screens. And you can breathe the glorious air from the nearby temperate rainforests. It'd be ideal if it wasn't for the darn supervillians wanting to wreck the place. Optimism and Spandex... I like.

Edited June 24, 2016 by The Sailor

[The Sailor]

Oh can this be the soundtrack for this thread?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSGnNMnvM6M

[Avenger Assembled]

More places to play is always good - 

 

I would want some of our speculations here turned into a Guidebook page. 

 

Down the line, I personally would like to see Bedlam brought in somewhere in the Rust Belt. 

[Ari]

A Guidebook entry is definitely the plan, Avenger.

 

I don't know much about Bedlam, so I'd better leave that to folks who do.

 

Anyway, now that we have a general tone and theme, the local goodies and baddies.

 

I'm still partial to there being only one hero with multiple enemies, based around one specific theme, preferably something taken from the setting book. At least at first, we can build on it over threads.

 

The flannel-over-jumpsuits can be the local AEGIS style, both to punish the animators by making them deal with plaid and to give the government agents an easy way to tell each other apart in the thick of things.

 

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions besides what I have above? Obviously  they could just as easily be, say, a more grown-up 1337 from Claremont, six years is a long time after all, but I'd prefer something more specific to that book. We have the Dragoneye legacy(of mostly badmens, but so were most of the Reach's Scarabs or the Darkhawks), the Battlesuit-Named-After-Battleship-Classes (Ironclad's sucessor, Dreadnought of the Victory Squadron) legacy, which could be fitted to Ultramarine of the can't-be-there Sentinels. 

 

With the Silver Storm out of the picture as an origin point, we could still draw from the character of tech-guru Maximilian Mars and his past as the adaptive battlesuited supervillain Commander, do some Batman Beyond/Natasha Irons stuff. Or just go full-Hardware and have Mars as a stand-in for Edwin Alva, and Emerald's hero as one of his employees. If not him, Kessler of KessCorp is already canonically crooked, and the hero could be a renegade of the Cybertribe who's taken a broader view. We could do a thing where the local hero is "sponsored" by a major corporation, beholden to them for equipment or resources but otherwise their own, and part of a long line of such mascots.

 

The Cryptid Clans living just outside Emerald are another possibility, as they could easily supply any number of both villains(from alien infiltrators to mystical destroyers) and heroes. No obvious legacies there, though, unless, say, Xeno of Rulu is one of them in this Earth-Prime, and whatever a Manhunter of her species is.

 

I'm still partial to Dragoneye and an elemental theme, what do you folks think?

 

 

[Brown Dynamite]

Well, the Silver Storm has been mentioned offhand and included in some NPC origins.  So it still happened off screen presumably.  I don't really have much of a problem with Emerald City as is, we're just not giving it its own subforum y'know.  That said, the suggestions for bringing it in, I'm all for.  One thing to consider even though the book says the Pacific Northwest is the ideal place to put Emerald City,  I'd consider basing it more on San Francisco.  Taking into consideration the Demographics at play and the tone of the city.

[Ari]

Unless we make that its deal, I say we skirt the Silver Storm, at least for now(maybe something to do in threads) given how tied up it is with the Emerald City Knights campaign which in turn relies on a bunch of space stuff which frankly doesn't fit with this site's canon.

 

Point taken about the state choice not being just Washington or Oregon, Cali has a bigger population than Canada, after all, and a massive amount of American technology and culture comes from there. I'd still rather it were more northern, but if other folks think California's a better pick I'm fine with that.

 

Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts on its super-scene?

[The Sailor]

Back to location real quick.

 

The name "Emerald City" really belongs to Seattle. Both in RL and at least for one version of M&M, in game-world. To be honest having it in Seattle, at least to me, seems fitting. But that would be the only thing that matches up between FCPbP Emerald City, and the Emerald City from M&M 3.

 

As for scene, it would really depend on the location. The culture of a place like let's say... Seattle is different than San Francisco (which if we move to Cali, I would nominate San Fran to get swapped), in terms of culture and in it's population.

 

If it's San Fran (or it's environs) you'd be in spitting distance of Silicon Valley, so there might be many technology and science oriented supers running about. It wouldn't be as prevalent in Seattle, but having a major aeronautics firm and the home of the most dominant software company on the planet would make up the difference. I would see most capers the black hats would be getting into would be centered on either corporate espionage or outright theft, if you're looking for a "baseline" of supercriminal activity. So most low-to-mid grade heroes would be handling the situation when someone takes the opportunity to try to nab a piece of juicy code or tech.

 

If we were going for "Cyberpunk without the pollution, grimdarkness, and attitude" what we are left with is something akin to Metropolis. A high tech, 15 minutes into the future feel. HEre the promise of metahuman researched technology might be showing signs of taking hold, advancing humanity's development. Although it's just the first step or two.

[Ari]

So after much discussion in Char, it's been decided that we'll instead be importing Emerald City more or less in its entirety, besides the slight tonal and aesthetic change.

 

What's there and not will be decided in play, or case by case bases. Me and Sailor will be playing there to start with.

[Heritage]

I had an idea awhile ago for a character thst might work well in Emerald, a young girl who was the daughter of a Yakuza and dying of an incurable disease; her father obtained some black market nanobots that cured her but also made her into a living, adaptable machine that could assume many shapes.

 

Might need to dig that concept up...

[Ari]

If you're fine with a little modification, Heritage, I have some ideas of how to spice that up.

 

The actual Japanese Mob boss in Emerald City, the Steel Shogun, is a mutant with the power to turn himself and anything he's holding or wearing into that metal. Maybe this character is his other, younger daughter (or other relative)and in desperation he secretly imparts some of his transformed stem cells into her, with the result of activating her own mutation.

[Heritage]

That could work! I think I have a pdf of Emerald City lying around somewhere; will look up Steel Shogun and start working on her. 

[N/A]

If you do keep it in the Pacific Northwest, as an analogue of Seattle or Portland, then don't discount the Native American influence.  That was something that struck me when I moved up here from California.  Down in Cali, the Latin influence permeates everything, but up in the NW, there's still a strong Native American echo.  Pretty much everything, from the mountains and rivers to the local school districts, is named after a Native tribe, or still has the name the Natives gave it.  In Cali, all that stuff is named after the white guys who came from Spain and conquered/enslaved/"converted"/genocided/etc. the local Natives.

 

It's a particularly strange contradiction to the local demographics, which are overwhelmingly Caucasian.  Oregon was specifically set up by the American colonists to be an all-white territory, and the effects of those policies reverberate into the present day.  I can probably count the number of black or Latino people I've seen west of the Willamette River on one hand, and even on the east side I wouldn't need more than two hands to count them all.  Down in Cali, you can find horchata in most grocery stores.  Up here, even the people working in the overpriced hipster markets don't know what you're talking about when you ask for it.

 

There is some Asian influence up here, but there's at least as much of a Native American cultural echo.  And Lewis & Clark are as ubiquitious up here as Gold Rush history and Spanish missions are down in Cali.

 

[Ari]

That's very true, Shaen, so in that case I think it's best put directly to a vote: should this version of Emerald City be in the Northwest, or Southwest Pacific Coast? 

 

For my part I am thorougly undecided since

 

I live in the Northwest and have an instinctive bias to that region,

But the style and ethos we're going for is much more reminiscent of the SW metropolises,

But much of the culture and mindset that makes up the city in the books is, as Shaen mentions, drawn as much from residual American language and adopted symbols as immigrant styles and assumptions,

But that could easily be excused to make it just be in northern California

 

and so on, and on.

 

What do you folks think?

 

(also, nomination to change its moniker from the City of Destiny to The Facet City, because things aren't how they seem and also  Captain Shazam I guess)

Edited June 28, 2016 by Ari

[Heritage]

Pacific Northwest feels right to me.