Orph
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The Gemini Cities.
Overview.
To a modern observer, the twin metropolises of Graveridge and Summit City couldn’t be more different. The former is a showcase of the worst urban inequality America has to offer, while the latter represents a shining, scientific future the rest of the world strives toward. Yet there was a time when the so-called Gemini Cities were identical twins, not merely fraternal ones.
Established in 1779 and 1780 respectively, the pair sprung up in the immediate wake of the American War of Independence, on opposite sides of Potts Bay, a key inland port connected to the Atlantic Ocean, making it a vital position for both trade, and 18th century military tactics. The two cities grew out of military encampments which remained in the same positions on opposite sides of the bay for so long, their residents opted to remain in place and build them into permanent installations after the war ended.
For over one hundred years, the Gemini Cities grew in parallel, retaining the gothic architectural style which defined them in the public imagination for so long. However, all of that changed around the turn of the century, when a devastating earthquake struck Summit City- but not Graveridge. Owing to differences in the terrain upon which both cities were built, the latter was virtually untouched by the calamity, while the former was near-totally destroyed. While one might assume that this stroke of misfortune would lead to the immiseration of Summit City’s residents, the reality was very different. Money flooded into the city, from both the federal government and the so-called ‘robber barons’ of the Gilded Age, eager to both prove their virtue by pledging significant funds to the reconstruction effort, and buy up massive amounts of cheap real estate. Over the next twenty years, Summit City was rebuilt in the modern style, and found itself largely untouched by the Great Depression which ravaged the rest of the nation, including Graveridge less than fifty miles away.
Today the two cities appear to be warped reflections of one another. Summit City displays a retro-futuristic Art Deco aesthetic embossed by a bounty of advanced technology that has enabled high-speed rail systems, soaring airships, and even nuclear-powered hover-cars. On the other hand, Graveridge has become a cesspool of crime and corruption, with an ineffectual city government perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy, and functionally ruled by a variety of feudal lords, both criminals and corporate executives.
On top of it all, the emergence of metahumans in the latter half of the 20th century has only served to heighten the divide between the two cities. Summit City is home to brightly-costumed superheroes and their ecomaniacal adversaries, who often cause property damage but rarely take lives, while Graveridge is beset by a veritable army of violent, super-powered lunatics, held at bay only by vigilantes who at times seem no saner than the criminals they combat.
A fragile peace exists between the two cities, whose respective protectors tend to distrust one another, but will occasionally unite to keep their homes safe from a foe that threatens both.
Summit City.
The Shining Pearl City.
Having been reconstructed across the 1910s and 20s, Summit City is easily recognizable by its Art Deco style, which modern developers have largely retained even as trends have changed around the City of the Future. Some critics have argued that this merely makes Summit look like a vision of the future from decades past, but the technological advances that have emerged from there well into the 21st century keep the city relevant no matter how outdated its design philosophy might seem.
A perpetually-booming science and technology sector have attracted the world’s best and brightest to Summit for generations, and their innovations have resulted in a city unlike any other. The streets are practically pristine, thanks to nuclear-powered cars which hover a few inches above the ground, though the majority of the city’s seven-million-plus population gets around on public transportation, which includes both high speed elevated rail stretching across the skyline, and helium-powered airships, which soar through the air with the regularity of a city bus.
The heart of the city is the so-called Atomic District, named for the record number of nuclear-powered facilities it contains. This hub of scientific innovation houses the likes of N.O.V.A. Tech, Einstein Inc., and the Advanced Systems Lab, world-famous tech giants who have all produced a variety of cutting edge new technologies which have helped transform Summit City. Many of the city’s heroes have emerged from these scientific miracle-factories, whether they were granted their abilities in a lab accident or built the source of their powers on purpose. Conversely, some of the greatest threats to the Shining Pearl City have also been birthed in the Atomic District, from supervillainous scientists driven mad by their failures to gargantuan monsters created through mishaps of genetic engineering.
The titanic scale of the battles fought in the streets and skies of Summit City have resulted in incredible amounts of property damage, but thanks to the city’s vast number of super-scientists, these calamities have been greatly reduced in scope. All of the city’s biggest buildings have a chrono-restorative engine installed in their foundations, which makes it possible to ‘rewind’ the physical condition of the buildings up to 24 hours, effectively ‘repairing’ the damage at no additional cost. However, these devices are powered by the ultra-rare substance known as Chronium, synthesized at great cost by the now-defunct Atemporal Advances Lab, which was cast into the far future by a time rift before it could create more of the material and install more of the devices in cities around the world. This lack of risk of permanent collateral damage is one major factor in why Summit City is the home of nearly all the world’s most powerful superheroes.
For similar reasons, the unique educational institution of Champion College has made its home in the Shining Pearl City. The only university dedicated to the education and training of metahuman heroes in the Western world, Champion College’s campus has grown to encompass nearly all of the Minerva Springs neighborhood in the south-east of Summit. Alumni of Champion College have gone on to join- and even lead -some of the world’s most well-known superhero teams, although some of those who have been expelled have gone on to become villains, even seeking to destroy their erstwhile alma mater in revenge.
If its technological advances and heroic pedigree weren’t enough to impress, Summit City also boasts the lowest levels of institutional corruption in its city government across the entire United States This is thanks to the advanced computer system known as E.T.H.I.C.O., which was installed in the late 1950s by the super-scientist and adventurer Professor Powers after he exposed the fact that then-mayor Jerome Sowell was in the pocket of the Silver Spoon Syndicate. E.T.H.I.C.O. is an independent monitoring system which releases biannual public reports on the city’s elected officials, bringing every shady back-room deal to light, and keeping both the mayor and city council honest. Impossible to be bribed or threatened, and future-proofed against tampering, E.T.H.I.C.O. has consistently held a higher approval rating than any human politician in the country since the 50s, with many bemoaning the fact that the Supreme Court issued a ruling preventing a similar model being installed in the White House.
Notable Locations.
Neighborhoods, Communities, & Regions.
The Atomic District.
Minerva Springs.
Kingsford Park.
Individual Buildings & Institutions.
The Brain Trust Building.
Champion College.
N.O.V.A. Tech.
Einstein Inc.
Advanced Systems Labs.
Notable Inhabitants.
Heroes.
Galeas, the Cosmic Knight.
Villains.
The Questing Beast.
Graveridge.
The Gleaming Onyx City.
Having retained its original gothic architecture across the decades, Graveridge was first named for a hilltop upon which an entire company of Continental Army soldiers were buried following a disastrous Revolutionary War battle. In the decades since, the city itself has become a sort of grave- where hope goes to die. The city’s downturn can be traced back to the same event which precipitated Summit City’s meteoric rise. After the 1900 earthquake which destroyed its twin, over fifty thousand refugees flooded Graveridge- those who could afford to go nowhere else, and were unable to return home even after the reconstruction, thanks to the rapacious capitalists raising rents in their rebuilt homes. They stretched the city’s budget to its limits just as the Great Depression was hitting, and Graveridge has never fully recovered from the resulting economic crash.
While the city’s finances are always tight, the police department’s budget finds a way to increase any year, thanks to cuts to social services, schools, and even sanitation. The result is rampant crime, which the presence of law enforcement paradoxically increases- as each generation of fathers finds themselves in jail, their sons are forced to follow in their footsteps if only to put food on the table. Naturally, it’s not only desperation that drives crime, but also greed, epitomized by the gangs and other forms of organized crime that effectively control the city, including paying off cops, prosecutors, judges, and politicians to turn a blind eye to their activities.
As conditions in the city have deteriorated progressively over the years, a new form of crime has sprung up- the metahuman variety. Unlike in Summit City, where a newly-minted superhuman is typically overwhelmed with a desire to do good, most in Graveridge simply want to use their powers to make a quick buck. More unfortunate are the ones who have their minds irreparably broken by the emergence of their powers, or who were insane well before they became superhuman, and go on to become serial killers and super-terrorists, often racking up a body count in the hundreds.
While these supercriminals are rarely as powerful as their Summit City counterparts, they are often far more dangerous to their victims. And since there isn’t a scrap of Chronium to be found in all of Graveridge, the damage they do tends to be far more permanent. It doesn’t take long for one who is looking to stumble across a bloodstain that city services didn’t bother to clean off, and it won’t take much longer to find a fresh corpse, if you’re willing to brave a dark alley or fetid sewer.
The few who dare to defend the weak and helpless tend to be cut from a less unambiguously heroic cloth than the heroes of Summit City. They are vigilantes, hunted by both the police and the criminals they apprehend. Their methods are violent, ugly, and often lethal. Their powers tend to be commensurately weaker, forcing them to rely on conventional weapons and tactics to compensate. A hero who carries a gun as a backup in case of ‘power failure’ is far more likely to survive than one who eschews the use of firearms as a whole.
However, while poverty, crime, and violence are rampant, Graveridge is not entirely impoverished. The city’s Platinum Heights district is home to the single greatest number of millionaires and billionaires per capita in the United States, thanks to the city’s incredibly permissive income tax and business regulation policies. Intended to help rebuild the city’s economy, these policies have only served to attract a flock of wealthy vultures, who use the city’s teeming underclass as a disposable workforce for the many factories which belch smog into the city’s skies.
The most notable building in this part of the city is Hawksmoor Keep, a European castle painstakingly recreated atop a massive skyscraper, and home to the city’s richest man- Dante Auberon Leonis IV, an old-money aristocrat who’s chosen to make Graveridge his home. He is widely believed to have the entire city government in his pocket, but darker rumors speak to a secret life beneath the facade of a billionaire- one where he stalks the streets at night, using deadly posthuman enhancements to hunt his chosen prey, be they man or metahuman.
In the less well-to-do parts of the city, however, criminal syndicates are firmly in control, with even the police often tacitly ceding sovereignty to ‘the element.’ These include both vicious street gangs like the Skars and Howlers, whose turf wars often catch civilians in the crossfire, and more organized groups like the Famiglie Notturne, or ‘Families of the Night,’ various Italian mafia groups which often engage in similar conflicts, using equally brutal methods dressed up with old-world manners. The city’s most notorious metahuman criminals all have their own gangs, from the mutated Chimera and his Hybrids to the assassin-goddess Kali and her Disciples.
Unlike the scientific marvels of Summit City, the most unique thing about Graveridge is kept under wraps. The entire city is built on a well of deep magic, which some say is the cause of the city’s eternal misfortune. Whether or not this is true, the magic makes itself known in other ways, from empowering a cultlike underground of arcane adepts, to producing fiends of the night like vampires and werewolves. These emanations of magic are rare enough that most dismiss them as a myth, but to those in the know, they are very real. These ‘Awakened’ are able to see magic and monsters that ordinary folk cannot, and in Graveridge, they congregate in an underground establishment known as Brimstone Bar. Here, any looking to sell their soul can find an eager devil, and a novice mage seeking trinkets of power will find many to be purchased- though everything comes at a cost, much of it not of a material nature.
Notable Locations.
Neighborhoods, Communities, & Regions.
Platinum Heights.
Duskmoor.
Markov Manor.
Individual Buildings & Institutions.
Hawksmoor Keep.
Brimstone Bar.
The Midnight Clinic.
Notable Inhabitants.
Heroes.
The Lunatic.
Villains.
Dantalion.
Neutral.
Myrddin.
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OOC.
Consider this an experiment. While interest in a Sandbox-like setting with fewer hard rules and restrictions than Metasphere and Terminal seems low, it’s not quite nonexistent, and though it likely couldn’t sustain an entire forum section, it might be able to keep a thread alive.
The Gemini Cities are a superhero-themed ‘mini-sandbox,’ where pretty much anything goes in terms of character creation. Make an alien, a demigod, a freak of science, or a street-level vigilante. They don’t have to be strictly heroic or villainous, but I strongly encourage you to lean in either direction, as they make for excellent conflict drivers. For the time being, all action should be confined to one of the two major locations, Summit City and Graveridge. Think of these as your ‘Metropolis’ and ‘Gotham,’ existing on opposite sides of the same vast lake. I don’t intend to enforce power levels, but would suggest that you consider whether a primary-colored flying brick would fit in among the urban crime and corruption of Graveridge, or whether a serial-killer clown makes sense on the spotless streets of Summit City.
Since I’m hoping we’ll have multiple ongoing stories within this one thread, I would request that you include a location tag in all of your posts, maybe with an RP name to go along with it, for clarity’s sake. As an example, the first RP in the thread will be called ‘Crash Landing,’ and I’ll start each of my posts for that interaction with [Crash Landing - Summit City]. Likewise, a post for a separate RP in Graveridge could begin with [Midnight Hunt - Graveridge].
I strongly encourage you to create not just characters, but locations, organizations, and institutions within these cities. These include companies, buildings, neighborhoods, and teams, both heroic and villainous. For major changes to either city, please DM me first, though I’ll likely approve anything short of mass destruction, but in terms of minor additions, go wild! I’ll update this post with the names of new locations and characters as they appear.
As far as hard and fast rules go, the only things I intend to enforce are: no god-modding, auto-hitting or no-selling. These apply to both characters, and ‘property,’ i.e. NPCs, locations, and concepts ‘owned’ by another player.
There is no required CS format, and I won’t be requiring approval for any characters- once you’ve gotten a bio up, feel free to dive right in. If something is particularly egregious, I might privately ask you to reconsider, but that isn’t likely.
One last thing- we’re all here to do stuff, not just talk about doing stuff, so be sure to make characters that have a strong motivation for action. And please, please, please, make some villains. These stories don’t work without ‘em, after all.
