Freedom City
Freedom City is situated along the coast at the confluence of the Wading and South Rivers where they flow into Great Bay, which makes its way through the Centery Narrows out into the ocean. The Interstate passes close by the city along the coast, providing easy access to all points of the city by land.
The heart of Freedom—downtown—lies between the rivers, while the entire metropolitan area spans both sides of the rivers. Southside can be found on the far bank of the South River. Northward is Hanover, a largely college and technical community, home to a number of small businesses. To the west are a collection of suburbs and national forest with unspoiled natural terrain and opportunities for camping, hiking, and other outdoor activities. The downtown peninsula rises gradually toward Lantern Hill, while the land south of the South River rises toward low hills in Bayview and the areas south of the Jordan Airport. Parts of the seaside around the Centery Narrows and Great Bay rise a short distance above the water, with some seaside cliffs in spots.
Downtown Freedom City generally follows a grid pattern. East-west streets have the names of prominent individuals honored by Freedom City. North-south avenues are numbered, starting from Riverside and heading west to the Wallace Expressway. Alleys running between buildings in the downtown area are common, and are generally numbered separately from streets.
In outlying areas like Lantern Hill, Hanover, and Southside, streets tend to meander. There are also more one-way streets, cul-de-sacs, and multi-street intersections. These streets are older, so they are often narrower, and finding your destination can be a bit more difficult if you don’t know your way around.
Demographics
Size: 250 square miles (metro area)
Average Elevation: 94 feet
Climate: Temperate
POPULATION
Metro area: 3,812,500 Civilian Workforce: 2.9 million RACIAL BACKGROUND Caucasian: 53% African: 20% Latino: 18% Asian: 6.7% Native American: 0.9% Other: 1.4%LEADING RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS
United Methodist Church United Church of Christ Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints Southern Baptist ChurchRELIGIOUS BACKGROUND
Percentage of population regularly attending religious services: 37% Protestant: 59% Catholic: 20% Jewish: 9% Muslim: 3% Buddhist: 1.5% Hindu: 1.2% Other: 6.3%ECONOMICS
Average household income: $41,000 Percentage of households below poverty line: 8.4% Unemployment: 3% (metro area), 6.4% (total area) Average home price: $265,000 Average monthly rents, two-bedroom apartment: $750 to $1,400POLITICS
Percentage of population registered to vote: 63% Average voter turnout: 54.8% Democrat: 45% Republican: 41% Independent: 8% Libertarian: 4% Green: 1% Other: 1% Mayor: Calliope "Callie" SummersTALLEST BUILDINGS
Pyramid Plaza: 100 stories Rath & Stromberg Building: 65 stories Federal Plaza: 60 stories Goodman Building: 55 stories GBN Tower: 52 stories Eastern Seaboard Bank Building: 50 storiesHistory
THE FOUNDING OF FREEDOM
Freedom City began with the quest for independence, when Puritan colonists from England and the Netherlands arrived in the New World in 1630. They founded a small, walled town at the confluence of two rivers on a great bay, named it Freedom, and began to trade with the local Native American tribes like the Happanuk. Eventually, the settlers came into conflict with the natives as Freedom grew, and they fought a number of skirmishes. The settlement proved successful, leading more people to make the difficult ocean crossing from Europe, and bringing trouble along with them.PROPHET’S CRUSADE
In the late 1600s, Freedom was home to the Reverend Elijah Prophet, a famous monster hunter and witch finder. Prophet was the driving force behind a 1694 witch-hunt in Freedom that lasted for nearly two years. Among the accused was Henri “Lupus” LeBlanc, a Frenchman accused of being a lycanthrope, who supposedly fled the authorities with the aid of “demons and evil spirits.” Although LeBlanc was never captured, a dozen other people were tried and hanged for witchcraft and consorting with the Devil. Prosecutor Lucius Cabot argued eloquently and forcefully to convict the accused, although historians believe the victims were entirely innocent. Thankfully, Freedom’s witch hysteria burned itself out by the turn of the century, and Elijah Prophet moved on to other places and other hunts.FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE
By the mid-1700s, Freedom had grown considerably, the original settlement expanding along with additional settlements like Bayview, Hanover, Kingston, and Port Regal. The area became a focus for anti-British sentiment among the colonists. True to its name, Freedom was strongly on the side of the American Revolution. The Revolutionary War brought the city and the world its first costumed heroes. A mysterious young woman known as Lady Liberty fought Tory spies and British soldiers, wearing a distinctive red, white, and blue costume like the uniform of a Colonial soldier, complete with tricornered hat, blue cloak, and a domino mask to conceal her identity. She became a rallying cry for Colonial forces, and stories of her saving doomed rebels spread like wildfire. There were tales of Lantern Jack, who haunted the nighttime streets of Lantern Hill carrying a ghostly, glowing lamp with him. The stories said he was the ghost of a patriot hanged by the British, his lantern shining with the light of vengeance and liberty. Others claimed he was a traitor to the Revolution, cursed to wander the Earth. These stories were often dismissed as tall tales, but more than a few people saw a shadowy figure carrying a lantern in the fog late at night, then found Redcoats dead the next morning, looks of terror frozen on their faces. From the New England colonies, people talked about Minuteman, a masked colonial soldier with the strength of ten men who always seemed to arrive in the nick of time, vanishing just as quickly and mysteriously thereafter. These heroes disappeared with the war’s end and the achievement of American independence, but their stories were remembered, inspiring generations to come. In 1779, Colonial Major Joseph Clark won a series of decisive victories over British forces in Freedom and its immediate neighbors, eventually driving out the British and securing the area for the colonial army. Following the war in 1789, Freedom and the outlying settlements formally incorporated as Freedom City.FREEDOM BY GASLIGHT: THE 1800
The nineteenth century saw continued growth and development for the city. Freedom City University was established in 1825, and the city became a bustling port as well as a center for learning and the arts. That same year Henry Beaumont began publishing The Freedom Ledger, the city’s first daily newspaper. The outlying districts of the city were largely defined, and the new West End and Southside neighborhoods began to grow with the influx of immigrants from Europe. Stories found their way to Freedom City about the western frontier. They included “dime novel” tales of the exploits of mysterious masked men like the Pale Ranger, the Silver Sheriff, and the Indian magician Broken Crow of Magic Mesa, along with the Dust Devil, Eagle Rider, el Gaucho, Madame Colt, and others. Similar stories came from Europe of the exploits of extraordinary gentlemen like Professor Challenger and Arthur Gordon Pym exploring lost worlds, including Dakana in darkest Africa, the depths of the inner earth, and a plateau in South America where dinosaurs still roamed. In 1890, a series of grisly murders took place in the West End of Freedom City. A killer, identifying himself only as “Jack-a-Knives” in letters to the local press, butchered four women over the course of the summer and autumn, similar to the “Ripper” killings in London two years previously. Despite the best efforts of the police, the murderer was never caught, although the killings—and the letters—eventually stopped. Rumors attribute the end of the reign of terror either to a reported appearance by Lantern Jack on nearby Lantern Hill or to the presence of a famed British consulting detective and his associate, on holiday in Freedom City at the time.DAWN OF A NEW CENTURY
The start of the twentieth century saw Freedom City as a modern metropolis, but the gay abandon of the 1920s quickly gave way to the violence of gangsters and Prohibition. After that, the Great Depression saw fortunes ruined and the city sank into economic and social despair. The city and federal governments instituted work programs for the legions of Freedom City’s unemployed, including a number of construction and beautification projects. The start of the twentieth century bore witness to an event that forever altered the future of Freedom City and the world, although no one was aware of it at the time. Many saw comets as omens, but in 1918, the spectacular “comet” that appeared over Freedom City was in fact a life-pod from an alternate universe arriving in a flash of fire and cosmic power. Scientists speculate the arrival of the life-pod released a cascade of extradimensional energies, but perhaps something unusual about the city actually drew the life-pod there. Whatever the case, Freedom City quickly became a focus for the unexpected and the strange. In the 1930s, adventurers and “mystery men” like the Bluesman, Doc Prophet, and John Danger operated in Freedom City, their exploits written about in pulp magazines. Although their adventures were often fantastic, it was easy for the public to dismiss them as just stories, and their unusual powers as tall tales or exaggerations. The first to truly carry the mantle of “superhero” was The Centurion, who revealed his presence to the world when he thwarted a robbery of the First National Bank of Freedom City in 1938. Bullets bounced off his golden breastplate and he lifted a getaway car into the air like a toy. The Centurion seemed to trigger the appearance of other many heroes, including Midnight, the Bowman, Freedom Eagle, and Johnny Wade. There were rumors Lantern Jack had returned to his old haunts on the hill, although they remained unconfirmed for over a year. Not long thereafter, in Germany, people got their first look at der Übermensch, Hitler’s “Over-Man,” poster-boy of the Aryan “Master Race.” With powers to rival the Centurion, Übermensch left many nations worried about the future. What no one knew at the time was Hitler’s socalled “Aryan superman” wasn’t German—or even truly human, in fact—but a rogue member of a secret race of superhumans known as the Ultima. As the banner headline of the Freedom Ledger read, “The Age of the Super-Man” had arrived. Costumed crimebusters were no longer “mystery men,” they were “superheroes” and their foes “super-criminals” or “super-villains.” The term “super” entered common usage to refer to anyone with powers or abilities beyond those of ordinary people. Although scientists preferred terms like “metahuman” or “paranormal,” to most people, they were supers, and so they remain.THE WORLD AT WAR: 1941-1945
Although a number of supermen were active by the 1940s, the summer of 1941 saw the first appearance of the first super woman, with the same name and motif as the Revolutionary-era Lady Liberty, but this Lady Liberty could fly through the air and stop tanks with her bare hands. The sultry Siren appeared not long thereafter, gifted with powers from the sea, including a hypersonic singing voice. On December 7th, 1941, the empire of Japan made a sneak-attack against the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. One day later, a strange visitor appeared in Freedom City: the man known as Dr. Tomorrow. Arranging a meeting with President Roosevelt, Doc revealed he came from some fifty years into the future—a future where the Axis powers defeated the Allies and ruled a world without freedom or justice. He offered his help to change that future, and the president immediately ordered the formation of a team of American mystery men, led by Dr. Tomorrow and called The Liberty League. Freedom City hosted the League’s public headquarters, although they split their activities between the home front and the European and Pacific Theatres of war, thwarting the plots of spies, saboteurs, and Axis super-soldiers. America was also plagued with homegrown criminals and bundists, some of whom became enemies of the Liberty League and banded together to form the first Crime League. The Liberty League was not the only group of heroes during the war. Several heroes from different nations banded together as the Allies of Freedom. They were more active behind the lines in Europe, while the Liberty League operated based on Dr. Tomorrow’s unusual insights. One thing Dr. Tomorrow did not account for (as he was himself unaware of it) was the influence of the mystical The Thule Society in Germany and the Green Dragon Society in Japan, operating behind the scenes and using their occult powers to aid the Axis.POST-WAR FREEDOM: 1945-1959
In 1945, World War II came to an end with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Although Dr. Tomorrow returned home to the future, the Liberty League remained together. Freedom Eagle became their new chairman and they maintained their headquarters in Freedom City. With the war over, they confronted profiteers in occupied Japan and Germany, aided in the rebuilding of Europe, and fought the Crime League and other malcontents in America. Earth’s first modern contact with extraterrestrial life came in 1947, when a scout ship from The Grue Unity crashed in the American Southwest after being damaged in a skirmish in space with their enemies from The Lor Republic. The U.S. government covered up the crash and took possession of the wreckage and the remains of the crew. By the 1950s, the specter of communism was growing in the minds of Americans, and some began to question whether or not costumed heroes presented the proper image to American citizens, particularly impressionable young children. Politicians accused costumed heroes of encouraging vigilantism and promoting immorality. The government also became increasingly concerned with the independence of superheroes and sought to tighten their control, especially over the highly visible Liberty League. By this time, the League operated on private donations—largely the fortune of Fletcher Beaumont (the Bowman)—and did not rely on government authority or approval. The activities of a Grue scouting party on Earth did not help matters, as the shapeshifting aliens sowed paranoia and suspicion in the United States. Although the truth of their presence was never revealed to the general public, and the Grue were rooted out and exposed, they drove a wedge between heroes like the Liberty League and an already mistrustful government. One rogue Grue, eventually known to humans as Pseudo, remained on Earth in the guise of journalist Rick Fox. In 1955, the House un-American Activities Committee called the members of the Liberty League to testify, raising allegations of communist sympathies and immoral activities. The Committee demanded the League unmask and reveal their true names and identities as well as submit to governmental supervision. When the Leaguers refused to do so, the government declared the team dissolved, and the League reluctantly disbanded. Some of its members continued to operate on their own for a few years, while others quietly disappeared into retirement; it would take a major crisis to reunite them. Only Centurion and a few other heroes remained active by the end of the decade.HEROES RETURN: 1960-1972
By the start of the 1960s, much of the Red Scare fervor of the HUAC hearings and the disbanding of the Liberty League had died down. Heroes like Centurion and Lady Liberty continued to operate, largely ignoring criticism of their activities. Prosperity across America seemed to bring out both the good and the bad, as supervillains returned from inactivity and new threats appeared from the skies and other dimensions. Luckily, heroes old and new answered the call, and superheroes returned to Freedom City. In 1960, the Greek god Hades invaded Freedom City with an army of the dead from Tartarus. A number of heroes united to oppose him, including Centurion, Lady Liberty, Daedalus, and the Raven. They were successful, and Zeus forbade Hades to so directly interfere in mortal affairs again. Afterward, the heroes chose to remain together as a team to deal with similar threats too great for any one of them—a team like the Liberty League. Since the Liberty League was no more, they would be known as: The Freedom League! The public reacted positively to the return of the heroes, and teams like the Freedom League and later The Atom Family became celebrities and role models for a new generation of heroes. While new heroes began coming to Freedom City, old and new supervillains made their presence known as well. The most dangerous and hated of these villains were surviving Axis super-agents like the Crimson Katana and Nacht-Krieger, not to mention a revived Crime League and Shadow. Since few superheroes wished to work under government supervision, the United States government created the American Elite Government Intervention Service (AEGIS) in 1962 to deal with superhuman and paranormal threats to public and national safety. Jack Simmons—formerly Patriot of the Liberty League—was appointed the agency’s first director. Throughout the 1960s, superhuman activity continued to rise, as if the years away had concentrated the wills of heroes and villains alike. Invasions from space and other dimensions became almost commonplace, but unlike the previous decades, humanity’s faith in its heroes rarely wavered for long. Omega and The Terminus first attempted to invade Freedom City in 1965, and some speculate the aftereffects of the incursion may have contributed to the rise of superhuman activity in the area.FREEDOM’S TWILIGHT: 1972-1992
The 1970s saw the beginning of another decline for costumed superheroes. Heroes fell prey to villains and their own human frailties, others went missing for long periods of time or left Earth for other endeavors, while still more began to feel their age and retired or passed away. An increasing number of occult scares occurred during the 1970s, including the arrival of Dracula, Lord of the Vampires in Freedom City and the exposure of several “Satanic” cults, most of them connected with the long-hidden Serpent People. The murderous Jack-a-Knives went on a killing spree in the summer of 1977, while the Atom Family grappled with the lupine Wolfjack (actually their teammate Jack Wolf, under the influence of the cosmic Moonstone). Mystic figures like Lantern Jack and Adrian Eldrich were often associated with these happenings, although few gave them any credence. By the 1980s, the public felt abandoned by the same heroes they counted on in years past. New heroes walked the streets of Freedom, but darker and more violent, willing to use deadly force to fight their foes. Their excesses seemed to fit the mood of the nation. Even today, sociologists debate whether the darkness of the late 1980s and early 1990s in Freedom City was a result of the darker heroes of the time or if they merely grew darker to reflect the attitudes of society. In 1984, Freedom City elected Franklin Moore mayor on a platform of “zero tolerance” for vigilantism. He was supported by the Citizens for Order, Decency, and Ethics (CODE), and secretly backed by influential crime families. Mayor Moore quickly outlawed “costumed vigilantism” in “his” city. Costumed heroes became illegal and would be arrested if they continued to operate outside the law. Some heroes, like Centurion, felt they had no choice but to obey the law and either retired or left Freedom City. Other heroes chose to defy the law, and Archer (Ethan Keller, formerly the third Arrow) forged a number of them into a team called FORCE Ops (Freelance ORganization of Criminal Elimination Operatives). For the rest of the decade, grim vigilantes fought a shadow war with psychotic criminals and gangsters, opposed by an increasingly corrupt police force and the mayor’s office, which were both heavily influenced by the most powerful criminal kingpins.A NEW FREEDOM: 1993-2003
Freedom City’s fortunes seemed bleak for a long time, but the early 1990s saw changes large and small heralding a new day in the city by the bay. The city’s darkest hour was the Terminus Invasion. Omega and his forces once again invaded Freedom City, but this time there were fewer heroes to stop them and they quickly established a beachhead. Although the FORCE Ops fought back, they were no match for an army of Omegadrones, let alone Omega himself. The world’s heroes united against Omega, resulting in a climactic battle in Freedom City, devastating the downtown area. A number of heroes perished in the struggle, including Andrea Atom, Mentac, members of FORCE Ops, and Centurion himself, who sacrificed his life in single combat with Omega, shattering the mad nihilist’s support-armor and driving him back into the Terminus. In the aftermath of the Invasion, large areas of Freedom City were damaged or destroyed, the downtown area all but leveled, and some of the world’s greatest heroes were dead, but the bravery and sacrifice of those heroes kept things from being far worse. Freedom City reeled from the terrible blow, and might never have recovered had it not been for two figures: Doctor Metropolis and Micheal O'Connor, Jr. A mysterious entity of concrete, glass, and steel rose from the rubble of the city after Omega’s defeat. Known as Dr. Metropolis, this “urban spirit” used his amazing powers to help restore Freedom City, making it better and stronger than ever before. He rarely had help from many others, as heroes like Daedalus (who returned from his wanderings in space to help fight Omega) pitched in however they could. Some initially believed Metropolis was the soul or reincarnation of the Centurion, though this has since been proven not to be the case. The city also found new leadership in the form of Michael O’Connor, Jr., son of the Freedom Eagle. Elected mayor only months before the Terminus invasion, O’Connor worked tirelessly to clean up the city’s politics, strengthen the police department, draw a line against crime, and create new prosperity and jobs, with great success. Most importantly, he oversaw the repeal of the Moore Act, making Freedom City once again a welcome home to the heroes that saved it and the world. Public confidence followed these brave men and their actions. Freedom City saw advancements in economics and technology through the 1990s, and its population increased accordingly. New heroes began appearing as suddenly as they had in the 1940s and ‘60s, and many veteran heroes returned publicly or in secret to guide and advise a new generation. New incarnations of older heroes and institutions rose again, and Freedom City proudly became home to more superheroes than any other city in the world.WE ARE NOT ALONE: 2004-PRESENT
Although the “door” opened by the Terminus Invasion was closed, Freedom City’s history continued to unfold upon a larger stage. The interstellar criminal Blackstar escaped imprisonment, leading to the appointment of a new Star Knight as Earth’s protector. She proved her mettle when the Grue staged an invasion in 2004, led by an engineered warrior endowed with all of the powers of the Atom Family: The Meta-Grue. An alliance of heroes, along with a top-secret squadron of UNISON space-fighters, held off the invasion, and Chase Atom used the power of the Moonstone to send the Grue packing. The Freedom League built a new satellite headquarters, the Lighthouse, designed to act as an early-warning station, allowing the team to extend their watch to the entire Earth. Villains wielding sinister mystic powers became increasingly more common: the G’Tach, based on the ten plagues of ancient Egypt; the vampiric Nightwatch; Black Anubic, exiled god from another universe; and Adamant, the legendary “god-killer,” to name a few. In 2008, the young witch Seven began an apprenticeship with Master Mage Adrian Eldritch. After serving four terms as Freedom City’s mayor, Michael O’Connor retired from the role in 2008 to run for the U.S. Senate. Local business mogul Jonathan Grant entered the mayoral race and won, promising to “keep moving Freedom forward.” The dimensional barriers took a beating when The AlterniTeens, a ragtag group of super-powered youngsters from diverse parallel worlds, appeared on the grounds of Claremont Academy. Then Centuria, the daughter of a Centurion from an alternate Earth, arrived in the midst of a freak storm. In 2012, Jonathan Grant won a second term as Mayor of Freedom City, and Seven joined the Freedom League.Geography
Freedom City is situated along the coast at the confluence of the Wading and South Rivers where they flow into Great Bay, which makes its way through the Centery Narrows and then out into the Atlantic. The Interstate passes close by the city along the coast, providing easy access to all points of the city by land.
The heart of Freedom City—Downtown—lies between the rivers while the entire metropolitan area spans both sides of the rivers. The Downtown area has artsy Riverside and the waterfront, bustling Midtown, and ritzy Parkside, as well as the high-tech of the North End and the urban decay of The Fens. Southside and its casino boardwalk can be found on the far bank of the South River, with Bayview and Port Regal to the east and Lincoln to the west. Northward is Hanover, a largely college and technical community, home to a number of small businesses, with middle-class Kingston and upper-class North Bay to the east. Beyond the West End is a collection of suburbs—Ashton, Greenbank, and Grenville—and the Wharton State Forest, with unspoiled natural terrain and opportunities for outdoor activities. The downtown peninsula’s elevation rises gradually toward Lantern Hill. Parts of the seaside around the Centery Narrows and Great Bay rise a short distance above the water with some seaside cliffs in spots. Along the east are several coastal communities, exclusive estates, and manor houses, some of which date back centuries.
Beyond the shores of Freedom and the watchful Lonely Point Naval Base lie a number of islands, including Blackstone, the home of a federal maximum-security prison for super-criminals (buried deep beneath the rocky island) and Star Island, which has become a refugee center for extraterrestrials fleeing the collapse of the interstellar Republic and the invasion of The Stellar Imperium.
Type
City
Population
3,812,500
Inhabitant Demonym
Freedonians
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments