"We get the heroes we deserve"
- Dog
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~ Campaign ~ The World ~ Contact & Updates ~
The city of Haven is the bright star of our new world, a city built by humans and superhumans alike to be a home for both and a chance for peace. It's the realization of a dream and in many ways a haven for those who want to live and let live, for those who wonder if the world can really be as bright as futurists promised in ages past. It's a city of the future and a signpost to what we may one day achieve - true and lasting peace between the super and the human, a Haven for all that welcomes in the exiles, the lonely, the scared, the seekers, the finders, the people - a home for everyone.
- Tourist Brochure
Nothing means just one thing. Haven's are refuges, kid. Hideouts. Ghettos. Haven's a dream, but reality ain't one. It's a goal, and most of us 're just yard lines, or at best people to be tackled down or herded towards the goal of prosperity between the supers and the humans in some mythic place where the line between have and have not becomes jumbled and broken. There's a lot of good here, kid. People - accept more. It's not tolerance, but something deeper. When Water Lord tried to flood the city and the Sentinels stopped him, it was everyone else who rebuilt their homes, helped their neighbours - yeah, people can be good. But don't get lost in the dream, kiddo. There's nightmares out there, and some homes ... well, sometimes Daddy is strict and has a belt called the Riot Squad - and they'll make your home about 9 feet down.
- Anonymous super in the 'Burg
| Haven At A Glance |
"People expect more of heroes than heroes expect of themselves."
- Inscription on the Hero Park memorial, carver unknown.
Haven was meant for supers and humans to both live in, and in that respect it's succeeded. But the designers had other goals, as well, in building a city from the ground up:
All streets run N - S; All avenues E - W. This makes finding your way around very easy. The downtown core has streets numbered, and avenues lettered (1-26) and (A-Z) from the south to the north. The city is also laid out around a public transit system so that there are stops every 50-100 meters and buses run all route every 12-15 minutes from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m .and generally every half hour after that. Express routes run ever 5 minutes 24/7. The fee is $1 her trip. The bus roads are for public transit only and while you can own a car, only buses can travel within the downtown core itself. There are numerous bike and walking paths alongside most major roads and a lot of minor ones. Lastly, the bus depots are generally within a 10 block radius of each other and businesses and homes centred on them. This tends to annoy anyone who wants to rezone areas but makes travel within Haven very easy and it rarely takes more than 2 changes to reach any stop in the city. (The exception to this is The Hill, which isn't serviced by the bus system.)
(The downside of the street system favouring public transit is that it generally takes longer for pizza to reach your house. On the plus side, the pizza delivery person is likely to be in very good shape and bike a lot.)
To make things even nicer for most, every home is set up for wireless internet access and fibre optic internet access is common, with t3's being available for poorer areas. Taxes, of course, are very high, but most people find the trade off worth it.
| Services |
Athens built the Acropolis. Corinth was a commercial city, interested in purely materialistic things. Today we admire Athens, visit it, preserve the old temples, yet we hardly ever set foot in Corinth.
- Harold Urey
Bus trips cost $1.
The police department is spread out over the city proper in 48 districts currently. There is a District 0, location unknown, that sends out all calls to other districts and keeps lines of communication open. The police are generally heavily armed and often carry shotguns to help deal with superhumans, if they have to.
The fire department is one large central building north of downtown that services the entire city. There have been plans to expand it and garages have been set up to the north and south of the city but are waiting for more funding in order to become official stations.
There are two major hospitals - Haven General and Haven Special Medical (Spec Med. for short). The first caters to everyone, the second to superhumans primarily. There are also a large number of private clinics. (Haven actually began with a tiered hospital system with basic medical expenses paid for annually for a flat fee, but the amount of injuries caused by super human fights caused the system to be scrapped in 2007. Despite political promises, it has not been reinstated.)
With almost 11 million people in the city, there are lots of schools. Elementary is generally 1-6, Middle School 7-8 and High School 9-12. There is also pre-school and kindergarten in the more affluent areas of the city.
Super U is the Haven university for superhumans, and offers courses in using powers, superhumans and the modern world, hosts job fairs and researches into powers and the like. It's very prestigious and costs at least $30,000 per year even for superhumans. (This can be altered due to powers and volunteering for tests and the like - some humans have got in free by volunteering for experiments to make them superhuman.) Scholarships are offered to "urban achievers" - high school grads who do high profile public works - i.e. are super heroes.
Haven University is a more traditional university. Tuition is generally $15,000 per year. Unlike Super U, they also field sports team. (Super U stopped after a horrible incident involving a football team, a pissed off quarterback and a few craters.)
There are some other local state colleges close by.
| Accommodations, Attractions & Tourism |
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
- St. Augustine, 399 AD
With 11 million people making their home in Haven, the city has a large amount of Hotels. The classier ones are all on the north shore of Lake Stanley. There are also at least 3 homeless shelters near the Burg and many motels scattered around the city and outside it. For normal living, the rich tend to live on or around The Hill, the middle class south of it around Haven General and share the west side of the city north of Super U with the poorer people. The really poor end up in the Burg.
Haven also offers many attractions for tourists - ranging from tours of Purgatory (once a week, the minimum security part, and you spend at least 2 days being examined before you're let in, if you are at all) to boat rides on Lake Stanley or scenic walks through Haven's many parks. And, of course, there's always the heroes. A monument to the man who died against Destroyer and defending the city in other ways can be found in Hero Park. The Revengers even offer tours of their own floating headquarters on Lake Stanley on occasion - a fun treat for the whole family. For the more intellectually inclined, there are the many museums and galleries between downtown and Hero Park as well as Haven University and Super University, of course. It might not be Disney, but Haven offers something for everyone.
| The City At A Glance (Or Two, Or Three) |
"But regardless of what he was, he was doing God's work - he was saving innocdents and serving truth. And in the final judgement. what is more important? The burdens we bear - or the way we bear then?"
- Kurt Busiek's Astro City, "Confessions"
The 'Burg: An area of Haven wrecked in '06 by a little known villain calling herself Bedlam, the 'burg was never rebuilt due to a funding crunch and litigation issues at the time and so these 20 city blocks have become the home to the transients and unwanted of Haven, many of them living underground below the ruins of the buildings themselves. Haven's premiere superhuman gangs - the Sliders and the Jumpers - make their home here and many freakish mutants and freaky humans can be found here. It's not a good place to visit before or after dark.
Desolation Row: No one knows where it is, but there's a road in haven that curves and twists unlike any other - a road wherein the very strange live, where can be found and the line between reality and fantasy is revealed to be the lie it really is. Here, all boundaries blur and the strange is common, and the common is strange. Few go to it, and fewer admit it.
Downtown: Guess. Museums are to the east (between it and hero park), government stuff to the west and big hotels south between it and Lake Stanley.
Garvis Industrial Park: Where all the factories are. Including the Voids one. Or not :p
Harvest Golf Club: The golf club of the rich and famous in Haven. It's 36 holes and prejudiced in favour of humans, after an incident when Metal Man lost his temper and sent a golf ball through 5 cars, blowing them into fragments. Membership costs so much that if you have to ask the price you can't afford it.
Haven General: The normal public hospital.
Haven Special: The public hospital that's made to serve superhumans. Many Super U med. students work here.
Haven University: Haven's normal university.
The Hill: It's where the people too rich for their own good live. It's walled, and private, and has it's own police force. You're not welcome there. The Lancasters have a home there, though.
Hero Park: A park made to honour the heroes of Haven. Supertypes treat it as neutral ground and the Starbucks close by does a very brisk business.
Lake Stanley: An artificial lake made by superhumans while Haven was being built. It acts as haven's source of fresh water and is good for swimming in. The Revengers use a boat on it as their headquarters.
Purgatory: This superhuman prison is 10 miles outside Haven and surrounded by nothing for 5 miles, to make escape more difficult. Both villains and a few heroes who made mistakes can be found here, from minimum to maximum security. Almost all the guards are humans in special suits and as such they have to rule largely by fear often enough. Most people disbelieve the rumours that come from Purgatory, or claim it's "what's necessary."
Super U: The superhuman University. Cameron Lancaster's Lancaster Lines offers exemplary training from it.
| Local Laws |
"In Tibet, kites were used as instruments of war. The thought came unbidden to me as I watched the scene. The realization made me suddenly aware of just what a mess everything was. It was a sudden jet of resentment.
In the beginning of all this, I started to think that working with cops changes the way you see things. Now I wondered whether anything was ever as it appeared to be."
- John Donohue, "Sensei"
Haven's laws towards superhuman types tends to be a bit more relaxed, simply because there's so darn many of you. Masked types are tolerated, and heroes with illegal powers are generally not harassed about them. If possible, the police prefer for super types to deal with their own kind rather than risk their own lives taking down super villains. This doesn't mean that you're liked, just that the police aren't stupid. If you break laws - such as killing humans, or theft, or the like - they'll be after you as well.
The Riot Squad is an elite police unit made to deal with such threats, and they're feared for their ruthlessness. Don't piss them off - the Burg did, and most of Haven is simply waiting for the inevitable smack down.
There are also a few superhuman police officers, but their identities and powers are kept secret by the police.
Oh, yeah, keep in mind that if you want to arrest someone, you need to make a citizen's arrest, or be sure lots of people saw them trying to commit a crime before you deal with them, otherwise the lawyers will get them off, easily.
| Local Super Heroes |
"If you stood up, what would you stand for?"
- Awesome Man, in his recruitment speech to Dark Knight
The Revengers League of Haven
The revengers have been around for about 12 years now but have only recently gained true fame and recognition due to their unstinting efforts that stopped the mad millionaire Maximillion (aka Trevor Shomaker IV) from destroying the stock market and blowing up the city banks for bouncing a cheque. (He was more than a little demented.) They have been able to hire an excellent PR firm - Jesse Lancaster's Lancaster Publicity, Ltd. (a part of Cameron Lancaster's superhero training/use centres known as Lancaster Lines) - and are likely to become an International Team very shortly.
Amazonian: A warrior woman who claims to be from the Amazon and be immortal, she is feared for her strength and implacable hatred of men. However, she left the team 4 months ago after an altercation with the American Heroes led to her being choked by her clothing and it coming off on national television - along with the fake breasts and cellulite. The realization that amazonian was a cross dressing man shocked "her" team mates so badly they lost the fight.
Awesome Man: A hero through and through, Awesome Man can fly, has Awesome Speed, Awesome strength and is, well, just awesome. He can fire, absorb and redirect energy as well, adding to his overall awesomeness. Despite his known weakness versus Aronsite, Awesome Man has yet to be defeated by his arch nemesis - |337 M4N!
Dark Knight: A former vigilante, Dark Knight possesses a staff that can alter it's shape and the ability to move through shadows and, sometimes, command them. Awesome Man recruited him by showing me could do more with his powers with the law than outside it 2 years ago.
Metal Man: A man who is a metal suit, Metal Man was fused with his armour in a lab accident five years ago, gaining incredible strength and toughness, but being turned into a freak as well. He joined the revengers to be able to get some use out of his powers.
Powerhouse: A rather brash kid, Powerhouse has the ability to absorb the energy of attacks and gets bigger and stronger with each blow. He's the youngest revenger (17) and the most inexperienced - but he gets a lot of good press with teenagers (especially teenage girls) and he's really enthusiastic.
Ran: A young woman with the power to command water and the storms, she believes she is in fact the Norse goddess she claims to be. Many fundamentalists have demanded her explosion from the team, but her powers combined with her godlike endurance, make her too valuable a member to give up to what Dark Knight calls the "correctness police."
Ring Man: A powerful hero, ring man possesses the ability to shoot powerful bolts of energy from a ring as well as trap others with cages of energy from it. He seems to believe his powers come from the ring, but is vague as to where he got it. He can also fly and create basic shapes of energy, such as his famous use of an energy wall to keep the first dam of the Lower Snake River in Washington State from crumbling after it was bombed by environmental terrorists.
Slipper: An older man with the power to somehow slip between time and teleport, very little is known of him save that he is the only revenger not registered with the government and sand has point-blank that he'll leave the team rather than be registered.
The Jumpers
A superpowered street gang, every member of the Jumpers can teleport. No one knows why they all can, but some of the reason might lie in their leader, Jumper, who oddly enough cannot teleport but when the Riot Squad tried to "clean up" the Burg last year, Jumper showed his power and jumped their minds, placing them in different bodies. The few who refused to back off weren't given their own bodies back are now being locked up in a nut house somewhere. None of the oficers saw Jumper and no one outside the gang ever has.
The Sliders
The sliders are a group of younger kids - most in their teens or younger, while the Jumpers are older. They all have the ability to phase, with varying degrees of success. Some of them have a few other talents as well. They never kill, but the reasons for that pledge remain their own.
The Uglies
A third - and very new - supergang, the uglies are, well, ugly. Most of them claim they were once human, but got changed, somehow. Almost all of them are very dangerous, and tough, and often display scars or psychological problems due to whoever - or whatever - changed them, or woke dormant powers in them. They aren't nice people.
Non-aligned Heroes:
FireLight: An old man with the ability to shoot fire and light as well as fly, very little is known about FireLight save that he flies around at night hunting for vampires. And has bad eyesight. Dark Knight has clashed with him, as have many vigilantes and villains and once, memorably, a news helicopter he was convinced was a vampire nest. No one wants to kill the poor fellow, but even when defeated he's managed to escape.
Maverick: Dark Knight's former sidekick, she went on her own way after he "betrayed" her by joining the Revengers. She is a low-level telepath who uses it, levitation and her well honed reflexes to take down crime. Dark Knight has refused to give the government her identity, so far.
Sculptor: One of the many low-powered supers living in the Burg, sculptor has the power to remake people's bodies based on how they want to look. He's not a super hero in any real sense, but many of his clients consider him heroic. The others, whose idea of themselves as much less .... flattering ... often end up trying to kill him, so he leads a rather eventful life.
Static Cling: A young 10 year old boy with the power to hold things in place via industrial-strength adhesion, Kyle Roberts wants to fight crime and does so. More experienced heroes try and stop him, or tell him to wait until he's older, but stopping someone who can shock people and stick them to surfaces really, really well tends to be sometimes more difficult than stopping many villains.
| Local Super Villains |
"If you're a god among insects, why do you pay your phone bill?"
- Some poor sap to Leet Man, just before being killed
Dr. Filth: Not so much a villain as a mad inventor, Dr. Filth is rumoured to have experimented on people to give them super powers - and succeeded. He also saved Haven from Destroyer back in '08 by teleporting him away and as such the powers that be are a little less likely to come down on him as they are on other villains.
Leet Man (aka |337 M4N): A dangerous villain, Leet Man is not only at the peak of human abilities, he possesses the ability to make others leet as well, if they follow him. No one knows what this power is, but it allows him to make people leet and dangerous. Sure, they only end up with minor powers, but there are a lot of them and they're all loyal to Leet Man - and scared of the Kid.
Cabbage Kid: Leet Man's loyal sidekick, Cabbage Kid was the first attempting at making someone elite, and it worked. Sort of. The kid is convinced he's a cabbage. Utterly. And that cabbages are better than humans. Oh, yes, and his skin is cabbage leaves, razor sharp, than can be flung at people - people he believes to be as inferior as insects. He's wanted on lots of murder charges.
Neo: An insane lunatic, "Neo" believes he's Neo of the Matrix and that the world is the Matrix and he can see through it. In practical terms, he seems able to make illusions only he sees (which is mostly useless, but protects him against most mental powers) and, rarely, to change this world and make people look just like Agent Smith for a time. His teleportation power has led to him not being captured - yet.
Paralyser: A young man with the power to paralyse with a touch, Paralyser can paralyse with a touch and even slow people down just by looking at them. He tends to aqlly with either groups of humans or other superhumans when commmiting a crime.
Sucker: A poorly named kid, Beckley Gage (aka Sucker) didn't set out to be a villain. He just got mad at some kids at school, said "You suck!" - and they did. Not literally, thankfully, but bad luck hit them like a freight train and most of them died within a week. He fled from the police and has been making a living robbing convenience stores.
Wishing Well: Either a person or a place (opinions differ) Wishing Well has the power to do one thing and one thing only: grant you your deepest, most innermost desire. The problem, of course, is that very few people know what that desire is.
The Woman In Red: The instigator of an ongoing mob war, the Woman is said to be able to control people and make them obey her, but no one recalls what she looks like or knows who she is. She is aided by 2 allies, a man and woman who seem able to kill with a thought.
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~ Campaign ~ The World ~ Contact & Updates ~