Rough map
here.
A small city on the coast of Lake Michigan, Forester’s Bay is primarily a resort town, though there are a few logging camps and a steel manufacturing plant within the city limits. The main businesses within the city are restaurants, wineries, boat tours, museums, and hotels. Watcher and his Obelisk arrived in midsummer, the midst of tourist season, and the field has trapped thousands of non-residents within the city without a means to return to their homes and lives. Almost miraculously, the city’s infrastructure has been able to survive more-or-less intact in the month since the arrival of the League of the Future, but cracks are certainly beginning to show.
One of the reasons that Forester’s Bay has been able to continue running as smoothly as it has is due to the improvements made by Watcher. The first thing the invader from the future did was install an enigmatic golden device on the top of the Obelisk. This device seemingly transmits electrical energy to every device within the dome, instantaneously, and without any cost to the devices or the consumers. People within Forester’s Bay don’t even need to plug in their laptops; they are constantly, wirelessly charged. This alleviated concerns about electrical infrastructure collapse, though it also raised concerns about what exactly this electrical signal might be doing. Next, Watcher planted silver rods at strategic locations throughout the city. These rods seem to collect airborne pollution, cleaning the air immensely. Finally, every day, Watcher’s Obelisk produces an enormous quantity of… aggressively tasteless but nutritious grey food matter, which doesn’t seem susceptible to decay. These actions—and the fact that Watcher ventures from his Obelisk to repair infrastructure damage, once again free of charge—help to complicate the reaction of the public to Watcher himself, though they do little for the rest of the League.
At the moment, Forester’s Bay has mostly hunkered down under the weight of the League above them. The police attempt to keep order, but can do very little against their super-powerful foes and the forces they bring to bear. Locals go about their business, tending to ignore or avoid the problem of the League since they can do nothing about it themselves. Stranded tourists have been relocated to empty houses or remain in hotels, waiting for the dome to fall, careful not to walk too deep into the woods and not to walk down certain streets. Mostly, people are just… waiting for something to happen.
The Districts of Forester’s Bay
While there is plenty of mixing and blending between the districts, Forester’s Bay can be sectioned off into five main areas:
-high-price, high fashion
Lakeside;
-tourist-focused, glitzy
Main Drag;
-old-town, rustic
Residential Quarter;
-work-oriented, practical
Industrial Block; and
-Untouched, brooding
Manitou Forest.
Lakeside is on the northeastern edge of the city, next to Lake Michigan; it blends into the Main Drag at a place called
Museum Street. Main Drag is at the center of the town;
Forester’s Park marks the borderline between this area and the Residential quarter to the west. The Residential Quarter, occupying the northern and western areas of the city, is insulated from the Industry Block to the south by the stretch of cheap apartment housing known as
Steelhome Housing. The Industrial Block is at the south of the city, edging a bit to the east; it and the Main Drag are connected through
Pub Alley. Manitou forest surrounds the city to the north, south, and west; the lake is to the east.
Lakeside: The smallest of the districts, Lakeside is the exclusive home of rich locals and occasional rich tourists. Huge homes interspersed with occasional high-end hotels and the rare boutique or specialty shop line the streets closest to the lakeshore at the northeastern edge of the city. Lakeside is completely insulated by the Main Drag from the Residential Quarter and the Industry Block; it only borders the Main Drag to the west and south, the lake to the east, and Manitou Forest to the north. Those living or vacationing at Lakeside tend to be affluent, aloof, and self-focused; most often, they own one of the larger businesses in town, and they and their children are comfortably set for life. Doctor Proxy (well, their suit) has been seen most often in this district and the Museum Street connected to it.
--Most Notable Features: Besides Lake Michigan itself, the most notable feature of Lakeside would probably be the brand new
Lakeside Heights Hotel, a ten-story structure of fancy suites and lakeshore views that seems far too large for the small city of Forester’s Bay. There’s also the old
Serafin Mansion, a beautiful Gothic Revival bit of history that’s carefully maintained by the reclusive owner, Svenja Serafin. Finally, something that’s less of a tourist attraction but more of interest to the locals is the new
Forester’s Bay Police Headquarters on the end of Museum Street; since the old headquarters was in the heart of the Residential Quarter, this change caused a fair amount of gossip and friction between the upper and lower class of the city.
--Most Notable People: Most of the people with money and connections live in Lakeside, but a few of the more notable examples are below.
• Nigel Clarke, the current mayor of Forester’s Bay, lives in one of the mid-level houses of Lakeside. A large man who is slightly out of shape, Clarke is most well-known for his bright blue eyes, easy politician’s smile, and carrying voice, as well as the terrible black dye job that he’s given his (almost certainly white by now) hair. He was gearing up for re-election in the fall before the League appeared, but seems to have given up on that, focusing instead on keeping things as “normal” as possible even with the League until he is able to leave office… and searching for his missing son, who disappeared a few days after the dome came down.
• Dean Falkenrath owns both a large portion of Manitou Forest which he rents out regularly to hunters and hikers, and several shipping warehouses in the Industrial Block, making him fairly wealthy even by Lakeside standards. Falkenrath is small and hawklike, with a prominent nose and dark brown eyes under thick eyebrows and shoulder-length brown hair. He has been one of the more critical voices against Mayor Clarke’s handling of the League, and his warehouses are among the most targeted by Lockdown’s Chain Gang.
• Svenja Serafin has already been mentioned above; the reclusive mansion owner is the closest thing that Forester’s Bay has to an “old money” family, and has never married or had children of her own. Old pictures reveal an unsmiling, tall woman with a high forehead, light grey eyes, and light brown hair peppered with grey; Svenja herself hasn’t been seen by anyone except for her maids (who also give tours of portions of the mansion) in roughly two decades.
• Selman Rademacher is the current sheriff in Forester’s Bay. A tall man with dark brown skin, eyes, and hair, Sheriff Rademacher is known for being soft-spoken but stubborn and for having followed his father into the FBPD and eventually to the position as sheriff. While he technically lives in the Residential Quarter, most of his time is spent at the new Headquarters in Lakeside, doing anything he can to deal with the League. So far, most of his efforts have been unsuccessful, though he has managed to keep the Chain Gang from openly racketeering and holding meetings, has directed rangers out to save people from Manchineel, and has foiled one attempted theft by Doctor Proxy.
The Main Drag: The heart and center of Forester’s Bay is undoubtedly the Main Drag; if you’re looking for food, entertainment, or business in the town, this is where you go. Restaurants (expensive and cheap), theaters (movie and live), malls, and businesses all compete for space and visibility within this area, most of them designed to draw in tourists and guests and separate them from their money—while leaving the visitor happy from the experience, of course. Here is where anything that could be called a “skyscraper” can be found (mostly holding small law offices, manufacturing firms, and the like), though no building that was built in Forester’s Bay has yet to break twelve stories in height. The Main Drag is a fairly large district, taking up the center of the town and stretching out to the lake to the south of Lakeside, between it and the Industrial Block. Since it touches every other district, the Main Drag has by far the greatest mix of new and old, rich and poor, refined and down-to-earth. This is clearly marked by the sedate, image-conscious Museum Alley to the east of the district, the comfortable, child-friendly Forester’s Park to the northwest, and the rowdy, dangerous Pub Alley to the south. The Main Drag is the particular playground of Apophis, who pops up without warning just about everywhere.
--Most Notable Features: There’s something for everyone in the Main Drag, as long as you’re willing to pay. Among the more well-known places is
Chaplin Theater, a live theater space that Apophis has strangely attached himself to and forced to continue their season despite everything going on. By all accounts, their shows are very good, especially for community theater. For those who are looking to shop,
Deep Forest Mall is a three-story indoor mall that has several outdoor park-like spaces, and so far Manchineel has yet to appear in any of them! If you have a gourmand’s palate, consider booking a table at
Farro’s, a five-star restaurant catering mostly to Italian fare—but beware, you’ll need to book at least a week in advance if you truly want a seat!
Oh, and of course, no one can forget
The Obelisk, which appeared in a lot that had just broken ground one month ago and now towers at over four times the height of the tallest buildings in the city. There is nowhere withing Forester’s bay where the Obelisk can’t be seen, and its shadow at its longest measures out the exact radius of the dome that separates the city from the rest of the world.
--Most Notable People: The Main Drag is where the majority of visitor’s trapped in Forester’s Bay have made their semi-permanent residences, so there is a mixture of old faces and new here among those who are well-known.
• Jordan Chaplin claims to be related to the renowned movie star, but anyone that looks a little bit into the Chaplin family can immediately disprove this claim. Still, the short, brown haired, grey-eyed theater director is charismatic enough that most people simply take what he says at face value. Chaplin owns and runs Chaplin Theater and is currently preparing for a fall run of The Music Man; he steadfastly refuses to speak about what deal, if any, he has made with the chaotic Apophis.
• Speaking of the theater, Ayda Pavlovski has caught the attention of several people by stating that she would play a part in the upcoming performance of The Music Man. Pavlovski, a young black-haired woman with bright blue eyes, is moderately famous off-Broadway and was poised to break into Broadway itself soon. She had been vacationing for a week in Forester’s Bay when the Obelisk arrived; her decision to take part in the community theater may be a sign that she thinks the dome will be a permanent fixture, or simply a desire to perform again.
• Zorion Farro is the head chef of Farro’s, while Vahid Parrish is his partner and the front-end manager. Farro is tall, broad, and pale, with icy blue eyes and hair gone prematurely white, while Parrish is taller, thin, and Arabic, with amber-brown eyes and black hair. Parrish has made it clear that Farro’s has no stance on the League as long as they don’t try to jump the booking line or refuse to pay their bill, while Farro has refused to make a public statement as per usual with him.
• Luna Riva came to Forester’s Bay the day that the Obelisk appeared; she had just parked her car next to the vacant lot to go sightseeing when the lot was filled and the dome came down. In the month since then, the middle-aged Hispanic woman has managed to launch a new business, Moon River Insurance, by becoming the first person on the scene to specifically and exclusively sell “superhero insurance” to cover damages from the League (and anyone who happens to appear to oppose them). Since the League has done minimal physical damage so far, Riva has been able to capitalize on people’s worry and do very well for herself. She now owns a mid-size building directly across the street from the Obelisk, which she considers to be the perfect location for her business.
The Residential Quarter: Probably the oldest district in Forester’s Bay, this is where most of the locals who make lower than a six-figure salary live, where the schools are located, and where tourists are usually discouraged from going. Tree-lined streets are populated with small, comfortable houses, the occasional mid-grade apartment complex, and the odd small park or playground. The locals have a complicated relationship with visitors and tourists; most of them depend on tourism for their livelihood, but they are naturally suspicious of all the people wandering into and out of town and prefer to be left alone to their own lives. This feeling has only intensified once the dome came down and the visitors became trapped in there with them. The Residential District takes up almost the entire west section of the town, bordered by Manitou forest to the north and west. the Main Drag is to the east, separated from the Residential Quarter by a long stretch of manicured parkland called Forester’s Park. As you travel southwards, the houses become steadily more run-down and ragged, ending up with the dirt-cheap Steelhome Housing apartments that mark the border between this district and the Industrial Block. Watcher seems to have taken the Residential Quarter as “his” own district in the city; none of the other members of the League have appeared there often, and most of Watcher’s trips from the Obelisk have been to improve the quality of life in the Residential Quarter in some small way. Because of this, the residents here are less antagonistic towards the League than elsewhere, despite the circumstances.
--Most Notable Features: The Residential Quarter, fitting its name, is mostly residences, but there are still a few places that stick out.
School Avenue is a street in the central area of the district, which has James K. Polk Elementary School, Gerald R. Ford Middle School, and Forester High School all down its length, with many of the athletic facilities and outdoor spaces shared between the three schools. Attendance at all three schools is under a thousand total, though if the dome lasts until the school year starts that might change. Also the old police headquarters has been transformed into the
Forest Eyes Neighborhood Watch, a group that came together a few days after the Obelisk appeared to patrol the Residential Quarter’s streets after dark and keep an eye out for trouble. So far, there are no more than rumors about vigilantism from the group.
--Most Notable People: Once again, the Residential Quarter is filled mostly with people trying to go about their daily lives. Still, there are a few notable faces in this district as well.
• Mary Wu heads up the Forest Eyes Neighborhood Watch, buying the old police headquarters and moving in to the second floor. A lifelong resident of Forester’s Bay, Wu has black hair, brown eyes, and a short, muscular build from a lifetime spent as a wilderness guide and a brief stint as a forest ranger as well. She has made it clear that while the Watch would be happy to work with other district civilian watch societies, their primary concern is the Residential Quarter; every other quarter can deal with their own problems.
• Karmen Nichols is the fifth-grade History teacher at James K. Polk Elementary. The young, red-haired teacher did not have much of a presence in the town before the Obelisk came, but a chance encounter with Watcher afterwards pushed her into the spotlight for one simple reason: after a short conversation, she managed to have Watcher declare that no one in the league would harm anyone under 14 years of age. Some people are perplexed and angry that the age is not 18, while others are confused that such a declaration needed to be done at all, but Nichols has so far refused to comment.
The Industrial Block: Before it was a tourist town, Forester’s Bay was a mixture of a logging town and a shipping and manufacturing hub; the Industrial Block is the byproduct of the latter half of that legacy. Consisting mostly of large warehouses, the Industrial block also contains the city’s steel factory, as well as its non-tourist dockyards. Business has slowed considerably since the streamlining of air travel and manufacturing, and any shipping work that could be done was forcibly halted by the dome, leading to a lot of restless workers. The south end of the Industrial block ends abruptly at Manitou Forest, though a few trails lead out from there to the logging camps nearby. To the east is the lake; to the west, the district is bordered partially by the forest and partially by Steelhome Housing, which bleeds into the Residential Quarter. North of the Industrial Block is Pub Alley, a winding series of streets consisting of bars, nightclubs, and pubs that are busier now than ever before. Lockdown has clearly and obviously chosen the Industrial Block as the basis of his operations; his Chain Gang are a felt presence on the streets, and more than a few displaced workers have gravitated to them for money and a job to do.
--Most Notable Features: The most striking feature of the Industrial Block is the
Corwin Steelworks, the steel refining factory at the southeastern edge of the city. Since the dome came down, the factory has steadily run out of work, and now stands silent for the first time in twenty years. The Industrial Block isn’t all warehouses and industry, however;
Garage of the Future is a little display space that regularly showcases upcoming new sculptors and engravers… though its name has gotten it some unfortunate attention in the recent month. There is one more “place” that has gotten some attention, though only the Chain Gang know of its physical location.
Warehouse 616 doesn’t technically exist; the original builders seem to have accidentally skipped the number in their schematics. Despite this, every member of the Chain Gang calls their main meeting place “Warehouse 616”, and that is where Lockdown has his stronghold.
--Most Notable People: Aside from Lockdown himself, there are several people in the Industrial Block who are important to the city itself.
• Linda Corwin is the current owner of Corwin Steelworks, and she is known to be tough on just about everyone she meets. Once the factory shut down, she sent her workers home on three-quarters pay, which was a fairly controversial decision in and of itself. The grey-haired, green-eyed woman has also been public in her derision and dislike of the League, and Lockdown in particular; the fact that he hasn’t meaningfully retaliated yet is something of a surprise to many.
• Daniel Ninad was once a single dockworker out of many, a face in the crowd of Forester’s Bay. Once the dome came down and work dried up, he began to make a name for himself by organizing the workers and pushing for more concessions and more help from the city government during this time, and in the course of this month he became the de facto face of the Industrial Block Worker’s Union. Accusations of collusion with Lockdown have been leveled against him, as well as arguments that he is throwing the city further into chaos in this trying time; he responds that he's working on “one problem at a time. Getting food on the table and a roof over our heads is the first problem, then we can work on the rest.”
• Marius Amato is a Silver Link member of the Chain Gang and the person most focused on recruiting new members. He has gained notoriety mostly by trying to get it, offering lavish rewards to those who sign up for the Gang, seeking out reporters and spinning (obviously untrue, but compelling) stories about Lockdown’s humanitarian plans, and showcasing his own superhuman, regenerative capabilities. Outside of Lockdown himself, if you know about the Chain Gang, you know about Marius.
Manitou Forest: Surrounding the city on every side except for the lake to the east, the Manitou Forest looms dark and forbidding within the dome. Once, there were two main thoroughfares into Forester’s Bay from the west and the south, and several smaller roads and trails passing through Manitou Forest, as well as several logging camps, forest lodges, and campsites. Now, most of the roads have been retaken by unnaturally fast plant growth, the main thoroughfares are pitted and difficult to drive on from invasive roots, and many of the lodges and campsites have been lost entirely into the encroaching wilderness. This is Manchineel’s territory; she haunts the woods along with her Menagerie, and her Saplings travel through it, reporting everything back to their mistress.
--Most Notable Features: Besides, the brooding ,dark majesty of the woods itself, one outlier in the Manitou Forest is the
Rudolph Logging Camp, the only camp of its kind that is still in regular production. Rudolph Logging Camp had a practice of replanting 1-to-1 for the trees it cut down, which explains its small size and possibly why it still remains operational. For more natural wonders in the forest, locals and visitors used to go to see
Agnelli’s Bluff, a cliff of bare white rock situated inside a small, gentle depression in the ground that makes the cliff seem much higher than it is anywhere else in the forest. Rock climbers found the sheer face and oddly exaggerated height an interesting challenge. Finally, for some strange reason, the winding road from Forester’s Bay to the infamous
Camp Bubble Brook has remained suspiciously untouched by new growth of vegetation. The camp, closed for a year after an incident where half of its campers and counselors simply vanished, is still talked about in Forester’s Bay, though recent events have obviously eclipsed it in the rumor mill. Those few brave souls that went down the road to look report that the camp itself is in pristine condition, with no major new growths there either.
--Most Notable People: Most of Manitou Forest belongs to Manchineel and her Menagerie, but there are still a few people here and there who can brave its depths.
• Ntombi Peters is a retired psychologist, a lifelong hiker, a regular volunteer for Yellowstone National Park, and one of the visitors trapped in Forester’s Bay after the dome came down. She’s also the only person so far who’s actually welcomed in Manitou Forest, and has twice managed to talk Manchineel into a milder punishment for “despoilers”. Many people don’t trust her because of her outsider status and seemingly close relationship with Manchineel, but she is cautiously accepted because she is so far the only person who has ever had a conversation with the self-proclaimed forest spirit that didn’t end in involuntary mutation or toxins hanging in the air.
• Olivia Wade is the foreman for Rudolph Logging Camp. For the first three weeks after the Obelisk appeared, she resisted efforts to lay off any of her workers, but in the last week she was forced to fire one quarter of her staff. The next day, the perimeter between the logging camp and the untamed forest shrunk by roughly one quarter. Since then, she’s been focusing her people on re-planting trees to follow the company policy (and keep Manchineel happy), but her superiors are already putting pressure on her again to begin felling trees once more.
• Abel is Manchineel’s first “beast” in her Menagerie, an unknown man who has been mutated into some sort of demoniac goat or sheep. He seems to have more autonomy than the rest of Manchineel’s creation, often appearing on his own in parts of the Forest while Manchineel is seen elsewhere. Abel is able to understand speech but seems incapable of it himself, and the reports about him vary wildly; some people say that he is much more merciful than Manchineel and often lets wanderers go, some say that he even helps lead people out of the woods, and yet others say that Abel is a cruel monster and the cause of most woods disappearances. So far, only Abel can tell.
The World Outside Forester’s Bay
The best reaction that the world at large can be said as having to the situation taking place in Forester’s Bay is “bewilderment.” Forester’s Bay is a small resort city in northern Michigan; it has no strategic, historic, or cultural significance that anyone can think of. Why was it chosen as the target for Watcher and his plans? The best anyone can come up with is that it has some sort of future significance, but such an idea is impossible to test or verify.
The outside world’s confusion doesn’t mean that nothing has been done, of course. Several attempts of escalating ferocity were made to bring down the barrier; all failures, so far. The U.S. Government has so far restrained itself from any sort of truly destructive option, due to the severely low probability of success as well as Forester’s Bay’s central location in the U.S. and close proximity to Canada, which creates its own pressures. Hints of superpowered emergence had been appearing roughly three months before Watcher and the Obelisk arrived, and the government has suddenly been forced to take these rumors seriously and consider what to do about them, which further complicates matters. A semi-permanent Army base has been established next to the main highway leading into Forester’s Bay, with all soldiers on high alert for any chance to cross the dome; at the moment, until a new option presents itself or the situation grows desperate, that is all that the U.S. Government is able to do.
Other world governments have taken notice of this, of course; the Internet still works in Forester’s Bay, and so the League of the Future was worldwide news almost immediately. For the most part, this means that these governments are now aware of the fact that “superpowers” are actually a possibility, and are beginning to think about what that means. Ambassadors to Watcher specifically have come to Michigan attempting to talk with the man from the future, but he has graciously turned every one of them down. “I’m not here for that,” he says at least once in each discussion. After the month, the governments seem to have more-or-less decided that the dome is the problem of the U.S., and have turned to consider what to do about possible superpowers—while keeping a close eye in case there is a sudden change.
Finally, many in the public outside of Forester’s Bay have begun treating the dome itself as something of a tourist attraction; how often do you see a real, live force-field, after all? Others venture to Forester’s Bay on the random chance that their presence is important to the man from the future. If he chose a tiny city to appear, they seem to reason, why couldn’t he choose a random person too?
Re: [M&M 3e] Defying the Future OOC
What Pokemon am I?Originally Posted by Xefas:
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