The World
The world is weird. Let's just go ahead and get that out of the way.
Like, for a moment, let's completely discard the non-euclidean architecture, the various magic academies and the ancient evil buried beneath Clockside. Let's ignore the yetis, the cities of ice, and the propeller-powered airships of Bitern. I once stared into what I'm pretty sure was literally a gate to hell, but I don't like to talk about it. One thing at a time.
Let's just focus on Unanimous Gear.
Like, for a moment, let's completely discard the non-euclidean architecture, the various magic academies and the ancient evil buried beneath Clockside. Let's ignore the yetis, the cities of ice, and the propeller-powered airships of Bitern. I once stared into what I'm pretty sure was literally a gate to hell, but I don't like to talk about it. One thing at a time.
Let's just focus on Unanimous Gear.
Unanimous Gear
Unanimous Gear is the brain of the world. In a startlingly brief period of time it's risen up as a pinnacle of scientific achievement. Disease, eliminated. Cloning, mastered. The human mind, decoded. Robots, built and ready. The rest of the world was still struggling with how guns work, and Unanimous Gear was already reverse engineering the human genome. There's problems with rushing ahead too quickly, though--you never really stop and take a look around. The end of conventional disease paved the way for new, bizarre strands of superviruses. As biological engineering became easier to do and information became easier to spread, more and more did we see the rise of mad scientist types baking Frankensteins in their basements. We pushed the brain too far, and now "regular" folks live in fear of psychic juggernauts. Don't get me started on the robots.
It's not all bad, though. We've got fast cars, readily available entertainment and a coffee shop every couple of steps it feels like. Television has more channels than I can count, digital popstars are the hip new fad, and people are living longer lives than ever before (despite the occasional zombie attack, alien invasion, or giant monster stampeding through town). If anything, we're living too long. Living in the middle of the island is like being packed into a sardine can. More and more people are pushing toward the coasts, causing the cost of living there (and the cost of tourism) to skyrocket. We've even started building our towns on the islands off on the horizon there, all for lack of room. Not a risk I'd want to take myself, mind you--the age of reason hasn't extinguished the age of piracy quite yet, and I don't think the sea monsters and whatnot much care for our fancy guns.
And, with Unanimous Gear apparently being one of the more comfortable spots in the world, we're seeing more and more foreigners. Elves. Talking animals. Time travelers. I can barely keep up with the local breed of weirdo, man, I don't need everyone else's flavor of strange rolling into my neighborhood. I might have said this already, but... the world is weird.
It's not all bad, though. We've got fast cars, readily available entertainment and a coffee shop every couple of steps it feels like. Television has more channels than I can count, digital popstars are the hip new fad, and people are living longer lives than ever before (despite the occasional zombie attack, alien invasion, or giant monster stampeding through town). If anything, we're living too long. Living in the middle of the island is like being packed into a sardine can. More and more people are pushing toward the coasts, causing the cost of living there (and the cost of tourism) to skyrocket. We've even started building our towns on the islands off on the horizon there, all for lack of room. Not a risk I'd want to take myself, mind you--the age of reason hasn't extinguished the age of piracy quite yet, and I don't think the sea monsters and whatnot much care for our fancy guns.
And, with Unanimous Gear apparently being one of the more comfortable spots in the world, we're seeing more and more foreigners. Elves. Talking animals. Time travelers. I can barely keep up with the local breed of weirdo, man, I don't need everyone else's flavor of strange rolling into my neighborhood. I might have said this already, but... the world is weird.
Key Locations
33rd Prefecture: Neon-lit gambling district. Probably not the only prefecture where gambling is legal, but easily the most well known. Features the Montuno and the Red Sunset, two major casinos where shady deals are known to occur.
49th Prefecture: Archaic looking residential area, mostly inhabited by well-to-do family types in older homes. The wealth of its retired residents have managed to keep out the strong arm of progress, so even the smaller, less fortunate neighborhoods in the 49th have avoided getting swapped out for shopping malls or parking lots. Rarely notable, save for when one of the rich eccentric types does something especially rich and/or eccentric.
Atlantis: Ancient sub-sea civilization with technology at least on par with Unanimous Gear's, if not greater. The sunken city sunk itself even further with multiple simultaneous apocalypses, never to be heard from again (except when it is).
Dream World, The: Quasi-real metadimension running parallel to Unanimous Gear's location. Once a tranquil place, the world was consumed by some mysterious darkness which corrupted its residents and shattered the peace. Survivors of the corruption sometimes spill into our world, for better or worse.
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OrganizationsAlesandre-kai: A wealthy criminal organization not unlike the modern day Yakuza. Despite their criminal dealings, they have a solid respect in the public opinion and fight tooth and nail to keep that image preserved. It's hard to say how far their influence extends.
Avalon Motors: Mechatech company that totes the cutting edge, even when pushing the envelope and really innovating doesn't necessarily make money. After the failure of the Caliber battle mech, the company went bankrupt and has since been bought out by Mechana le Fay.
Blackwell Corporation: A major company in Unanimous Gear, previously caught up in a scandal or two. Who hasn't? Illegal weapons research, unethical dealings with artificial intelligence technology... but supposedly, those days are gone, and Blackwell Co is back on the straight and narrow. Supposedly.
Kaiju Countermeasures Bureau: Unanimous Gear scientists dabbling in Kaiju research and experimental weaponry. Sound wisdom, even if their defensive measures sometimes do more damage than they prevent. The public at large don't take exceptionally well to them.
Myriad, The: A criminal organization and rivals to the Alesandre-kai. What they lack in money, resources and public backing they more than make up for in numbers and intensity, often recruiting teens off the street and indoctrinating them to be Myriad thugs. In certain neighborhoods, the Myriad members actually outnumber the non-Myriad.
Peace Force: One of the more notable military police arms in Unanimous Gear. They're decently equipped but lack initiative, typically needing to wade through red tape to get any major tasks started. It's because the government keeps them on such a short leash that the government also endorses them so heavily, and the Peace Force is now a household name.
Star Children: Alien children incubated within the heart of a star, granting them special powers. These 20ft tall glowing supermen then wander the universe, righting wrongs and cleaning up cosmic messes. Sometimes something goes wrong with the incubation process, and you get sort of tall / sort of glowy supermen instead. Or monsters. Hopefully not monsters, though.
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