Paradise City: Building a superhero setting with songs!

[Hermit]

Ok, I was musing on my old Working on New Constantinople Thread about trying a second city building project (Third if you count Super City) on these forums. Good suggestions were made, but somehow (*Points at Enforcer*) the subject of music came up, and I fell into the trap as well and, well, another direction came to my mind.

 

Welcome to Paradise City (location of state undetermined) where "The Grass is Green and the Girls are pretty" , it's a city where you can go from rags to riches, or so they say. Yet that maybe an illusion, there are urchins living under streets, who don't always get enough to eat. Crimes are treated with some severity, at least often normal ones are. Clearly, the city is a confusing patch work...

of SONGS!

 

Yes, there are many neighborhoods, places, and people in this city. And you get to help decide who they are. Paradise City maybe the name, but if you have a song you want to take parts of, then feel free to contribute. Take a song that inspire you setting wise, and quote a line or two of the lyrics to explain what that song will contribute.I ask only that you replace profanity with #$#$# if you quote any lyrics.

 

So if KISS song has inspired you to make a church in this town, a Johnny Cash Tune has you pondering an entire neighborhood, or a STYX one has you thinking of an interesting NPC idea, this is the place to mention it. We'll see what building by musical committee reveals.

 

For your troubles you get... well, nothing, but it still might be fun.

[Enforcer84]

All my rocker hero characters can live here!

[Enforcer84]

Sentimental Street from Night Ranger?

 

 

[Greywind]

That's pretty close to the Heartbreak Hotel, isn't it?

[csyphrett]

macklemore's thrift shop is for gently used clothes and appliances.

CES

[death tribble]

There is also Heartache Avenue.

 

But honestly did we build this city on Rock and Roll ?

 

And does the dawn vreak over a building known as The House of the Rising Sun ?

[Zen Archer]

For NPCs on the other side of the tracks, I'd go to Desolation Row.

[Hermit]

Sentimental Street from Night Ranger?

Sure, let's see how we can twist the lyrics around.

Sentimental Street - A street known for its partying hard ways, and the trouble you can get into during it. It's considered one of THE spots for a night life. You can dance at Madame Wong Two, or dine at Conte Razor's Cafe. At least one heroine, a former sidekick, has crafted her secret ID into a party girl image. Her mentor is worried she's getting too caught up in a self destructive role. The young vigilante parties in the evening, then stalks the streets at night getting into some pretty intense street fights. But she's only mortal, and if the hits don't wear her down, a life of increasing vice just might.

 

That's pretty close to the Heartbreak Hotel' date=' isn't it?[/quote']

 

Heartbreak Hotel - At the corner of Sentimental and Lonely streets, you can find a rundown hotel. While quite busy, it's also quite immense so it can usually dig up a room for you. Heartbreak Hotel may not be its official name, it may have changed names several times. However, it is worth noting that those who have experienced heartbreak often find themselves drawn here. Rather than recovering, they seem to fall deeper and deeper into their loss and depression. That is not just a coincidence. The owner and manager of the hotel is a psychic vampire. He thrives on the negative energy released in sorrow, amplifies it, and feeds again. Sometimes he goes out as a full blooded villain by the name of Sad Eyes wearing a mask of exaggerated expression but nice as it is to feed on superheroes, his hotel in his secret ID is a more 'certain' meal. If the police have noticed the number of suicides here, they haven't made any official mention of it.

 

macklemore's thrift shop is for gently used clothes and appliances.

 

Macklemore's Thrift Shop It seems like any other thrift shop where you can get out of fashion hats for a buck, or an honest to god zoot suit for a handful of dollars, but Macklemore is much more than that. If a hero gets their costume torn or worse, destroyed, there's a good chance Mackelmore can hook you up with a temporary fix. He collected, and still collects, superhero and villain costumes. While some aren't made of the same materials as yesteryear, others are QUITE strong and last better than the modern stuff. A few superheroes just starting have costume that look a bit like older ones. That's thanks to Macklemore.

 

[Ternaugh]

Let's go down to the Sunset Grill

Watch the working girls go by

Watch the basket people walk around and mumble

Stare out at the auburn sky

[Hermit]

There is also Heartache Avenue. But honestly did we build this city on Rock and Roll ? And does the dawn vreak over a building known as The House of the Rising Sun ?

 

The House of the Rising Sun - Done in a style meant to emulate the French Quarter of old New Orleans, the House of the Rising Sun is a notorious brothel and gambling house that has ruined many a man's personal economies, or for that matter lives, for generations. You can learn a lot here though. The place lingers because poor men and rich alike frequent, and the latter use their influence to protect it from official notice or at least enforcement. A retired superhero often frequents here. Some snicker that he's in debt to the owners, others say he's fallen in love with one of the working gals and is trying to get her to go legit, or maybe he just finds comfort in her arms. Despite being middle aged, the man once known as "The Animal" is still a bestial bad ass you don't want to tangle with, so most folks only dare joke BEHIND his back.

 

For NPCs on the other side of the tracks' date=' I'd go to Desolation Row.[/quote']

 

So many options,I'll go with what I see as an easy one. In case it needs to be said, I'm doing these more as examples of what I meant about taking the song and extrapolating from it, so feel free to make your own attempts, all of you

 

Commissioner Hiddenberg - The local police Commissioner was a good man once who took his slightly too low salary for honest work on behalf of the city with pride. Now, he has more than one employer and they pay in perks both tawdry and alarming. He frequents more than one brothel for free, and few know he's on the take from a crime lord. He often keeps superheroes busy with reports in other areas, when drug shipments and the like come to town. As one fellow commented "He's been paid to be blind so long, he ain't never gonna get his sight back."

 

 

 

 

[Hermit]

Let's go down to the Sunset Grill Watch the working girls go by Watch the basket people walk around and mumble Stare out at the auburn sky

 

The Sunset Grill- This diner is not in a nice part of town, in fact, you can't help but notice a lot of troubled people walking by as you stare outside its west facing large windows. Still, while the owner, a Slavic gent by the name of Piotr, seems jaded, he at least treats everyone equally. He seems to have an uncanny gift for knowing your name. Of course, the secret is, that's part of his power. Piotr is a low level telepath (Though it is hard for even some mentalists to realize they're being lightly scanned) who escaped from PSI when the organization was in its infancy. He put his knack for knowing what folks want to work in an honest method, but there's just so many folks he can't help , so he's feeling a bit jaded. Should his secret ever be found out by a superhero, they may find him a surprisingly good info source on both old Soviet Psychic programs and PSI itself.

 

 

 

[steriaca]

Humm...got to think this out...

 

Where The Streets Have No Name. Prehaps a shantie town near the city proper, or an abandoned part of town near Desolation Row (or, prehaps a part of town where kids are always stealing the street name signs).

[steriaca]

Other ideals...

 

Major Tom

Alice's Resteraunt

My Nightmare (as in Welcome To My Nightmare by Alice Cooper)

Voices Carry

Jack And Diane

Surfergate City

[Hermit]

It was Nov 4, 1969...

"This is Major Tom to ground control..."

"The stars look very different" and indeed, they seemed to be expanding. Communications were getting garbled. Major Tom managed a "Tell my wife I love her..."

Ground Control called back, almost desperately "Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong, can you hear me Major Tom?"

 

But that was the last Major Tom was heard from, though some musicians made much of his tragic disappearance.

 

They didn't know the half of it. Years later, a figure landed in Paradise City without a vehicle. Though human in shape, his skin was the color of the night sky, and you could see the constellations moving under it. His eyes glowed like twin moons. But he did not remember who he was, or much of anything else. He found a grave site with a woman's name on it. She had died but a year ago. And then stopped searching into his past entirely.

 

Seeming to have the abilities of a living star, the being could project gravity, heat, or light easily. Having nothing better to call himself, he took the name a reporter had dubbed him. He was the Oddity.

 

And he protects Paradise City to this day as one of its most mysterious superheroes.

 

 

[steriaca]

Great job on Oddity. I'm shur one of his rouges is named Aladin Sain.

[assault]

As AC/DC told us, it's a long way to the shop if you want a sausage roll.

 

Apparently, there aren't a lot of neighbourhood bakeries.

[ghost-angel]

We can stop at Tom's Diner for some coffee and people watching. (Though, good luck getting more than a half a cup until you're a regular there.)

 

Careful in the park of Cypress Grove, if the women catch ya there you don't go home, their leader drives a jacked-up Ford with a big bloodhound riding in the back (sometimes it looks like it might a razorback boar...).

 

And in the Cold Part Of Town, someone is waiting by the phone....

 

If you go through all the right Avenues And Alleyways you might find yourself at Rockaway Beach, or the Temple Of Love.

 

Most likely though, you'll just end up another lost soul on Detonation Boulevard.

[BNakagawa]

Don't even get me started on Hotel California...

[Lucius]

 

It's a church, or used to be. They say the man who lives there now sleeps with voodoo dolls.

And there are ghosts in the halls.

He's building something in there now, but what? It's a mystery.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Yes I'm working, building a palindromedary

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Greywind]

Electric Avenue

Williams Avenue

[Clonus]

A cocaine snorting shrinker...

 

Tiny Teddy couldn't make into Mexico

 

Doubled down gambled all the money up his nose

 

 

 

More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/h/headstones/

 

 

 

[Greywind]

Sounds kinda like Shakey Davey.

 

http://www.metrolyrics.com/manhattan-lyrics-bob-seger.html

[Lucius]

 

We all know what you find on 7th Avenue.

But I declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there.

 

The company of strangers is found in the quiet railway station, and in the poorer quarters, where the ragged people go, there are places only to be found with a Streetwise or Survival:Urban roll, or a Luck roll.

 

In the clearing of course stands a boxer.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary says we should just post a link to the Song Based Character thread

 

 

 

 

[csyphrett]

 

The Book of Love is a shop full of flowers and heart shaped boxes and things were all too young to know but MG Fields, the owner, loves it when you get these things, and sometimes she will give away wedding rings.

CES

 

[death tribble]

I'm including artists as well so people can look at them on Youtube if they so wish and so that they know that the songs exist. British taste and American not coinciding at times

 

I also thought of the Temple of Love by Sisters of Mercy.

 

But there is also Dead End Street by The Kinks. Maybe also Waterloo Sunset but that might be too London specific

 

Our House by Madness is another idea.

 

Last Resort by Papa Roach

 

Ace of Spades by Motorhead. Good name for a biker hangout or a bar.

 

Church of the Poisoned Mind by Culture Club.

 

Tower of Strength by the Mission. This is about a person but makes an interesting building name.

 

Road to Hell by Chris Rea. Not necessarily a road.

 

This Old House by Shakin' Stevens and others.

 

Grand Hotel by Procul Harum. This can be sarcastic and applied to a flea pit.

 

Spirit of Radio by Rush. Either the name of a radio station or a radio shop.