Welcome to Halcyon City
Content based on MASKS, from Magpie Games.
I GM’d my first MASKS campaign for a lovely group. I wrote all my content myself and took only the name of the city from the game developers. While I cut my teeth on Dungeons & Dragons, MASKS rapidly became my favorite tabletop — not only because it has superheroes. The innovative use of Labels instead of traditional stats and greater orientation around storytelling makes the game flexible to create within, fun to play, and easy to learn.
Below, I link a short story I threw together to hook my players before we started playing. Many of the names — and the original inspiration — are from Michael Carroll’s New Heroes series.
Short (Back)Story
📄 Extinguished Legacies — a quick story I wrote to set the scene.
Halcyon City
Halcyon City is the suggested name from the game book, but I’ve made it my own. The map above is of the city; below is a brief description of each labelled neighborhood.
The Docks. Once overrun with villains (importing doomsday devices by boat is easier than by land), the area has been revitalized and is now a commercial hub. Extremely walkable — cars aren’t allowed within 3 blocks of the shore — many former villains’ lairs have become popular establishments that reify the city’s storied past. Nero’s Hive is one of the region’s most popular clubs, drawing in patrons from as far away as NYC.
Q Square. City Hall and most large corporate offices are here (think lower Manhattan). Gets its name from the massive plaza to the right of it — festivals, street vendors, street art, imagine the Zócalo but colder.
The Point. Halcyon City’s largest park. The further half is large sand dunes — years ago, an earth-manipulating hero piled up the sand dunes to 60-foot heights, perfect for sand sledding. The city sells cheap disk sleds to visitors, or you can bring your own.
Riviera. The nicest part of the city. Citizens frequently call the river “the moat” because it walls off Riviera from the city beneath it. Gentle hills slope up away from the coast, and sprawling mansions and estates grace them. Many former heroes have residences here. The neighborhood has a private security force paid for by the world’s most extreme HOA.
Old Town. The historic city center. The colonial past is only visible in how narrow all the streets are. Never tamed by the city, getting lost in the web of alleys is all too easy. The corner where Old Town meets The Docks is the current home of City Command, which itself has a large plaza.
McIntyre Heights. The border of this neighborhood is a steep bluff, dropping over 150 feet to the Old Town below after a battle in the ’50s split Old Town in two. Given the excessive height, it makes sense that it would have even more tall buildings. The second-wealthiest neighborhood and also the newest. Because of how flat the surrounding area is, the views from McIntyre Heights go for miles. From the highest buildings, you can see the entire state of Delaware.
Million Park. The largest and least defined of the boroughs. Million Park quickly gives way to the suburbs beyond the city. Most of the research and industry of the city is headquartered here, innocuously nestled between row houses, slums, and gleaming condos. Since the disappearance of allos, most of the population growth has been here.
For more towns outside Halcyon City, refer to real-world Delaware. Place Halcyon City around Slaughter Beach.
Halcyon Herald
Check out this newspaper I made for my players. Free web tools are great.