Dark Astoria Backstory

I'd love to see Dark Astoria be revamped but with a twist: set it in the 1940s, give it a "film noir" feeling and make the fog come and go on random cycles. Something to scare the bejeezus out of the players.

Wow, everyone. Thanks for all the input!

Dark Astoria's buildings don't look older than the mid-70's, and might even be early 80's. I would think if Astoria went dark then, then some of the signs on the stores, and on the theater would be from around that era...but I can understand if they didn't want to make extra graphics for that when they made the zone, and haven't done much with the zone since.

If the Cyclic idea were to pan out, and it went dark in 1953...then say, after 25-30 years until the heroes manage to clean it out again. That'd make it 1978-1983. That would give approximately 20 years for people to move back into Astoria before the Rikti invade. After that, whatever heroes were keeping the place 'light' would be gone, and possibly whatever stopgaps had been put into place to contain Lughebu and the Banished Pantheon's antics could have been destroyed too, making a 'redarkening' likely.

This also works with a multidimensional aspect too...If the boundaries between realities were thinner in Dark Astoria, then mirrored Astorias might overlap and 'bleed over' their badness. It also means that in other realities Astoria could have gone dark anytime, and multiple people have different memories of the event that are also actual events even if they are contradictory.

So I could write my background, and give Deadwing fragmented memories from the 90's. I could set the birth of the character 15 years before the Rikti invasion (Deadwing was sacrificially murdered in Astoria at the age of 15).

I'd still rather not write something then have people complain about it's 'inaccuracy'. Maybe I just shouldn't even care about that and write the backstory anyway. I even have an apartment in Astoria picked out that was her room (north side of map, across the street from the thin, non-hilly section across from Moth Cemetary; Third floor up directly over the mexican food restaurant, not the skyscraper; her room was on the top floor of her building)

I think there's a thread in the forums for posting Origin stories and backgrounds and stuff?
Anyone interested in reading Deadwing Lullabye's?


@kawaii-te
player of Deadwing Lullabye, Virtue

Dark Astoria's exploration badges from Issues 6 and, particularly, 19 added a lot of atmosphere, even if they didn't clarify the zone's conflicting lore.

it clearly isn't ALWAYS dark there. You know, like.. when theres a server bug.

Example:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/inxanad...ream/lightbox/

I would have difficulty with anything other than "Astoria Goes Dark, Heroes Restore It, 50 Years Later Rikti Invade, Restored Astoria Goes Dark Again."

After one bout of Darkness that the heroes dispel, folks might venture back if they had ties to the area and it had not been dark TOO long. After a decade or two of peace, the Darkness would be viewed as a one-time run of bad luck, like a natural disaster, and there would be no impediment to living there with it gone. Consider that in our present state of affairs in DA, even once the Darkness is dispelled again, very few folks will likely ever venture back to a place that went dark, came out, then went dark again and featured a festive massacre of the inhabitants. I know I wouldn't!

If the zone had gone dark several times in the history of the city, my take is that hardly anyone would have been living there at the time of the Rikti invasion.

The only possibility is if Astoria was completely inhabited in 2002 by graduates of Buffy's high school. (Why on God's Green Earth anyone other than Buffy would ever return to a school that had regular vampire sightings and attacks is beyond me. ) So if the zone is populated solely with Buffy Alumni, then I guess multiple darknesses are possible. Otherwise, it is just too contrary to human nature for me.