Setting Information

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TITAN

It was a sad time for America. The 1920s ended the way they began, with a roar.

The winds of change blew across the country and left broken men in their wake. It was a time to put ideals aside in place of survival; unless you were Joseph Ronan.

Joseph, a business savvy architect and urban planner by trade, single-handed drafted and lobbied Washington for the emergency Titan Act that saved his dream, a dream that kept America alive and working during the hardest years of the depression.

The Titan Act was simple, repeal all levies against his business ventures for 15 years, and Joseph would deposit his entire fortune immediately into the American economy. While outlandish in any other time, the New Deal think tank saw this as an excellent chance to test their theories. So, with a signature and a handshake, the government took a step back to see what Joseph could do. It couldn't be any worse, right?

Joseph's philosophy was simple and fatalistic. He did not believe he would live long enough to see America recover, so he put his dream into motion before the end times. How he knew of his demise, or where it would all end, no one knew. Some say he had cancer, others say he met a medium that foretold his doom, but the honest truth is this. Joseph's obsessive attitude towards business and wealth left him no time for romance or children, and when the Depression hit, he assuredly knew that his death was near. Before his demise, he wanted a legacy, and that legacy was Titan.

The results were astounding. Acting upon years of planning, dreaming, and preparation, with scores of cheap laborers looking for work, Ronan's dream of Titan came to life near the small town of Erie, Pennsylvania (two hours north of Pittsburgh). Originally a small coal and iron mining town surrounded by thousands of acres of wilderness (owned by Joseph of course), Titan was to become unlike any city ever imagined.

In the early days, Titan was almost a country unto itself. Every resource necessary for survival was harvested from the land, or supplied by rail, and the infrastructure came easily enough. Joseph simply ran the construction of Titan with the ruthless and tireless efficiency of a business, which is not strange seeing he had secured all of his wealth into this one monomaniacal project.

The first few years saw little more than digging and surveying, but once the buildings landed, they grew like steel framed weeds. In little time, Titan was less a frontier town, and more a reflection of its brothers, New York and Chicago. But Titan has one thing that separated it from all the rest. Not only was it brimming with the latest technology in transportation and city planning, but it was home to literal giants. Every public building was adorned with titanic effigies of the workers who built the city.

Some of the lesser-known buildings had human sized statues standing guard against the elements, but what really brought the name of Titan to life was Joseph's central structures. Each of the three main bridges was held above the river by Art Deco giants. One Titan carries a bridge on its back, while another bridge has titans standing alongside it electric torches in hand to illuminate the trains and traffic below.

It was as if Titan was home to America's sons, birthed by Lady Liberty herself.

WHERE IS TITAN?

In the setting of Titan, the city of Erie, Pennsylvania (USA) never existed and Titan sprawled into the State-owned lands surrounding that area.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=erie,+pa&hl=en&ll=42.130821,-...

This places Cleveland, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh as the closest neighbors of Titan, directly between Chicago and New York City (both within a day's drive). Shipping and industry are shared with Detroit.

Please note, Titan proper is only considered to be The Canyon, parts of Uptown, and the Docks. Even though they still fall under the Titan umbrella, all other areas listed are to be considered suburbs, protected woodlands, and urban sprawl.

THEMES

This theme of Titans is important for the players and storytellers of the game to understand.

The collosi surrounding Titan are reminders that no matter how rich or poor you are, the city was built by a larger than life dream on the backs of people willing to work. Each colossus represents a vision for the city, and should be a reminder to its citizens of what they were able to accomplish. Today, they stand as guardians for that dream, much as gargoyles frightened off evil spirits in centuries past. To some, the collosi inspire greatness and wonder, and to others (usually those new to the city since its construction), they represent oppression beneath a single leader.

HISTORICAL ACCURACY, YEAH... RIGHT.

Titan is set in a alternate-history universe and is inspired by the dime-store novels of the 1930s, so take everything you read with a grain of salt. For the purpose of telling a good story, historical accuracy will be riding shotgun while dramatic license takes the wheel. The staff will do their best to maintain the feeling of a 1930s setting, but don't expect anything to pass a scholarly examination.

TITAN, THE FIRST PRIVATELY OWNED AMERICAN CITY?

Thanks to a combination of laissez-faire government, a decade of planning, a cheap and available labor force, and an unbelievably exorbitant up-front investment, Joseph Ronan was able to build the first privately-owned American city.

What does this mean?

It means that the Federal and State government of the US holds very little power within the city limits of Titan. All decisions regarding Titan are controlled by Mayor Ronan—more appropriately, CEO Ronan—and a small board of Ronan’s most trusted private investors.

American law still exists within Titan, but law enforcement is privately owned and supplied by the city. All offices connected to the Federal and State government are contained within the city’s Federal Center, including any courts and the post office.

It’s important to note that the city officials are not elected (yet) and they are focused on the big picture of Titan; the advancement of prosperity and technology for public living. Should the city experience growing pains, the public is encouraged to use the services provided by the booming private sector to solve any issues or problems that may arise due to everyday living. This means that legal mediators, contractors, postal messengers, and detectives are just as plentiful as mechanics and dish washers, and that the people of Titan should not rely on “the city” to provide any services that they cannot also attain through private channels.