MGCYOA IRC Setting doc - Starfall City

Hey there. Oh, don’t run. I see you sitting there, looking lost.  You’re new in town. Not exactly unusual.  The magic thing IS, but you know, that just means I can give you the lowdown all quick-like. Oh, don’t gawp. My third-eye’s wide open, I knew what you were ten minutes ago when you were still staring at the shops all confused.  Are you one of the lost ones? Stepped out of an alley wrong? Chase a monster for a bit too long? Yeah, I thought so. Me? Oh, I’ve been here a long time. I usually go out of my way to try and greet new arrivals. There are worse people you could meet. C’mon, we’ll get some coffee and I’ll give you the lowdown on the city.
    Starfall City is an interesting place.  They say that it was founded because an explorer saw a falling star land on the banks of the river, and took it as a sign. Of course, given what the rest of us know, maybe it wasn’t a falling star. Who knows?
This city is… call it a cosmic low point. We get a lot of you guys, since a lot of… what would you call ‘em? Pitfalls? Unexpected gates? Either way, you travel in ways you don’t expect, and you could end up here. You all roll downhill til you pop out in an alley downtown and stare at the architecture.  Point of the matter is, it’s a pretty big place, and it’s just crawling with magic. Magical people, magical portals, magical objects, and… well, magical beasties and monsters too. We get a lot of it.
Oh, no, none of it is really normal. We have that same little quirk of the low magic folks screaming and running and then forgetting about it later that I’m sure you had in your neck of the woods. Oh, you didn’t? Well, suffice to say that people tend to forget about magic around here. Unless of course, they’re already magical in some way themselves. Like us. .

Locations of interest

The Mall
Officially, it’s the Memorial Lane Mall.  But it’s the biggest mall in the city, so it’s just ‘the Mall’ to most, or Memory Lane if you’re trying to be cute. It used to be a couple different shopping centers built near each other on Memorial Lane - now they’ve all merged together into one super mall. Anything you want to buy, you can get here. Typical department stores and corporate shops in the main halls. The edges and side wings have shops that are more niche, but they tend to cycle pretty quickly. Not all of them are actual shops, if you get my drift. There’s also more than one Overcity entrance there. Make the wrong turn or use the wrong stairwell and you’ll end up in one of the bazaars or malls in the Sprawl  Some of them are useful, most are dangerous.
The most reliable bazaar can be accessed via the green fire escape on the south side, if you walk from the nearest bus stop, get into the stairwell from the hole in the exterior cage, then walk up and pull the door on the third floor. It’s run by a couple of djinn - they’re helpful, but don’t buy anything they push at you when you first walk in.  It’s never worth it.

Harmony Hill Academy
The Academy is on the north side of town, right on the edge, and it’s probably the best place for you to go until you can make alternate arrangements.  I’ll take you there later if you want.  Go in and ask for an application, make sure to fill everything out.  If things look a little weird, remember they’re in the know. If you’ve got any magic, they’re almost guaranteed to accept you, and the applications can tell if you’ve got it. Be a regular schoolkid during the day, learn how to use your magic during the afternoon, maybe fight a monster in the evening.  Gotta follow school rules, but if you don’t have a nifty magic apartment or a place to crash, you’ll be guaranteed 3 squares a day and a bed. Some of the older types can’t fit in as a student, and they can get jobs at the school, but it’s a little dicier as to whether or not they take you on. Usually a pretty good deal.

Sewers
I don’t really recommend these, but some of the girls of the… shall we say less humanlike variety prefer these for the isolation.  There’s a few big storm drains you can find in the canals leading to the river - they’ll take you into the sewers. Don’t get lost - you could end up in some Overcity sewers and never know it. I won’t say that the sewers are monster infested per se, but there’s definitely more than a few less than savory critters down there.  Some of them will talk, some won’t.  I really don’t recommend it, but you might end up having to head there at some point.

Guardia Park
It’s pretty big - You don’t always realize it since there’s a couple roads and the river running through it, but it’s way longer than it is wide. It cuts a swath across the middle of the city, like a giant green slash on the concrete - I’ve heard people complain about how big it is, but nobody in the city has the balls to sell or pave over any part of it. It could be a lack of political will, or maybe they just… forget any plans to do it. I’m not sure if it’s magic or not, but it always sticks around.  Nice place, there’s plenty of paths and places you can get lost. It’s not usually dangerous at night, but I’d still stay away from some of the more sheltered areas. Well, at least in your street clothes, if you know what I’m saying.

Persons of interest
(I've not written this as I feel this is more for the actual IRC crowd to populate.-QB)

Life in the City

Those are the big places - couple of notes about general life around here:

Have you died yet? It’s not pleasant. Might happen anytime now. I’d advise you not to. First time I died and came back, I thought I was invincible. So I let it happen a couple times more. I woke up one day after a dream and realized I couldn’t remember my parent’s faces, if I had any siblings, I didn’t remember where I was born. After I ended up here… well, I guess this is my home now.
Don’t die, or you’ll lose yourself.  Get a team - if someone can bring you back quicker, you won’t lose as much, but… I knew a girl who died and she didn’t come back for a long time. When she did, she didn’t remember much of anything. Not my name, not my face, not what school she went to. She acted more or less the same, but whoever she was? Gone. Don’t let yourself think you’re invincible, because you won’t come back the same.