Setting - Freistatt, Minnesota

Freistatt, a thriving and bustling metropolitan community in Minnesota, was originally founded in the late 1800's on the southwest side of a three-river convergence. Over the centuries the town grew and spread to all side of the convergence and currently has a population 3.5 million. Despite this large population, the city is quite compact. An easy one-half to one hour drive will have you in more rural environments. As is typical of a lot of large cities, it is made of various suburbs that have been incorporated over time.

*DISCLAIMER: Geographic note, this city is loosely based on the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, and surrounding suburbs.

The North Star State, The Land of 10,000 lakes, and The Gopher State (named for the state university mascot, not an over abundanced of burrowing pests) are all names for the state of Minnesota. The people are nice and value community. Firmly trained into people is the idea of "You before myself" and "Minnesota Nice".

However, beneath the surface of every gentle lake runs a deeper, darker current. For the most part the general population has been able to carry on their blissful ignorance. But how long will that last? Those in the know, those that keep wands, talons, and fangs on the beat of the things have felt a left a change in the current. While they choose to protect themselves, the regular joes, or will they side with whatever is slowly rising.

USA - The Past

President Obama served his last term in office, and the election of 2016 was contentious. A tightly run race between Douglas Malone, a former reality TV star, and Joann Hurst was decided in a debate and final count over Minnesota and Michigan, debates over their use of Rank Choice Voting, with a ruling by the Supreme Court. This gave the election to Joann Hurst, our first female president, with less than 1% margin in both states.

This began a split between Democrats and Republicans, and their bases especially. As a result of this close decision, several liberal states moved to enact ranked choice voting, and conservative state legislatures banning it outright. The new president fought to prevent the practice, but unfortunately Congress didn’t have enough members to act at the time.

Then in 2017, Covid-19 hit. The 19th variant of a coronavirus ran wild within months through the world population. It wasn’t massively fatal, but those stricken with it were affected for months afterwards. The President fell ill for over 14 months, and the vice president, Kris Sheppard, passed away one month into the president’s convalescence. Unfortunately, this led to the Speaker of the House, Nick Richards, of the conservative party, to take charge. During their tenure as acting president, several changes occurred.

First, the death of two Supreme Court justices and their subsequent replacement by the temporary president angered many on both sides of the aisle with how quickly they were rammed through. The disease imbalanced Congress, changing on a week by week basis. State legislatures, already upset over the electoral vote, began several distinct new rulings, dividing further along ideological lines. Several pushed lawsuits through the new Supreme Court, including attacks on civil liberties. The propaganda machine began attacks on liberal versus conservative states, with rhetoric high and state borders becoming semi-militarized to counteract influence.

The final straw came when Roe v. Wade was overturned - the newly conservative Supreme Court enacting this shortly before the return of the President Hurst in 2019. Liberal states revolted, passing laws protecting as many rights as possible, enshrining them into state law with trigger conditions that would hold no matter what federal rulings came about. This included medicines, religion, and civil rights. Conversely, emboldened by their surprise power party, conservative states passed new laws forbidding certain treatments, restrictions on gays, muslims, and immigrants, and empowering faith leaders and law enforcement to act with impunity.

President Hurst returned to a country on edge with itself. Upon her resumption of power she began laying groundwork for restoration of rights at federal levels, which had a popular push, but legislative restrictions. It was a stalemate until, as part of the investigation into sterility and health impacts of Covid-19 that a male contraceptive was found as a derivative of the vaccines for the virus. A simple implant, it promised to be a counteraction to the conservative bans on female birth control, abortion, and other rights. The president signed legislation making it a federal right and rammed it through with a single vote majority during a week when enough liberal lawmakers were in power. This led to federal funding for Planned Parenthood, free birth control from federal facilities, establishment of federal implant sites with subsidized implanting for those that wished it, and advertising everywhere it could be bought from billboards on the road to ads on the radio and pop ups on popular internet websites.

Conservative states were angry. The combined anger towards the loss of power, the new male birth control implant and its support, and the virus vaccines led to an even tighter race in 2020. As the virus began to wind down, the President Hurst found herself barely winning again, and working to bring the states together.

Unfortunately the damage was done. Economies were a mess due to state by state variant laws. Conservative states, fighting vaccines and immigration policies, formed checkpoints on major roads in and out of their lands and enacted travel bans. Medical facilities were often picketed and uniformed police would ‘check’ those who came to get service. Liberal lands became haven areas promising work and support, and setting up ‘underground railroad’ services for those wishing to move, or to provide access to medicine, abortion, birth control, and travel. This worked well on the coasts where states banded together, in a few cases isolating conservative states, but in the midwest, the reverse happened. States like Illinois became internal battlegrounds between large cities and rural countrysides. Others, like Minnesota, became blue islands in a sea of red.

Minnesota in particular became highly isolated from the rest of the country. Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas enacted strict travel bans, especially Wisconsin with its proximity to the very liberal Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Highways such as I94 and I35 became checkpoint controls, and several bridges were shut down entirely across the Mississippi, St. Croix, and Red Rivers. The airport was taken over by national guard to ensure safe passage and travel of planes under federal order, which raised internal tensions. With the new borders, food and manufacturing materials had difficulty flowing into the state. It was only due to the export of medical devices from manufacturers in Minnesota such as Medtronic and 3M, and raw resources from the Iron Range in northern Minnesota, that kept them afloat.

While the President worked on reuniting the nation, states like Minnesota were left to fend on their own. The governor, acting with a fully liberal state legislature, enacted safe haven policies. This also meant trade equality. Coordinating with the Canadians, an unofficial pipeline of supplies from Thunder Bay formed down through Duluth and to the Twin Cities, where a new rail project began in 2021 to ferry supplies from the northern border down to the city. Additionally, towns on the rivers such as Lake City, Winona, Waterton, and Taylor’s Falls with Wisconsin became major smuggling routes at night across the river - of people coming in, of medications and other items out. Fargo-Moorehead enacted a full wall to prevent traversal and the bridge was blown up in a terrorist incident, with North Dakota and Minnesota blaming each other. And conservatives living in further reaches of the state sometimes harass shipments and delay their arrival, causing anger in the liberal cities at the lack of resources.

In 2023, supplies were scarce in the city - rationing hasn’t been implemented, but shelves are often bare of foodstuffs or processed goods like toilet paper, but electronics abound. Medical care was provided, but beds are still heavily impacted by waves of Covid 19. And now, a new election is beginning, and the rhetoric is high and tempers on a knife point. It’s not an easy time to live in a blue island isolated from your support networks.

In 2024 in hope of restoring moral in the tough times, the state house and senate rallied around a plan to change the name of the twin city, Minneapolis and St. Paul, under one united banner. Freistatt became the new name of the joined city. Representing the "free state" that Minnesota had become.

Between 2025-2033 Everett Lancaster and Jaime Barnes held the seat of US President and Vice President. Their terms in office were mired down in the muck of states rights and ideologies. They managed to keep things on an even keel. The Supreme Court saw several cases involving hospitals and patient rights when a patient's state of origin tried to enforce laws upon them for going out of state for medical services. Ultimately, the court ruled that the Hippocratic Oath all doctors are required to take, was on the same level with religious oaths. Hospital systems that held campuses in multiple states a bit more freedom in giving proper treatment to patients but it also meant certain states stopped supporting those systems that didn't comply with state laws.

Freistatt Present

Minnesota has settled into a certain ebb and flow with the current state of affairs. Checkpoints are still in place at the various borders and at the airport. The community has banded together to support each other.

SURF-MN established in 2024 is to this day the state's largest open secret, an organized "underground railroad". Originally volunteers would offer up their couch or spare room to those sneaking into the state for medical help. Today it helps everyone wanting to live in a free state, with getting their state ID, a job, and all needed documents. This can be particularly tricky if the originating state refuses to send someone copies of birth certificates, marriage certificates and other legal documents. Many times, immigrating into Freistatt means leaving everything behind, including familial ties.

Several of the states more wealthy residents bought up old farmland and are repurposing it into acres of green houses so that crops can be grown through the bitterly cold winters. This too, isn't without its hardship and difficulties, especially in the winter when skies may be overcast for weeks or months at a time. This can make getting the greenhouses warm enough to support crops. However, necessity is the mother of invention, and several advances in ecological heat retention have been made.

(Have something to add, pitch it to staff in-game)

The Future

The future of the USA and Freistatt is unwritten and uncertain. A majority of the population is desperate for a savior, often looking to wrong people for leadership. Who will stand up? Who will make a ripple in their life, and how far will that ripple reach?

What does change smell like? Courage, bravery, hope, resilience, understanding, ambition, love. Be bold. Be change.

---

Supernatural Point of View

See appropriate Sphere landing pages.
Mage
Mortal
Shifter
Bygones
Demon

Laws

All laws players are use to in the RL United States apply to this segment of the game. Where laws would differ between States, differ to Minnesota state laws.

Law enforcement consists of city police for the city proper, and Sheriffs for the more rural areas. If it not unusual to see Sheriffs in the city, especially around the government centers.

Gun Laws

IC weapons laws are a reflection of the laws in Minnesota in real life.

A permit is required to carry a firearm in public.
A background check is required at the time of purchase.
A permit is required to purchase a firearm.
A firearm must be transported unloaded and in a secured gun case in a vehicle.
- headache racks in vehicles is not allowed.
At home, a firearm must be kept unloaded and locked up in a cabinet, safe, gun vault or storage case.
No one may carry a firearm in a private airplane unless it is unloaded and in a closed case or closed baggage area.

If you are convicted of a felony crime of violence, you permanently loose your right to possess firearms and ammunition.

It is a felony to sell or possess the following items:
silencers, machine guns, short-barreled shotguns, machine gun conversion kits, or trigger activators.

It is a gross misdemeanor for anyone to buy, sell or assemble
"Saturday Night Specials" pistol. This is defined as a pistol made from any
material having a melting point of less than 1,000 degrees Fahreneheit, any
material with an upper tensile strength less than 55,000 pounds pre square inch,
or any powdered metal with a density less than 7.5 grams per cubic centimeter.

Private detectives, bodyguards, etc that carry a weapon as part of their
employment must satisfactorily complete training in the safe use of firearms.

Each discharge of a firearm by a security guard in the course of their employment
must be reported to the locl sheriff or chief of police.

All health professionals must immediately report to local police or sheriff any
gunshot wound they are required to treat or bandage.

Government

State Government

Freistat is the state capital, as such is houses both the state and city government systems.
State government consists the following:

• Legislative Branch - Responsibilities: Enact and revise laws at the state level
  • House of Representatives - 134 members (two from each district)
  • Senate - 67 members (1 from each district)
  • Legislative Commissions
• Executive Branch
  • State Auditor
    • Attorney General
  • Governor
    • State Departments and Agencies
  • Lieutenant Governor
    • Secretary of State (also answers to Governor)
• Judicial Branch
  • Supreme Court
  • Court of Appeals
  • District Court

Freistatt City Government

Board of Estimate and Taxation

• Mayor
  • Office of Community Safety
  • Office of Public Service
  • Office of City Attorney
• City Council
  • Office of City Attorney
  • Office of City Clerk
  • Office of City Auditor
• Park & Recreation Board
  • Office of City Auditor

Mayor: Gregg Merritt
City Council
Ellis Troy (46F)	Mick Snyders (35M)	Tevin Barr (25M)	Walter Oaklynn (69M)
Liberty Smythe(37F)	Syd Woodward (50M)	Vivian Beck (30F)	Zola Bishop (40F)
Jason Newman (55M)	Scott Paulson (33M)	Georgie Woolf (29F)	Chelle Taton (42F)
Francis Boyce (65F)

Maps

• Freistatt Map - highway overview map
• Freistatt Downtown Map
• White Elk Map
• Pine Springs Map
• Waterton Map
• North Falls Map
• Birchwood Map

--- More to be written.