Buckner Ridge, TN

Far from the cosmopolitan hustle and bustle of places like Freedom City, the sleepy town of Buckner Ridge lies nestled in the mountains of Tennessee. Founded as a mining town in 1892, Buckner Ridge grew up along with the local coal-mining industry. It experienced a boom in growth until the Great Depression, which started a long, slow decline. Even the temporary reprieve of the Second World War putting miners back to work did not last, and by the 1990s, Buckner Ridge was becoming a virtual ghost town.
That’s when American Security Concerns (ASC) Corporation came to town and proposed what has become known as “the Mountain,” a privately-funded super-max prison designed to hold super-powered inmates, and address the growing need for such facilities in the United States, ideally away from large urban areas (unlike Blackstone Federal Penitentiary near Freedom City). The construction project alone brought jobs and money into town, and now the Buckner Ridge Penitentiary—nicknamed “Lockdown” by the locals—is the largest employer in the area, and the town’s population has grown to its highest level ever.
What most do not know is that Lockdown and ASC Corporation are fronts for a criminal organization known as The Cartel, which uses the prison as a means to recruit super-criminals as covert operatives and a base from which to deploy them, giving their agents the perfect “alibi” of already being in prison! Of course, Cartel agents (or “trustees”) are well aware that failure on a mission or compromising the Cartel’s secret will lead to their elimination, especially since authorities are inclined to put them right back into the Cartel’s hands by returning “escapees” to the prison.
The Cartel has compromised both the prison staff and Buckner Ridge’s government, although few outside of the prison known about the Cartel or its plans. Buckner Ridge is sufficiently influenced by the stranglehold ASC has over its economy to not ask too many questions or probe too deeply into any unusual activity.

Demographics

Although small, Buckner Ridge needs its civil servants, elected officials, community leaders, and unsung heroes to function properly. Like every suburban Eden, however, the town also has its viper, in the form of a Cartel overseer. Not everyone involved in running the town is outlined, but those with important roles are details are included.

MAYOR ALICIA GRAY

Credited with reviving Buckner Ridge from death’s door, Mayor Gray is enjoying her second term, and hopes to fulfill one more term as the town’s savior.

PUBLIC WORKS DIRECTOR ERNEST O’TOOLE

O’Toole is enjoying the town’s newfound wealth, but is currently overbudget in his enthusiastic campaign to repair sewage, city streets, and public buildings.

WASTE MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR DARIUS VISCONTI

Director Visconti handles Waste Management with no-nonsense efficiency. He will run for mayor once Gray completes her final term (and is no longer competition), though that hasn’t stopped him from pandering for early support and votes.

JUDGE JANN STEINITZ

As one might expect for a town with a major prison located within spitting distance, Buckner Ridge doesn’t have much crime. This leaves a bored Judge Steinitz to mostly handle parking or traffic ticket disputes, with the occasional drunk-and-disorderly incident to spice things up.

FIRE CHIEF REGGIE MCGINLEY

Voted Buckner Ridge’s most eligible bachelor, Reggie McGinley epitomizes the “all-American boy” in looks and in his good-natured attitudes. Why he hasn’t married yet is beyond folks, though that doesn’t stop them from trying to set him up with their daughters or themselves.

MEDICAL EXAMINER FABIAN DEL TORO

Fabian del Toro is a recent arrival in Buckner Ridge, among the first to join the influx of newcomers. He’s also involved with the Cartel, and is in charge of managing an undead creature named Grayve. Any locals proving problematic for the Cartel receive a final visit from Grayve.

PTA HEAD JUANITA ORTIZ

Although Juanita isn’t involved with politics or public office, she still carries enough clout with the community to influence local civil servants and politicians. She’s very much the activist/busybody who noses in on other people’s business under the pretense of “protecting the children.”

Defences

LAW ENFORCEMENT Sheriff Jasper Moulton is the law in Buckner Ridge, and he swaggers with a sense of authority and importance. The Sheriff’s office sits adjacent to Town Hall, and maintains the local jail, but by the way Moulton acts, one would swear he was the only bulwark against the barbarians turning the streets of local cities into warzones. Unfortunately for Buckner Ridge, Sheriff Moulton is part of the invisible problem. While Moulton is a native son, it didn’t take the Cartel long to realize the sheriff was eminently bribable thanks to enough gambling habits and markers to please any two-bit gangster. So, in between padding his pockets and the once-a-year paid weekend in Las Vegas, the Cartel keeps Sheriff Moulton happy and on the lookout for anyone bad-mouthing Lockdown. And Moulton is happy to oblige; he’s found himself an easy ride, as far as he’s concerned, but he has no idea of whom he’s really dealing with.

Industry & Trade

NEW CORNER

Built on what was once the fringe of old Buckner Ridge, New Corner is the modern heart of the new town. The new construction boom is happening in and around the large parcel of land called the New Corner development, as well as the newly built New Corner Mall. The area itself is predominantly residential, with the intersection of Washington and 8th showcasing the town’s newfound prosperity. On one corner rests the 200-store New Corner Shopping Mall; across the street is the new Paradiso Cineplex and upscale booksellers; facing the New Corner are restaurants and a large grocery store, while on the opposite corner to the mall is a gas station and strip mall with a major video chain and smaller restaurants. While New Corner Mall is a little large for the community it supports, Buckner Ridge fully expects to continue growing. It hopes to act as the shopping hub for nearby communities, many of which are within an hour of the town.

Infrastructure

EDUCATION

Until recently, schooling in Buckner Ridge was limited to the public institutions of Ethel B. Hawthorn Elementary and Junior Schools and Joseph Pierson High School. The town’s recent growth, however, has allowed for the construction of Ryerson Academy, a private school catering to Buckner Ridge’s more affluent students. While many students hail from newly arrived families with money from outside jobs, pupils originating from Buckner Ridge have one or both parents who work at Lockdown or in local construction.
Alistair Crawford runs Ryerson Academy with a strict, but fair hand. That doesn’t endear her to any of her students, though frankly, she doesn’t care much for their wellbeing or safety; she merely plays her role well. Crawford is a Cartel plant with a two-part mission. The first is to spy. While parents may be close-mouthed about their secrets and sentiments, teens share that information with peers when away from their home environment. As such, Crawford bugged the academy in all the popular hang-out spots, gleaning pertinent information from her students. She knows who is having affairs with whom, which parent has lucrative business dealings, who remains suspicious of Lockdown, and an assortment of other pieces of dirty laundry. It enables the Cartel to blackmail a select few parents in positions of authority.
Crawford is also using the school as a diversionary tactic and hostage opportunity. When the Academy was built, the Cartel installed explosives in the foundation. Should heroes attack Lockdown, Crawford is to hold the children hostage by threatening to detonate the demolition charges. It’s not a negotiation scheme; it’s a stalling tactic meant to delay the heroes long enough for Cartel members to evacuate Lockdown. Meanwhile, X-8 is supposed to transport Crawford and other valuable agents to safety.

BUCKNER RIDGE GENERAL HOSPITAL

Buckner Ridge General Hospital is being expanded constantly with the growing demand for space from new patients. A recent fund drive netted enough money to institute major repairs on the ailing building. While the exterior is foreboding and aloof with its gothic touches, the interior has been refurbished to elevate the oncedreary décor to something more upbeat, it’s also been updated with new equipment to replace outdated technology. The hospital works closely with Lockdown, it handles patients that require specialized care and sends doctors and interns for weekly visits to the prison. In exchange, Lockdown is sometimes willing to lend the hospital use of its sophisticated equipment for emergency diagnosis of occasional patients, or lend out pharmaceuticals otherwise difficult to find or out of stock at the hospital.

Assets

SMOKEY JOE’S

It’s been relocated several times, under different managements, but for over a century, Buckner Ridge has always had a Smokey Joe’s. From the town’s one road days, Smokey Joe’s has remained the region’s quintessential watering hole. No fancy drinks, just beer. No extravagant menus, just finger foods like nachos and chicken wings. Throw in a juke box, small dance floor, pool tables, and generous helping of smoke, and you have a recipe that hasn’t changed in several decades. Still, Smokey Joe’s is part of the town’s history, and draws its blue collar crowds every Friday and Saturday nights. It’s also the official bar for COs working Lockdown, and sees a steady stream of guards throughout the week looking for a place to unwind or talk shop with their friends.
Smokey Joe’s current proprietor is Desiree Fontana, the first woman to run the establishment in all its history. Desiree can trace her lineage back to seven generations of coal miners, and the first AfricanAmerican family to move to predominantly-Caucasian Buckner Ridge. She’s a blue-collar gal, though reputedly on the wagon after almost losing the business. The patrons love Desiree, who always runs Smokey Joe’s as a “man’s bar.” That means girlie-biker posters decorate the walls and every two months there’s a highly popular wet t-shirt competition.

BULLDOG GYM

Forget the New Corner YMCA or ubiquitous chain-gyms, Bulldog is the place to go for the serious body-builders. With a pro-shop, health bar, and 24-hour access, Bulldog is the best-stocked for free weights. It offers COs a discount for membership, becoming the second favorite hang-out for off-duty prison personnel after Smokey Joe’s.

ELK’S LODGE

The Elk’s Lodge is a thinly disguised boy’s club, with the mostly older members gathering together for the heated pool and sauna, or for poker games and drinks at night. The Elk’s Club offers significant help with charity drives and the members volunteer at the local children’s hospital alongside the Women’s Auxiliary, but it’s mostly a chance for many retirees to get away from the house.

Guilds and Factions

RELIGION

The spiritual heart of Buckner Ridge revolves around the Church of St. Michael and the United Church of St. George, which cater to the Catholic and Protestant communities. Both churches participate heavily in the local community, supporting events from charity drives to bake sales. The Jewish population is too small to warrant a synagogue, though that may change over the next few years, while Muslim residents are practically nonexistent.
Father Regis Wade heads the Church of St. Michael, and represents traditional Catholic values without being overbearing about it. An older man who saw action in Vietnam, Wade appeals to the older parishioners in his church who bear definite blue collar tendencies and conservative leanings. Minister Jesse Baker of the United Church, however, is younger than Wade in both age and temperament. Baker is worldly in his sensibilities and beloved by his equally young, upwardly-mobile congregation. While Wade is likelier to extol the virtues of abstinence, for example, Baker may talk about the merits of safe sex.

History

Before Lockdown and the Cartel, there was the town of Buckner Ridge, and there was coal. Buckner Ridge began as a mining town in 1892, harvesting rich seams of bituminous coal within the mountains. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, coal was the high-in-demand fuel powering the engines of progress; Buckner Ridge thrived, and grew to accommodate the miners and their families. The townsfolk built a church, school, and homes, and slowly over the next two decades, the mining town became a true community.
Buckner Ridge had its share of difficulties, a few of which threatened to destroy the community. The locals, however, were rightfully proud of their reputation for having a “can do” attitude and tenacity. On May 12th 1923, for example, methane and over 2000 tons of coal dust ignited and blew out one of the mines, suffocating six miners and killing another eight in the resulting cave-in. Although this devastated the community, they pulled through and reclaimed the lost mining shafts. Transporting the coal down the mountainside also proved problematic, so the town convinced the local railways to build a costly extension to their community in exchange for exceptional discounts on their highly prized coal. Worse still was the Depression, when coal consumption dropped steadily in favor of petroleum products. Were it not for WWII and the demand for steel manufacturing, of which coal was integral, Buckner Ridge might have faced extinction.
Still, there was an undeniable sense that Buckner Ridge was headed for harder times. After WWII, people preferred oil for heat, the railways abandoned steam powered engines entirely for diesel fuel engines and hydro-electricity gained rapid popularity. With coal consumption at its lowest throughout the 1960s, Buckner Ridge survived through contract mining for Asian markets like Japan. Unfortunately, the expense in shipping coal out to coke manufacturing plants before sending it to Japan for their steel-making industry proved exorbitant. Buckner Ridge couldn’t keep up with larger competitors, who were able to extract coke much more quickly through open pit mining.
By the 1990s, Buckner Ridge was verging on becoming a ghost town, with less than 700 residents in a community that once claimed a population of 3,000. That’s when the town council sought prison contracts as the solution to their problems. That’s when the Americas Security Concerns appeared and offered them the Lockdown contract.
Since Lockdown was built, Buckner Ridge’s population grown and even surpassed 3,000 with a booming economy to match. Many new arrivals are from towns in the region who came here looking for work. Most new arrivals, however, are from nearby cities and states, hoping the rumors of Buckner Ridge vying for a second prison contract in the area holds true. Time will tell whether Buckner Ridge can survive the prison operating in its backyard.

Architecture

THE MAIN

The grime, graffiti, and boarded-up windows are gone and the Main has returned to her former glory. The neo-classic designs of her buildings lend the town a sense of history, while the mom-and-pop shops and retro ‘50s diner speak of a simpler time. While the Main isn’t a huge shopping draw, it brings in steady customers looking for homecraft wares and unique knickknacks unavailable at the New Corner Shopping Mall.
The heart of the Main is an old fashioned town square surrounding Dale Buckner Park and the statue of the town’s founder, after whom the park and town are named. Surrounding the park are the engines of bureaucracy, the government and important community buildings. Town Hall is the throne commanding court over Dale Buckner Park, while to its sides are the Sheriff’s Office, Fire Station 001, the public library and various offices of government. At lunchtime, the big draws are the four area restaurants, of which Sally’s Diner is the most popular.

Geography

The Main, Buckner Ridge’s principle strip, is as old as the town itself. It was the first road in town around which the original saloon, homes, and church were built to handle the fledgling population of miners and, later, their families. Since then, the Main’s grown and expanding, becoming the heart of Buckner Ridge. When the Main outgrew its capacity to house the burgeoning populace, it became the downtown core with its government offices and shops, while the citizens relocated to their new homes in the outlying areas.
The town of Buckner Ridge slowly shrank due to a failing economy, a situation that only recently reversed itself. Now, with money flowing back into the town’s coffers, Buckner Ridge is undergoing a renovation boom to repair the neglected buildings and a construction boom to handle the increasing population.

Type

Town

Characters in Location

• Crimson Justice
• Grayve