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{{tropelist}}
* [[Abusive Precursors]]: The Preservers are explicitly noted as being amoral and unempathetic.
* [[Adaptive Armor]]
* [[Affirmative Action Legacy]]: The most recent person to take the name of Johnny Rocket, the setting' premiere NPC speedster, is openly gay.
** The current Star Knight, actually the first Terran-born human to be invited to join the Order of Star Knights, is the American-born daughter of immigrants from Greece and Central America.
* [[
** Both were made/mentored by Daedalus, an Iron Man/Hank Pym expy.
* [[All Your Powers Combined]]: Argo the Ultimate Android (i.e. [[Justice League of America|Amazo]]) has all the powers of the Freedom League. The Meta-Grue (i.e. [[Fantastic Four|Super-Skrull]]) has all the powers of the Atom Family.
* [[Alternate Universe]]: [[After the End|After-Earth]], [[Looney Tunes|Ani-Earth]], [[Mirror Universe|Anti-Earth]], [[Everything Is Better With Monkeys|Earth-Ape]], ''[[Stupid Jetpack Hitler|Erde]]'', Terra-Roma, [[Heroic Fantasy|Verecia]].
* [[Animesque]]: Doc Otaku's android [[Bodyguard Babes]], due to being designed by Doc Otaku, fit this.
* [[Amoral Attorney]]: The law firm of Cabot, Cunningham & Crowley.
* [[An Ice Person]]: Glacier. Madame Zero.
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** [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type IV]]: The current wielder of the Crimson Katana is explicitly described as an anti-hero who fights people much worse than she is, though her situation is complicated by the fact that her father, one of those people, [[Grand Theft Me|routinely hijacks her body.]] The Silencer, as the setting's Punisher analogue, could be this ...
** [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type V]]: ... or possibly this. As another example, Larceny Inc. are straight up criminals, but do as much to oppose [[Ancient Conspiracy|the Labyrinth]] as most heroes.
** [[Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes|Type III]]: Depending on how he's played The Silencer could even potentially be here, as his (unwanted) high position in the mob means his information is pretty reliable on who is actually part of the mob and the possibility of someone being an informant or undercover cop at the ranks he prefers to kill outright is very low.
* [[Badass Abnormal]]: Foreshadow. Magpie. Wildcard.
* [[Badass Normal]]: Orion the Hunter. The Raven (both of 'em).
* [[The Cape (trope)]]: The Centurion. Captain Thunder.
* [[Captain Ethnic]]: The expansion books take care to avoid this with the Atlas of Earth Prime series, but in the main books it's noted that because the United States and Japan (a distant second) are the only two countries with any substantial hero or villain population in the modern day (Europe ''used'' to have a decent number but the World Wars put a big dent in their population, the Nazi super soldiers turned super humans into a symbol of terror and the fall of the Soviet Union meant the end of its super solider programs.). This means many heroes from other countries are going to be seen as this regardless of powers or costumes because there are so few of them. It also notes that while Mexico has few heroes, the tradition of [[Masked Luchador]] ensures public love of masked men who champion the weak, regardless of if they are actually grapple based.
* [[Captain Geographic]]: Britannia. Lady Liberty and Patriot for America. Mad Maple ''thinks'' he's one for Canada.▼
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: Just about all the pre-made characters are derived from either better-known [[Marvel]] and [[DC Comics]] heroes, or heroes from Kurt Busiek's ''[[Astro City]]''.
** Some of the organizations too: AEGIS is essentially S.H.I.E.L.D, right down to their names being synonyms.
▲* [[Captain Geographic]]: Britannia. Lady Liberty and Patriot for America. Mad Maple ''thinks'' he's one for Canada.
* [[City of Adventure]]
* [[Cloning Blues]]: The vast bulwark of SHADOW is comprised of legions of cloned troopers. The general public is aware SHADOW uses clones, taken from the body of the 1930s Nazi star athlete, Holtz Hellman. {{spoiler|They're all really clones of Wilhelm Kantor, Overshadow himself.}}
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* [[Everything's Better with Dinosaurs]]: The Lost World.
* [[Everything Is Better With Monkeys]]: Cosmo the Moon Monkey. Dr. Simian. Earth-Ape
* [[Everything
* [[Evil Counterpart]]: The Tyranny Syndicate, the evil counterpart of the Freedom League. They're from Anti-Earth, an evil counterpart of the main Earth-Prime setting.
* [[Evil Sorcerer]]: Malador the Mystic.
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* [[Hollywood Voodoo]]: The designer wanted the Voodoo ''loa'' to be as important to the Freedom City setting as [[The Mighty Thor|the Norse gods]] are in Marvel and [[Wonder Woman|the Greek gods]] are to DC.
* [[Humanoid Aliens]]: The Farsiders and the Lor. Justified, since they're both descendants of humans taken from Earth millions of years ago.
* [[Interpol Special Agent]]: UNISON, the United Nations International Superhuman Oversight Network
* [[Improbable Aiming Skills]]: Bowman.
* [[The Jailer]]: The Warden.
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* [[Kill It with Fire]]: White Knight.
* [[A Load of Bull]]: Taurus, who gets extra points for being the [[Trope Codifier]] himself. Did we also mention he's a [[Magnificent Bastard]] with a knack for [[Xanatos Speed Chess]]?
* [[Legacy Character]]: Blackbird. Bowman & Arrow. Crimson Katana. Fear-Master. Johnny Rocket. King Cole. Lady Liberty. The Raven. Red Death. Siren. Sky Lord. Star Knight. Trawler. Several of these are [[Generation Xerox]] to avoid [[Comic Book Time]] and [[Death Is Cheap|Revolving Door Afterlife]], though many are stark contrasts of the original.
** Several legacies are also explicitly left open for players to pick up and run with, some of which come complete with power templates to start from.
*** In stark contrast to these however, the Centurion's name is said to be sacred to the hero community and anyone who took the name would be regarded as an imposter, not a successor. The books do however include the option of playing a (supposed) bastard child or clone of his.
** Invoked as a cover for Daedalus who lets the public believe he's the legacy of the 1960's superhero but in fact actually is that hero (he also doesn't mention that he's THE Daedalus)
* [[The Legions of Hell]]: Hellqueen. Mr. Infamy.
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* [[Shock and Awe]]: Bolt. Captain Thunder.
* [[Shout-Out]]: '''Everything'''. Not only are there a ton of [[Alternate Company Equivalent]] s, [[Captain Ersatz]] s, and [[Expy]]s, virtually every location in Freedom City is a loving homages to classic comic book characters and sites.
== [[Shout Outs]] ==
** AEGIS [[Incredibly Lame Pun|is the name of a mythological]] S.H.I.E.L.D.
** Argo the Ultimate Android is an [[Justice League (animation)|Amazo]] expy.
** ASTRO Labs homages [[Astro City]] and DC's STAR Labs.
** The Atom Family is cut from [[My Suit Is Also Super|the same cloth]] as the [[Fantastic Four]], and a dash of [[Power Pack]]. And also a bit of the First Family in [[Astro City]], especially in the sense that this family actually changed and grew over the decades.
** Black Star is [[Green Lantern|Sinestro]], but with the powers of [[Starman (comics)|the Shade]].
** Bowman and Arrow are the [[Green Arrow]] and Speedy homages, down to the drug addiction and [[Nineties Anti-Hero]] era for Arrow.
** Brittania is a [[Excalibur (Comic Book)|Captain Britain]] expy.
** The law firm Cabot, Cunningham & Crowley references Laurie Cabot, Scott Cunningham, and [[Aleister Crowley]], all occult authors.
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** Fear Master (both of them) shares much in common with Batman's foe the Scarecrow, and the original's costume borrows heavily from the [[DCAU|Phantasm]].
** Freedom Eagle owes much to [[The Golden Age of Comic Books|Golden Age]] [[Hawkman]] and [[The Rocketeer (comics)|The Rocketeer]].
** Hiroshima Shadow is an isotope of Radioactive Man (the Marvel one, [[The Simpsons (animation)|not the other one]]).
** The Green Man springs from the same soil as Poison Ivy and Plantman.
** Johnny Rocket is an expy of [[The Flash]]; his name, Johnny Wade, references [[Fantastic Four|Johnny Storm]] and [[Mark Waid]]. His being gay is in homage to [[Alpha Flight|Northstar]], another speedster.
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** The Liberty League was the [[Justice Society of America|WW II-era superheroes team]], while the Freedom League is the Silver Age and Modern era [[Justice League]].
** Master Lee's School of Self Defense is named for two eponymous masters: [[Bruce Lee|Bruce]] and [[Stan Lee|Stan]].
** Mastermind partakes of elements from [[X-Men|Magneto]], [[Justice League (animation)|Vandal Savage]], and [[Alpha Flight|The Master of the World]].
** Medea fills a similar role as [[Wonder Woman|Circe]].
** Megalodon (Connor Kirkstrom) is an expy of [[Spider-Man|the Lizard (Curt Connors)]] and [[Batman|Man-Bat (Kirk Langstrom)]], but he went with [[Everything
** The Meta-Grue is the [[Fantastic Four|Super-Skrull]] expy.
** The Next Gen is very [[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Teen Titans]] -esque. They're students at the [[Chris Claremont|Claremont]] Academy.
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=== The ''Emerald City'' material contains the following tropes ===
* [[Affirmative Action Legacy]]: In a villainous example the new {{spoiler|Commander}} is female. The dialog suggestions for questions asked by the players indicate this is to make the PCs know the new one is not the original {{spoiler|who plays an important part in the module}}.
* [[The Atoner]]/[[Heel Face Turn]]: {{spoiler|Mars, who has gone from being the super villain "Commander" vaguely referenced a few times in older editions to legitimate industrialist}}. Emerald City Knights emphasizes to the GM that, despite his past, he ''is'' a changed man.
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]/[[Villainous Rescue]]: Given as a suggestion to the GM if the players are overwhelmed by final stage of Emerald City Knights.
* [[Big in Japan]]: Despite his career in the west being ruined by accidentally injuring a co-star, Rocky's attempt to resurrect his image in Japan was successful enough he's still fairly popular over there. It helps he's fluent in the language (one of three of the prebuilt Sentinels to be multilingual and the only one to have English as his native language).
* [[Captain Ersatz]]: As usual with the setting, however now lampshaded with an actual character named Ersatz, who has the power to assume the form of an imperfect copy of any hero (In his first appearance via an illustration he takes the form of a fat version of Princess.)
* [[Captain Ethnic]]: While the Freedom City default characters were Captain Ersatz of popular western heroes, most of the sample characters for Emerald City are Captain Ethnics for the western United States. They include a dotcom billionaire, a [[Valley Girl]] college student, a sapient Silicon Valley computer system, a washed up child actor and a Chinese immigrant.
* [[Cute Bruiser]]: Princess pretty much defines this trope.▼
* [[Clark Kenting]]: Princess has this as an actual super power! Anyone she doesn't tell about her identity simply can't make the connection. Note that in the system the ability for the Kryptonians and their Expy the Centurion to do this is just a genre convention, so Princess having this as an outright power is something special. Completely averted by Victor: Despite wearing a domino mask, he doesn't have a secret identity.
* [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]]: Subverted with Xeno, who is a female of her species (actually the hybrid of a female alien and a female human), but looks like a bug like humanoid rather than a beautiful human woman.▼
▲* [[Green-Skinned Space Babe]]:
* [[Hero Antagonist]]: The Cybertribe, a group of cyborgs and [[Digitized Hacker]]s who work as thieves...[[Asshole Victim|against some]] [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|very evil]] people, and only to get the money to repair their mechanical parts-which doubles as a life-support system. Explicitly called out in the overview of Heavy Metal, since if you rupture his [[Power Armor]], it's likely because he's [[Heroic Sacrifice|trying to buy time for the others to escape]].
* [[Instant Win Condition]]: The finale for ''Emerald City Knights'' has {{spoiler|the final boss and his minions are all defeated if the players complete a jammer to disable them}}. The module notes that unless the PCs are REALLY clever, they're not going to win any other way (though stats are provided to try).
* [[Mass Super-Empowering Event]]: The Silver Storm has recently hit the city, with survivors gaining powers. There's an
* [[Playful Hacker]]: Digital Demon, one of the Cybertribe. Leads to a [[Crowning Moment of Funny]] when the report on him is handwritten, with some choice personal comments from the investigator.
* [[Robot Kid]]: [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Kid Robot]]
* [[Samus Is a Girl]]: Two different examples: Both Ultramarine and Xeno are difficult to identify as female unless you read their backgrounds.
* [[West Coast Team]]
{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Freedom City]]
[[Category:Tabletop Games]]
[[Category:Superhero Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Tabletop Games of the 2000s]]
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