Corsair Point is the single wealthiest burrough in Port Fontaine. Home to the .1% of society, Corsair Point is a walled community that has isolated itself from the rest of the city since it’s founding. Originally settled by Lord Frederick Highgarden, Corsair Point was the Highgarden estate until around the American Revolution. Frederick’s children, George and Amelia were active revolutionaries and when the war began, George was taken prisoner by Tory forces.
Quick thinking by Amelia’s friends in the Revolution managed to free George before his execution, but Frederick was killed by a British officer shortly after for hiding the escaped prisoner. Highgarden burned, but the children escaped. Both participated in activities that helped the revolution, and were rewarded with their ancestral lands being returned to them after the war. Amelia Highgarden married Jacques Fontaine after the war, and it’s his name that the city bears, though a few extreme traditionalists still refer to it as Highgarden.
The Fontaines and the Highgardens worked together to grow the city, to welcome new blood and capital into it, and to expand their reach. Other wealthy families would find their way to Corsair Point over the next fifty years until it had expanded to a wealthy collective of a dozen different families. Mercantile and political power allowed them to influence the growth of the city around them, and they kept amassing wealth and power as time wore on.
Modern Times
The wealth and influence of Corsair Point has grown over the decades, and by the dawn of the 21st century, they are astonishingly powerful. Individual families have generations of accumulated wealth to call upon, and collectively they have an extraordinary range of power to call upon to resolve a situation. These are not people with superpowers (in most cases), but rather have all the advantages of a system they built to take care of themselves.
Most of the families avoid looking outward at the city itself. The appearance of super powered individuals (starting with the mutant population in the 1940s) forced their attention outward. Only a few gave a serious thought to the potential disruption that these powered people could cause to society. The rest figured that this would be another problem they could solve with their checkbooks.
Yggdrasil changed that perspective forever. George Highgarden the 5th awoke one morning to a frightening sight. His skin had turned green, and he was changing, internally and externally. Unbeknownst to the entire family, George was a Mutant. He spent the next two years getting the best medical attention that his family’s impressive wealth could provide, but there was no cure.
George was taken in the middle of the night to New Hyperia, dropped off at a Mutant community center, and forgotten by the rest of the family. He was removed from the family accounts, the estate, and he had officially been killed in a plane crash two months earlier. His family had disowned him for the sin of being a Mutant. More incidents like this would happen up until the 1990s.
The Corsair Point community despises the idea of changing the status quo. They are old money, with all the affluence and political power that entails. There are some who look out over the rest of Port Fontaine and want to extend their influence over the city again. Others prefer to try and use their wealth to “improve” the city around them. Some just want to watch what happens when things go awry in the larger city.
Secrets
Corsair Point is full of secrets and other mysteries. Rumors of secret societies, social clubs, and mysterious goings on populate the burrough. There are a half dozen gossip sites, amateur conspiracy theorists, and other mystery solvers that are constantly trying to unravel the mysteries that surround Corsair Point like the wall that encircles it.
There are rumors of secret ways in and out of Corsair Point beyond the security gate, but no one has ever verified these. Secret tunnels, an entire subterranean network connecting the estates, and even a secret airfield have all done their passes on the rumor mill. There are no mass transit hubs within the burrough, and the closest one is at the intersection of Corsair Street and Ulton (where Corsair abuts Franklin and Dexton Reach).
There are an inordinate number of social clubs, societies, and other social functions that dominate polite society in Corsair Point. There are supposedly hidden meanings in each of these, and for every public club, there’s a secret society in the background. Rumored of secret meetings, sacrifices, drunken revels and a host of other darker stories circulate around the rumor mill. The veracity of these claims has never been substantiated, but they have never gone away.
Points of Interest
Highgarden Estate
Highgarden is the original estate of the Highgarden family. Founded before the American Revolution, it is still at the center of the Corsair Point community. It’s scions have led the city, served the federal government, and in a couple of cases have run for President. The Highgardens have always been the public face of Corsair Point, and do a fair job of keeping the attention on themselves. The estate itself is an ancient manor house, full of elegant opulence and the trappings of old money.
Trainor Gala Hall
The largest private theater in the city, the Gala Hall is the center of culture in Corsair Point. It regularly hosts private performances of Ballet, Opera, and Orchestra. It also has a small art gallery attached and has served as the site of several very exclusive charity functions over the years. It can be a maze of corridors, rooms and hard to navigate passageways with a well trained security staff.
The Gates
There is a single road leading in and out of Corsair Point. The main security gate that closes this road is a massive black metal construct that is staffed twenty four hours a day and monitored by an offsite security firm. The gates are only ever opened when someone has official business with people inside, or when someone inside is leaving to take care of business elsewhere in the city.
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