The Unowned City

The Unowned City is a post-cyberpunk metropolis that rejected corporate ownership without promising utopia. Survival systems are public, power is procedural, and inequality survives in subtler forms. Housing, healthcare, transit, and data belong to everyone—yet influence, access, and belief still decide outcomes. The City works. It just remembers every compromise.

The Unowned City is not a dystopia and not a utopia. This setting assumes that survival is guaranteed, but meaning is not. Characters are not rebels by default—they are participants in a functioning system with flaws, loopholes, and memory. There are no megacorporations, no alignment-based morality, and no predetermined “correct” ideology. Player agency matters. The City reacts slowly, bureaucratically, and persistently to choices. Power exists without ownership, and influence often looks like access rather than wealth. This world is built for character-driven stories, political tension, and lived-in cyberpunk—where people matter more than skylines.