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Hudson City - a metropolis with 6 million citizens located on the New Jersey shore – was founded in 1803 by Emil Hudson, a wealthy merchant, and Andre LeMastre, an expatriate Frenchman. Hudson had recruited LeMastre, who had received some training in architecture, to help him find the best location for a city. After deciding on a site at the mouth of the Stewart River, the merchant purchased the land from the government and the architect started to sketch out a basic plan, which consisted of a broad grid of streets to be built along the northern side of the river.
Less than a year later, the first families settled in Hudsonburg. The city survived the War of 1812 and was renamed Hudson City in 1823. The Civil War only slowed its growth, while manufacturers and early industrialists were able to increase the size of their operations. In 1867, Hudson City groaned under a series of riots after a group of white supremacists called the White Riders descended on “Freetown” – a shantytown established by black slaves who had come to the North looking for work. It took the city a while to settle down, but the growing Industrial Revolution forced business owners to employ more minorities, as more workers were needed to keep the factories running.
1895 was marked by a great fire, which left 75 percent of the city in ashes. Still, the Hudsonites seized the opportunity to redraw the city map, often building new buildings over the ruins left behind by the fire. Even now, remains of cellars, basements and sewers are still found regularly by construction workers. By 1913, the newly-formed Hudson City Rapid Transit Company had a working subway system in place, alongside aboveground commuter rail systems.
Even though the new prosperity carried over into the 1920s and ‘30s, the Mafia managed to establish a foothold in Hudson City during the Prohibition. With crime on the rise, the first costumed crimefighter appeared. Raven, who was always dressed in black, claimed to have mystic powers of foresight, and he, his female companion Velvet Phantom, and his pet raven Cagliostro inspired others to become vigilantes. After the government negotiated a deal with the Mafia to keep the docks functioning during the Second World War, crime levels dropped drastically and the city prospered. It expanded, fully absorbing outlying communities, and it wasn’t until the Sixties that costumed crimefighters appeared again.
Crime continued to rise on through the Seventies. In the Eighties and Nineties, cheap cocaine and (eventually) crack became available and the situation became even worse. More vigilantes started to appear on the streets. The Harbringer of Justice quickly became one of the most popular crimefighters after destroying an illegal casino run by the master criminal Card Shark and killing all eleven people running the place.
Hudson City didn’t only gasp for breath because of street crime, however. In 1987, Police Commissioner Michael Gentry had to step down after the FBI revealed he had taken bribes from defence attorneys to lose or corrupt evidence. Several other scandals were uncovered during the following years, but Hudson City doesn’t seem to have lost its appeal. It is still nicknamed the Pearl City and hundreds of people still migrate to the city every day. These days, crime isn’t the only obstacle Hudsonites have to face, however. A lot of people have become unemployed because of the changing nature of the modern economy. Local politics are marked by conflict between the city government and the unions. The maintenance of the infrastructure has reached an all-time low. This is a great city, but it is also a city wrought with many, many dangers. This is a city of adventure.
Hudson City As a Campaign Setting
Hudson City has been designed as a sourcebook for Dark Champions, a Hero System (Fifth Edition) setting. However, it can just as easily fit in Pulp Hero. In fact, the Thrilling Places supplement even describes several locations in this city. Still, most of the information is geared towards a campaign set in 2004 or a little later, even though the street maps haven’t changed all that much since the Twenties and Thirties.
Hudson City is a fictional place. Author Steven S. Long claims to have been inspired by cities he has spent time in, such as New York City, San Fransisco, Atlanta, Phoenix, Washington, D.C. and Milwaukee. Out of all of these, Hudson City seems to mirror New York City most closely, even down to some of the politics and the city map. Still, this place stands on its own and inside of the 278 pages, roleplayers will find a city that looks and feels ‘real’. On top of that, only pages 222 – 270 have a lot of crunch in them. Here, some of the major NPC’s get their write-ups, but even in this section, a lot of flavour text can be found. This means Hudson City can be used as a setting for most modern RPG’s, especially those with a dark and gritty feel to them. Crunch is mostly confined to the sidebars, with Steven S. Long taking great pains to make the city as believable as he can.
The Lay of the Land
After the introduction and history, we get about 85 pages of geographical information. Long goes into quite a big of detail, going as far as to explain which streets are called Avenues and which ones are called Streets. He covers the topography, the underground, utilities and transportation (the city has three airports with a fourth one being built and the trains can travel on the subway tracks as well as on the elevated train tracks) before dedicating several pages to each neighbourhood and the suburbs. Each section has an introductory quote (never great literature, but is does add some flavour to the rest of the description), several paragraphs on the history of that part of the city, and so on. Interesting factions or NPC’s are often included, as well as an excellent detail map and sidebar notes on things someone who passes through the neighbourhood might see. Mint Ridge, for example, has “the smell of a mint leaf crushed between the fingers”, “the music, costumes, dancing, and food at the Greek Festival”, “the trees of LeMastre Park off to the east, turning colours in early autumn” and “the façade of the Odeon Theater”. This helps Game Masters identify and relate to a neighbourhood very quickly and gives them something they can use to set the proper tone while describing the surroundings to their players. This certainly isn’t the most interesting section to read, but it certainly is very, very useful.
Conflict, Conflict & More Conflict
In the chapters A Day in the Life, The Long Arm of the Law and Predators, Long provides more conflict than a Game Master can ever put in his campaign. What’s more, the conflict is often very believable and easy to relate to. For example, Long not only presents the way the government works and most major players (including a full write-up of Mayor Graydon T. Umstead, as well as notes on the Deputy Mayors, notable City Councilmenn, City Commissions and some important movers & shakers), but he also makes sure there’s some interesting political action going on. Mayor Umstead has upset the unions because he has curbed their power and is up for a second re-election in 2006. He’s a Republican, but he has to deal with a strong Democratic presence. Also, most of the crime syndicates and families either distrust, dislike or even hate one another, and there’s quite a lot of corruption on many different kinds of levels.
Long covers just about everything there is to cover, with annual events, local slang, television, radio stations, newspapers, amusement parks, cultural events and the fine arts, museums, the music scene, restaurants, sports, the academic world (as well as the business, espionage, martial, medical, military, mystic, religious, science and technology and social world), the Hudson Police Department, Federal law enforcement, the courts and corrections, the fire department, vigilantes and organized crime (including the Mafia, Chinese tongs, Hispanic organized crime, Russian organized crime, Vietnamese gangs, the Yakuza, outlaw biker gangs, street gangs and posses) and costumed criminals all getting their own headers.
Six hot spots (such as Collins Guns and Military Surplus and the Skyline Club) are included, as well as advice on gamemastering Hudson City and NPC write-ups. There’s even section on secrets only the GM should know, with the paragraphs referring to earlier pages. Some of the information here is pretty exciting, allowing GM’s to dream up many plot seeds.
Hudson City has no super powered beings, and even though some NPC’s (such as Card Shark) are very gimmicky or have near-superhuman abilities (Cainite), they could almost just as well exist in real life. The author warns against allowing superpowers several times because they might ruin the feel of the city, but it should be pretty easy to drop low-level superheroes in Hudson City. This critic has done just that, and it worked like a charm. In our campaign, we dropped one ‘hero’ from another official Hero Games setting into Hudson City after being caught in a multidimensional rift. We stripped him of most of his powers and populated the campaign with PC’s sponsored by the Harbringer of Justice – mostly military characters, but one of the PC’s also has minor telepathic powers and most characters also have super-skills. As long as the GM keeps tight reign on the setting, disallows flashy powers and doesn’t hand out too many experience points, the feel of the city should be preserved (as Long correctly points out himself).
Final Notes
Hudson City isn’t a boxed set filled with full-colour sourcebooks and nice-looking, big maps, and it probably never will be. It hasn’t the visual flair of Mongoose’s Conan or Babylon 5 products and it isn’t as detailed as Monte Cook’s fantasy city is. However, Hudson City is a believable city with three-dimensional citizens and information about almost every single important aspect. The detail – interesting read balance is excellent, as so much is covered without getting boring. There isn’t too much information and neither is there too little. This, the excellent black & white maps and only one or two illustration fumbles make for an excellent city sourcebook. GM’s will be equipped to base entire campaigns in Hudson City thanks to this supplement, although having the Dark Champions book as well is certainly advised if one wants to use this as a Hero setting. Don’t expect jaw-dropping events, epic encounters, or miraculous interventions. This city is designed as a street-level setting and that’s exactly what it is. Highly recommended.
Dirk Vandereyken
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