An intro­duc­tion to the world of Newsies & Bootblacks

© Joyce Anne Martin

Fore­word

It’s some year between 1890 and 1910, some­where south of New York and north of Vir­ginia lies the state and city of New Paris. This very first line drafts the spirit of this arti­cle; New Paris City is not and will not ever be defined. It’s yours to develop, explore and live. I know there are many who pre­fer to have every­thing set up for them, and they are lucky because there are many excel­lent set­tings for them to choose.

I believe in the power of sug­ges­tion. Every work of fic­tion sug­gests: from Beowulf through Oliver Twist to the last best­seller, an author kin­dle the spark of imag­i­na­tion that resides in the read­ers. It is them who fin­ish his work, ever new with each gen­er­a­tion and per­son. A nar­ra­tive game, such as this, should do exactly that. My role as author is merely to pro­vide the essen­tial mate­ri­als the game mas­ter needs to, in turn, spark the story in the imag­i­na­tions of gam­ing group who — pay atten­tion — help him to cre­ate the adven­ture, to unfold the world and to build a bet­ter setting.

Who am I to fet­ter all that in words of stone?

A bit of history

New Paris began its life as a French set­tle­ment in the mouth of the River Onhat­tan. Iso­lated from other French pos­s­e­sions, too close to Vir­ginia, it was promptly taken by the British, despite its mag­nif­i­cent defenses. Since then it has shared the fate of what it would become the United States of America.

New Paris was be spared the worst of the Civil War, with only a few skir­mishes fought inside its bor­ders, and since then it has grown rapidly, to rival the likes of Chicago or New York

A bit of technology

New Paris, as the rest of the nation, is expe­ri­enc­ing a period of tech­no­log­i­cal progress. Though, this come in dif­fer­ent speeds: the wealthy take it faster, the poor slowler. The first auto­mo­biles run along­side mule-drawn carts and while a few man­sions can sport the nov­elty of elec­tric light bulbs, most peo­ple resort to petrol lights. Pocket watches exist as a lux­ury item while most peo­ple resort to the church bells or the town­hall clock to keep track of time. Steam­ers have taken their place as ships of the line and transan­latic traders, but sails are still a com­mon sight in every harbor.

The com­mon peo­ple is fas­ci­nated and fright­ened by all this new techonol­ogy and the changes it’s bring­ing. Sci­ence seems have no lim­its; and who knows what some sci­en­tist could be doing some­where: steam-mans?, fly­ing machines?, ships that could reach the Moon?, Mars?, Jupiter?, the far stars? Can elec­tric­ity bring back the death to life? Or is the world to die through the negli­cence of some too enthu­si­as­tic doctor?

New Paris and its precints.

New Paris is divided into six rough areas as seen on the map: Royal Island, Inner Expanses, West­ern Gate, Outer Expanses, Con­cor­dia and the Decree Slums. Royal Island is a mod­ernist dream: the place of the wealthy and the learned, filled with gaudy build­ings, fash­ion­able parks, libraries and muse­ums. The seat of the New Paris Gov­er­ment is there, along with the main offices of the largest and more con­ser­v­a­tive cor­po­ra­tions. A few news­boys are born into this place, the unfor­tu­nate chil­dren of a too trust­ing young maid and a bold young heir, or that’s what the prune ladies say.

In any case, the Inner Expanses is the nat­ural birth­place of the inde­pen­dent young boy. This, pre­vi­ously afflu­ent area, is now home to man­sions turned into tenen­ment build­ings by ever divid­ing its inte­rior into smaller and smaller one-room home. Every­thing, from cook­ing to sleep­ing and wash­ing must be done there.

West­ern Gate has risen to become the home of a new class of entre­pe­uners. The New Paris Stock Exchange is located there, along with the most impor­tant News­pa­pers and lawyers. Money is the blood of West­ern Gate and its heart is always pump­ing. There is not a day or hour in which you can not find some­one work­ing in a new business.

A sea of fac­to­ries and ware­houses, of smoke and rushed traf­fic, that’s the first impres­sion a vis­i­tor gets from the Outer Expanses. And yet the new, and most impor­tant har­bor of the city is there as there are more than a few rows of tall yet dirty and squalid appart­ment build­ings. Many fac­tory work­ers only walk as far as to their job, and back to their appart­ment, with lit­tle hope but sav­ing so their chil­dren can have a chance. Many die long before.

Con­cor­dia lies south of the River Onhat­tan. Nice, ordered, clean, Con­cor­dia is much more mixed and var­ied than any of the other areas of the city. Con­cor­dians con­sider them­selves tol­er­ant, hard-working, lovers of inno­va­tion and change. Not all change is always wel­comed, like the tra­di­tional small shops fac­ing a tougher and tougher com­pe­ti­tion from the depart­ment stores. Shop­ping and small work­shops aside, the other major income of Con­cor­dia is recre­ation, in which the New Paris beach plays a large role. Though lim­ited to the Sum­mer sea­son, the beach and its prom­e­nade attracts crowds of vaca­tion­ers of every sta­tion in life.

And then we have Decree, locked between the sea and and the New Paris dump. Once, they were the home of the wealth­i­est, until the Great Plague of New Paris changed all that. Aban­doned in days, it took years for the home­less, the poor, the crim­i­nal and the des­per­ate to slowly fill it. Years after years, New Paris for­got about Decree, refer­ing to it as if a coun­try beyond the sea . Soon, street fights turned into wars among gangs which has never ended. This is a den of poverty, sick­ness and crime. Vio­lence is ram­part and rumor has it, that some of their chil­dren, end up as slaves in some exotic cor­ner of Earth. The news­boys, boot­blacks and oth­ers who run from this place often keep their ori­gins to them­selves and make a point of not ever returning.

The News­boy Lodge

New Paris may be rich, but that’s not the case of every of its inhab­i­tants. Located poverty, bank­rup­tucies, immi­gra­tion and sick­ness has put many chil­dren to the streets, home­less and with no adult to care for them. They are just a minor­ity of the major­ity of chil­dren who work, at least part time, in every trade. But these have no place to call home, nobody to guide them, and lit­tle earn­ings to rent even a squalid room in the Inner Expanses. It’s no won­der many of them ended dead or in reform schools.

The mem­bers of the New Paris Soci­ety for Chil­dren Aid, see­ing the need, pooled their money to buy an old manor home, near the News­pa­per houses, and set it to house the news­boys. The boys –and girls– can have for a small pay­ment room and board, a place to play and hang out, con­sult with adult vol­un­teers and, for a lit­tle extra, attend a night school.

It should be noted that, despite its, name, every­body younger than 16, with no crim­i­nal record is wel­comed there.

A few ran­dom facts about New Paris

1. Hal­loween is not a big tra­di­tion in New Paris, but kids don’t seem to notice.
2. It is com­mon to see chil­dren younger than 15 walk­ing bare­foot almost anywhere.
3. It is com­mon to see peo­ple fully clothed to hat and coat walk­ing on the sands of the beach.
4. Most peo­ple rise up at 5:00 AM.
5. In the Inner Expanses, West­ern Gate and the Outer Expanses, all chil­dren are wel­comed in any pub­lic place to buy what­ever they can pay.
6. Chil­dren of any age can be clients of a bank with lit­tle restric­tions, no mat­ter how small the deposit. Many news­boys, ped­dlers and boot­blacks hold sav­ing accounts.
7. The New Paris sew­ers is a world in itself, with secret pas­sages and cham­bers and, some say, hid­den treasures.
8. Rumor has it that… New Paris has a hoard of urban leg­ends, a few of which are actu­ally true.
9. New Paris is the home of the Utopian Party, a technophile move­ment which wants to change the world, though into what is still hotly debated.
10. The New Paris Ele­vated Train com­pany has, in fact, a under­ground lines.
11. The New Paris beach does extend into the inner expanses, yet its waters are con­t­a­m­i­nated with the trash of the ships and only a few dare­devil poor kids swim there.
12. Out­side of Royal Island, West­ern Gate and Con­cor­dia, many streets are still unpaved, either because they never were or because the pave­ment has been lit­er­ally stolen as build­ing mate­ri­als –like in the Inner Expanses.

Note

This intro­duc­tion is to appear, once it’s edited, on the primer, and it’s only a glimpse of the infor­ma­tion avail­able in the main set­ting book.