Using Hudson City in Day After Ragnarok?

[Steve]

I recently acquired "The Day After Ragnarok" and was considering how to integrate Hudson City into it. I'd likely have to relocate it westward somewhere.

 

Does anyone have any suggestions for how Hudson City might fit into this world setting, or how it might be affected by the Serpentfall?

[Kharis2000]

Re: Using Hudson City in Day After Ragnarok?

 

Given that the most significant supernaturally-oriented crimefighter in Hudson City - the Raven - used a raven as a familiar, you might be able to do something with linking that to Odin's ravens. Maybe the Raven only has one eye now? And two ravens? Maybe his girlfriend/partner, the Jade Phantom is dead and returned as a Valkyrie (she was a blonde after all)?

[Kharis2000]

Re: Using Hudson City in Day After Ragnarok?

 

After thinking it over last night, further suggestions follow:

 

Fitting it into the setting shouldn't be that difficult - it's designed to be able to be shifted if needed, so most of the historical material can be used with a few dates shifted or a name changed to protect the guilty (as it were). By moving it to the western half of the country, you could, in fact, simply use the entire modern-day map of the city as the older version without a need to trim it off on the edges, since west coast cities have tended to sprawl out more than east coast ones. You'd want to tone down the higher-tech references, but that shouldn't be too hard. (as compared to figuring out what parts of the city aren't actually there and altering a map to fit those alterations)

 

You'd likely see more henchmen with actual combat experience, based on the fact that so many men served in the war prior to the interruption of Ragnarok. (Even without Ragnarok, it's an explanation I've used in pulp era games to explain why the heroic adventurer died out in the 50's - they *literally* died out, because more and more 'faceless minions' hit the street with several years of hard-won combat experience, weapons handling skills, and access to the flood of post-war military hardware, significantly altering the balance of power.)

 

The supernatural would obviously play more of a part than in a normal Hudson City setting, since, you know, there's this big 'ol serpent lying on top of France and making it kinda hard to deny and all. I'd assume more cults, and more mundane criminal use of magic (or attempts to make people think it was present), as well as a more open acknowledgment and acceptance on the part of the man on the street that it existed. Probably more cults and the like all over the place.

 

As far as where to physically relocate Hudson City goes, keeping it roughly on the same latitude would place it somewhere in Northern California. I'd actually suggest moving it a bit further north, because even in Northern California it's overshadowed by the larger Los Angeles and San Francisco, and placing it in Oregon. A look at the coast for places where a piece of coastline close enough to the map of HC exists suggests that you could place it at/near the locations of real-world Tillamook, in Willapa Bay, or in Gray's Harbor. All three locations would allow you to use the map as is by simply changing the current map's East-to-West orientation to a North-to-South and placing HC on the northern edge of one of the bays listed. Seattle and Portland would be the nearest major cities, and maintain a similar (but actually further) separation as NYC and other large cities do to HC in it's original east coast location. That distance would support the extensive docks and expansion of the city to the modern-era's size in the 30's and 40's.

 

Other alterations don't require geographic juggling so much as things like noting that the turn-of-the-century fire could have been spurred on by an earthquake, and eliminating most of the non-Chinese Asian criminal influence, to replace them with more tongs, and expanding Chinatown to absorb the smaller ethnic Asian neighborhoods. You might have one or more rich families base their wealth on logging and lumber, and/or mining, since those are bigger interests in the west. Any reference to American Indians should be shifted to reflect a more Northwestern tribe kind of feel.

 

 

Hope that helps, sir!

[Steve]

Re: Using Hudson City in Day After Ragnarok?

 

Putting it on the West Coast does have merit. I was originally thinking I'd have to move it to a state like Colorado, but then I wasn't sure what to do about the waterfront areas.