Lucky Number said:
I'm hoping to see a good amount of detail on the (die?) Nieu Nederlands, particularly Nieu Amsterdam, but that's mostly because i'm a New Yorker myself (California born, though. I'd like to see some of the west coast as well, but i think the time period is a bit off for that). Personally, i'd like to see a supplement (or web enhancement, or whatever) detailing the less prolific groups from Uropa- whatever are the analogues of other European nations and ethnic and religious groups (weren't there a fair number of Jews in Nieu Amsterdam, despite the antisemitic inclinations of the local government?).
The west coast is part of the Unknown West, and as such, not included in the two Atlas volumes, except for a section that discusses legends about what
could be found there. A future supplement will give GMs a modular system for designing their own western half of the continent, with options for California as an island, Tartars or Chinese empires, and so on.
The original Jewish community in New Amsterdam numbered just 23 individuals, who had fled the Dutch colony of Recife in Brazil when the Portugeuse recaptured it. They did receive official permission from the government to be there, whatever the inclinations of the authorities were. There were also early Jewish communities in the south, and many in Dutch-controlled parts of the Caribbean.
The Nederlander culture is one of seventeen culture backgrounds available for PCs in
Northern Crown: New World Adventures. The
Gazetteer has a more detailed writeup of Nieu Nederlands' place in the political landscape. Briefly, I kept the essentials of the Dutch presence in New York true to history, as I understand it: they were there chiefly to make money off the fur trade and to be a gadfly on Spain's back, rather than to claim huge areas of territory. I want to do an expansion book that presents Stuyvesant's Nieu Amsterdam and environs as a campaign setting, with the emphasis on skulduggery, crime, and Washington Irving-style supernatural happenings. The main power centers are Stuyvesant, the "General Director of Babel", as he is called behind his back; and The Twelve, a cabal of powerful business interests who resent any attempt to regulate their activities. Think "Sleepy Hollow" crossed with "Gangs of New York."
I had to make some tough choices deciding which culture groups to make available for PCs. Even with seventeen groups included, many European and native cultures didn't make it. A Sephardic culture background would have been a fascinating option. I have plans to eventually release a book that describes the alternate-history Europe of
Northern Crown's game world; maybe the other Uropan cultures will find a place in that book.
