Crescent City Setting
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Crescent City, Pennsylvania
Crescent City rusts in the heart of Pennsylvania. The steelworks are half dead, the buildings are half empty and the city's spirit is half strangled, under the cool grip of apathy, despair and poverty. The decay is palpable and ever present. The paint peels, the iron rusts, the supports give way, and no one cares. Crescent City is a walking corpse of a place, where the ugliness piles up in plain sight and the darkness beats back the light. Once proud buildings built in times of prosperity fall into ruin, and buildings stare out with dead faces of broken glass.
Sometimes cities have to fight to survive, but Crescent isn't even fighting. It is laying down and waiting for death to take it. Its heart used to beat with the furnaces of industry, but they have grown silent. The decay is everywhere, and it is not that anything could not be fixed, it's just everyone is long past caring. In the World of Darkness, the rotting smell of the city's soul has attract many things to it. Bad things always happened here, in this place fed by fire, coal and smoke - but now there is no will to fight back the shadows.
The Sabbat thrive here as the original undead natives of Crescent City, in abandoned buildings, in uncaring neighborhoods, in the corpse of a giant. But is the horror of the city because they are here... or are they here because the horror was already waiting?
History
The history of Crescent City is one of the triumph and the failure of industry, of hearts that were burnt and went cold, of things past and never to be reclaimed.
Born of Fire and Iron
The land of Crescent City has been crossroads and trading post for centuries. As early as the 3rd millenia BC, it was a meeting ground for Native Americans for trade and counsel. The modern city was founded by a group of Pennsylvania Dutch farmers and miners, who secured grant for land from the Pennsylvania government in the 1790s, who founded two cities, the mining town of Colesville and the trading post of Sichelburg.
The towns grew, as the growing nation's appetite of coal, iron and copper increased. But the first boom which defined the city did not come until the Civil War. As the Union Army grew hungry for new guns and cannon, enterpeneur Adolf Rotter founded Crescent Ironworks. New smokestacks spotted the sky, and the furnaces grew hot. The towns grew and merged, and incorporated as Crescent City by 1864, as the trains hauled away cannons to feed the bloody conflict and brought that tainted money back to the growing city.
The town grew mainly with the help of Irish and Italian immigrants, coming to seek work in the ironworks or in the mines, and settled in River North and Old City.
The Anderson Claim Disaster
The Anderson Claim was one of the richest coal deposits discovered in the Crescent hill country. Running deep and rich, it was worked by the Anderson Coal Company non-stop by investors eager to reclaim their money quickly from the project. By the 1890s, over three hundred miners worked the Anderson Claim. Minimizing costs, the owners hired few experienced miners, preferring low cost immigrants. Shafts were unstable and poorly maintained, and warnings from the few experienced foreman were ignored.
A natural gas pocket put an end to the Anderson Claim. The gas ignited, exploding the mine and setting fire to the coal vein within it. The Anderson Claim still burns to this day, and over a hundred men never came out of that cursed hole in the ground. On clear days, the smoke can still be seen rising to the south of Crescent City, a funeral pyre that will burn for another hundred years.
A Thirst For Metal
America and the world needed metal, and Crescent City provided it. Throughout the 19th century, a vast industrial complex built up in Crescent City, and the mines grew deeper. There were wars to fight, and a frontier to conquer, and all that needed iron and steel. In 1906, Crescent Ironworks and several other companies were absorbed into a new trust, Admiral Steel. Lead by the industrialist Herman Admiral, he was king of Crescent City for decades.
Free blacks from the newly liberated South sought work in the mining or iron industry, but faced fierce opposition from white workers and the illicit unions that were threatening to form. A ghetto was quickly created for these new blacks, and they were concentrated in the neighborhood of Weston. Also, a flood of Eastern European immigrant flooded the city in the 1890s and 1900s, leading to the founding of Krosno.
The area known as the Yards grew exponentially, and Crescent City became a major hub for rail freight in northern Pennsylvania. Because of this, Crescent City found a new industry - slaughterhouses. Parts of the Crescent River ran red with the blood of pigs and cattle, and sometimes is still does to this day, as the refrigerated railcars pulled in and loads of fresh meat pulled out. The rotting smell competed with the smell of the furnaces of the steel yards, and carcasses piled up in the dimmed sun.
Men grew wealthy in this climate upon the backs of the poor, building up a great new downtown, apart from the Old City full of Italians and other undesirables. Beautiful homes were built in West Crescent (now the Wastes), East Reservoir and the most expensive in Puritan Hills, the home of foremen, owners and those who sucked close to the teat of the wealthiest Crescent citizens.
The Strike of 1909
One of the bloodiest chapters in Crescent City's history is the Strike of 1909. Steelworkers unionized against company orders and struck, voicing their displeasure with gruesome accidents, the hiring of blacks and immigrants and low wages. Striking workers violently attacked scabs who broke union lines or blacks who were hired to replace them. Workshops were occupied, rail lines torn up and bridges crossing the river barricaded. It was one of the most violent and largest worker's revolts in American history.
The all powerful Herman Admiral was hearing none of it. Using influence in the state capitol, Mr. Admiral arranged for army troops to be sent to Crescent City, with orders to put down any riots. And then the infamous Pickertons were hired to make sure one started. The Army opened fire on workers armed with clubs and pistols in the Yards, then continued to march through the Foundry District, retaking workshops and dismantling barricades. In the end, over 120 workers were dead, and fifteen soldiers.
To End All Wars
Crescent City grew during the First World War, growing fat on money for armor and weapons, and the city met the Roaring 20s with much gusto. Several resorts opened in the more scenic parts of the foothills north and east of the city, including the Crystal Springs Resort, the shining jewel of them all, until it closed down under disreputable circumstances in 1928. Unions gained some concessions from Admiral Steel and the Crescent River Railroad Co., a wholly owned subsidiary of Admiral Steel, and many workers played the stock market and used their newfound wealth to expand what would become The Wastes even further.
The times grew tough in the Great Depression, and with the death of Herman Admiral in 1931, Admiral Steel was struggling. The railroads were no longer expanding, the cities were no longer building skyscrapers that needed steel girders. Unemployment was rampant here as anywhere else. People were desperate, and crime gripped the city. The blacks and immigrants felt the burden of this hardest, as businesses were eager to get rid of the 'wrong type' of people first.
World War 2 relieved the burden of poverty from the city, but the grip that organized crime and gang life gained over the poorer neighborhoods was never quite broken. Still, the country needed steel for battleships and tanks, and Crescent City provided it. The old furnaces fired up once again, and the smoke poured into the air. Crescent City fed on war and expansion, and there was plenty now.
The Good Times, The Bad Times
Crescent City's prosperity did not end with the close of the Second World War. Europe and Asia needed to be rebuilt, and they needed steel to do it. A growing America needed food, and the slaughterhouses could provide it. It needed shipping, and the railyards would ship it. Things were good, so long as the smokestacks belched black and the furnaces burned red. Admiral Steel was king again, and built a grand new headquarters in the city, a black pillar of prosperity.
The bad times began in the 70s. American industry was waning, overshadowed by competitors in the Far East and Europe. The orders began to drop, workers were laid off, all them told it could only be temporary. More lay-offs, more promises unfulfilled. One furnace after another was closed down, and the American dream was slowly sold off in Crescent City.
The Pentagram Murders
In the late 70s, Crescent City garnered some unwelcome attention as a serial killer stalked the street, preying on single women and teenage girls. Over a ten month period, eight women died in Crescent City from repeated stabbings, their organs crudely removed and a pentagram branded to their flesh post-mortem. Despite FBI intervention and a statewide manhunt, the Pentagram Killer was never caught. This attention only hastened the decline of Crescent City, cementing its reputation as a bad place where bad things happen.
Things Fall Apart
Today, Crescent City is a withered corpse of its former self. Entire neighborhoods are abandoned in West Crescent, or what is now called simply The Wastes. Once majestic buildings of the elegant style of the 20s fall into ruin and neglect. Unemployment is rampant, drugs are rampant, crime is rampant. And no one cares. There is nothing to fight for here, because everyone has given up. Only a few of the hundreds of steel furnaces still fire. The slaughterhouses still pour blood into the drains, but there are so many jobs to go around, and many are taken up from new waves of Puerto Rican and Hispanic immigrants, willing to undercut the competition much like the Polish and Irish were generations before.
Gangs now rule the streets, and drug corners are never that far away. Some prosperity continues, and the black shadow of the Admiral Building still dominates the skyline. But it's not enough to support what Crescent once was, so everything just rots away, ending not with a shout but a whimper.
City Districts
- Old City
- Downtown
- The Understreets
- Weston
- Colesville
- South Side
- East Reservoir
- Krosno
- River North
- Foundry District
- The Yards
- Slaughter District
- The Wastes
- Puritan Hills
City Landmarks
Angel Boulevard, Old City
What remnants Crescent City has of a night life resides here - Angel Boulevard plays host to the Black Magic Night Club, a popular hangout that plays classier acts than its main competition, The Hole over in River North. The entire area used to be known as Theater Row, and played host to several playhouses and movie theaters back in the good old days, but no longer. The Boulevard itself takes its name from its most famous resident, the iconic angel statue that sits near where the road meets the river.
- The Angel of Crescent City
- The Black Magic Night Club
- The Valiant Hotel
- The Grand Theater
Crescent Island
Just off the shores of Old City lies Crescent Island, a large tree-covered island that sits in the middle of the Crescent River. The limp foliage and brown trees are cut through by jogging paths and peppered with small boat docks. In happier times, the island was a place of leisure, but homeless camps are deeper in the woods and paths are rarely used. Two roads cross the island, and bridges connect it to either shore.
Downtown
- The Admiral Building
- City Hall
East Reservoir
Krosno
- Saint Constantine's Cathedral
High Street, River North
High Street has had a disreputable reputation for over a hundred and fifty years. Known for strip clubs, cheap booze and prostitution, it is the city's one stop shop for cheap thrills, and is mercilessly governed over by Irish gangs. The High Street isn't as profitable as it used to be, and whole blocks are nothing but shuttered or burnt down buildings. Still, the booze flows and the flesh is cheap, so people still spend their hard earned dollars down at "The High". High Street also plays host to several music clubs, catering to disaffected youth and even more rundown than the clubs in Old City, if that can be believed.
- The Hole
- Laughter Island Amusement Park
Roosevelt Drive, the Wastes
Roosevelt Drive was once one of the bustling centers of Crescent City's West Side, featuring lines of shops, the West Side's high school and main public library, and several small parks. Now, all the stores are boarded up, the high school and library abandoned and left to rot, and the parks are little more than dusty vacant lots. Roosevelt Drive runs straight through the Wastes, and nothing but a few desperate squatters are anywhere nearby.
- West Crescent High School
- West Branch Public Library
Other Places of Interest
- Crescent City's branch of the infamous S-Mart. Open 24/7 to serve your shopping needs.
- Crescent City's "branch" of the weapons and guns store.
City Weather
The climate in Crescent City varies, but the city has four distinct, if not especially poetic, seasons.
Summers are often cloyingly hot and humid, with occasional heat waves that have, in the past, exceeded even the staggering (and sometimes literally suffocating) July average high of 98°F (37°C). July lows average 85°F (29°C). Winters are typically very cold and known for the heavy snowfall that keeps the city blanketed in grimy white, with January highs averaging at 32°F (0°C) and lows at 16°F (-9°C).
Spring is a wet and thawing affair and fall is the last, dry wheeze of dying warmth before the biting winter sets it.
Known Crescent City NPCs
See: Category:Known Crescent City NPCs.
