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The
History of New London
Settled in 1741 by
a group of Eldritch from a dozen different Gentes,
the city of Havre was founded on the ideals of escaping
the institutionalisation of the courts of the Old
World. Resting over the lands of the Houma and Boyougoula
Indians, Havre was to be a place where the Eldritch
would work together for the greater good.
The mortal settlers who came with
them were primarily French immigrants, and in the
late 1700's the wealthy Fountaine family founded a
plantation just to the north of the growing town.
A deeply Catholic place from it's outset, in the 1760's
Havre became a refuge for expelled Acadians, who founded
some of the city's most beautiful public buildings,
churches and cemeteries.
However, during the French Revolution,
things began to change in the town as a wave of French
aristocrats emigrated to America and moved into Havre
bringing with them a great number of Eldritch disillusioned
with the ideas of liberty and equality. It wasn't
long before the old order, with its dreams of equality,
was replaced. The town was given city status and renamed
'New London' by French aristocrats desperate to distance
themselves from their homeland and mindful of the
help that had been provided to them when the Revolution
began and they were forced to flee to England.
The city entered a period of relative
calm after this, which was only shattered by the outbreak
of the Civil War. While few of the war's battles were
fought anywhere near New London's south Louisiana
home, the economy of the city was crippled. Massive
swathes of the town were abandoned, and a few years
later, a massive fire decimated much of what was left,
and drove yet more of the population away in search
of a better life.
For a long time, New London existed
only as an impoverished backwater, populated sparsely
by a mixture of Creoles and Cajuns. However, at the
beginning of the twentieth century, the oil industry
in the Gulf of Mexico saw the town revived around
the slick, black gold, and later, when the oil subsided,
the tourists and paddle steamers drifting up and down
the Mississippi gave New London a new lease of life
as a gambling den and tourist town.
Today, much of the city is still supported
by that same mixture of gambling and tourism, although
jobs are also available in the ICM Chemical Processing
Plant not far to the south, in the small number of
commercial businesses that have offices in the city
and some work even remains in the city's mostly abandoned
industrial district.
As far as the Eldritch go, it seems
as though something in the city's past just won't
let it go. Over the last few years, people have started
to whisper that something as ancient and powerful
as it is malignant is beginning to make New London
its home, and the old Indian myths about the area
are beginning to make more than a few people a little
nervous. Mortals and powerful Eldritch alike are beginning
to disappear into thin air, and alliances are being
drawn that the founders of old Havre would be proud
of. But, with all the intrigue and machinations of
the last two hundred years still in place, can New
London's Eldritch ever learn to work together again?
Certainly, some seem to think so, while others only
murmur that nothing good will ever grow in New London's
hollow marshes.
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