Wanted to let everyone know about a side project I started, currently in the "let's see what I can tinker around with without breaking the ga--oh fuck I just broke the game I sure wish I knew what I was doing" stage.

"The Bloody Ould Sixth," a nickname for Manhattan's Sixth Ward in the mid-19th century, home of the infamous Five Points slums and such colorful gangs as the Roach Guard and Dead Rabbits.

http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php?topic=68899.0

I'm not a tremendous fan of Scorsese's movie but I like the aesthetic and love what the setting can offer a mod: crooked politicians, burgeoning industrialist empires and plucky young rascals just trying to make it in the streets. It will be mostly historically based, set in 1865 after the death of Lincoln (and, in my story, the two other targets of the plot, the vice president and secretary of state) and featuring as many historical characters as I can cram in such as Boss Tweed, Josph Pullitzer and Ned Kelly. In my research I've uncovered a lot of astonishing and not-to-be-believed things -- did you know that before the Civil War, New York's mayor Fernando Wood wanted the city to secede and become the Free State of Tri-Insula? Or that he was forceably dragged out of city hall and arrested by the state-appointed Metropolitan police, who clashed for months with his own city Municipal Police to the point where they ignored criminals and only beat up on each other? Or that Antonio Lopez da Santa Anna lived in New York just after the war and invented Chiclets gum? I couldn't make this stuff up!

I've been working on a scale model of Lower Manhattan for a map, and some nice waistcoats and handlebar mustaches for clothes.





And a large pic of how the map is plotted out so far:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2563/3694583392_76bb900961_b.jpg

If this interests you please give the TW forums thread a visit and if nothing else wish me luck, I am gonna need it.

Best of luck to you Alan, and if you want some dialogue or anything in my range of capability, please say. Mason

That is awesome Alan... nice work.

Best of luck in this..

Saxondragon

Alan, I will consult the husband, whose specialty is American History of of that period. I am sure we can flesh out the rest - you want 20, I assume? Would you like Santa Anna to swear in espanol? (I can.)

Just mild stuff like "sangre de dios" or "leche de su madre" not "chingado" or "chingadase."

Love the chiclets bit - could have fun with that. He could also drop remarks on his problems in Texas.


In terms of women npc's, these come to mind:

Pauline Cushman, an actress, who was also a Union spy who was offered money to toast Jefferson Davis, was caught with incriminating papers and escaped hanging by only three days. She used to dress as both a white man and disguise herself as a black man to smuggle papers. She subesquently became a Union nurse after her unmasking as a spy.

Elizabeth van Lew was an abolitionist living in Richmond, VA, who actually managed to place a spy in Jefferson Davis' household and also provided clothes and money to the occupying Union army.

Mary Edwards Walker was a surgeon/physician who very unconventionally dressed in men's clothes and served as a doctor during the Civil War (known in Virginia as "the War of Northern Occupation.")

Until the wave of immigration from Italy, etc. in the mid-19th century, all the gangs, of course were Irish, so I assume you'd like a slightly Irish tone to things?
Probably some mention of the Irish Potato Famine would be appropriate as a reason for the young Irish gang members' presence.

Wasn't Ned Kelly the Australian Jesse James equivalent?

Oh, I know who else you can use, too: PT Barnum and Jenny Lind, if you like. It was in 1850 that PT Barnum signed his first contract with Jenny Lind. He bought the New American Museum. Barnum also made a wax figure of Jefferson Davis wearing his wife's petticoats when he tried to escape capture and called it the "Belle of Richmond." Barnum also hired that giantess lady, whose name escaped me,

George Aikin's stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin opened in New York's National Theater in 1853. In 1859 Darwin published the Origin of the Species and you could possibly have him lecturing in New York. There is also the 1863 Draft Riot which happened in New York in protest against Lincoln's conscription law.
In 1866, Henry Bergh founded the SPCA.

Oh, and don't forget the World's Temperence Convention, in New York in 1853 - Susan B. Anthony was there, but not allowed to speak because of being a woman.

If 1848 is not too early, there is the first Gold Rush, too.

There is also Robert Cobb Kennedy, a Confederate officer who escaped from a Union prison and tried to burn down a lot of New York Buildings including Barnum's Hippodrome, in 1864. He could be a rather dashing npc.

Edit: John remembered the giantess, she was Anna Swan, the Nova Scotia giantess - can you mod a giant or a midget? If so, there is also Tom Thumb.

Let me know if any of these possible npc's appeal to you, also when you have it more or less together, may I have a short draft of how you see your characters behaving/speaking?

So, an update: shaping up nicely. Mason's been a powerhouse for dialogs and stuff, freeing me to tinker around inventing new items and learning how to do some modeling, vertex animation and that sort of thing.

I'm fairly happy with my old-timey fireman helmet.


And I figured out how to make a working scabbard and bow-type items. Such as slingshots.


Anyone want to give me a hand with music? Even if you can just suggest a source for free-use 1860s American music.

Alan:

Check your e-mail! I found exactly what you need, specifically 1875 vintage, great sound, and copied the "please let us use your music" e-mail to you as well as sending you the link. F

Does anyone know anything about rigging horse-like-items, specifically a completely non-horse item like a penny-farthing bicycle?

I don't, but I know who does. HokieBT managed to turn galloping horses into smoothly gliding speeder bikes for his Star Wars mod. Just the trick you need for your bicycles

I think it involves removing all the relevant animations for horses, effectively neutering them. I'm not looking to replace, only add. Someone rigged it for me just along the lines of a horse and, despite a few hiccups, it works well enough. Looks damn cool too.

Roughly halfway done. Here's another teaser:

Ay, Caramba!

Some privy door and a meat cleaver! Just the two things to make my day! The colour of the hat band is a bit gay though, could you possibly do anything about that or is it just the picture? Reminds me of some Milka choclate paper.

There's a fudge-ton of hats so you can have your pick. But yeah maybe that's not quite the best shade of purple.

More shots and discussion in the TW thread:
http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,68899.0.html

But here are a couple, showing clothing and hats, knives, offhand parrying knives and cleavers, and a harpoon gun:

Ay CARAMBA!!!!

The cleaver guy with his sabre and awesome hat is it. Definetly what you want to see and have in close combat

Here's a first for any mod: