New Hope Mining Camp

New Hope Mining Camp is located along the Shè Gang River, approximately 300 miles northwest of Yankton, and about three hours hike by foot off of the nearest grav-rail station. The mining camp sprouted downstream from the Hopespring Copper Mine; at this time, it is an unincorporated community. A high, level bluff overlooks the camp and which is often used as a landing site for shuttles and private craft, or even the rare mid-bulk trader. About 10 miles to the east is the former site of the New Hope POW Camp; the former camp commandant is a primary stakeholder in the mine.

For two years after the end of the Unification War, the New Hope Re-Education Camp had warehoused the riff and the raff the Alliance couldn’t otherwise decide how to process. When the POW camp had finally closed its doors, those who had had the means made it as far as the shuttle docks of Yankton for a ticket off world. Those without the means simply drifted downstream to what became the New Hope mining camp, a tent city of hundreds that sprouted overnight like fungus on a corpse. There was copper to be dug in the Hopespring Mines, and rumors a-plenty of gold in the high hills and back country beyond. But from most of the first-hand accounts that had walked through the doors of Bernard’s establishment, mostly there was dirt, squalor, and misery to be found back in New Hope, and tired men and women who were grateful to have escaped the place.

— "Hiring Notice"

Guilds and Factions

There are currently two crime bosses who control the camp: Van Hooven and Darius. Van Hooven was the first to arrive and is literally one of the founders of the camp -- his saloon was the first business tent raised, and then the first stick-built building constructed. Darius came along about a year later, when it was clear that the mining boom in the area was going to be much more of a boom than a bust. His dancing hall is a lot more "upscale" in form and function than the more "pioneering" Dove, and the two men have been intense personal rivals since Darius's arrival.

• The Lonesome Dove (owner: Augustus C. Van Hooven). A "pioneering" (read -- sawdust on the floor type of joint) saloon, offering hard-working joy-girls (the “doves”), a barber in one corner, and lots and lots of booze. The doves do their business from small first-floor rooms in the back; faro, mah jong and games of dice are encouraged, but Van Hooven discourages poker games, as poker players spend less on whores and booze. From the second-floor balcony of his office/bedroom, Van Hooven can overlook the whole of the main thoroughfare, and will often be found out on his balcony keeping watch over the daily life of the camp. Van Hooven once won a Firefly from a patron (or at least that is the official story), and has shady business contacts on Persephone. His right-hand men include Ito (former Browncoat sergeant and a canny fighter), Bobby (he's dumb as a bucket of rocks, but he is loyal), and Earl (Van Hooven's longest surviving employee,who helped cut down trees for lumber alongside Van Hooven when the camp was first formed -- he's a very rough-edged hillbilly of a guy who's famous for his knifework).
• The Bella Cucina (owner: Darius) The Bella Cucina is all velvet curtains and fine rugs, with a higher class of working girls, craps tables, a roulette wheel, and fine tables for poker games. The establishment's owner, Darius, cultivates a much finer, high-class appeal, and is proud to say the Bella Cucina is a respite from the mud and the dust that gathers everywhere else in camp. But Darius is much more of a well-dressed psychopath than his rival: where Van Hooven will use violence as a means to an ends, Darius enjoys violence for its own sake, and relishes being feared.

Type

Military, Camp

Location under

Deadwood