At first, Pinebox, Texas seems like any other rural town. Itâs a town thatâs all Texan, with barbecue joints, churches, a rodeo arena, restaurants, farmers and ranchers, and of course more than 15,000 college students! Most of those students leave town for the summer and winter breaks, but at least 5,000 stay year-round for work, play, or extra classes.
East Texas Universityâwhich everyone calls ETUâlies on the northeast of Pinebox. While smaller than several other universities in Texas, it is well-respected in multiple fields of study. Life at ETU includes all the expected trappingsâdorms, classes, demanding professors, clubs, fraternities and sororities, parties, exams, dating, and all-night study sessions.
Students from all over the world attend the small but respected college. Some of them even survive it! You see, Pinebox isnât just like any other town. Itâs plumb weird. According to numerous conspiracy theorists, ETU has one of the most haunted campuses in the world!
No one wants to admit it, but students go missing (presumed âdropped outâ) every semester, people fall victim to unexplained âanimal attacks,â and many of the campus urban legends have an alarming amount of truth to them.
Most peopleâlocals and students alikeâ seem to instinctively deny these happenings and go about their lives in seemingly ignorant bliss. Itâs as though they know that if they donât acknowledge the darkness, it wonât take notice of them in return...usually. One of the sayings often expressed by locals is:
âDonât go looking for trouble because it will find you.â
Welcome to East Texas University! I'm planning to run the classic Degrees of Horror plot-point campaign with the updated Fresh Blood rules. A plot-point campaign is just a framework, and there will be plenty of space for monster-of-the-week adventures and personal character arcs.
Basics
System: Savage Worlds Adventure Edition
Setting: East Texas, USA in the 'present day': an alternate reality resembling the late 2010's to early 2020's in which monsters are real and national politics is blessedly uninteresting. We may do a semester abroad.
Genre: Supernatural horror with elements of comedy, fantasy, and Western. Think Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Fright Night, An American Werewolf in Paris
Content: High PG-13 to low R. No ERP.
Requirements: be an adult, read and write high school English, post on average 1/day
House Rules
I merge Two-Fisted and Two Gun Kid into a single Edge.
RAW characters cannot start with Occult because in this setting it's not just knowledge about the supernatural, it's also the ability to do ritual magic. I will allow a player to start with d4 in Occult for 2 skill points, and they still suffer a penalty when using Occult to conduct a ritual for the first time.
If a player gets 4+ Raises on a single roll, they may be eligible for a free Edge or Skill increase.
Technical Difficulties
Savage Bot is the best Discord bot for Savage Worlds, but the dev has had trouble keeping it running. I'm going to try hosting my own instance of a fork of Savage Bot, but this is my first time attempting this.
AI Policy
AI bad, mmkay? That said, I'm not the AI police, and I expect all my players to be adults and make their own decisions about the ethics of using LLMs in general and passing off AI-generated content as their own creativity in particular. Everyone is on their honor and I'm not going to call anyone out unless it's glaringly obvious.
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