Location Seed: The Pool of Terre Haute.

The Pool of Terre Haute

57 S 21st Street, Terre Haute, Indiana

Description: two story single-family residence, wooden frame, three bedrooms, two bathrooms, car park to the side, decent yard in back.  Unoccupied, but maintained. There is a hatch in the basement that leads to a pre-Columbian underground stone-lined room. The room has a shallow (1ft deep) pool in the exact center: there is no obvious water source, but the water is continually clear and fresh.

Properties: variable.  Drinking from the pool results in a dramatic transformation of some sort.  The effects range from the mundane (winning the lottery, going blind) to the unquestionably esoteric (de-aging, bodily transformation, instant and irrevocable death), but the effects are always permanent, and people only get one drink from the Pool.  Theurgists and magicians both report that the anima behind the Pool is essentially benevolent, but it is neither ‘nice’ nor ‘sentimental.’  At least, towards adults; the Pool is remarkably more forgiving and solicitous of children.

Continue reading Location Seed: The Pool of Terre Haute.

Location Seed: Rutherford College.

Rutherford College

Type: Four-year college (B.S., B.Eng, M.Eng)

Founded: 1949

Location: Milburn, Nebraska

Attendance: 8,000

Faculty to Student ratio: 1:12

Accreditation: ABET

Rutherford College is located more or less in the center of Nebraska, and is considered a very good but not unusual engineering/technical school. Students generally live and spend most of their time on campus, as the surrounding community does not offer many amenities for students; in fact, many of the locals traditionally go to the Rutherford campus instead for their entertainment.  The college offers reduced tuition and a fairly solid Associates program for local residents; most townies who go past a high school education started their college careers at Rutherford.

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Location seed: the USS Oriskany Special Consulate.

USS Oriskany Special Consulate

You know, they don’t normally sink upright aircraft carriers with the Oriskany’s combat record.  There’s the matter of all those ghosts that will come along for the ride, you see.  But then, the ghosts are sort of the point.

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Location Seed: O’Donnell’s.

O’Donnell’s

Description: a single story (plus basement) brick and wood restaurant located somewhere suitably semi-rural, in the epicenter of a blighted circle one half-acre in diameter.  And ‘blighted’ is no exaggeration; the circle is sterile, in the sense that nothing is capable of reproducing inside of it. That not just includes plant life; not even bacteria can successfully reproduce there.  That includes the intestinal bacteria typically found within an investigator’s body — or, for that matter, an investigator’s various internal cells. Staying much longer than a day inside the O’Donnell’s ‘blasted zone’ is contraindicated, and pregnant women should avoid the place entirely.

Continue reading Location Seed: O’Donnell’s.