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Old 12-17-2018, 11:34 AM   #22
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast

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Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
Tempe, Arizona is better if you are going into the southwest. Anyway, when you are talking about the humanities, the further you go from the Gulf Coast the better generally. Austin is #16 in history, Rice is #34, and the rest are below #50 if they rank at all. As for the more detailed programs, start emailing your local professors because they would know.
I expect that the PCs area of operations will of necessity be limited. In setting terms, the PCs will patrol ley lines and hot spots of supernatural activity connected to the most famous of the twelve 'Vile Vortices'. Their Patron believes that it is at these locations and along the ley lines connecting them that other worlds are most likely to seep into ours and bring with them higher mana, supernatural beings and paranormal happenings.

At some of the other Vile Vortices, other powers or organisations stand guard. I haven't defined them exactly, but I expect that the Japanese have a secret government operation and/or a secret society dedicated to combating the supernatural activity connected to the 'Dragon's Triangle'. The Vatican has a well organised and professional secret arm devoted to combating the supernatural and they do good work in Brazil, among many other places, including, with considerable circumspection, Easter Island.

No doubt, clued-in individuals in the Pakistani government and UNESCO do their best in the Indus Valley, assisted by advice and support from the Shadow Court of Elizabeth II, the long-standing (dating back to the 1980s) conspiracy of British people who've become aware of the recent incursions of the supernatural, whereas the megaliths near Timbuktu are, as far as can be determined, rather frighteningly without protectors due to the political instability and violence around them. More remote locations, without much in the way of local inhabitants, may or may not have protectors.

There are many more supernatural hot spots than these twelve Vile Vortices, speculated to exist along ley lines or near ancient Places of Power, which are often places of historical and religious significance. Certainly, some areas in the United Kingdom, Middle East, Central Asia, Indochina and the Indian subcontinent seem to experience much more activity than their size and population would seem to warrant.

The United States government officially denies the existence of the supernatural, but unofficially, most likely has several competing desks concerned with monitoring it buried inside its vast intelligence and security network.

From what J.R. Kessler, the PCs' Patron, can determine, the Department of Homeland Security seems to be most active in containing outbreaks of violent paranormal activity in the continental USA, as well as in covering up such activity. Of necessity, NSA must also have some idea of what has been happening the last few years, regardless of official cover-ups in various countries, and the military must surely be aware that darker forces than merely terrorism are at play in Iraq after the coalition forces left.

Kessler has sympathetic relationships with some individuals working for the federal government, with useful information sometimes flowing in both directions, but he deeply distrusts the official response of DHS and wonders whether some malign supernatural influences might have infiltrated the inner workings of one or more government agencies.

Kessler spends at least $10 million annually on funding academic research of the supernatural, largely to ensure that he get good information to help plan actions that prevent any massive incursions. Recognizing that even with his personal wealth, he can only affect a limited area, he'll focus on universities that yield good data on the area around the Bermuda Triangle and ley lines that concentrate around Louisiana and East Texas.
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