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Old 12-14-2018, 07:47 AM   #3
Icelander
 
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Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: Iceland*
Default Re: Study of Folklore and Magic in Texas and the Gulf Coast

Quote:
Originally Posted by naloth View Post
A&M at Corpus Christi. Beautiful campus and regarded as one of the best coastal universities.
Thanks.

That's a suggestion would never have occurred to me. Somehow, I was imagining Galveston as the westernmost port of call they'd frequent and didn't think about the rest of the Gulf Coast. There's absolutely nothing preventing their eccentric billionaire* Patron from owning property and a berth for his yacht there, as well as in many other Gulf Coast ports.

Reading about Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, it also occurs to me that field anthropologist is far from the only useful academic cover for paranormal investigators in the Caribbean. The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies and similar institutions could also provide a cover for some oddly secretive people with scientific equipment poking around in out-of-the-way places, not to mention that there might be aspects of the supernatural in the setting that can be studied using ecological research methods.

The PCs represent the 'A-Team' of elite supernatural troubleshooters that their Patron funds, with an extensive network of contacts and support personnel spread through the Gulf Coast and Caribbean, and to the lesser extent the world.

That means that their Patron will have academics, reporters, private security contractors, intelligence analysts and a lot of other people on his payroll just to collect, collate and analyse data about possible paranormal activity. So it's plausible that there would be contract employees connected with several universities and research institutions, so I'd welcome more suggestions for such places in the campaign area.

One character will be a graduate student of anthropology** who has spent the last two years studying in Texas, having transferring from somewhere else after being rescued from a supernatural occurrence. The background demands that she has been able to spend a lot of time with J.R. Kessler and his inner circle, which means that she would have to be able to make weekend trips to Galveston easily, and it would probably be best if she could live within driving distance for more frequent visits.

Of course, you can drive up for the weekend from Corpus Christi to Galveston and it's a very short flight, but it's obviously not as convenient for daily contact with her Patron as studying in Houston, Galveston or Beaumont. At minimum, it would mean that she would have spent less time in her background being personally instructed about the occult by her Patron.

*According to the 2018 Forbes list, though J.R. Kessler, the Galveston-born centenarian Patron in question, is quick to point out that the estimated number is probably wildly inaccurate, though it would take a multi-national summit of tax lawyers and accountants to say in which direction, and then only if he were dumb enough to let all of them collectively in on some half-century of labyrinthine and Byzantine financial dealings, not to mention some decidedly odd purchases, assets and 'consultant' expenses creatively spread through his holdings.
**Specific field of study undetermined as yet, but will amount to a skill set that allows the 'forensic' investigation and interpretation of scenes of supernatural attacks, paranormal activity and meddling with Things Man was Not Meant to Know. That means a working knowledge of magical scripts, glyphs, symbols and suchlike, as well as occult lore. Whether the character will specialize in some particular tradition is unclear, though it is more likely than not that the character will have a broad knowledge of comparative occult traditions than just a focus on one specific one.
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