vault backup: 2025-12-06 11:19:34

.obsidian/workspace.json

@@ -13,12 +13,12 @@
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@@ -155,13 +155,13 @@
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@@ -194,10 +194,11 @@
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     "Avalon/04_NPCs_Faculty/Kalen D'Serris.md",
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+    "Avalon/02_Sessions/session_5.md",
     "Avalon/09_Student_Handouts",
     "Avalon/02_Sessions/session 4.md",
     "Strahd/Sessions/Session 3.md",

Avalon/05_Locations/Avalon Locations.md

@@ -0,0 +1,205 @@
+# Avalon & Valley Locations
+
+> This section is written as stuff your characters would reasonably know.
+> Anything marked “DM ONLY” should stay out of player handouts.
+
+---
+
+## The Circle Fuel & Snacks
+
+**What students call it:** “The Circle”, “Circle 9”, “Circle”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- Combo gas station / convenience store / low-key hangout on the edge of town.  
+- Fluorescent lights, two flickering pump islands, and a sad little seating area with three metal tables and a claw machine that never pays out.  
+- This is where kids meet up after school, before parties, or when they “go for a drive” and don’t want their parents to see who they’re with.  
+- The staff mostly don’t care what you’re doing in the lot as long as you’re not obviously dealing, fighting, or summoning anything bigger than a cantrip.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- Everybody’s been here. First crushes, first cigarettes, first “you are *way* too high to be at a gas station right now” moments all happen at The Circle.  
+- After dark, there are always a few older kids / townies leaning on cars, playing music too loud from beat-up speakers.  
+- Rumor has it there’s a corner of the lot that never shows up on the security crystal playback quite right – like the picture skips.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- Pip’s operation uses The Circle as an **exchange point** and as an anchor for a small, illegal tap feeding their little network.  
+- The lot is built over a **minor junction** in the Academy’s distribution grid – enough that leyline “noise” bleeds into the pumps and cameras.  
+- Future beats:  
+  - Surveillance footage that glitches when Root anomalies happen.  
+  - Confrontations between Pip’s crew and Oversight proxies.  
+  - A fight where spilled fuel + wild magic makes the whole place a hazard.
+
+---
+
+## Titan Lance Armory (a.k.a. “The Missile Museum”)
+
+**What students call it:** “The Missile Museum”, “Titan”, “The Silo”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- About twenty minutes out of town: an old, decommissioned underground military site turned into a museum.  
+- Officially, it’s a Cold War–era **“Titan Lance Strategic Armory”**, where they used to keep some kind of giant magical war-spear pointed at “whoever pissed the country off that decade.”  
+- There’s a visitor center with cheesy educational displays, then a long elevator ride down into the silo where the “lance” used to sit.  
+- Schools drag kids here on field trips to talk about “the importance of peace” and “responsible use of destructive magic.”
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- The actual weapon is *gone* – supposedly dismantled – but the empty silo is still there, with the big cradle, old consoles, and a huge circular blast door in the floor.  
+- Tour guides love to tell stories about how the old crew could launch the thing in under 60 seconds.  
+- Rumors:  
+  - Some nights, if you’re quiet, you can still hear something humming under the empty launch tube.  
+  - A kid once snuck away from the tour and came back white-haired and refusing to go underground ever again.  
+  - The academy has some kind of “special access” to the lower levels normal tours don’t see.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- The “Titan Lance” was a **colossal, one-use leyline weapon** that could rip a chunk of Root out and hurl it at a target – basically a magical ICBM. It was “dismantled,” but the **binding cradle and targeting array remain**.  
+- The armory is now a **classified magical depot**:  
+  - University / Oversight stores decommissioned artifacts, unstable prototypes, and sealed warheads in the lower levels.  
+  - Access is strictly controlled through Root Oversight, which is why D’serris cares about this valley so much.  
+- Possible uses:  
+  - Field trip episode where something in storage stirs when the Root is agitated.  
+  - Late-campaign job where D’serris wants to *repurpose* the Titan cradle as a last-resort weapon against Fouadriel / the Root.  
+  - A break-in by a rival faction trying to steal a specific relic or warhead.
+
+---
+
+## Avalon Adventuring Academy – Main Quad & Node
+
+**What students call it:** “The Quad”, “The Heart”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- Big central courtyard surrounded by the main classroom buildings, admin offices, and the library.  
+- There’s an ugly statue of the Academy’s first Headmaster in the middle, arm raised dramatically toward the hills like he fully expected applause.  
+- Between classes, this place is chaos – students cutting across the grass, people sprawled under trees, clubs recruiting at folding tables.  
+- The flagstones hum under your feet if you linger; most people chalk it up to bad foundation work and too much enchantment.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- Everyone passes through the Quad. If you hang here long enough, you see practically the whole student body.  
+- Sometimes, announcements are made here by illusion – a giant holographic Headmaster head, Estrada yelling through a full-courtyard cantrip, that sort of thing.  
+- If you ever want to people-watch, gossip, or just skip class while technically staying “on campus,” this is the spot.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- The Quad sits almost directly above the **main surface node** that ties the Academy into the regional trunk. It’s basically the “junction box” for most campus taps.  
+- Small anomalies manifest here first: odd echoes in speech, flickering illusions, Root whispers under particularly emotional scenes.  
+- It’s a good place to:  
+  - Drop subtle foreshadowing when the Root is unhappy.  
+  - Stage big reveals where the environment literally reacts to the party.  
+  - Have D’serris do a full-school broadcast.
+
+---
+
+## The Wash / Riverbed
+
+**What students call it:** “The Wash”, “The River”, “The Ditch”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- A mostly-dry riverbed that only really fills up during heavy rain, running just outside town.  
+- Scrubby bushes, scattered trees, graffiti under the bridges. At night it’s either peaceful or creepy, depending on who you’re with.  
+- Classic spot for: sneaking cigarettes, passing flasks, making out, or just getting away from parents and dorm monitors.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- The cops and school security both know kids hang out here, but as long as nothing explodes and no one posts incriminating Sending-Stone stories, they mostly ignore it.  
+- You can get from one side of town to the other by walking the wash if you’re patient and don’t mind your shoes getting dusty.  
+- Rumors say some students use it for secret ritual circles because “the earth is thinner” here.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- The wash cuts across a **shallow leyline tendril**, which makes it a natural amplifier for Root whispers, especially when the ground is wet.  
+- Soren’s “dead body by the river” can literally be at a spot where the Root’s attention is strongest.  
+- Good site for:  
+  - Random Root anomalies (lights in the dirt, voices, sudden growth of weird plants).  
+  - A secret meeting with D’serris / Elias away from Academy wards.  
+  - Fouadriel-related events (something in him “wakes up” here).
+
+---
+
+## Madera Ridge Estates
+
+**What students call it:** “The Ridge”, “The Hills”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- Gated hillside neighborhood perched above the valley, all terraced yards, huge windows, and old people who will tow your car if it's worth less than 20 gold.
+- Houses with three-car garages, outdoor kitchens, and views that end up on every real estate brochure in a 200-mile radius.  
+- Most students never go up here unless:  
+  - They live there,  
+  - They’re going to a party with someone who does,  
+  - Or they’re taking the long way around to avoid being seen.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- This is where Ben “I swear I’m from the block” actually lives.  
+- Parents up here are the type to install very expensive arcane security wards and then forget to update them for ten years.  
+- Rumors:  
+  - A Ridge kid threw a party last year that got so wild it shorted out half the neighborhood wards and lit up the Oversight logs like a winter festival.  
+  - Mageball coaches definitely scout the Ridge for “sponsorship opportunities.”
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- Madera Ridge is a **private sub-grid**: luxury homes have their own micro-taps and wards tied into the main trunk.  
+- Pip’s boss absolutely sees this place as both a **lucrative market** and a **pressure point** for Ben.  
+- Easy future beats:  
+  - Attempted break-in / “warning visit” from Pip’s people.  
+  - D’serris threatening to cut Ridge power if certain parents block his directives.  
+  - A house party gone wrong when a ward fails in a very Root-ish way.
+
+---
+
+## Spin Alley Lanes & Arcade
+
+**What students call it:** “Spin Alley”, “The Lanes”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- Slightly run-down bowling alley with glowing rune-lanes, enchanted pins, and an attached arcade full of games at least ten years past their prime.  
+- Carpet pattern is a crime against the senses; everything smells like old nachos and rental shoes.  
+- Still, it’s where people go for birthday parties, awkward dates, and Friday nights when they’re too young to drink at real bars.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- The lanes are lightly enchanted so the pins always reset and the balls return reliably. Sometimes the enchantments glitch and you get weird ricochets or sympathetic strikes.  
+- The arcade tickets can be traded in for junk prizes, including a few very questionable magic items (like “shock gum” that’s a little too strong).  
+- Local league night is a weird mix of retirees, blue-collar townies, and a couple of tryhard mages who treat bowling like ritual precision training.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- Spin Alley runs off a **small tap** that was spliced in cheaply; it’s prone to weird resonance when the main node is stressed.  
+- Perfect venue for:  
+  - A low-stakes Root event (possessed claw machine, animated pins, time-looped frame).  
+  - Social sessions where the stakes are emotional, not lethal.  
+  - A place for Elias / Estrada to meet the kids off-campus without it feeling like “school business.”
+
+---
+
+## Mr. Magic Pizza Party Fun Time
+
+**What students call it:** “Magic Pizza”, “Mr. Magic’s”, “MPPF”
+
+**Vibe (student-facing):**
+
+- Think: fantasy Chuck E. Cheese that’s been around way too long.  
+- Animatronic band of off-brand mascots, enchantment-powered ticket machines, a stage, and a dozen spell-scuffed birthday rooms.  
+- As little kids, everyone in town had at least one party here. As teens, you mostly come back ironically, or because you’re babysitting younger siblings.
+
+**What your character knows:**
+
+- The food is… fine. The soda refills are unlimited. The noise is unbelievable.  
+- The animatronics sometimes twitch or speak when they’re not supposed to; staff blame “old runes.”  
+- MPPF runs lots of deals and coupons – including the infamous **“Mr. Magic Pizza Party Fun Time!”** voucher that gets you a party package if you somehow win one.
+
+**DM ONLY – Hooks:**
+
+- The whole place is wired into a **cheap, overworked tap** that powers games, lights, and the mascots.  
+- When the PCs cash in their coupon, you can:  
+  - Have the Root bleed through the janky enchantments → animatronic horror episode.  
+  - Make D’serris furious because he has to waste Oversight attention on a cursed kiddie restaurant.  
+  - Tie one of the artifacts / subnodes into the basement (MPPF built on some old ritual site).
+