Belphegor University, Home of the Sagacious Salamanders
Welcome to Belphegor University!
Nestled in the forests at the edge of the town of Lemure, Kansas, at the world-famous geodimensional rift, Belphegor University spans 151 acres of woods and lawns interspersed with its architecturally-diverse facilities.
Belphegor University is of course best known for its research and development of the arcane arts and sciences -- including its renowned preparatory school for mages, Belphegor Academy -- but also offers a wide variety of scholarly disciplines and research centers, as well as other opportunities for its students. From leading dimensional physics researchers, to a major herpetological research center, to one of the premiere quidditch teams in the entire world, Belphegor University has something for everyone.
The unique location of Belphegor University also offers close connections and convenience to major population centers and other destinations. Due to its dimensional properties, the university and its accompanying town are just 60 minutes from Portland, Oregon, 80 minutes from Salem, Massachusetts, and less than 2 hours from Las Vegas, Nevada. Most notably, Belphegor University's main campus is separated from its satellite campus in Manes, Oklahoma by only a ten-minute walk.
Nestled in the forests at the edge of the town of Lemure, Kansas, at the world-famous geodimensional rift, Belphegor University spans 151 acres of woods and lawns interspersed with its architecturally-diverse facilities.
Belphegor University is of course best known for its research and development of the arcane arts and sciences -- including its renowned preparatory school for mages, Belphegor Academy -- but also offers a wide variety of scholarly disciplines and research centers, as well as other opportunities for its students. From leading dimensional physics researchers, to a major herpetological research center, to one of the premiere quidditch teams in the entire world, Belphegor University has something for everyone.
The unique location of Belphegor University also offers close connections and convenience to major population centers and other destinations. Due to its dimensional properties, the university and its accompanying town are just 60 minutes from Portland, Oregon, 80 minutes from Salem, Massachusetts, and less than 2 hours from Las Vegas, Nevada. Most notably, Belphegor University's main campus is separated from its satellite campus in Manes, Oklahoma by only a ten-minute walk.
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The most notable architectural and planning innovation for the students, however, is that the students have nearly full access to the structural and mechanical workings of the campus. This degree of access, virtually unprecedented anywhere else, has led to a number of student-directed engineering projects that have given the campus's facilities a particular distinction to them -- for example, the slope leading upward from the west campus parking lot to the Central Plaza have been outfitted with a series of adjustably porous concrete steps that can be converted into pools of water of various depths, and the surrounding buildings have been outfitted with water channels to redirect their water to these pools, allowing for a rainstorm to produce a series of pools for swimming and lounging.
The relatively liberal building codes have also allowed the students to experiment with striking designs, such as the 50-foot-deep gap between the literature and geography departments.
Even where students have largely left the existing landscaping in place, the atmosphere is still distinctive -- such as the Southern Quad where the brick paths and walls are punctuated by impressively large, gnarled and knotted trunks of old, petrified trees.
But by far the most distinctive feature on the campus is The Crater. Overlooked by the Central Plaza, The Crater, a roughly circular and very large bowl-shaped crater originally created by a magical accident during the initial construction of the campus. Planners decided to leave it as is, and it has since been used to do everything from illustrating bedrock to geology students to hosting many creative decorations on the annual Samhain/Halloween holiday -- such as, once, an alien crash site complete with thick black smoke and shards of a mysterious craft.
A number of students grow food consumed on the campus, using patches of the landscaping of the campus as well as its buildings' rooftops and even artificially-managed facilities indoors, but raw food materials are never in short supply due to the university's location near agricultural resources.
The university's proximity to the town of Lemure also means that students, staff, and faculty frequently patronize restaurants and other vendors in the town -- be it for a quick bite, a working or socializing session in a coffee shop, or a fancy night out. Lemure, which has grown with the university, caters closely to the tastes of the university community, offering everything from fast greasy-spoon fare, health- and ethics-conscious options, eateries that serve as hangout spots, and even a handful of businesses that offer upscale dining experiences.
The Rusalka Apartments, located in the midst of the Tatori River and named after the patron saint of soil moisture, are such an example. This set of one-. two-, three-, and four-story row-buildings, each containing two- to four-occupant apartments, has a particularly colorful history.
It was originally built on the floodplains of the Tatori, as a set of apartments overlooking the river, on what was previously an island that separated the Tatori from one of its meanders. The meander had dried up and thus the land on the riverbank was connected to the mainland again. A set of Strom Thurmond supporters built an apartment complex commemorating his 1948 presidential run. The buildings were arranged to partly surround a courtyard with a swimming pool -- though that would seem hardly necessary as the complex was waterfront property already. But just like perpetuating segregation, building the Thurmond Apartments at this location turned out to be a prodigiously stupid idea, as the Tatori soon re-flooded the meander and began eroding away the island.
When Belphegor University acquired this property, it'd been abandoned by its previous occupants, and initial plans were to tear down the building. However, enterprising students and faculty worked out a plan to anchor each of the four buildings and some courtyard features to the bedrock and to each other (and rub Thurmond's name off the masonry, of course). This plan was implemented, and a number of bridges and other improvements (including the addition of a helipad atop one of the buildings) were also made, allowing the apartments to continue to be habitable.
Since then, besides restoring the building to a usable condition, residents have strongly customized the building to suit their activities. Each floor of each building has roughly the same floorplan -- double/triple/quad apartments summing to an occupancy of 35, as well as outside-of-apartment common areas -- but residents have turned some of the common areas and even some apartments into centers for various activities. For example, the center lounge of 3-1 (the three-story building's first floor) was converted to manage harvests, plant and animal, from aquaculture plots just outside the building, in the Tatori River. A hand-cranked elevator has also been added to the tallest building (though flight-capable students are nevertheless still disproportionately inhabit the upper floors). Even where major improvements didn't visit, residents have spread copious amounts of paint on the interiors and exteriors of the complex -- resulting in a noticeably colorful set of residence halls, whose colors occasionally (and quite haphazardly) change. The most notable improvement, though, is the addition of an "Observation Tank" beside the complex -- a glass and steel structure that allows the Belphegor community (at least those who do not possess air magic) an underwater view of the Tatori River and its flora and fauna -- complete with benches for relaxing and contemplating -- while remaining dry.
Rusalka's current residents do include a higher-than-average number of students in agricultural and natural science studies, as well as some number of creative types. The dorm culture leans toward counterculture tastes, and not surprisingly also hosts many vegan and vegetarian cookouts. Underwater soccer -- a variant of underwater hockey adapted for play in a flowing river -- is a popular sport, and the Rusalka Observation Tank (often just "the Tank") is frequently used by spectators.
So I picked 151 because it's slightly smaller and conveniently also the number of Pokémon in the Kanto Pokédex. Belphegor's campus is somewhat smaller, but also more compact due to being more square.
It's also less urban than MIT's campus, but that just means that its buildings are more tightly packed together giving it more green spaces (and parking spaces) around the buildings. MIT's main-campus buildings are already pretty tightly packed relative to a typical suburban campus, but for an even tighter packing, see Columbia University (which is located in Manhattan in New York City).
One thing I enjoyed about MIT's campus is that it IS very interconnected, with buildings making use of both above-ground and below-ground space. That's what I mean by "tightly-packed". If I were to design a university campus, it'd have the buildings all linked to each other using sky walkways and tunnels, in addition to ground pedestrian paths.
(That reminds me. Something else I want to include is parking lots with solar panels providing shade to cars and power to both buildings and EV charging stations. There's even technology that allows roads to be solar paneling themselves. And of course, this being what it is, I also want to think of something interesting to do with mid-air parking.)
A building that's basically four towers that are linked to each other with skyways. Assuming this is a residential building (which is what I'd originally dreamed up -- literally in a dream), each floor would be divided into suites, but the suites would have strange floorplans (as inspired by an actual dorm at MIT whose suites have strange floorplans). But of course, at Belphegor, the residents would be able to get around using...less conventional means of locomotion, including sliding under or above doorways by transforming into slime, or flight up to one's room several stories high. The four towers bound a small courtyard with a swimming pool, because I had originally imagined this as a hotel, but...real-life hotels have indeed been converted into dorms. (Sadly they usually gut the interesting features, even fireplaces and kitchens.)
A ring of apartments, two or three stories high -- maybe two-and-a-half so the bottom floor is half below ground level. Each apartment houses six and has a living room, a kitchen, a hallway, and a bedroom area -- which is different in almost each apartment, with some having a single giant room with six beds and others divided in various ways. Supposedly occupied predominantly by STEM majors, and nicknamed The Ring (after its shape and after the movie), but I haven't come up with a sufficiently interesting official name yet. The interior of The Ring is a circular courtyard frequently used for various functions, from barbecues to experiments to a flag-hoisting contest. One can enter and leave The Ring using walkways that separate each neighboring pair of apartments. I need to come up with more interesting things they do.
A large rectangular building with a central courtyard that serves as a multipurpose space/arena. This building is academic in function, and has open-air walkways on the interior and exterior, and is several stories tall (three to five). A network of dug-out and subterranean passages allow for convenient storage and transport of equipment. No name ideas yet.
Some large connected building that contains everything from the athletics center to the bookstore to the power plant, for no apparent reason(?). It's an older building, formed by joining a bunch of buildings together.
A new medical center, with an immense underground complex with lots of pipes and machines. It is under construction.
In case you're wondering, these are all basically me developing ideas of interesting/crazy architectural ideas I've had in my dreams.
Oh, for one more idea to shove into here: in one dorm room, someone has somehow gotten what appears to be their car into the building, which they use as their bed and desk. (It doesn't go anywhere though.) (Yes, this actually appeared in a dream once.)
Yes, it's river water, but most classes don't care about contamination.
e.g. "Crossfode".
Lugh Ciel: A new student, a froshling. Undecided about her major. Tries to be a(n irritating) groupie to her secondary-school acquaintance Rayne Lindwurm, seeing Rayne as her big sis, but fails in the loyalty department.
Sriabelle Orphanknight: A sophomore, a general magical studies major, seemingly more interested causing trouble than academics. Helps run an officially-prohibited dueling and gambling ring, and is a frequent combatant herself.
Giee: Sophomore, biology major with an ecology focus. Not a particularly friendly person, and often very absorbed in her studies and research projects. Best known amongst staff for having a single-word name, causing various amounts of administrative confusion.
Irias Reginleif: Sophomore, mechanical engineering major. Relatively "mainstream" in her habits and tastes. Angling for an internship following this school year. Part friend, part rival to Rayne Lindwurm.
I remember the boy's name is Henri and the girl's name I can't remember. But I'd also need surnames for them.
Let's throw them (and their old dorm building) in. Make them journalism majors.
* on the right, a common area or living room, with a nice high ceiling. Probably light-peach or off-white walls. Couches and a TV set.
* Immediately on the left, a kitchen, with counters lit by LEDs underneath the cabinets and lit from above by hanging lights.
* Further on the left, a hallway with a bathroom or two, followed by bedroom(s).
The bedrooms could either be traditional bedrooms or this other crazy idea that appeared in a dream, which was that it was one large room, again with a high ceiling, wherein residents constructed their own dividing structures. For example, they could make their own loft, if they're flight-capable or can climb on walls, high up from everyone else. Or they could make their own scaffolding or even a mini-cave out of random materials, be it plywood or scrap metal or whatever.
Each such unit would house six residents and the idea was that I'd need three of these stacked on top of each other (18 residents per "column") and then a ring of 18 such "columns" to get a ring housing 324 students (which is roughly the capacity of a normal dorm) and also not be unreasonably large in physical dimensions.
Since I'd have to stack them, it'd make sense to scale back the high ceilings idea a bit. That was almost certainly something that came out of me dreaming of a single-family house rather than a dorm, so of course it needed some adapting. (In fact I originally dreamed of a long row of townhouses...or maybe that was just a different dream, where I was reaching beneath the foundation of one of the townhouses to grab something, late into the dusk...) So instead, only the third floor unit of each column would get high ceilings. And maybe we could extend the footprint of each unit toward the back in order to fit in separate bedrooms (or multi-occupancy bedrooms).
And just so that the view becomes more varied, we could have alternating "inward-facing" and "outward-facing" units. This -- plus some mirror-reversing of floorplans -- would mean that we could potentially arrange things so as to tesselate the units and compress them into a slightly smaller space. For example, imagine a floorplan shaped roughly like a mirrored "L", where the small leg is actually a cluster of bedrooms sticking out. We could redesign the hallway so that the angle of the "L" partly "smashed" into two 45-degree angles, and thus we could have another "smashed L" placed next to it, rotated 180 degrees of course, together forming a cross-shape. This would allow all the bedrooms to have windows but also save some space. And this would mean that each whole column would be an "inward" or "outward" column.
Of course I also still haven't thought of a good name for this building yet so I haven't made an "official" write-up of it.
But lately I've had an alternate idea. I'm not sure whether to replace this or just make a new thing. Seems like I'm coming up with all the dorms first lol
Each unit houses 12 people as follows:
Walk in. You're on the first floor of the unit. Stairs to the left and right, but one going up and away from you while the other one goes down and away from you. They connect to the second floor. Both floors are arranged relatively cozily. This is the downstairs common area, and you can see a balcony above you at the doorway, so there's a gap between the front wall and the upstairs common area right above you. Sound travels freely between the upstairs and downstairs common areas.
Beyond the stairs, on your right, you see a half-flight of stairs down to a kitchen. Beyond the stairs, on your left, you see a half-flight of stairs down to a bathroom. Beyond the kitchen and the bathroom, are three rooms on each side, arranged in a forked fashion, so that one room gets a view of one side of the building, one room gets a view of the other side, and one room gets a view of both sides.
Going upstairs, you see the same arrangement, except the stairs are half-flights upward on both sides, and the kitchen is on the left while the bathroom is on the right.
So the whole thing, if you look at it from the outside, looks like a flattened X.
This pattern, while having a more interesting interior, doesn't tesselate well at all. But if we eliminate the half-flight stairs, though, it tesselates just fine, making columns of 12n capacity of where n is the number of units per column. For n = 2, which means a four-story building, a ring of 14 columns has capacity 336.
It just makes it less fun to fly across from one upper wing of a unit to the other upper wing of the unit. I could totally imagine someone doing that to settle a score at 3 AM.
but i just now thought that they could also be brick walls, carpet and linoleum flooring, and plaster interior walls
Actually thinking of naming Henri's partner "Emily Crossfade".
I think I'm going to have Henri and Emily both be relatively "muggle"-ish as far as this university's student body goes. They don't have spectacular magical powers like some other people do, but their abilities are ones that come in handy when they go investigating mysteries at the university.
I don't mind making them a couple either. They just sorta settle into the role but their focus is actually their investigative work.
And it'd also make sense for them to both be active in the school's newspaper, too. :)
I can imagine Emily with a ponytail and Henri looking almost spot-on like Wilhelm.
Hmm, her middle name, Pleasance, could be a funny "embarrassing name" for an ambitious and rebellious witch named Liddell.
The source character Liddell from A Witch's Tale might be the daughter of a great mage.
Meanwhile, her friend Kitty has basically no backstory at all.
The second child of the influential Lindwurm family, Rayne's general outlook on life has been one of trying to find ways not to play second fiddle to her older sister, who is both arrogant and competent. Has developed somewhat of a competitive streak herself, though less prone to backstabbing and more prone to pranks. A sophomore, interested in mechanical engineering.
Emily Crossfade. Henri...I don't know of a good surname yet.
Also thinking of introducing Nathan Graves and Hugh Baldwin. Just because I can lol.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic-items/wondrous-items/wondrous-items/a-b/bookmark-of-deception
Let's rename it "bookmark of substitution" for the purpose of this setting, because it'll be used a little differently.
The reason:
1. Make bookmarks of substitution for a bunch of tabletop role-playing game rulebooks.
2. Carry your course textbook around with you.
3. When gathered with friends, bring out your bookmarks and your textbook and insert the magical bookmarks one at a time to play a tabletop game with your friends using those sourcebooks.
They're like magical flash drives.
I mean, where else are you going to go when you need to crash without going back to your room? You can't always let yourself be distracted by your roommates/suitemates. Of course! There are these really-in-the-corner tables where you basically can't be seen if you throw up a sleeping bag next to the wall beneath them.
Good thing it's a 24/7 library.
Around Halloween, some curious necromancy students -- or prankish persons of any major of study -- tend to enjoy making a big deal of this, turning this section of the library into an actual haunted location.
They have to import the undead, though. Some enterprising students have suggested digging a deep pit beneath this wing to see if they can find locals, however.
Originals: The cast of Element Hunters, an anime series with a chemistry-related premise aimed at school-age children such as tweens. Four boys and three girls, all aged 11 to 13. They are tasked with recovering "posi-elements" that have been sucked into an alternate universe "nega-Earth". Initially two same-age teams of three, one of the 13-year-olds is replaced by the only 11-year-old partway into the story. Two of the 12-year-olds and two of the 13-year-olds develop cross-team romantic feelings for each other.
Expies: Clearly their expies have to be aged up. They can be chemistry/alchemy majors in a nod to their source, though this may mean I should decide what specialty each of them has (organic chem, inorganic chem, physical chem, etc.). Will not be the same characters though since this universe will be different. The romances can be replicated by having these two groups first meet in university. They might come from different secondary schools, and one group is freshmen while the other group is sophomores.
Ren Karas: Feisty and action-oriented de facto leader of 12-year-olds team. Sometimes doesn't think very hard. Falls in love with Ally.
Expy: Probably dumping the "doesn't think very hard" aspect since a physical science isn't something one would study if one doesn't like thinking. However, being risk-taking and ambitious is still a compatible trait. So is being a show-off. Probably needs a new name...how about Lenny "Len" Cutlass? (An appropriately showy name.) Probably starts calming down when he meets Ally.
Chiara Ferina: Also feist but less impulsive than Ren. Wears a belt in such a way that she looks like she has a tail. Eventually falls in love with Rodney.
Expy: Similar personality. Ren's schoolmate from secondary school. Meets Rodney, a sophomore, in her freshman year of university. Surname changed to "Farina", which seems to be a more common Italian name; her dad is a cop (a Law & order reference).
Homi Nandie: Indian boy, more quiet and formally polite in his manners. The "brains" in the original trio. Very observant. Wears glasses. (Turns out to be genetically-engineered?)
Expy: Yet another schoolmate of Ren and Chiara, and similarly polite in dress and speech. Also wears glasses. "Homi" is a real Indian given name but I'm not sure "Nandie" is, though "Nandi" is apparently a sacred bull or something, so I might have to pick another name.
Ally Connolly: Stoic leader of the group of 13-year-olds. Egyptian girl. Leaves group for plot reasons. Falls in love with Ren.
Expy: Explicitly specifies that she grew up in Egypt but her father is Irish, hence her Irish name. Also stoic, and also becomes romantically interested in Len, but doesn't have group drama in the same way.
Rodney Ford: A more serious type, tending to have little taste for unpredictableness. Sort of a foil to Ren and Tom, in different ways. Falls in love with Chiara.
Expy: Similar personality, and explicitly stated to be a U.S. American. Probably involved in the university's ROTC program?
Tom Benson: A laid-back individual. Quite smart, and geeky, but with a friendly, approachable style. Collects rocks and minerals. Big fan of Hannah Weber.
Expy: Basically the same personality -- geeky but friendly. Probably really into mineralogy and physical chem. Big fan of pop star Hannah Webber. Has a mom who is a cop, in another Law & Order reference.
Hannah Weber: A pop idol, known for singing on a commercial for a drink called "Mirai Orange" (among other work). Unexpectedly joins the team (for complicated reasons outside her control), and turns out to be somewhat less bright and happy than her public persona suggests. (Also a genetically-engineered individual?)
Expy: Renamed Hannah Webber, also a pop star, and rumored to be related to Andrew Lloyd Webber. Sophomore-year transfer student, actually interested in chemistry, and actually a little resentful sometimes of the fact that she can't get away from her publicity. Thrown into a class project group with Rodney and Tom, which ends up growing into a friendship. Feels embarrassed about her "The Future Is Orange" advertising work.
I don't know what they do, but it's rather obvious what their name is a parody of.
Now, how do you make an analogue of that in a setting where demons (or at least people with demon names) actually do exist and are basically regular (albeit possibly anime-inspired) people with magical superpowers?
I guess it's possible to keep the name, to be honest, considering that I've never been a fan of Lovecraft mythos anyway, just as a jab. lol. would fit the "ad hoc"/"live and let live" way I've been doing the rest of this.
Meade Krupple
Dean Aquidneck
Zoe Lobdell
Ethan Nathaniel
Priscilla Snowtell
The Pando siblings are distantly related to the Lindwurms.
Myr Pando: Bookish and quiet, but creative. An aspiring author.
Karin Pando: Charismatic and athletic, known for an energetic and high-on-life disposition, as well as being involved in a ton of activities.
The most notable feature of The Ring is its courtyard, which is also known as "The Ring". Its residents, a good portion being STEM majors, are fond of a variety of nerdy pranks and engineering projects, and often crack jokes on the ambiguity of this terminology as well as definitions of "inside" and "outside". The courtyard is basically the dorm's common space, used for parties, barbecues, experiments, movie screenings using a five-way projection system mounted on poles which may or may not rotate, or even move around, odd challenges such as a banner-hoisting contest or a three-dimensional maze, and probably the most prominent feature, bullfighting, specifically using magitech bulls built by residents. Underground sabotage efforts (and the undercover contests to implement them) often make this event particularly unpredictable and entertaining.
Rumor has it that residents have been planning modifications to the building to make the upper ring rotatable.