One of the best reviews I remember was when one reviewer said, (paraphrased) “12 to Midnight not only makes great products, but they give you more than what you actually buy.” We wanted to have two or three freebies on our website for everything we put out. We thought this would foster community and grow our fanbase. So, we put out the first map of Pinebox, Texas. We started putting out d20 encounter cards for our adventures, the EVPs for Last Rites, and much more.
One of the first things we did was the Journal of American Paranormal Research in the spring of 2003 (even before Last Rites). Volume 1, Number 1 had the place identified as Pinebox, San Augustine County, Texas (yes, Golan County had not yet been invented), but the editor was listed as jackson@12tomidnight.com. This is no longer an active email, so don’t send anything to it! The first article was “Nazi Identified in Rosetta” by Jackson Green (Me).
That’s right, the first edition of Last Rites had placed the happening in a fictional town known as Rosetta, Texas. Why? I don’t know. I was stupid! ? Of course, we changed this in later editions and stuck most of our future adventures in the town of Pinebox, Texas.
We would later use that article as a handout for Last Rites. The second article was “Truck-Sized Catfish Reported” and this was the first mention of Lake Greystone and the “40-year-old Dam” which we later retconned and said no, it was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression.
You also see the first mention of a college in Pinebox, though the ad is for the SouthEast Texas Institute or S.E.T.I. I don’t think Preston ever read the Journal as he had an infant son and was working on the layout of Last Rites. Later he would say, “Ed mentioned the college and I was like, there is a college too?” So, yeah, I have evidence that it existed all the way back in Spring of 2003.
Volume 1, Number 2 issue was based on an adventure Mark and I had run in our home game. Prior to 12 to Midnight being a thing, Mark had created an idea for a ghost hunting game in which college kids go on these “adventures.” This truly was the inspiration for what would become Pinebox and 12 to Midnight.
In the adventure, I played Jackson Green and Mark was Lance Carson (two iconic 12 to Midnight characters) investigating a haunting at Fort La Bonita Espiritu Flores near Lake Greystone. The mission was built in the 1730s by early Spanish Friars and missionaries to East Texas. In the 1770s, the Fort was built to protect the mission from native attacks. In the 1790s a smallpox epidemic swept through East Texas (yes, this really happened), and Father Joseph Escalante and Commander Luis Ramirez kept the mission and fort viable and helped the local Caddoan tribe survive. After the Texas Revolution in 1836, the fort and mission were abandoned and eventually became ruins and rot until the Works Project Administration in the 1930s rebuilt it and it became a state park. The tale follows Jackson and Lance as they discover the history of the park and encounter folks who are stealing native artifacts and stirring up ghosts from the past. Eventually the heroes manage to find the artifacts, have a Metote ceremony, have the bad guys arrested and we learn a whole lot of history about the area. We also introduce the first Chupacabras for the Pinebox setting.
The third and last issue was published in the Spring of 2004 and featured a GREAT adventure by Neal Hyde called The Message. It was a space fungi zombie fest and introduced East Texas University professors, the Texas Rangers from Bloodlines, and the town of Cavalas in Golan County, Texas. The town is wiped out in the ensuing zombie fest and is only now, in the present day, being repopulated.
It was a great adventure, and we loved it so much we asked Neal to become a member of 12 to Midnight! The adventure was later updated for Savage Worlds and released in one of the issues of Shark Bytes (a great early fanzine for Savage Worlds).
The last issue (4) was produced in the summer of 2004 and featured my home brew for ancient earth fantasy roleplay called The Cradle. I wrote it to bring the ancient world of Innana’s Kiss to life. It took place in ancient Sumeria, had a discussion of cultural beliefs and gods, plot ideas, the Enkidu, Giilgamesh, Hawawa, the Bull of Heaven, and more. I really liked this setting, but we never did anything with it after this. This issue also included an article on the real-world fauna and more which was later used in ETU. We also introduced Crenshaw’s Woods, the Crenshaw Devil, and a Paranormal Lexicon of terms that would be used again in Green’s Guide to Ghosts.
These Journals are still freebies on our website and on Drivethrurpg.com.
