Ed and I have previously written about what a big undertaking East Texas University had been for us. It had been written, re-written, re-re-written, and so on, over the course of several years. On top of that, due to may graphic design experience with 12 to Midnight I was also the layout artist for both ETU and Degrees of Horror. So I was involved in the production of the books right up to the very end, and when it was over, I was exhausted. I needed a serious break, and so I started writing some ETU fiction (more on that in a future post). But before long I ended up working for Pinnacle in other capacities. First it was proofreading Weird Wars I, followed by the Sixth Gun. Then it was writing a chapter in the companion to Rippers: Resurrected. Then finally a chapter in the companion to Flash Gordon (no way was I going to turn that down!).
The dates are jumbled in my mind at this point, but somewhere along the way we had a 12 to Midnight “summit” (read: hangout and gaming weekend). Ed and I had written ETU, but there were other members who wanted to contribute in some way. So we conceived a supplement of creatures and accompanying Savage Tales that would fit ETU. The beauty of this approach was that any one of us could contribute as little or as much as we wanted, independent of one another. There was quite a lot of enthusiasm for the idea…but the reality didn’t quite work out. I think we all liked the idea, but it turned out that most of us didn’t actually have the time in our busy lives to act upon it. For me, it was still just too soon after the marathon effort of ETU and I still felt like I was running near empty. But what I did have was pure Texan stubbornness. We said we were going to do this book, so by gosh we were going to do this book. We did, and while it didn’t make a big splash, it was still a cool supplement with some neat creatures and adventures. I mean, who doesn’t like a good creepy doll or hillbilly love cult?
A few years later, my batteries were mostly recharged and I kept thinking back to the excised section of the Degrees of Horror plot point campaign in which I’d sent the study group to a study abroad trip to an ETU branch campus on an island off the coast of Costa Rica (Jurassic Park, eat your heart out!). I thought it would be really cool to invite all of Pinnacle’s international publishing distributers to contribute a chapter about their home country and the ETU study abroad program there. To my thinking, it would bridge closer ties with those distributors for Pinnacle and bring more attention to the East Texas University books. Win-win! And since it would be written by natives to those countries, they’d be able to incorporate all the local folklore to immerse players in the experience. Best of all, it would be other people doing the writing and I’d just have to edit it!
Sadly, we didn’t get the response that I’d initially hoped, and we only got responses from three countries. We brought in my friend Owen Lean from the U.K., who had previously written the fantastic Christmas-themed ETU adventure Horror for the Holidays, to round out the book to four. Then one of the three other countries had to back out because they wouldn’t be able to start working on it for six months or longer, which was well past our deadline. So I ended up writing that Costa Rica chapter after all, although I moved the location from an island (and legit secret volcano base for Sweetheart!) to a remote mountain village.
What I hadn’t counted on was the challenge of editing the writing of those whose first language wasn’t English. I don’t want to make it sound like it was written poorly; rather, those of you who are multilingual understand that each language has their own way of phrasing which can sound “off” to English ears. I took my best stab at it, but ultimately Pinnacle’s Jessica Rogers stepped in for the heavy lifting, for which I am deeply grateful.
Study Abroad was released shortly after the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition (“SWADE”) in 2021. Although I’d sworn that this would be my last RPG and I’d finally be writing that novel that had been cooking in the back of my head, it wasn’t too long after that Ed convinced me it was time for a new edition of ETU. Fresh Blood.
