Part 2: Basic Info
Part 3: Campus Art
Part 4: Campus Traditions
Part 5: Transportation
Part 6: Important Buildings
Part 7: Housing
Part 8: Rumors
Theme: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Its the danger of dabbling in things you don't understand without stopping to ask if you should... this is the heart of the hubris in academia.
Mood: Oppressive and Isolating
UCSD is just a normal campus... except it isn't. Sometimes hazing pranks end in fake accidents and brutal fatalities. There are rumors of secret societies among members of the facility. There just seems to be more ghost stories and urban legends here than at other campuses, and they all seem to be focused on the oldest buildings. What's stranger is that faculty seem to take an interest in these stories and will even want to talk to witnesses about them.
Students complain that despite the bright sun and fresh ocean breeze the campus is overwhelming. The impressively huge buildings, the hallways that are wider than necessary but are always empty. You feel alienated, and the student turnover removes the sense of permanence. Stairs echo loudly and lights never seem quite bright enough to illuminate some of the older buildings. Walking across campus is tiring regardless of physical condition and being in the middle of campus feels like your miles from the outside world. Trapped. Cut off. Helpless to the larger system.
UCSD is the home of the Pentacle Academy. A shadow school of mages representing all five Orders of the Pentacle Alliance. It's the school's best kept secret, conducted in empty rooms and isolated buildings. Newly awakened learn their power, advance their skills, and get ready for acceptance in an Order when they graduate. But there are plenty of mysteries and paranormal activity that are outside of the Academy's control.
Part 1: Timeline
*1903 – The Scripps Institution of Oceanography is founded.
*1956 – The campus is authorized by the Regents of the University of California as a graduate and research institution. Citizens vote to transfer 59 acres on mesa land near the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO). The campus is originally planned on the “Oxford” model.
*1960 – Construction is approved. The graduate division of the school opens with twenty faculty in residence, with instruction offered in the fields of physics, biology, chemistry, and earth science. Before the main campus completes construction, classes are held in the SIO.
*1963 – New facilities are finished for the School of Science and Engineering, new buildings are under construction for Social Sciences and Humanities. Ten additional faculty are hired for those disciplines, and the site is designated the First College.
*1964 – Camp Mathews (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Calvin_B._Matthews ) is decommissioned and transferred to the University of California as part of the new UCSD campus. The undergraduate program accepts its first class of 181 freshmen. The Second College is founded.
*1968 - UC San Diego Medical Center surgeons perform the region’s first kidney transplant. It is later designated as the only Lever 1 Trauma Center in San Diego County.
*1970 – After years of political unrest on UCSD campus due to the US involvement in the Vietnam War, conditions exacerbate after the National Guard fires on student protestors in Kent State University. 200 students occupy Urey Hall, and one sets himself on fire.
*1970 - Third College opens with 176 students.
*1970 - The campus begins moving books into the new Central Library, the iconic building that would later be renamed Geisel Library.
*1974 - First students enroll in Fourth College
*1976 - The San Diego Chargers spend their first summer training on campus.
*1978 – SIO builds the first satellite dish receiver site at an oceanographic institution, providing direct access to orbiting instrument spacecraft.
*1980 – 1995 - The university strengths its ties with the city of San Diego by encouraging technology transfer with developing companies, transforming San Diego into a world leader in technology-based industries
*1983 - Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Sun God” becomes the first sculpture in the Stuart Collection, art featured on the campus of UC San Diego, which is today recognized as one of the world’s premiere public sculpture collections.
*1984 - Students hold the first Sun God Festival, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the statue's arrival. It has since evolved into an annual event featuring underground/indie bands, headlining mainstream groups, a fair and several stages for art, dance, student bands and DJs.
*1985 - The San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) is founded. Today, the facility has an archival storage capacity of 25 petabytes or about 1,000 times the digital plain-text equivalent of the printed collection in the Library of Congress-more than any other academic institution in the world.
*1986 - The university establishes the first department of cognitive science in the world to provide a focus for the continued evolution of the discipline of cognitive science through three main areas of study: brain, behavior and computation.
*1988 - Fifth College opens to emphasize international studies and foreign languages.
*1993 - UCSD-TV transmits its first moments on air; today, the station’s programming reaches to over one million televisions sets and produces 150 programs a year.
*1997 - President Clinton delivers the first all-college commencement address at UC San Diego.
*2002 – Sixth College founded.
*2008 - The UC San Diego Libraries become the first library system in Southern California to partner with Google in its global effort to digitize the collections of the world’s premier libraries.
*2009 - UC San Diego-recognized as one of the nation's greenest universities-opens the Sustainability Resource Center, a one-stop sustainability shop where students learn about green jobs, sustainability-related topics, how to conserve energy and water, and find eco-friendly products.
Timeline Footnotes:
1. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public service, undergraduate and graduate training in the world. Hundreds of ocean and Earth scientists conduct research with the aid of oceanographic research vessels and shorebased laboratories. Its Old Scripps Building is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. SIO is a department of the University of California, San Diego. The public explorations center of the institution is the Birch Aquarium at Scripps. Since becoming part of the University of California in 1912, the institution has expanded its scope to include studies of the physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and climate of Earth.
2. Camp Calvin B. Matthews or Marine Corps Rifle Range Camp Matthews or Marine Corps Rifle Range, La Jolla (prior to World War II) or more simply Camp Matthews was a United States Marine Corps military base from 1917 until 1964, when the base was decommissioned and transferred to the University of California to be part of the new University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus. Post WWII, many citizens of La Jolla became concerned about having a rifle camp nearby. Over a million Marine recruits as well as other shooters (such as Marines stationed at Miramar) received their marksmanship training at this military base.
Part 2: Basic Info
- Heavy focus on Research
- Undergraduate Enrollment: 23,805, 52% male / 48% female
- Moto: Fiat lux (Let there be light)
- In state tuition: roughly $13,000 – Out of state: +$30,000
- Located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, in the United States. Occupies 2,141 acres (866 ha) near the coast of the Pacific Ocean with the main campus resting on approximately 1,152 acres (466 ha)
- +550 student organizations
- Alcohol is permitted for students of legal age
- Safety: -hour foot and vehicle patrols, late night transport/escort service, 24-hour emergency telephones, lighted pathways/sidewalks, student patrols, and controlled dormitory access (key, security card, etc).
- Puts a lot of focus into research aspect of the college
- UC San Diego is organized into six undergraduate residential colleges:
1.
Revelle College “Purpose – Truth– Vision” (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/revelle/index.html)
2.
Muir College “Celebrating the Individual Spirit” (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/muir/index.html)
3.
Marshall College “Citizen Scholars” (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/marshall/index.html)
4.
Warren College "toward a life in balance" (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/warren/index.html)
5.
Roosevelt College “Making a Modern World” (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/roosevelt/index.html)
6.
Sixth College “Innovative, Interconnected, Aware” (
http://admissions.ucsd.edu/colleges/sixth/index.html)
Students affiliate with a college based upon its particular philosophy and environment as majors are not exclusive to specific colleges. Muir and Warren enroll the largest number of undergraduate students, followed by Sixth, Revelle, Roosevelt, and Marshall. Each undergraduate college sets different requirements for awarding graduation and provost's honors, separate from departmental and Phi Beta Kappa honors.
1.
Jacobs School of Engineering – “Drive Innovation Society” (
http://www.jacobsschool.ucsd.edu/about/mission.sfe)
2.
Rady School of Management – Business/Management Graduate school (
http://rady.ucsd.edu/)
3.
School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) – “Building a Pacific Community” (
http://irps.ucsd.edu/)
- Two professional medical schools – both operate out of the medical center:
1.
UC San Diego School of Medicine – (
http://som.ucsd.edu/)
 |
| The Sun God |
Part 3: Campus Art
1. The Sun God - There is a large winged creature located near the Faculty Club. It is part of the Stuart Collection.
Other collection pieces include a collection of Stonehenge-like stone blocks, a house sitting atop an engineering building in Warren College called Fallen Star, a table by Jenny Holzer, a building that flashes the names of vices and virtues in bright neon lights, and three metallic Eucalyptus trees.
The second rumor is that the Sun God statue is haunted by a person who
overdosed during the Sun God Festival years ago. His or her name is unknown;
some say it is a single individual, while others say it is a conglomeration of
all the victims the festival has claimed over the years – that the ghost wears
many faces, and speaks in many voices. Those who linger at the statue sometimes
hear the sounds of laughter, even if no one else is around. There have been a
few incidents of temporary blindness over the years; students claiming that
they were standing at the statue when an intense, painful beam of light shot
into their eyes. The ghost has a petty, cruel streak, but its pranks only cause
short term suffering and never long term harm.
The statue is also a node, a intersection of the main leylines that run through campus. Despite its public accessibility it is a place of power and a nexus for the ambient mystical energies on campus. Because of its resonance, it is fiercely protected by Helions and a large number of them swarm the statue in the Shadow during daylight hours.
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| The Snake Path |
2. The Snake Path - The collection also includes a large coiling snake path whose head guides towards Geisel Library, with a quote from John Milton's Paradise Lost carved along its length: "And wilt thou not be loath to leave this Paradise, but shalt possess a Paradise within thee, happier far."
People have reported feeling a chill run up their spine as they walk the
length, and an almost physical drop in the air temperature. There’s something
about it that just doesn’t feel right. A few who have ventured there alone at
night claim to have heard hushed, alien whispers in the darkness, but such
things are easily dismissed as superstition. Pentacle Academy Students confirmed this is an Avernian Gate with a complex ritual to open it.
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| The Giant Teddy bear |
3. Giant Teddy Bear - One of the newest additions to the collection is Tim Hawkinson's giant teddy bear made of six boulders located in between the newly constructed Calit2 buildings.
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| The Graffiti Staircase |
4. Graffiti Art Park - Another notable campus sight was the graffiti staircase of Mandeville Hall, a series of corridors that had been tagged with graffiti by generations of students over decades of use; this was recently replaced with the Graffiti Art Park. Students in the university's visual arts department also create temporary public art installations as part of their coursework.
The local Krewe of Sin-Eaters, known as the Harvest, noted this local as a nexus where writings of the Twilight Network can be found. There are also other strange occult writings, High Speech Sigils and platonic equations. It's treated as a message board, of sorts, for communicating secretly with others on campus.
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| The Fallen Star |
The Fallen Star
Perched atop the seventh floor of the Jacobs School of Engineering, part of the Sixth College, Do HO Suh's "Fallen Star" has become a beloved landmark featuring a small house and grassy path that is positioned precariously on the edge of the roof. It was created as an exploration of the idea of home, cultural displacement, and the perception of one's surroundings. The porch offers a wide panorama of the entire campus.
The Fallen Star is one of the campus's few hallows and is open to all students who wish to perform Oblations there. It is forbidden to draw mana from the hallow directly as this will easily the deplete it. It is a moderately strong hallow (OOO).
Sun God Festival
 |
| The Sun God Festival |
Named after the statue part of the Stuart Collection. The largest and most significant event of the year, held annually in mid-May on the seventh week of the spring quarter (mid-May) close to the end of the school year. The festival has grown over its thirty-year history into a 20,000 person event, featuring an eclectic mix of art, dance, and musical performances.
At least one person dies every year at the festival. While they all appear to be accidents such as drug overdose, the trend of at least one "sacrifice" at each festival is a well know urban legend for decades.
The Drops
Two other popular campus traditions include the Pumpkin Drop and the Watermelon Drop, which take place during Halloween and at the end of the spring quarter, respectively. The Watermelon Drop is one of the campus' oldest traditions, famously originating in 1965 from a physics exam question centering on the velocity on impact of a dropped object. A group of intrigued students pursued that line of thought by dropping a watermelon from the top floor of Revelle's Urey Hall to measure the distance from the splat to the farthest travelling piece of fruit. A variety of events surround the Watermelon Drop, including a pageant where an occasional male but generally female "Watermelon Queen" is elected. The Pumpkin Drop is a similar event celebrated by the dropping of a large, candy-filled pumpkin from 11-story Tioga Hall, the tallest residential building on the Muir college campus. Urey Hall was also the site of a rash of suicides in the 90s, one student immolated himself in the courtyard.
Part 5: Transportation
According to a recent survey, 54% of students have cars. The university runs a shuttle system, which is provided free for students, faculty, and staff, that services the main campus, UC San Diego Medical Center, university affiliated research centers, nearby apartment complexes and shopping centers, and the Sorrento Valley train station. As part of a greater initiative to reduce the university's impact on the environment, a portion of the shuttle fleet has been refitted to exclusively use biodiesel fuel derived from vegetable oil. UCSD also reserves parking spaces for carpools, maintains a fleet of on-campus Zipcars, and provides free bike rentals.
Part 6: Important Buildings
 |
| The Ché Café |
The Ché Café
The Ché Café is a student worker cooperative and social center that is perhaps best known for its role as a venue for underground music scene. On-and-off again vegan cafe and catering operation as well. The Ché also acts as a resource for the music and art departments on campus through hosting art shows, performances, and film screenings.
This is a favorite hangout for Pentacle Academy students when they need caffine and a place to blow off steam.
The Price Center
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| The Price Center |
The Price Center, often referred to as PC, is the main student hub and is located in the center of campus, just south of Geisel Library. The building houses multiple restaurants, the central bookstore, a movie theater, and office space for student organizations, organization advisers, and university faculty. The center itself houses multiple restaurants, a centralized bookstore, a theater and office space for 500+ student orgs, org advisors, and faculty. Two notable locations in the Price Center (aka University Center) is the Faculty Club and the Sun God Lounge which is an internet cafe lounge featuring occult art relating to the Sun God statue.
The Founders Hall within the Price Center hosts busts of the University Founders. Urban legends are ripe with stories of students hearing the founders talk to each other when no one is in the room. Anyone who hears voices coming from the hall and checks the room will most likely find it empty. The Founders Hall is a Geomantic Nexus (+1 Manipulate).
The Geisel Library
 |
| The Geisel Library |
The Geisel Library, The building is featured in the UC San Diego logo and is the most
recognizable building on campus. Built in 1969 Geisel is located in the center of the campus with Library Walk to its south, Thurgood Marshall College to its west, and Earl Warren College to its east.
The library has rare book rooms, secret rooms for occult books not on the inventory. One secret room is a mini-athenaeum for the Mysterium that holds various magical items for study and academia. A recent break-in has increased mystical security on this room.
The library is actually a Geomantic Nexus which expands the mind of those who study within. The Snake Path leads right to the door.
San Diego Supercomputer Center
 |
| The SDSC |
San Diego Supercomputer Center, The San Diego Supercomputer Center is an organized research unit of the University of California, San Diego. Physically, SDSC is located on the east end of Eleanor Roosevelt College on the campus of UCSD.
It is no surprise that the SDSC is a favorite hangout for the libertines. No small amount of supernal code, experiments, occult simulations and AIs reside in its datacenter. It is also known to be a place where the Unchained in the area utilize for its unique resources.
The Anthropology Department in the Social Sciences Building which adjoins the San Diego Supercomputer Center is another place of strangeness. Lights flicker and dim randomly and sounds can be heard coming from the vents. The staff say its electrical and HVAC issues but the entire department is also another Geomantic Nexus (-1 Stamina).
Scripps Institution of Oceanology (SIO)
 |
| The SIO |
Scripps Institution of Oceanology (SIO), The Scripps Institution of Oceanography (sometimes referred to as SIO, Scripps Oceanography, or Scripps) in San Diego, California, founded in 1903, is one of the oldest and largest centers for ocean and Earth science research, public service, undergraduate and graduate training in the world. Hundreds of ocean and Earth scientists conduct research with the aid of oceanographic research vessels and shore-based laboratories.
 |
| Natural Sciences Building |
UCSD Natural Sciences Building
The UCSD Natural Sciences Building is part of the Revelle College and represents a huge portion of the chemistry and biochemistry departments on campus.
The Chemistry & Biochemistry Department also appears to be a Geomantic Nexus (-1 to Resolve).
 |
| The Clocktower |
The New Clock Tower
On the other side of University Center (Price Center) a new clock tower has been constructed. Secretly this has been confirmed to be a enigmatic device and part of some kind of Occult circuit. It's true purpose is unknown and no one has confirmed it as piece of Infrastructure or as someone else's occult agenda related to campus.
Part 7: Housing
The six undergraduate residential colleges have separate, unique housing facilities for their students. First-year students are usually housed in the residence halls while upperclassmen live in the college apartments. Transfer students are housed in separate facilities from the residential colleges, in an area adjacent to Eleanor Roosevelt College called The Village at Torrey Pines. The housing facilities vary in design, though nearly all of them are of modern or brutalist style.
Young students in the residential halls have heard disembodied voices in hallways, stairwells and empty rooms. Those that talk about it report feeling hunted outside their rooms at night, as if something lurked just around the corner. An unusually high number of students tend to stay in their rooms all year despite breaks, taking summer classes or doing little around Christmas. Pentacle Academy security has noticed that sometimes students in the dorms will scribble diagrams and strange drawings in the margins of books and homework.
Part 8: Rumors
Ghost Summoning:
One rumor is
that though a ritual, you can invoke the departed spirit of Amie Ross, a
teacher who committed suicide after it was revealed she was having an affair
with a student. She was very shy, practically a recluse when not in her
classroom teaching, and almost never makes unsolicited appearances. Word is,
you need an Ouija board, and a sacrifice to burn. The sacrifice must be an item
of personal value, though not necessarily valuable in the material sense. A
page from someone’s personal journal or a well-loved piece of clothing would
suffice. In a darkened room, burn the sacrifice in front of the board, chant
her name five times, and she will appear. She does not speak, but communicates
entirely through the Ouija board.
Strange Markings:
Strange mathematical and geometric markings can be found in isolated places on campus. Some places you can find faded chalk or paint markings, evidence of writing and rituals. Some appear in natural phenomena such as in mold and condensation. The markings are generally regarded by the paranormal entities that reside on campus as the results of Pentacle Academy spellwork, messages on the Twilight Network, or students messing around.
Dead Roomates:
A well known urban legend on campus is if your roommate dies you automatically get a 4.0 GPA for the semester. David Milford was posthumously diagnosed as a schizophrenic but committed suicide several years ago. His unnamed roommate did get straight As and according to the legend everyone who's roommate dies gets straight As for the semester. The faculty has no knowledge of such a clause being the results of deliberate effort by the teachers or staff.
Occult Design:
There are rumors among the Pentacle Academy student body that the entire college is a massive occult matrix, optimized to follow mystical architecture and gather power. These rumors are unconfirmed and the faculty of mages has stated that it is not their doing. The campus was picked for the mage school partially because of its mystical layout.
Supernatural Demographics
All and all, UCSD is a busy place and has a small but diverse population of preternatural entities that reside in and around the campus proper. First and foremost are the mages and their Pentacle Academy of approximately 10 instructors and 20-25 students. Mages enrolled spend 3 years in the Academy and go on to join Orders. They also usually have a cover degree that they work at on the side to broaden their academic knowledge of the Fallen World.
Next is a collection of half a dozen Sin-Eaters arranged in a krewe known as the Harvest. They are all either alumni, professors, undergraduate and graduate students.
The rest tend to be a very rare collection of entities. There are few Lunes (moon spirits) on campus and an unusually high number of Helions (solar spirits) as well as spirits of water and oceanic choirs. Vampires will sometimes wander in to feed but the local concillium tries to crack down on the entire vampiric population of San Diego. There are no known werewolves, prometheans, or mummies on campus. There is the occasional odd Changeling associated with the courts in San Diego or Los Angeles. If they stick around they are extremely low-key. Lastly there are rumors of Demons hanging out in the Super Computer center but this is unconfirmed.
(English scout name)
(Means Opposite, part of moon meaning opposite sun)
(Means Wolf)
(the Storyteller)
(Young reckless, first tongue for ‘Spirit-talker’)
Auspice: Elodoth
(English scout name)
(Means Opposite, part of moon meaning opposite sun)
Auspice: Elodoth
