To most appearances, Pinebox is just like any other town. Well, any other town in Texas, that is, because as most of us know Texas is a very special place to start with.

Texans are fiercely independent and as proud of their heritage as they are the size of the mosquitoes and other critters that always seem to be just a little bigger there.

Nestled near Pinebox is East Texas University, usually just “ETU” to the locals. Students from all over the world attend the small but respected college.

Some of them even survive it.

You see, Pinebox isn’t just like any other town. It’s plumb weird.

Nobody wants to admit it, but “unexplained” events happen too often to count. Officially, ETU’s crime rate is in line with a campus
its size, but left unspoken are the students who disappear without a trace. Without evidence of foul play, these disappearances
are officially counted as “withdrawals.”

The weirdness doesn’t stop at the edge of campus, either. Some of the twitchier types claim Pinebox is some sort of nexus of strangeness.
They claim ghosts, demons, cultists, and monstrous creatures are drawn there.

Pinebox citizens say that’s crazy talk. They’re just another rural Texas town like any other. Or perhaps they just follow the old wisdom that to acknowledge darkness invites it to take notice in return.

Maybe they're right.

In East Texas University, characters start as everyday, naive college Freshmen. Those who make it through their four or so years of academia generally become professionals — doctors, lawyers, engineers, scholars, and the like. Some, those who encounter Pinebox’s particular brand of weirdness and survive it, might become heroes as well.

Success at ETU means keeping up with studies and occasionally solving strange mysteries. An adventure might center around finding a missing student or simply passing mid-term exams!

The world of Pinebox is the modern world we live in, but slightly askew. ETU students are generally normal people with normal skills, abilities, and knowledge. Part of the fun and excitement of the setting is how such ordinary people react when they realize global conspiracies, hidden societies, and myths and legends are real. Under adversity, the ordinary sometimes rise to become extraordinary.

Since this setting is about the journey from one to the other, heroes might start as inexperienced or even selfish teenagers, and graduate as
selfless young men and women.