Off Springs, Florida is as forgotten as forgotten can be. Without a spot on any printed map in the world, the town is famously known for not being famous at all. The single thing that each of the residents has in common is that they’re all wrapped together in a swamp town that told itself that it’s most visit-worthy feature are stone carvings of animals that are displayed in random places all around; specifically, the 12-foot, stone alligator sculptures posted at each of the two roads leading into the town.
The content written below is for free use. The characters, locations, and information were all created for players to enjoy and make their own. My only wish is that I be credited should my work ever be used at your table.
Created by local artist turned recluse Montgomery Solanos, the alligator sculptures have stood since the mid 80s and were made to look like they were waving at passing drivers. In fact, all of his sculptures date back to around the same time frame and depict animals in their natural habitats. There are so many sculptures that they sometimes get confused with actual animals and they’ve become so popular among the few visitors that the town gets that it would do them more harm than good to have them removed.
Over the last two years, the small town has been getting acquainted with the world outside with the completion of the Blood Orange Grove shopping plaza. The plaza brought a previously unheard of excitement among the people with the opening of a new bar, department store, and several other businesses. Between that and the new, heavily forested Century Park hiking path, the people were slowly finding things to do besides staying home and driving to a different town for work.
A lot of the older folks don’t seem to be too excited about the new developments, saying that it’s bringing an unsightly crowd; but really, who would want to visit a town as boring as Off Springs? There aren’t even any springs to enjoy.
Outline
- Outline
- Alternate Town Creation Questions
- Points of Interest
- Potential NPCs
- Possible Adventure Hooks
- Possible Threats
- Possible Powered Characters
- Possible Monsters
Alternate Town Creation Questions
Individual
Where do you work? / Where do you go to school?
Do you have any hobbies / extracurricular activities?
Where do you live?
What does your room look like? What does your apartment look like?
What is your relationship with the outdoors?
What is your view of yourself? / How do others view you?
What do you like to do for fun?
Do you have any family?
Group
How long have you all known one another?
What is something you all like to do together?
Where did you meet one another?
Do your families know one another?
Points of Interest
Blood Orange Grove Plaza
The plaza was built in a record five months, (some would even go so far as to say that it happened overnight), and has been the talk of the town for the last two years. It brought on a collection of stores that seemed perfect for the boring folks of Off Springs:
- a vegan restaurant named Laguna’s Cafe
- a unisex hair cuttery simply named THE Salon
- a new wave bar that seems to hide in the shadows and blast hardcore rock music named Danny’s Bar
- a department store that seems to be the one stop shop that’s wiping out the local businesses named Bullseye.
Century Park
The park was technically always there, but was only gated and had markers put up shortly after the Blood Orange Grove plaza opened up. The trail is wide and flat enough to ride with your bikes and while the trail itself measures at about five miles long, the park itself spans far beyond that with blankets of heavy leaves hiding the sky above.
Gilligan’s Tavern
This is where the older folks have been going drinking for years. The beer is always warm and the pool tables are always missing balls but the older generation still sits at the barstools until daylight peaks over the trees. Conversations among the bloated and drunk usually weigh in over how the ‘younguns’ are stripping away what made Off Springs what it was and changing it into something new. The tavern is located a bit further away from Century Park and is in the same plaza as First Bank of Off Springs.
Off Springs K-12 PS
It is the oldest standing school in the small town as well as the only elementary school. Considering that, all of the townsfolk who started their educational journey in Off Springs started between those walls and the school is often referred to as OSE, (Off Springs Elementary). The school employs a lot of the town’s residents as it doubles as a vocational school at night that offers programs in automotive repairs, dental assisting, patient care, and more.
Donna Johanson Middle School
The alternate choice to OSE, the middle school only really differs in being much smaller and having fewer than two hundred students in total. The school is also on the same intersection that faces the Blood Orange Grove plaza and Century Park.
South Florida High School
The alternate choice to OSE, the high school practices magnet programs and so the student’s have access to resources that the OSE students don’t have. Some of these resources include technical equipment for their robotics courses and animals for their veterinary programs.
Empty Parking Lot
An old department store’s husk of a parking lot still remains decades after the building was torn down. The local youth have turned it into a makeshift skatepark and is a popular place for teenagers to ‘practice’ their driving skills.
Veruca Campgrounds
An RV and tent campground where more locals than tourists go for a weekend getaway through Florida’s nature expanse. Each camping space is relatively large and well separated from the ones adjacent to it. Montgomery Solanos lives just across the street from the campgrounds main entrance in a small trailer home.
Danny’s Bar/Laguna’s Cafe
One of the businesses that opened up at Blood Orange Grove plaza, Danny’s Bar is owned by the simply named Danny and has become a hotspot for young adults and the hip population of Off Springs. Most conversations found there weigh in on music, drinks, and how attractive all the employees in the plaza are. The bar alo has a door that leads into the business right next door: a vegan restaurant called Laguna’s Cafe.
Bullseye
A large department store that’s become the center of scrutiny by those who own local businesses as their array of inventory and services has attracted just about everyone in town. The store is large enough to have separated departments in grocery, clothing, sports, electronics, and so much more. The store hires a lot of the town’s youth as their first job as well and any of them will be glad to tell you about the comfortable working conditions and the great upper management though it doesn’t seem as though any of them are ever seen on the sales floor.
Off Springs Plaza
An older plaza that houses several of the town’s more well trusted and older businesses including:
- A movie theatre that was built in the shell of the old Off Springs Regional Theatre that closed close to thirty years before.
- The local First Bank of Off Springs
- A Piggly Wiggly’s grocery store
- An insurance company called Insurance Gator
Tuttle Theatre
A small chain of theatres that specialize in foreign and independent films. The Off Springs location has been managed by Monica Strepp for the five years that it’s been open. It was built in the shell of the old Off Springs Regional Theatre that closed close to thirty years before.
First Bank of Off Springs
Local bank where just about everyone does their banking.
Insurance Gator
An insurance company that specializes in
Piggly Wiggly’s
The first and only Piggly Wiggly’s in the entire state of the Florida. It is being used as a test to see if it would be profitable for the company to open more in the state. It is widely popular among the people in town and has become the go-to grocery store.
Potential NPCs
Montgomery Solanos
Former artist, the man was renowned for his depictions of Florida’s wildlife through different carved wooden statues. About a decade ago, he ran from what is now Century Park while scavenging for wood to carve saying that he saw men who turned into beasts that tried to chase him down. He would tell this to anyone who listened and even tried to rally people to try and find the beasts but this only led to people distancing themselves from him. It wasn’t long before his continual outbursts about these beastmen turned into folklore told among the kids in the town which in turn permanently destroyed any career he had left in being an artist.
Lisa Screws
(Only to be used in adventures that do not include the character Leslie Hammersteidt). Lisa is the principal of OSE and has been dedicated to her students since taking on the position at the ripe old age of 32, almost thirty years ago. She’s very spry for her age and takes a very personal approach to how she handles situations regarding her students and staff members. Some would even consider her to be the ‘matriarch’ of the school.
Leslie Hammersteidt
Leslie is the principal of OSE and has been since the recent and tragic passing of former principal Lisa Screws after being mauled by an animal while on a jog in Century Park. She is a stark contrast from her predecessor in the fact that she is very strict and has gone so far as to have hired a security company to guard the school. These guards have clearance to issue detentions and suspensions throughout the campus to anyone breaking one of the many newly implemented rules.
Mr. Morris
The AP Literature teacher of the school as well as the sponsor for the writer’s club where they write the school’s newspaper.
Mr. Manganielli
Biology teacher at Off Springs K-12 Center. Very meek and mild but knowledgeable in his field.
Ms. Priscilla
A guidance counselor employed by Leslie Hammersteidt. The whereabouts of the previous guidance counselor, Tobias Johnsmith, are completely unknown.
Olga Browning
Senior office manager at Off Springs K-12 Center. She manages the main office and is very sweet to the students and teachers passing through. She is left over from when Lisa Screw was principal and is also the lead teacher for office aide courses at the school.
Ms. Anthony
The school art teacher. She teachers most grades and it’s likely that if you had art at any point while going to the school, you had her as your teacher. She’s left over from when Lisa Screws was still principal.
Danny
He always finds a way to avoid having to give his last name but his personality doesn’t really give anyone reason to question him further. The charismatic black man owns Danny’s Bar and is seen behind the counter most nights with his staff of equally good looking and foreign to Off Springs staff. In fact, none of the locals have ever seen any of the employees casually walking around on their off days before.
Betty Campos
Owner of Veruca Campgrounds and lifelong nature examiner. She didn’t go to school for it but she can tell you just about everything about safe camping and about Florida’s flora and fauna. Her campground is directly next to Montgomery Solanos’ trailer home and as a result, she is polite and tolerates him but does not indulge him in any of the information he spews.
Mayor Francis Faye
She is both well known and well liked among the citizens of Off Springs but lately has been scrutinized for her lack of action towards the amount of people missing from the town. She is a big fan of the town’s law enforcement and believes that they are honestly doing everything in their power to deal with the issues that the town is facing.
Harry Castaux
A frequent customer of Danny’s Bar, despite only having moved here a short while ago. He is employed as an official Off Springs security guard for the Blood Orange Grove Plaza and is a favorite among students of the nearby OSE. His employers and those in the town beside Danny are not aware of his excessive drinking problem.
Stacy Simons
Bank Teller at First Bank of Off Springs. She is incredibly religious and often grieves the death of her late husband.
Bernice (Bernie)
She is a student at Florida International University but is relatively laid back and is a grocery store cashier at the local Piggly Wiggly’s. She is also incredibly religious and doesn’t grieve her late uncle nearly as much as her aunt, Stacy Simons does.
Shelly Doris
Insurance agent at Insurance Gators.
August Hanson
An Afghanistan war veteran, he is a family man who is very good at fixing basic machines and tools. He is often found working on random tinkering jobs around town where he often brings his sons Skyler and Magnus to help him. He often has trouble keeping a job and is currently unemployed.
Grace Anne Hanson
A clerk at the local Piggly Wiggly’s as well as loving mother to Skyler and Magnus Hanson. Both her and her husband are getting by but with the skin of their teeth but she still finds time and money for her hobby painting.
Tammy Davis
The local librarian at Flagler Library.
Ranger Kevin Ranger
Lead park ranger at Century Park. He’s held this position for many years and is actually pretty well known in town as he is usually at the entrance booth when visitors of all kinds come in. He has a small apartment directly above the ranger’s station located just inside the entrance to the park after passing the entrance booth.
Possible Adventure Hooks
- People have been reported as missing after “taking a stroll” into Century Park. There are several ‘Missing Person’ signs around town and there are constant new reports on local stations about the fact that there are no leads. Several students from each of the schools have been reported missing and while Mayor Francis Faye has addressed it, everyone thinks that not enough is being done.
- At OSE, Principal Hammersteidt has created a ‘system’ for students to be safe during this time as she is not fond of the way the mayor is going about things.
- OSE’s newest school principal, Leslie Hammersteidt, seems to be far more strict than the previous Lisa Screws. She’s enforced a new uniform policy this year and is managing it by having newly hired security guards to monitor the halls issuing digital detentions and suspensions to students and forcing them to stay after school. The uncomfortable part is that these guards never show their faces behind their masks, never seem to show any skin, and don’t seem to be residents of Off Springs.
- Employees of Bullseye seem to be very worn out and tired during their shifts and immediately afterwards though they don’t seem to have a single negative thing to say about the store.
- Montgomery seems to have gathered his own group of locals who believe in what he has to say who have created a cult that meets once a week in an open clearing in what is now Century Park.
- There are a lot of rat infestations in different parts of the town with no explanation for their cause.
- They seem to congregate in the school but it becomes noted that it’s more than just rats: it’s rodents of all kinds from raccoons to ferrets and more. When they’re found, it is instructed that they be removed immediately so as not to have an infestation in town. This has only been going on for a few months.
Possible Threats
Shared Dream
You and all the others on your team have experienced the same exact dream where you walk into Century Park but don’t ever seem to remember whether or not you are able to get out.
Vacation Hunters
Every once in a while, tourists come to hunt local game and in doing so, oftentimes stay at the Veruca Campgrounds. The locals usually see the tourists talking to Montgomery but their relationship never seems to go beyond just a conversation before or after hunts. The locals also notice that these hunters never seem to take their kills with them despite the gunshots being heard in the distance as a sign of the weapons being dispatched.
Cultists
The people who physically act on finding and eliminating the vampires or creatures from their town. A group of locals that everyone thinks is secretly led by Montgomery behind closed doors.
Outside Security Guards
Security guards that seem to have been hired by someone very powerful in Off Springs have come to take care of jobs that the local police department either won’t or doesn’t handle. (If the character of Leslie Hammersteidt is in play, they are also present just outside of OSE and will bear a hostility towards the guards employed there by Leslie.) They are not afraid to use force on whoever they feel is in between them and wherever they consider their objective to be.
Possible Powered Characters
Cobalt
An old homeless man who’s been living on the streets of Off Springs for as long as anyone can remember. Some even say he’s a living legend at this point but at the same time no one can really say as he’s constantly covered in layers of old coats, jackets, pants, and hats. He can become invisible and knows more that what you would expect about who’s running the show at the Blood Orange Grove plaza.
Unknown Child
Able to change their physical appearance, the child is only described as such because they consistently change to look like the children/teenagers around them they trust. They can transform into a seven year old boy with black hair up to his ears but even then he is unsure if that’s his real self or a form he adopted.
Possible Monsters
Vampires
The vampires are the ones really running the show at the Blood Orange Grove plaza. They seem to be part of different clans or cults and seem to follow the same set of rules that traditional vampires follow even though they definitely don’t look traditional. These monsters could be posing as bar owners or savage animals in the forest. They don’t seem to be very keen on letting anyone know of their true selves and seem to go to great lengths to make sure that the masquerade is hidden.
Werewolves
Werewolves are just as bad as vampires but are far more feral and can really only be found out in the wild. They are not nearly as prominent in everyday society however if you even are alone, face to face with one of these creatures – never expect to see the light of day again.
Rats
The rats in Off Springs definitely are something to worry about. While they haven’t done anything particularly of note, they’ve absolutely taken to public places and often show the townsfolk that they are not afraid of them. It seems almost as though the rats are sentient to something within the town.