Difference between revisions of "Camp Shababadahs"

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Jerry served only 6 months of his 2 year sentence, at a minimum security facility where he was released early for "exemplary behavior and cooperation". The cooperation consisted of participating in a sting-operation for an unrelated case. After leaving prison, Jerry made plans to leave Arindell and change his name. However, he was found dead in his apartment from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The City Watch eventually arrested the father of one of the four children killed in the recent incident which caused the camp's closure.  
 
Jerry served only 6 months of his 2 year sentence, at a minimum security facility where he was released early for "exemplary behavior and cooperation". The cooperation consisted of participating in a sting-operation for an unrelated case. After leaving prison, Jerry made plans to leave Arindell and change his name. However, he was found dead in his apartment from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The City Watch eventually arrested the father of one of the four children killed in the recent incident which caused the camp's closure.  
  
Jerry, who was 41 at the time of his death, had actually recorded threats from the man in his journal, in a way predicting his own murder. The last entry ended with ''"How can anyone hold me responsible for the deaths that happened just now, because of games I played a lifetime ago?"''.
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Jerry, who was 41 at the time of his death, had actually recorded threats from the man in his journal, in a way predicting his own murder. The last entry ended with ''"How can anyone hold me responsible for the deaths that happened just now, because of games I played a lifetime ago? Especially since the whole thing really did start as a way to get girls skinny-dipping..."''.
  
 
[[Category:Course Books]]
 
[[Category:Course Books]]

Revision as of 21:15, 14 December 2020

Camp Shababadahs was a summer camp in the mountains above Long Lake. Founded in N.D. 480, the camp operated for a surprising 32 years before being forced to close under mounting lawsuits. During the camp's tenure some 26 children were eaten by dragons.

History

Shababadahs was doomed from the start. The lake sits in the middle of 500 acres of pristine woodland with surprisingly few uses. Dragons forbid logging within the entire High Mountain range, and the land was unsuitable for running cattle owing to it's proximately to the dragon fence. The region already has amble public lands for camping and hunting, so the Long Lake Forestry Wardens were uninterested in taking on any extra space. Since it had good access by road, the lake and surrounding acreage was sold off for resort development.

When no resort materialized, it was sold again at a steep loss to the company that would found Camp Shababadahs. Youth summer camps were all the rage in the latter half of the 4th century; as New Arindell's grew, parents were desperate for places to send their children where they could get back to nature. Most most of the prime real estate around Long Lake being taken up by the naval air station, any decent-sized body of water within a few hour's drive was fair game.

Shababadahs was constructed on the windward side of the lake(where the road went). It had about 30 permanent structures and sites for hundreds of semi-permanent tents, giving it a very good capacity. It was opened with no real direction or niche, offering a wide array of very typical camp activities. Swimming, boating, archery, crafts, sports, everything about the place was as generic as can be. The problems began in the very first season, as the heart of the camp itself covered the entire area between the lake edge and the fence, making the fence plainly visible from most of the camp. Though the first season was successful, a counselor was eaten the following season, and two campers the season after that.

In 32 years of operation, 26 children and teenagers met such a fate. The dragons, for there part, were quite insistent that they had honored the fence, and even cleared a large break in the forest immediately on the other side. It was later revealed that the campers themselves had created a secret society of "The Dragon Baiters". In order to gain admittance to the society, potential inductees had to cross the fence and place a marker on the car side of the break in the tree line. The further into the forest the marker was placed, the higher the potential score. The society carried out a number of secret rituals available to members which involved mostly sneaking around at night and skinny-dipping in the lake. Though the adults in charge of the camp had no knowledge of the society, some of the teen camp counselors were involved and later arrested.

news of the society along with four children having been eaten in one night finally brought in a wave of massive lawsuits against the camp, which collapsed under the weight and went bankrupt in N.D. 513, with that summer's session being the final one held.

The Dragon Baiters

Crossing the dragon fence became a popular camp dare the first year the facility was open. The first iteration of The Dragon Baiters probably formed around the fourth year, N.D. 484. The dangers of the dragon fence were well understood in New Arindell, but not as well-known in the Agras regions and Long Lake where many campers hailed from. Further, most of campers from Arindell lived in the city center, so while dragons overhead were a familiar site, the fence itself was a myth.

Most of Camp Shababadahs, however, was situated about 100 yards from the fence. The camper cabins and tents were built out in the thick woods, with plenty of cover and little adult supervision, making trips up to the fence very simple. To make things even more problematic, the fence itself did not pose much of a barrier, being only about 4 feet high and made up of spun metal wires with large gaps easy to fit through.

Levels

The Dragon Baiters(or Society of Dragon Baiters) had four ranks of membership based on dragon-types, and achieved by complete initiation challenges. Each successful level would see the brave baiter taken to one of four secrete initiation sites to be shown the deeper mysteries of the society. Over the years they adopted many cult-like and pseudo-religious practices that would not be made public until the trial.

  • Black-Earth Baiter - a camper achieved the status of 'Black-Earth Baiter' by crossing the fence. The black-earth type was chosen because the campers thought they were 'ugly' and thus made them the lowest rank(a detail which the dragons were later offended by). To make black-earth baiter, a camper had to take a red-fire or above baiter to the fence, ask them to throw something over it, then cross and retrieve it. This was traditionally done at night when it was thought to be "safer"(in fact all the known deaths occurred at night). If the baiter was a friend or otherwise had a reason to like you, they might not throw the item very far. Usually selecting a treasured personal item was preferable, as it would provide greater impetus to cross the line.
  • Red-Fire Baiter - to achieve the rank of Red-Fire Baiter, a camper had to cross the fire break on the far side of the fence(again usually at night) and make a mark on one of the trees. The following day, they had to show the mark to another baiter, who had to be able to see it with the naked eye from inside the fence.
  • Blue-Air Baiter - becoming a blue-air baiter was much more difficult. First, it required the permission of another blue-air or white-water baiter to even attempt. It then had to be completed in daylight and along the section of fence that bordered the main camp. The actual challenge was simple: run across the fire break, tag a tree, run back, while in view of at least 3 baiters. This specific rite was doubly-difficult as crossing the fence was grounds for immediate expulsion from the camp, and most councilors and staff were on the lookout for such activities. Eventually they made being caught within ten feet of the fence an expellable offence; however the staff was relatively small and supervision had always been poor.
  • White-Water Baiter - to achieve the rank of white-water baiter, the most difficult and dangerous of all, the baiter had to cross the fence and place a marker in one of the trees on the far side(usually a flag or ribbon of some kind). This marker also had to be judged "further from the fence than any other visible marker" by a quorum of at least six blue-air baiters and confirmed by another white-water. The challenge could be done at night, though preparations were usually important. To prevent cheating, the marker usually had to be selected ahead of time, shown to the others, and then the location scouted to confirm the baiter was not taking credit for an old marker. By the later years of the camp, hundreds of markers were plainly visible from the main camp compound.

Initiation Rites

In a boulder field about a mile outside camp(but inside the fence), the baiters constructed a henge which was used for ceremonial initiations. It was one of four ritual sites used by the group, and the one they had put the most effort into. The location was known to the camp councilors as early as N.D. 490, but not it's purpose. It was even used a few times by the legitimate honor-societies put together over the years.

At least once per camp session(and several times a summer) the baiters would sneak out and meet at the henge around midnight. There they would build a fire and initiate the newest baiters(those who had completed the "black" challenge) by carrying out a ritual dance. All campers were issued matching rain parkas as part of their kit, so the dance involved everyone wearing their Camp Shababadahs parka and dancing in a circle. At the conclusion of the dance the parkas were removed and everyone would give their "dragon roar". Apparently a common prank was to tell new baiters they were supposed to be naked under the parka.

The second initiation site was at a swimming beach also about a mile from the camp. Where the same boulder field intersected with the lake shore, a stream flowed into the lake and deposited sand over a large area about six feet deep. Surrounded on all sides by large boulders, but having a nice even bottom made it an ideal spot for swimming, and was used for this during the day time(sanctioned water activities being one of the very few things Camp Shababadahs supervised well). The dragon baiters would hold secret, night-time skinny-dipps out there, with the initiation to second level requiring the adherent to jump in from a specific rock in full view of the others.

Very few baiters reached the third level, and the location of the third initiation site was one of the deeply-guarded secrets. During the trial one of the former baiters lead authorities to it. The site was well hidden but had been stumbled upon a few times, and initially had no obvious significance. It was past the boulder field a few miles outside camp, accessible by a narrow slot-canyon and reached only by a reasonably dangerous climb down a 14 foot cliff-face. On the stone wall, baiters were to create a unique symbol of their own and draw or etch it on the wall beside the symbols from the other baiters. In the area in front of the cliff, they were then made to dig a shallow hole(representing a grave) and lay in it while the other third-levels made dragon noises around them. Once complete, they then had to build a cairn over the hole, representing the empty grave that would be made for them if they were eaten while attempting to reach the fourth level.

The final site was found only when a former, now adult baiter was forced to lead authorities there as part of a plea agreement. The site, just a few thousand feet from the camp's mess hall, consisted of a small cave called 'the dungeon'. The opening was covered by a metal grate with a lock, and when not obscured by leaves, campers were told that bats and snakes lived inside. In reality, the hole went about a dozen feet and opened into a small, dry chamber. It was in this where the final secret initiations were kept, along with books and other documents concerning the whole history of the society. Most notably, it contained extensive records of all the suspected deaths by dragon, essentially a signed confession for the order.

Camp Director Awareness and Lack of Response

The directors claimed to have only been made aware of the dragon baiter's existence in the last 2 years of operation. Crossing the fence had been against the rules from day one, but authorities later sited how the camp directors had made few attempts to curb the behavior. While the dragons built a large "fire break" on the far side, some 20 miles long and about 1000 feet wide, they refused to make any upgrades or changes to the fence itself.

Jerimiah Rackham

Ultimately it was the camp directors who were found guilty of the many wrongful death suits, however the key evidence came from a man named Jerimiah Rackham. "Jerry" as we was known back then, attended the very first whole-summer session at Shababadahs in it's inaugural year, when he was just 9. Though he claimed not to have been the first, he openly admits to having crossed the fence several times in his first year, and organizing games that would late form the basis for the baiter initiation rites.

Jerry's plea-agreement with the authorities was never made public, and he never testified in open court. When questioned publicly, he vehemently denied founding the society, claiming that it "grew organically out of the games that we played" and aside from knowing where best to hide the book with the names, he had no involvement.

Jerry attended the camp from the age of 9 all the way until he was 17, and worked there as a full-fledged camp counselor for 6 more years. He claimed to have no involvement with the society after becoming an official councilor and that he often cautioned campers about the dangers of the dragon fence. During the 14 summer he spent at Shababadahs, 12 children were killed.

Plea Agreement

Jerry lead authorities to the secret cache of documents which helped determine the exact number of deaths and proved that the camp directors were aware of the society's existence much earlier than they had admitted to, which was instrumental in the wrongful death suits. The exact details of Jerry's agreement with authorities were kept secret, but the final filing had to be a matter of public record: he plead guilty to six counts of Conspiracy After the Fact and received 2 years in prison plus a 10 year suspended sentence "pending further developments".

Murder

Jerry served only 6 months of his 2 year sentence, at a minimum security facility where he was released early for "exemplary behavior and cooperation". The cooperation consisted of participating in a sting-operation for an unrelated case. After leaving prison, Jerry made plans to leave Arindell and change his name. However, he was found dead in his apartment from a single gunshot wound to the chest. The City Watch eventually arrested the father of one of the four children killed in the recent incident which caused the camp's closure.

Jerry, who was 41 at the time of his death, had actually recorded threats from the man in his journal, in a way predicting his own murder. The last entry ended with "How can anyone hold me responsible for the deaths that happened just now, because of games I played a lifetime ago? Especially since the whole thing really did start as a way to get girls skinny-dipping...".