HPL High lurks on a bluff above the harbor, separated by a small stretch of undeveloped land from Arkham proper (the phrase "buffer zone" is sometimes heard from city councillors, "killing ground" from board of education members). The huge brick pile of the school sprawls in several ivy-covered wings, the center crowned with a verdigris-domed bell tower. Dating from the 1930s, the building has many features that have evolved out of modern schools (like windows) and lacks others that are now common (eg, a centralized cafeteria). The school is much larger than it needs to be, and several sections are locked and disused. Even the main portion is labyrinthine, and frosh have been found wandering three floors away from their locker, crying "I'm sure it's just around this corner!".
In addition to the locked-off wings, the building boasts a complicated network of sub-basements and steam tunnels (some of which connect to the third and fourth floors), which are of course utterly barred to the students. A voluminous body of mythology has grown up around these forbidden areas, much of it describing what happened to people vice-principal Marks caught there.
The interior of the school is relatively normal, although most of what isn't brick is painted green. The ceilings are high enough to accomodate the largest students, which has the entirely intentional side effect of intimidating anyone smaller. Green metal lockers line the walls between windows, each one just large enough to contain a human body. Most of the doors are reinforced; classrooms where experimental sciences are taught have actual blast doors. Although there are classes held on the fourth floor, there are no elevators, or at least none that the students are permitted to use.
In the heart of the complex is the Quintangle, a courtyard larger than seems feasible given the dimensions of the surrounding wings and thickly grown with suspiciously lush vegetation that is never daunted by the worst excesses of the student body. A larger-than-life bronze of Old Howie himself stares nobly toward the point on the horizon where Aldebaran rises on the Summer Solstice, disdainful of the offerings of junk food, CDS, and old books left at his feet by desperate students.
HPL High's curriculum and faculty are both as eccentric as they are varied. Some of the more notable members are:
The Coach is never addressed by name. In fact, all except his favorites usually skip the title and say nothing except "Sir! Yes sir!" and "Sir! No sir!". In addition to coaching all the teams that play Real Sports (ie, the ones that involve blood and maiming), he teaches the PE classes mandatory for all frosh and sophomores. Standing at attention and doing pushups until you puke are strongly emphasized.
Ms Nichols's computer classes are remarkably popular, at least among the male students. GIFs of her visit to topless European beaches are circulated widely on the school network, each file leaving a trail of crashed machines behind it.
Mrs Armitage teaches Latin, Aramaic, and Babylonian, all of which she apparently learned from native speakers. She has a very oldfashioned notion of the instructor-pupil relationship, and will not hesitate to turn the disrespectful over to Vice-Principal Marks.
Dr Leng lectures very quietly about Prehistory, Psychology, and Cryptobiology, his waxy face set in a perpetually mild expression. He always dresses in silk suits. Freshthings who fail his classes are rarely seen again.
Professor Carpenter, the history teacher, is still a vigorous field archaeologist, despite her age and girth, and spends her summers excavating the sites of mysterious disasters and mass deaths in her native Greece and other Mediterranean areas. Seniors who do well in her Archaeology class are sometimes invited to accompany her, to see what Real Archaeology is like; some of them even return. Her cane is feared throughout the school.
Other courses taught at HPL High include: Quantum Theurgy, Xenobiology, Speculative Civilizations, Applied Hypergeometry, Shop, Genetics & Mutation, Field Astronomy, and the usual assortment of literature, social studies, and basic sciences.
The resemblance of any HPL High teachers to the ones at the high school the GM attended is completely coincidental.
The door to the principal's office is a huge slab of greenish alien metal, apparently several tonnes in weight. There is no nameplate on it (it's not as if it could be mistaken for any other door on campus) and it almost never opens. The principal himself is never seen, or named (except when a few of the oldest teachers forget themselves and mention "Old Mr C"). A student who commits crimes so terrible that she must be reprimanded personally by the principal emerges some hours later, in shock if not actually catatonic, and is never able to coherently describe anything that happened after the door creaked ajar ("No! No! Not the filing cabinet! Don't open that drawe- AIEEEEE!").
The day-to-day oppression of the student body is handled by Vice-Principal Theron Marks, a distinctive and colorful character easily recognized by his muttonchop whiskers, jauntily angled cigar, safari clothing ("High school is a jungle."), and custom-made British double-barrelled shotgun. In his youth, VP Marks faced down any number of savage cultists, quite a few abominations, and even an Outer God or two; modern teenagers are nothing in comparison, and he's always ready with a pithy comment to remind them of it. Sarcasm is usually enough to cow any student who steps out of line, but should that fail, VP Marks is perfectly willing to use his shotgun, or even one of the sticks of dynamite he keeps in his hip pocket.
There are also several secretaries and whatnot who technically count as Administration, but they are mostly noncombatant.
Although the school parking lots are notoriously overcrowded at the start of the school year, and occasion some remarkable displays of offensive driving, they tend to become more adequate as vehicles and students suffer from natural attrition. There is a small landing pad for students who insist on travelling to school by jetpack, personal autogyro, or byakhee-drawn chariot, which is not far enough away from the parking lot when considered in the light of the average piloting skill.
For those students legally, financially, or physiologically unable to drive, there are school busses, driven by hunched, brown-clad figures given to cackling in Latin, fondling statuettes of obscure saints, and sneering at the lily-livered driving of action movie heroes and Bostonians. Many frosh prefer car-pooling with upperclassmen even if it means they risk getting processed for additional fuel.
Rather than the centralized cafeteria common in modern schools, HPL High has six refectories distributed throughout the building, each named for a color: Magenta, Teal, Ochre, Puce, Olive, and Black. Each refectory hosts certain social groups, often in unlikely combinations due to the scarcity of refectories compared to cliques. In September, all six refectories are open, but as the student population dwindles throughout the year, one or two are closed down, causing rearrangements of turf as hotly contested as any national border struggle. The exception is Black, which always has been and always will be the exclusive province of the seniors.
The hair-netted crones who run the kitchens on behalf of Shiney Food Services have solved the problem of providing for the more unusual students by making all the food suitable for blasphemous abominations. Sadly for the human students, portions are generous.
Although the administrators understand that some amount of enterprise is necessary to an investigator, and some amount of eccentricity is inevitable, they believe that a large amount of discipline is also required, or at least they enjoy applying it.
The basic rules are much the same as in any high school: obey the teachers, don't blow up anything not specifically designated as expendable, attend all pep rallies, don't keep dangerous or illegal things in your locker, get to class on time, don't dress in a manner that constitutes a prurient display, etc. There are also some rules peculiar to HPL High: attend all school ceremonies, don't reanimate the dead on campus, get a teacher's permission before opening any gates, do not call up that which you can not put down, stay in your most human form during school hours, and the like.
Where HPL High differs from other schools is in the matter of punishment. Nothing so simple as staying after school or standing in the hall with a bucket of water will do; those who infringe the rules may find themselves assigned to clean up the necromancy lab, repaint the school, serve as temporary radiation shielding, or simply, "Report to Mr Hedrickson's 4th period Biology class".
Any member of the faculty can assign detention, but offenders that show a hardened criminal nature (by, eg, failing to address Mrs Armitage as "Ma'am") may be sent to Vice-Principal Marks's office to be verbally flayed as well. Only the most heinous infractions result in a trip to the principal's office (see above).
As an American high school, HPL High has to have a football team, basketball team, and baseball team, although in a break with tradition, none of them is given priority in funding over academics. ("You'll never play football again after you graduate, but a thorough grounding in Aklo Glyphs could save your life!") The soccer team and, unsurprisingly, the track and field team are also well-regarded. The swim team is objectively quite good, but as their traditional rival is Obadiah Marsh High School in Innsmouth, they have a reputation for gloom.
The HPL High Polyps wear uniforms in the school colors of green and an unearthly shade of light violet known as "black-light purple", but the swim team has vowed to wear black suits until the season they beat Marsh.
There are several other teams that, if not exactly sports teams, are nevertheless highly competitive. In particular, the chess team is quite good, although their style of play is somewhat unorthodox ("I just solved the 32x32 matrix in my head!"). The math team, debate team, and such are less distinguished, mostly due to their even more unorthodox approaches.
The track and football field (which doubles as a soccer field) and the baseball diamond are located in a hollow a few hundred yards from the school building, to hinder observation of training. Unsheltered bleachers, sheltered announcer's stands, and room for the traditional student-run concession booths adjoins the fields. Indoor sports are practiced and performed in the well-appointed gymnasium, which is part of the school proper. The swim team has an Olympic-sized swimming pool, curiously located completely underground, and often somewhat briny.
School funding and facilities are available for a wide variety of student-organized activities, on the twin theories that a) encouraging students to develop organizational ability will better suit them to the leadership roles they will undoubtedly assume in adult life, and b) being obssessive freaks got the current faculty where they are now, so it must be good for the students too.
Because money is apportioned according to the number of students signed up for each club, regardless of how much (or if at all) those members participate, recruiting is universally a high priority. By custom, the first day of each semester is Club Fair Day, on which every organization sets up a booth in the Quint to attract potential members by any means fair or foul (though fair is preferred, and the strictures on attire are not strongly enforced on CFD).
Any student organization which cannot muster five members by the day after CFD is ineligible for funding (which usually translates directly to dissolution, though some have successfully obtained outside funding) so the roster of organizations changes with every semester, but some of the longer-lived ones are:
This file was last modified at 1313 on 16Jun00 by trip@idiom.com.