NO EXITS

On the seventh day at precisely 1:32 AM, the campus once more resets. Everyone trapped in the experiment falls unconscious (if not sleeping already) only to wake up sometime afterward in their assigned bed, in their assigned room, in their assigned dorm, as themselves, in the exact condition they arrived in, wearing the precise clothing they arrived in.

Finally!

Now to figure out where Derleth has taken you this week.

Psst. It’s Schmigadoon. (♫ Where the men are men and the cows are cows! ♫) Yeah, they totally sang that song when you walked into town. They’re also really big into their corn pudding.

(Mod Note: Spoilers for the Apple TV series Schmigadoon are mostly in the linked songs which do reveal some plot details. But I assume since the show has been out for several months, if the show was your thing you would have watched it by now hopefully?)

THIS WORLD IS FAKE AS HELL

Schmigadoon is clearly a pocket dimension, not unlike Derleth within its Void, and a strangely made one at that. The sky is as fake as a painted backdrop, the grass is fake, the trees are fake. It’s like being inside an endless studio soundstage with lots of astroturf and paper mache.

Like Derleth’s Void, however, it’s impossible to escape. At the center of the pocket dimension is the quaint town of Schmigadoon. There are “roads” that lead out of Schmigadoon but don’t actually go anywhere and will eventually lead back to the town.

The campus this week is just outside of town within visual distance of one another.

Time period wise, it appears to be the early 1900s when it comes to fashion. Mostly. There are occasionally people that look like they reference other musicals from the mid 1900s, adding to the idea that whoever made this world was just really into Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals.

The weather is lovely and perfect. Probably helps that everything is fake and tightly controlled by… something?

OH FUCK, NOT ANOTHER MUSICAL

Okay, it’s not just a weird fake pocket dimension, it’s a living musical. Some important notes on that:

• The locals are not aware they are singing. If you mention their song to them, they’ll look confused. To them, it’s an unconscious extension of their talking.

• Sadly, the music is all going to sound like an older style Rodgers & Hammerstein musical for the most part. No pop ballads for you! (I suppose you might break into an Andrew Llyod Webber power ballad but…)

• No, your character is not compelled or forced to sing or dance. They can easily resist the entire time they’re in Schmigadoon. However…
  • Musical cues will start up for your character, prompting them that it’s their turn to sing, particularly if they’re having any stronger emotions, regardless of any intention to sing or not. Musical cues cannot be forced or pop up on command.

  • If a character chooses to sing, they’ll be able to come up with lyrics on the fly and follow any dance choreography like magic. However, their natural singing or dancing ability is not improved at all.

  • If a character chooses not to sing while talking to one of the townsfolk, the townsfolk will think they were just being rude and walked out of a completely normal conversation randomly.
• The locals will sing and dance around your characters and chime in musically on your personal conversations from time to time. No, you can’t escape them. One they start, they’re everywhere.

• Singing will lead to dance numbers if the emotions get bigger. But if you love and know musicals feel free to incorporate other musical tropes like dream ballets. (You can shoo the dream ballet away if you’re not interested in that nonsense.)

WHIMSICAL SEXISM

While the pocket dimension does appear to be colorblind casting, the gender roles are not nearly so progressive here. An unmarried woman in her late twenties? Gasp! The poor shrew. A woman who claims to be a doctor? Nope. Does not compute. Must be a nurse.

The locals will sleep with you with minimal flirtation, but they will be expecting a wedding afterward. Especially if it’s earlier in the week when the locals aren’t nearly so complicated, they’ll have a hard time understanding why you aren’t automatically in true OTP love now.

WAIT. ARE THE PEOPLE FAKE?

Depends on what you call “fake.” They were probably created for this pocket dimension. Some of the people here seem very “under written”, particularly the women. Their desires and conversations seem very basic and rote.

However, the more you talk to the locals, the more nuanced and complex they become. It’s a slow progression, to be sure, but they do progress and respond depending upon your interactions with them.

So that’s weird. What is even the purpose of that?

There are a few locals like The Mayor and The School Marm that seem to have a little more going on upstairs. If you talk to them you’ll discover you’re not the first outsiders to come to Schmigadoon. Again, that seems to point to the idea that someone created this place for a reason, but who that might have been or how that happened or why is anyone’s guess.