Crossroads is both a framework for creating, exploring, and expanding fictional worlds and a universe in which different worlds meet and different kinds of magic can work. It provides a setting for Clint Zehner's “what if?” ideas and his own takes on the works that inspire him.1 5
Arcana University, in Silver Hollow, Vermont, is a principal point of contact between those worlds. The university brings conventional academic study together with magic and other abilities, drawing students and teachers from different supernatural traditions.2 3
Worlds in contact
An encounter between worlds brings more than a visitor to a new place. It can introduce another way of understanding magic, another set of abilities, or knowledge that does not fit the receiving world's familiar categories.1 2
Arcana's curriculum gives those differences a practical setting. Interdimensional studies sits alongside physics; alchemy meets chemistry; healing connects with nursing and other health studies. Teachers and students can approach a subject through more than one tradition without assuming every tradition is another name for the same thing.2
Knowledge of the supernatural also varies. Some students may return to worlds where magic remains hidden. Others come from backgrounds in which their abilities have a more acknowledged place. That difference shapes what the university needs to teach alongside the abilities themselves.2
Silver Hollow
Silver Hollow provides a home for the university and a life beyond its classrooms. The city lies in the Green Mountains, just west of Mount Ellen. Its earlier economy depended on milling and industry; tourism and an arts community later contributed to its recovery.3
Galleries, independent shops, restaurants, artists, musicians, and bed-and-breakfasts give the city much of its character. South Street forms the downtown core. The university's establishment in 2024 added economic activity while contributing to increasing home prices.3
The relationship with the unusual is often informal. Many residents know more about magic and the university's visitors than the town's public presentation suggests. Seasonal gatherings and the Halloween Werewolf Pub Crawl make room for music, local businesses, and costumes that can be especially convincing near a full moon.3
The city offers a setting in which the extraordinary has ordinary consequences. A university can bring students from different worlds and still affect the price of a house.
Arcana University
Arcana University developed from College Arcane and moved to Silver Hollow in 2024, broadening its teaching and adding graduate study and research. Gina Morgan became president that year.2
Admission requires awareness of the supernatural, rather than supernatural abilities. Through an affiliation with the University of Vermont, students receive paired conventional and magical degrees. A student studying chemistry and alchemy completes the full coursework for the chemistry degree alongside the magical studies.2 5
The university appears to people unaware of the supernatural as a UVM satellite campus. Its actual teaching includes witches, lycanthropes, psychics, sorcerers, and elven and eldritch students. Its motto, Scientia · Potentia · Disciplina Propria (Knowledge · Power · Self-Control), connects learning with the responsible use of abilities.2 5
People, music, and stories
Sisters Erie are a band of four sisters from Abbeyleix, County Laois, Ireland. Their music draws on the songs and stories they grew up with, alongside original writing and the shared musicianship of a musical family.4 6
Their songs range from the comic The Castles of Ireland to An Ode to Nuada, with its quieter interest in the person beneath a legendary king. Running Underhill takes a childhood favorite of Ryanne's and gives the family a tale to arrange together.4