The Raven’s Report

Tyler Brown is used to finding surprises while working his land near Lake Graystone. However, yesterday he found that part of his land gone and several head of cattle with it. A 15 ft. wide sinkhole has opened up in the northeast corner of one of Brown’s pastures near an abandoned well. Three of cattle are missing and Brown fears that they might be lost in the hole.

“We live about a quarter-mile down the road and we felt something like a small earthquake during the night,” Brown said. “The next morning I came out to feed the cattle and noticed several missing. When I checked it out, I saw that the earth had subsided right near the trough. The animals must have been getting a drink and the ground gave way beneath them.”

No signs of the missing cattle can be seen in the sinkhole, but they could easily have been covered by collapsing dirt and debris. Sinkholes are not uncommon in Golon County, but it is unusual to lose livestock to them. Geologists at Eastern Texas University report that the recent drought has lowered the water table in the region, resulting in more sinkhole appearances. In addition, unusual seismic activity has been reported in the region, spurring an investigation by ETU grad students.

The Real Scoop

While it’s true that sinkholes are pretty common in Golon County, that isn’t the case here. A group of giant carnivorous worms have made their home in Golon County since before the dinosaurs. For the first time in a few hundred years they’ve got babies to feed. The “unusual seismic activity” that the ETU eggheads discovered is the result of the worms’ digging and occasionally breaching the surface to snatch a meal.

Use the stats for the Giant Worm in Chapter Seven of the Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition for the adults. The dozen or so babies (use the Snake, Constrictor stats for these) are clustered in a large underground cavern and fiercely protected by the adults.

A work crew unearthed skeletal remains while digging a trench for a new water line servicing ETU on Monday, bringing construction to a halt while police investigated. It was determined later in the afternoon that the skeleton from the nineteenth century and not related to any current investigation.

“It came as a big surprise to dig up that guy,” said construction supervisor Tom Coolly. “We had just started a clean trench with the backhoe and up comes this skull, like it was smiling at us.”

Golan County Sheriff Butch Anderson stated that the remains were clearly not recent and anecdotal evidence supports that the individual had been buried sometime in the 1800s. The remains and other evidence uncovered have been turned over to the ETU archeology department for review.