GURPS Illuminati University (1995) (ISBN 1556342063), also called GURPS IOU, is a 128-page softbound campaign setting sourcebook for the GURPSrole-playing game. The authors are Elizabeth McCoy and Walter Milliken; the illustrations are by Phil Foglio and Kaja Foglio. The book details a fictional college where absurdity and awful puns are the order of the day; its students range from witches and werewolves to secret agents and space aliens. Adventures can involve joining fraternties, surviving dorm life, dealing with rampaging lab accidents, conquering other worlds on field trips, getting caught up in faculty bloodfeuds and even attempting to pass a class. 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A campaign setting is a fictional fantasy world which serves as a setting for a role-playing game or wargame, such as Dungeons & Dragons, Warhammer and various d20 System games. ... GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System), created by Steve Jackson Games in 1986, is designed specifically to be a role-playing game that adapts to any imaginary gaming environment. ... A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game in which players assume the roles of fictional characters and spontaneously describe their exploits. ... Phil Foglio (born 1956) is a cartoonist and comic book artist best known for his humorous science fiction and fantasy work. ... Kaja Foglio (born 1970) is a Seattle-based writer, artist and publisher. ...
Characters from every GURPS setting can be fitted into the campaign with little or no difficulty; the setting shares much in common with the equally bizarre game Teenagers from Outer Space. Teenagers from Outer Space is a 1959 science-fiction B-movie about an extraterrestrial ship landing on Earth to use it as a farm for its food supply. ...
Any student asking what the "O" in "IOU" stands for will be told he or she isn't cleared for that information. (See also: Fnord.) A fnord is disinformation or irrelevant information intending to misdirect, with the implication of a conspiracy. ...
School Structure
IOU is divided into nine major schools of teaching, listed here, along with a sampling of the departments each contains.
School of Weird and Unnatural Sciences & Engineering (WUSE)
Department of Recreational Biochemistry
Department of Rude Engineering
Department of Weird Science and Culinary Studies ("Can we eat it, or will it eat us?")
College of Obscure and Unhealthy Professions (COUP)
Department of Dirty Tricks
School of Law
College of Temporal Happenstance, Ultimate Lies & Historical Undertakings (CTHULHU)
Some Illuminati might seem unbalanced, such as the extremely high-income Gnomes and the low-level Discordians, but sometimes their true value is not visible at first or valuable only in certain circumstances.
Illuminati Y2K brought two new Illuminati groups to the deck: Shangri-La and The Church of the SubGenius and a whole slew of new groups (although typeset not so precisely as the original set).
One is the recent Illuminati: Crime Lords where the players assume the roles of Illuminated mob bosses bringing the power struggle to street level.
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