Setting the Stage Episode 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy

Published by

Isaac

April 9, 2025

Maia is our guest today presenting her actual play campaign, Pinehurst Academy. Maia used the City of Mist system for her game. From the City of Mist website, “In City of Mist you play ordinary individuals with powers that emanate from myths and legends investigating supernatural crimes and mysteries in a noir City where the truth is always hidden behind the pervasive Mist.” Maia has used a fairly straight interpretation of that setup with a twist, her story takes place in a suburban high school just outside of the City. The PCs are a bunch of first year students at the exclusive private school, Pinehurst Academy. The school has a yearly scavenger hunt competition for freshman to find a set of ten artifacts. There are only one of each artifact, so the scavenger hunt teams must also steal the artifacts

Maia made an enormous amount of material for the campaign along with many custom rules for managing the more detailed parts of school life. If you’re planning on running a similar campaign you should get in touch with Maia and ask for some advice.

The Pinehurst Academy playlist on YouTube
Maia’s TTRPG links
Maia’s Electric State narrative play podcast
City of Mist website

Want to be on the show? Fill out this survey.
Join our Discord!
Support Setting the Stageon Patreon!

One response to “Setting the Stage Episode 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy”

Applying TTRPG Customer Profiles to the Setting the Stage Podcast – GoCorral

February 20, 2026

[…] 40 – Kevin and Wing Women, 48 – Udy and Pendragon, 50 – Emma & Maia and Yeld, 53 – Maia and Pinehurst Academy, and 70 – Sensei Suplex and Project Aurora might be good fits. I could pull some nice clips […]

Reply

I’m Isaac

Welcome to the GoCorral website! I’m Isaac Shaker and this is a place for me to write about D&D and occasionally other topics. I host a podcast called Setting the Stage that interviews different DMs about their campaigns. I’m currently focused on completing the Cimmeria campaign setting and turning it into a book.

Setting the Stage Podcast

83 – Call of Cthulhu's Garden (Hem and The Sprouting) – Setting the Stage, Campaigns for D&D and Other RPGs

Hem tells us about their actual play campaign, The Sprouting. Within the world of The Sprouting, Earth's history diverged during the 1800s when an eldritch horror was summoned into our reality. The horror lay in wait for centuries, building up a secret army of plant monsters. In 2020, the plant monsters struck, ruining infrastructure and attacking population centers across the world. One hundred years have passed and our heroes learn that the next stage of the plant apocalypse has begun…We also discussed some of the difficulties and pleasures of actual play podcasts and how the RPG community varies internationally (Hem is in Iceland).If you want to try listening to The Sprouting its available on all major podcast platforms. You can learn more on The Sprouting's website.For other shows produced by Hem check out Blighthouse Studio's website.Hem mentioned The Lucky Die actual play show of theirs several times which used D&D 5e.And the broader network of Fable and Folly has their website too.Check out the Setting the Stage website!Want to be on the show? Fill out this survey.Join our Discord!Support Setting the Stageon Patreon! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.