Percy Jackson & The Olympians: Camp Half-Blood

Camp Half-Blood
The Only Safe Place for Greek Demigods

"Keeping Young Heroes Safe from Harm (Mostly) For Over Three Millennia"

Description

     Camp Half-Blood is a Greek demigod training facility located on the Long Island Sound, directed by Dionysus, who the campers call "Mr. D," and Chiron, a Centaur who is the activities coordinator. It is also the Greek counterpart of Camp Jupiter, a Roman camp in San Francisco, California.

     The camp has magical borders, which are enforced by the Golden Fleece, found by the satyr Grover, the Cyclops Tyson, and demigods Percy Jackson, Clarisse La Rue, and Annabeth Chase. Stolen from Polyphemus' island, it was placed on Thalia's pine tree, ensuring that no monsters could get into camp. The Fleece stays on the tree, guarded by the dragon Peleus, it's magical powers protecting the camp.

     The camp is described as being the only safe place for half-bloods, although in the Heroes of Olympus series it is revealed that there is a similar camp for Roman demigods – Camp Jupiter, located in San Francisco.

     The half-bloods live in cabins (one for each Olympian; later, many more cabins were added later for minor gods and goddesses on after Percy's request in The Last Olympian), and eat at the dining pavilion. There is also an archery field, a sword fighting arena, a climbing wall with lava for training, an amphitheater, stables, an armory, and the Big House.

     The camp's cover name is Delphi Strawberry Service, a reference to the name of the Oracle of Delphi.

Address

Camp Half-Blood, Half-Blood Hill, Farm Road 3.141
Long Island, New York 11954
The camp is in Montauk, at the end of the Long Island. Also, Percy, Sally, and Grover drive from their cabin at the beach in Montauk does not take them very long to get to camp. However, the Camp is located on the North Shore of Long Island, referenced many times in the books, while Montauk is located on the South Shore. This makes the camp's true location uncertain. Percy also says that the part of Long Island beach that the camp is invisible to mortals, except the ones who can see through the Mist. Monsters and mortals can not enter, unless permitted from the inside. The address, 3.141, is believed to have originated from the number pi, which is named after the Greek letter.The main entrance of the camp is through Half-Blood Hill, as mentioned in The Lightning Thief.

Places

Cabins

There were originally twelve cabins (all the Olympian gods except for Hades and minor gods) but after the Second Titan War, Percy made the gods promise to claim all their children and for the minor gods to have more respect, so now there are twenty cabins in total, one honoring each god or goddess( Minors included) . Some of the cabins include Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Demeter, Dionysus, Hermes, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hephaestus, and Artemis (Though it is only used when the Hunters come to camp). The cabins of Hades, Iris, Hypnos, Nemesis, Nike, Hebe, Tyche, and Hecate being the latest additions. This makes in total twenty cabins.

Cabin One (Zeus' Cabin): Zeus' Cabin (#1) is described as a marble building looking like a mausoleum, with heavy columns. The big bronze double doors are polished in such a way to provide a 'holographic' effect of lightning bolts passing across. It also thunders all the time.
Cabin Two (Hera's Cabin): Hera's Cabin (#2) is a marble, formal-looking building, graceful with slim columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. It is done in a similar way to her husband, Zeus' cabin. However Hera's cabin is more graceful, having slimmer columns with pomegranates and flowers around them. The walls also have images of peacocks carved on them, as well as the doors.Inside is like a temple with a large statue of Hera in the center. There is no furniture inside due to no one will ever stay in that cabin and is honorary.
Cabin Three (Poseidon's Cabin): Poseidon's Cabin (#3) is a long, low building with windows facing the ocean. The cabin looks like it is made from rough sea stone, pieces of coral and seashell embedded into the outside walls, and a trident with a big bronze number 3 over the door. Percy described its smell of the cabin similar to the cabin at Montauk, where his mother and father met. Percy also states that there is always a sea breeze blowing through it.
Cabin Four (Demeter's Cabin): Demeter's Cabin (#4) is covered in flowers and tomato plants grow on the walls and doorway. Wild flowers and roses grow on the porch. It has a real grass roof. The cabin is colored a light shade of brown.
Cabin Five (Ares' Cabin): Ares' Cabin (#5) is badly painted red and has a large boar's head over the door with barbed wire on the roof. Annabeth mentioned it did have land mines, but she might have been joking. Rock music is constantly blaring from it.
Cabin Six (Athena's Cabin): Athena's Cabin (#6) is a gray building with plain white curtains and a design of an owl over the door. Most of the space inside is devoted to maps, desks and various projects, with all the bunks shoved together against one wall, "as if sleep was not important". Percy described it as a "braniac's workshop."
Cabin Seven (Apollo's Cabin): Apollo's Cabin (#7) seems to be made of solid gold and made to glow during the daytime - it's hard to tell if the gold is reflecting light or generating it.
Cabin Eight (Artemis' Cabin): Artemis' Cabin (#8) is an all silver building with silver curtains, similar to the outfit of the Hunters. It also glows silver during night time as if reflecting the moon, but looks like a normal cabin in the day. It is decorated with paintings and carvings of wild animals, mostly the stag. Because Artemis is a virgin goddess, she doesn't have children of her own and the cabin is honorary; however it is used by the Hunters when they visit camp.
Cabin Nine (Hephaestus' Cabin): Hephaestus' Cabin (#9) looks like a small factory, with brick walls and smokestacks like the forges and lots of gears around the entrance.
Cabin Ten (Aphrodite's Cabin): Aphrodite's Cabin (#10) is a wooden cabin with a painted blue roof, pillars, checkerboard deck with steps and gray walls. It also smells heavily of designer perfume. It is described as a life-size dollhouse with pink walls and white window trim. The lace curtains are pastel blue and green which matched the sheets and feather comforters on all the beds. The guys had one row of bunks separated by a curtain, but their section of the cabin was just as neat and orderly as the girls'. The cabin is always clean except for under the beds, which had chocolate wrappers, love notes, and other things under them. Every camper had a wooden camp chest at the foot of their bunk with their name painted on it.
Cabin Eleven (Hermes' Cabin): Hermes' Cabin (#11) has peeling brown paint and a caduceus over the door. It is probably in such bad shape because it was so over-populated. Once more demigods started getting claimed and the minor gods' cabins were built, space conditions improved.
Cabin Twelve (Dionysus' Cabin): Dionysus' Cabin (#12) has its roof and walls lined with grape vines.
Cabin Thirteen (Hades' Cabin): Hades' Cabin (#13) is a windowless cabin made of solid obsidian, with heavy columns and torches that burn green like Greek fire twenty-four hours a day and has a skull over the door. Cabin Fourteen (Iris' Cabin): Iris' Cabin (#14) The children of Iris stay here, but it is unknown at this time what it looks like.
Cabin Fifteen (Hypnos' Cabin): Hypnos' Cabin (#15) is described as an old-fashioned prairie house. It has mud thatched walls and rush roof, with red poppies over the door entrance. Inside the cabin are soft violin music plays, warm beds with soft feather pillows, and a branch from a poplar tree dipped in water from the River Lethe (the symbol of Hypnos).
Cabin Sixteen (Nemesis' Cabin): The children of Nemesis stay here. All we know about the cabin is that there is a broken wheel above the door that resembles Pac-Man. Ethan Nakamura would have been the only known member of this cabin, but he died before it was built.
Cabin Seventeen (Nike's Cabin): The children of Nike stay here, it is unknown at this time what it looks like.
Cabin Eighteen (Hebe's Cabin): The children of Hebe stay here, it is unknown at this time what it looks like.
Cabin Nineteen (Tyche's Cabin): Tyche's Cabin (#19) the Goddess of fortune's children reside here. Rick Riordan describes it as looking like a miniature Vegas casino.
Cabin Twenty (Hecate's Cabin): Hecate's Cabin (#20) looks normal but is built from blocks of stone with magic inscriptions written on them. If the blocks are dropped, they could explode or turn anyone within half a mile radius into trees.

Big House

The Big House is a large, sky-blue house which serves as the main administrative building at Camp Half-Blood.The Big House, is where the Oracle of Delphi used to live in the attic, before Rachel Elizabeth Dare took the Oracle into her own body and told many prophecies starting in the Heroes of Olympus series. It also is a main meeting place for the leaders of the cabins for major problems and ideas before any quests. Dionysus and Chiron enjoy playing pinochle on the front porch, the greatest game invented by man (along with Pac-Man and gladiator fighting) according to Dionysus.

Climbing Wall

     The lava wall, a climbing wall, is said to pour lava out for an “extra challenge”. If the camper does not get to the top quickly the walls clash together and the camper's clothes are soaked with lava (actually torn to only threads).

Camp Borders

     The camp borders are designed to keep mortals, monsters, bad weather and many other things out of the camp. Only campers, satyrs, gods, some mortals (such as May Castellan and Rachel Elizabeth Dare in The Last Olympian) and monsters who were given the permission by a camper (as Annabeth Chase did to Tyson) may enter through the border (as Grover once told Percy people let monsters in as 'practical jokes' much to Percy's shock). Once, the border was protected by many things, the most notable being a strong copper dragon. In modern times, it is passively — but effectively — defended by the magical barrier generated by Thalia's tree, created by her dad, Zeus, in her dying moments as he took pity on her.
     In The Sea of Monsters, Thalia's Tree was poisoned by Luke Castellan with elder python venom from the pit of Tartarus. As the tree weakened, so did the strength of the borders. Percy managed to rescue Grover as well as steal the Fleece from Polyphemus the Cyclops. The Fleece healed Thalia's tree and restored Thalia to her original body while leaving the tree in place. The Fleece is guarded by the dragon Peleus.

Dining Pavilion

     The dining pavilion is where the campers eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. The food served is a diet primary of grapes, cheese, bread, and extra lean, nymph-cut barbecue and you can ask whatever you want to drink (although Coke doesn't have the same flavor). Each cabin has their own tables and campers are not allowed to sit at a table that is not their cabin's (Annabeth Chase broke this rule to speak with Percy in The Battle of the Labyrinth only while talking about the quest.) The tables are covered with a white tablecloth fringed with purple. At the center of the pavilion is the bonfire. It is lit during the dinners. At the beginning of each meal, each cabin takes turns going up to the fire and dropping in a share of their best food as an offering for the gods.

Stables

      This is where they store the pegasi (and horses), like Blackjack, Percy's black pegasus. Percy can read the pegasi (and all equestrian's) minds since his father created the horses. The Demeter cabin is in charge of the pegasi riding lessons, but Aphrodite's cabin helps every now and then. Every few times, some demigod(s) would take pegasi lessons from one of the other demigods from Aphrodite's cabin. It is also shown that Chiron does not like the stables very much.

Armory

     This is where the campers get their weapons. It is a big metal shed around the side of Athena's cabin. In The Lost Hero, Annabeth helped Piper choose her weapon, which is later a dagger named Katoptris, there. It has quite a large collection of swords, spears, clubs and even shotguns. Every camper gets a weapon, but the Hephaestus' cabin makes their own.

Camp Forge

     There are white marble columns lining walls stained with soot. Chimneys on the roof pump smoke over a gable with carvings of gods and monsters. The forge is located at the edge of a stream, with waterwheels spinning bronze gears. Always, campers hear machinery working, fires crackling, and the sound of hammers against metal. Inside are tables full of projects and weapons, and there was also a big wall map of the camp, used to plan traps to catch the bronze dragon. Hephaestus' children are often, or always, working in the forges.

The Forest

     The woods are where dryads live and monsters were stocked. It is known as a dangerous place, and no one should ever go there unless they were armed or with a companion. The campers play capture-the-flag in the woods every Friday, and sometimes hunt for monsters to fight as training, such as when Quintus brought scorpions from Triple G Ranch. It is often mentioned in Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Camp Traditions

The camp has several traditions derived from its Greek roots. Winners and victors are given laurel wreaths and paraded around camp. More poignantly, anytime a camper goes on a quest, their siblings/cabin mates weave them a funeral shroud in case their sibling does not survive — if the camper has no siblings, another cabin may volunteer to do it, should they return victorious, they get to burn the shroud.

But the most prominent tradition is the camp beads. At the end of every summer session, the senior counselors vote on the biggest event of the summer and paint it on the bead:

The Lightning Thief - A black bead with a green trident. Percy's first year.
The Sea of Monsters - A bead symbolizing a little image of The Golden Fleece. Percy's second year.
The Titan's Curse - There was no bead. The events of this book took place in the same year as The Sea of Monsters, during the winter.
The Battle of the Labyrinth - An intricately designed maze to represent the Labyrinth. Percy's third year.
The Last Olympian - The Empire State Building with the names of the deceased in tiny Greek letters around it in a miniature border. Percy's fourth year.

     There are five beads on Annabeth's necklace at the start of The Lightning Thief, from years taking place prior to the books. The ones described are Thalia's tree, a centaur in a prom dress — ("...now that was a weird summer..."), and a Greek trireme on fire. Percy interrupts Annabeth in her explanation so the last two beads are not described. Because Luke arrived the same year as Annabeth, it can be assumed he had the same set.
     A game of capture the flag is played every Friday from 6:00 (PM) to 9:00 (PM). The boundary is the creek and often teams use the pile of rocks named 'Zeus' Fist'. Whenever the Hunters of Artemis come to the camp, there is a game of capture the flag and all campers participate in helping out. It is said that even the Aphrodite children go around offering to straighten peoples armor. Normally this cabin would sit on the side lines and cheer. In The Titan's Curse it is stated that the Hunters have won 56 times in a row.
     On a deleted scene of The Lightning Thief, Percy is thrown to the lake as a tradition for newcomers. It is done after the Hermes cabin does a chant and "a series of hand-gestures I didn't understand any better than the words" as Percy described them.

Staff Members

Dionysus - The Camp Director, who is also known as Mr. D. by the campers. He was punished by Zeus (his father) to operate the camp for 100 years because tried to woo an "off limits" wood nymph. Dionysus was also forbidden to grow his own grapes. His punishment was cut down to 50 years following the Second Olympian War.
Chiron - Activity Director and centaur. He is also the healer (just like a human doctor).
Argus - The Security guard at camp. He was created by Hera, as mentioned in The Lost Hero. He is covered with eyes from head to foot. He never speaks, as it is said he has an eye on his tongue. He is the beginning step of every quest as he is the initial driver.
Harpies - Three Harpies serve as "Cleaner Harpies" who would eat any camper that lingers around after noon on the last day of camp. The Harpies also cleaned the dishes with super-hot lava and are also good in mid-town traffic.
Peleus - A dragon that guards Thalia's tree after The Golden Fleece had freed Thalia from it.

T-Shirt

The Camp Half-Blood T-Shirt is described as an orange shirt with the text Camp Half-Blood above a black pegasus. The shirt is the regular attire of the campers which can be bought from the camp store.

Notes

According to the sign, the camp has moved around with Western Civilization since Greece, however, according to Daedalus, it hasn't been around for even fifty years, though Daedalus could have been actually referring to when he himself was a child many thousands of years ago. This is supported due to Bunker 9, it has been around since the USA's early days — mainly the American Civil War as both Greek and Roman demigods fought each other in a Demigod Civil War.