HG: Ep 1x1 Welcome

1x1: Welcome
Opening Song: None
Short Summary: Iota and Asiago meet, and they make their way over to the Homestead, where they are made members of the exclusive club of ghosts called the Homestead Ghosts.
Paired with: 1x2 Banana Day
Full Summary:
"June 20th, 2010. On an island off the coast of Greece in the Mediterranean…"
Lies a dying hound in a crevice. Howling in pain, he manages to catch the attention of an old fisherman, but quickly scares the fisherman away. We get to hear the hound talk, pleading for the forces of hell to take him away… which arrive quickly in the form of a hellmouth. The hellmouth captures the hound, and swallows him, but soon spits him up. "Why are you asking for hell to claim you?" it asks. "You're not sinful enough."
The hound is honestly surprised by this, so he explains his predicament to the hellmouth. "My name is Iota. I am- well, was – part of a large family of hounds who guarded the traditional boundaries of the Greek and Roman empires, and upheld a lot of its mythology and tradition." The hellmouth nods its giant head. "I heard of that bunch. You're the Classical Hounds." Iota continues his story. "I was always the favorite of our owner, which caused strife among the pack that never got resolved… until now. My brothers ganged up on me and killed me, and on top of that, they damned me to hell."
The hellmouth is surprised at this. "But if they damn you to hell, they have to go themselves." Iota says that they knew this, but his brothers were already going to hell anyways.
"Well, that can't be fair," the hellmouth thinks alound. Suddenly, it lunges forward and swallows Iota. It swishes the hound insides its mouth and spits out Iota's ghost, which looks like a little triangle-faced creature with two pointy ears and a cloud-like lower body. Then the hell-mouth takes a different form, that of a little bird-imp-devil thing. "I'm Asiago of Rome," he says, clearly a male voice now. "And I think I've found a little loophole that could get you out of hell, for the time being." As it turns out, if someone is damned to hell by another person, the person damning him or her has to be dead before the first one is required to be in hell.  
"So I propose an alternate activity," Asiago says, as two blue tickets magically appear in his wingtips. "Before I was given the loathsome transformation of a hellmouth, I traveled the world, meeting monsters and beings of different beliefs and cultures. Once I was in North America and met a deity known as the Thunderbird. He told me about a club he was thinking about starting for ghosts, and gave me these passes to join it one day. So why don't we join it?" Iota is a little overwhelmed, but he agrees. So Asiago leads Iota off his little death island and on a journey across the globe to America.  
Along the way, Iota expresses some anxiety about leaving his land, so Asiago explains to Iota something known as the Goddity System. "All throughout time, people have created myths and legends to better understand the world. Most of mythology fell out of practice and belief, but more recently, people have been picking it up through the use of the Goddity System. It categorizes deities in a way that you can pick and choose who to worship, with a pre-established hierarchy so you don't have to worry about divine squabble. So all those Greek and Roman gods you were worried about are probably being worshiped right now, by people all over the world." This is explained as the two are traversing across the world, from the Mediterranean to Western Europe, across the Atlantic Ocean (in the body of a baby Leviathan), past the Statue of Liberty, and though the United States, all the way up to Minnesota. Their final destination is Bemidji, but they hitch a ride on a bus headed to camp, filled with campers, at the Minneapolis/Saint Paul airport.  
The scene shifts to Camp Thunderbird, the setting for the rest of the show, where busses are arriving every now and then. Camp is just starting. Over in a tree, a bright green horse-faced ghost, a small white bird with big eyes, and a ghost with a pointy spike on the back of her head and a grey sweater are hanging out. A bus pulls into camp. The small bird notices Asiago and Iota on top of the bus, and the other two ghosts get very excited. All three of them rush over to greet the newcomers. The green ghost's name is Pater, the small bird's DuWu, and the sweater ghost's C. Pater is a little suspicious of Asiago's presence. "I'm pretty sure this is a club for ghosts, not demons," he says. "But I have these passes!" Asiago says, and the ghosts get very excited. They take both Asiago and Iota to visit the Thunderbird in order for their passes to be verified. Based on Asiago's description, Iota expects a grand spectacle of a powerful bird god. Instead, at the top of a hill in the old service area, Iota finds a simple white-and-green lawn chair.  
But the lawn chair is, indeed, the Thunderbird. Pater explains that the Thunderbird is not near as powerful as it was when Asiago visited him; he stores his power in the physical form of a lawn chair, waiting to use it at the appropriate time.
At that point a sort of green glow cloaks the lawn chair and the voice of the Thunderbird rings through the old service area forest. "Hmm, Asiago, so you finally come to join my club?" he asks. "Although your guest is not who I expected." Asiago says that he and Iota are friends, and explains Iota's desire to spend a summer at camp. The Thunderbird is happy to have Iota and verifies both their passes, changing them from blue to green.
Now that they are part of the club, Pater leads the newcomers to their village – behind Homestead village, in the woods. They ghosts have their own little cabins, and Asiago and Iota are invited to take a spare one. They are also introduced briefly to the other ghosts – Radish, Coal, Kisher, Atenta and Mayfile. After introductions, everyone heads down to the Lodge (the camp's eating hall), where they enjoy the traditional first-day meal – spaghetti and meat sauce – up in the rafters of the building.
Fast-forward, and now the ghosts are seated on benches around a campfire. They applaud Asiago and Iota's story telling of how they got to camp, mentioning that they could put their resident storyteller Pater on a run for his money. Iota is curious though. "We told you how we got here, but how did you find this place?" he asks. One ghost, Kisher, casually but gruffly answers that he was once a bear that was shot by a hunter, and eventually wandered his way to camp. None of the other ghosts reply. The sweater ghost, C, doesn't think anyone else will give an answer so lightly. "Our origins are touchy subjects," she says.
The barrier of safety around camp has been instated, preventing unwanted outsiders from getting in. Iota is safe for a while, and he pledges to do two things this summer: Firstly, to have the best summer ever (because it could very well be his last), and secondly, to find out everyone's ghost story. Asiago promises to help him on his quest. So begins the story of Iota, Asiago and the Homestead Ghosts.