Academy of Magic

The Academy of Magic is the foremost institution of higher arcane learning in the Multiverse. Firmly anchored at the heart of Saint Gabriel Parish ward of the Scholar Quarter district in Aelyria Prime, the Academy's gleaming ivory towers and pristine marble courts can be foiund at the intersection of the Avenue of Knowledge and the Boulevard of Eternity. Epic for its accomplishments in education and legendary for the great mages and powerful wizards who graduated, the Academy of Magic is also renowned for its stewardship of the famous Bibliotheke Arkanos, the library of countless grimoires and manuscripts, spellbooks and lexicons from the ages. The Academy of Magic has a loose affiliation with the Council of Arcana, an influential guild of powerful wizards controlling the Amethyst Tower, one of the highest points in Aelyria Prime, wherein the legendary Tome of Spells catalogues all known spells in existence.




Founded over one thousand years ago, the Academy of Magic was established by Queen Candace as a royal college to promote the study of arcana and to advance the scholarship of magical knowledge. Originally called "the Aelyrian Academy of Magical Sciences", it has been known simply as "the Academy" to generations of worshipping mages and idolizing wizards, all who exalt the organization as the greatest institution ever devised by mortals in their quest to master magic. Under its earliest Headmasters, the Academy witnessed a proliferation of intense interest from across the burgeoning new borders of the Kingdom of Aelyria, and by the time that the First Empire was proclaimed, the Academy of Magic was widely recognized as the most prestigious institution of higher magical learning in the Realm.

Under the Headmaster Archmage Abar, the Royal Court Mage appointed by Queen Charisma, the Academy of Magic witnessed the flowering of its profound influence upon the Realm when its pronouncements affected how the magical community regarded events and circumstances unfolding in Aelyria. During the Reign of Empress Michelle, the Academy constructed the famous Bibliotheke Arkanos, a great library of spellbooks and lexicons, grimoires and msnuscripts, tomes and scrolls, all pertaining to the study of magic or the application of arcana. The fundamental tension between the Academy being seen as a "teaching college" versus a "research university" as been at the core of heated disagreements between members of the governing Council of Regents who set policies and guidelines for the Academy's future. The small class sizes of usually no more than a dozen students per course has typically ensured that the Academy of Magic maintains the highest standards for admissions into its selective society of scholars. Through the recent Headmaster Magister Bindar Ibarra, the Academy undertook an exhaustive translation of ancient works and books that depicted innumerable incantations, gestures, and rituals.

Recently, the Academy's Council of Regents elevated an eccentric and whimsical Professor of Incantations, Trimagister Raphoulus Garcae, to the office of Headmaster in direct response to the perceived threat to the security of magical knowledge and arcane power posed by the return of the Ancient Aelyrians (cf. Induction of the Headmaster). Despite the intended secrecy of such selections, it was a well-known fact that the Council of Regents was determined to select a Headmaster who would guide the oldest and proudest magical institution in Aelyria, and so they selected their greatest prolific educator rather than a tried-and-true administrator or career-minded bureaucrat. Within hours of taking office, Headmaster Gar ordered the Academy's name simplified from its long and rambling name to the more succinct and direct monicker it holds today, and a new campaign to recruit a new generation of students and dedicated scholars was launched.




The Academy of Magic is a gated complex enclosed by broad ironwrought highwalls encircling the Campus. Before the Main Gate is the marble-and-stone Fountain of Knowledge, a serene plaza where students and townfolk often mingle. Utop the arched gates are the words "ACADEMIA ARCANORUM" in beveled golden and emerald gleaming lettering. Just beyond the Main Gate is an open walkway with lush gardens leading towards an immense sprawling temple of marble filled with rooms of instruction and halls of learning, flanked by the Ivory Towers where the Regents and Faculty keep their offices. To the East near the Forum can be seen the rising citadel of the Amethyst Tower, a tall violet-gemmed crystal-rimmed spire wherein the mysterious Council of Arcana and the Office of the Headmaster are located. To the West at the edge of the complex are a series of whitestone and redbrick elegant townhouses serving as residence and meeting halls, embraced by the majestic wings of the Bibliotheke Arkanos, a columned palace housing the seven libraries of the Academy.

The Gates to the Academy are enchanted, yielding only to those who have magical ability or arcane potential. Applicants must often endure a series of tests and interviews before they are granted enrollment, and even then only a small handful of students are allowed to matriculate each year. Outside the gates, proclamations from the Regents or decrees made by the Headmaster are posted to keep the public at large informed about notices pertaining to the Academy of Magic. Students are often distinguishable from pupils of other universities or institutes by their distinctive hooded robes of gold-lined crimson cloaks, while many of the Faculty wear full regalia colored for their school of magic: Purple for Sorcery, Red for Elementalism, Blue for Mysticism, White for Thaumaturgy, Green for Druidism, Black for Necromancy, Yellow for Bardism, and Grey for Iconomancy. It is common to see students traveling towards Bookseller's Row to purchase mundane supplies, but most arcane reagents and magical components needed for study are stold within the Campus walls.




Pupils at the Academy hail from everywhere people aspire to better themselves. Nowhere else can one find a more diverse yet unified group of people. Parents and patrons from around the Realm and Beyond send their children to the Academy of Magic to master the ways of the arcane, but while in attendance, students learn so much more about life and themselves. Its excellence is often reflective of its selectivity, and membership in the Academy admits a student into a very exclusive club: the Academy of Magic routinely has fewer than several hundred students at a single time, making it also one of the smallest royal colleges in the Realm.

Admissions

Because the Academy of Magic is the most exclusive institution of arcane education in the Multiverse, getting in is not easy. Being the son of a powerful noble or the daughter of a legendary witch is not enough. These advances can help a prospect hone what talent he or she has, but they cannot augment an applicant's raw ability. To be admitted to the Academy, a student must pass a rigorous set of tests custom tailored to the candidate's background and unique circumstances. They are typically administered by the Council of Regents during a closed-door interview process that former students often describe as remeniscent of an Inquisition. Normally, less than one in ten applicants successfully pass the tests, and of those, only a handful are ever offered admittance. On rare occasion, two or three students might arrive from the same hometown in the same year. The standing record goes to the city of Aelyria Prime itself, which had five students admitted at once nearly twenty years ago.

The Student Body

Students of the Academy of Magic are mostly human, but there are many elves, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, and so on there as well. Few members of races or countries that are antagonistic to or estranged from Aelyria are ever admitted to the school, although this is not unheard of. One of the Academy's former students -- Nikhilius Kumarius -- is a Xetan shaman, for instance. No matter their backgrounds, however, all Academy students are treated equally.

Registration

Only the students with the best prospects have a chance of being admitted to the Academy of Magic. This means that many promising aspirants are disappointed at the beginning of each registration period. The Academy takes two instructional breaks each year, ove rthe winter and summer equinoxes. New students are admitted when classes resume after each break. Most students enter the school in the summer, but exceptions are made each year for students able to fill any vacancies that may open up during the first term.

The Academy's program of arcane education requires a commitment of at least two years. The Council of Regents prefers to take on students in their formitive years, before their coming of age, but the Academy is prepared to make exceptions for applicants that warrant them. Many students stay on beyond their first two years to continue their studies, while even more come back from time to time to brush up on their skills. All students who graduate from the Academy invariably seek to return to prove themselves worthy of being called Masters of the Art, and the judgments and views of their former Professors are often pivotal in their magical careers.

First-year students are presented with a rigid schedule of classes designed to discover their individual strengths, both in terms of talents and preferences. This covers a great deal of ground, giving each student a chance to experiment with magic of all types, including the construction of various kinds of magic items, potions, scrolls, and even the weaving of magical spells from different disciplines. The Academy stands alone in the Multiverse for using rare phylacteries to enable its students to tinker with energies of different magical professions before having to channel that raw energy themselves (and thus become attuned to a specific energy source). Half way through the First Year, students are permitted more lattitude in their choices of classes with most students commiting their concentration in a single school of magic. In the Second Year, students undertake grueling Novitiate Examinations which prove their competence over basic magical concepts and arcane techniques in their school, and once they pass, they are Apprenticed to a Master to learn in-depth cornerstones of the craft. By the end of the Second Year, students are permitted to undertake Exit Examinations, and if successful, they are permitted to graduate and become Journeyman Adepts. As a Journeyman, a student is discharged from the Academy and issued a solitary task: explore the world and seek out new forms of magic to call your own, and then return to the Academy when you are prepared to be challenged.

During the Registration of new students, each pupil is also assigned to living quarters, usually a bed in a shared room. Most students spend their entire education in the same room, so it is often in their best interests to get along with their roommates. Students who are unable to make peace with their fellows are normally permitted to leave the school, but rooms are rarely reassigned. Students from well-to-do families sometimes are able to acquire their own quarters at local inns or boarding houses outside of the Academy Walls.

Continuing Education

While the Academy is best known for its basic and advanced programs in arcane education, it is first and foremost an institution dedicated to furthering the development of knowledge of the arcane arts. All students who graduate as Journeyman Adepts from the Academy are issued the task of customizing their magical knowledge and searching the Known Realms and Beyond for new sources of magic, so that they might create a unique spell or ritual that embodies true mastery over the art. More than half the students return to the Academy at some point in the years that follow their graduation to perform a Masterpiece, a Work of Magical Art that passes the highest standards of the Council of Regents. Other students return simply to take advantage of the Academy's unparalleled libraries and laboratories. Others only visit to browse the legendary stock of various spell components and potion ingredients acquired regularly from exclusive sources around the Multiverse. A sizable percentage of those students who return decide to stay at the Academy for extended periods of time. For those who wish to create the next great spell or build the most innovative magic items, there are no better facilities available, including access to our Faculty and Staff of some of the greatest wizards of our time.

Tuition and Fees

Attending the Academy of Magic is not free, of course, but no one who is accepted into the school is ever prevented from attending due to a lack of ability to pay. Fee-paying students are permitted to remain at the Academy as long as their wealth will carry them; it is not uncommon for children of wealthy parents or blessed members of prominent patrons to remain at the Academy for years, redoing examinations and retaking courses until they have passed them all. Non-fee-paying students, however, are admitted with provisional status, allowing them to remain at the Academy for only a maximum of two years. This means that if they fail to pass either the Novitiate Examinations or the Exit Examinations, they are subject to expulsion and failure from the Academy without being elevated in rank or proficiency. It may not be the fairest system, but it is how the world works, and the Academy is always willing to give everyone - regardless of their circumstances - at least a single chance to strengthen and prove their academic and intellectual prowess. Current fees and expenses are as follows:

Tuition: 22,500 per term
Board: 900 per term

Joining the Faculty

Not everyone comes to the Academy of Magic to learn. Some come to teach. For those harboring such aspirations, there are precious few positions available at the Academy Faculty, and the Council of Regents only accepts the absolutely finest of candidates. Many wizards have left standing orders to be contacted in the case of another professor's departure or death. Faculty members at the Academy -- both teachers and staff -- are paid a generous salary and provided with free room and board while on Campus. In addition, all employees have free use of the Academy's renowned library and various laboratories. These benefits alone are valuable enough for most applicants to offer to work free of charge. Nevertheless, those who believe that they have what it takes -- outstanding credentials, a record of excellence, celebrity and fame in the magical academic world -- they are encouraged to apply with the Headmaster, either by letter or in person. While there are rarely any openings, exceptional candidates have their letters kept on file in the event of a vacancy to be filled.