Living ENWorld:Chromatic Order

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[edit] The Academy of the Chromatic Order

During the decadent twilight of the Medibarian Empire, the Imperial counsel made an attempt to improve their magical power by starting an academy to train and organize their wizards. Wanting nothing but the best, they recruited the greatest wizards in the land to run the Acadamy. Without a doubt, the three mightiest wizards in the Empire were Mordrue, Sice, and Omega. Of the three, Sice was generally considered the most powerful, though Omega was the master of item creation, and Mordrue, a diviner, was the most knowledgeable. Each was amenable to the idea of starting an Imperial Academy, and the Chromatic Order had an auspicious beginning. Each of the three founders brought with them their apprentices, rich magical treasure and knowledge, and quickly the school attracted many talented students.

As the empire floundered, stresses began to appear between the masters of the academy. Sice began experimenting more heavily in necromancy. He created some undead forces to prop up the dying empire & put fear into their foes and conquests. Mordrue and Omega were loath to follow such a path, and insisted that the academy stay true to its idealist principles of knowledge. They felt the creation of undead to be evil and not helpful to the longterm survival of the empire as a force for order. Sice eventually left the academy, rumored to be pursuing the lich Phylactery in a vain attempt to perpetuate himself and his beloved empire.

Even after the Medibarian Empire�s decline, the Academy remained a premier source of arcane knowledge and teaching in the known world. The wealthy and ambitious sent their sons and daughters to learn the secrets of power from across racial and political lines. Medibaria city graciously supported the academy, for it was a source of great wealth and status, as well as a power to deter further aggression from the enemies of the empire.

All three of the founders were human.

[edit] Graduates

The Academy is prestigious, and attracts students from all over the land. Entry is expensive and competitive, thus most students are very bright and from wealthy families. Graduates are expected to sponsor talented young people, so a number of the students there were handpicked and sponsored by other Wizards. Most students are human, as were the founders and sponsors, but any race may be accepted.

Upon graduation from the academy, all wizards are given a cloak. This cloak is of exceptional quality. It is colored a nondescript gray for traveling, but one side is trimmed with a bright color according to specialization.

Abjuration: Orange
Conjuration: Blue
Divination: White
Evocation: Yellow
Illusion: Green
Necromancy: Black
Transmutation: Purple
Enchantment: Red
Universal: Silver

Graduates of the Academy take the Academy Graduate feat.

[edit] Geography and Layout

The Academy is a huge building complex, towering over the rest of the ruins like a fortress among the rubble, and in some ways, it is a fortress. Almost completely intact despite signs of great age, the Academy is composed of a main castle-like complex in the centre and four tall towers topped with spires, each looking like a stereotypical Wizard's Tower that children would read about in storybooks, one on each corner. Strange wisps of glowing coloured light flit about around the building, and there appears to be a large stable and gardens located on the far side of the Academy from the entrance. A wide ancient road, once well-traveled, leads directly to the entrance, a set of huge double doors inlaid with mystic symbols and engraved with bas relief scenes all over. Thick metal rings on the front are apparently used to open the door, but they seem far too large and heavy to be easily opened. It stands among the crumbled ruins of the ancient capital of the Old Empire of Medibaria, the city now called Old Medibaria. The Academy is in the Old City section of Old Medibaria.

The Academy is 550 miles from Orussus on the road through Fallon, 350 miles through wilderness. It isn't really near anything else. The mages are stubborn, and even though the New City has moved towards the water over time and built up higher on the debris of what has come before, the Academy is still down among the ruins of the Old City, in an ancient but well-preserved complex with a central stronghold and seven towers.

The Academy is an eerie place to visit in the night, as strange lights and sounds the area around it after dark, perhaps the remnants of degrading warding magic.

The entrance is guarded by a silvery metallic form, looking a bit like a suit of armour or a man made of metal. It asks visitors why there are here in Old Medibarian.

The Academy complex proper is well-furnished and well-lit, with a double sweeping carpeted stairway leading up to a balconied second level and beyond, a wide hallway leading straight ahead, two smaller hallways to each side, and doors along the halls. The Office of the Archives is where the Academy's Archivists work to keep the Academy running smoothly, under the careful eye of Dean Thrym Grolsen. Extensive gardens are behind the main complex. The Imaginarium is a room that uses powerful illusions and a little bit of Shadowstuff to change its form and become all sorts of different things. The beach is a popular choice among students.

The library is colossal, with books on every subject imaginable, but most of them are about magic of all sorts. There are books dating to the height of the Medibarian Empire and beyond. Among countless others, it contains these books:

• • Book: Riana Kenp's Elements of Magic, a primer for beginning students
  • Book: Codex Anathema
  • Book: The Dangers of Undisciplined Magical Research
  • Book: Hale Absalom's Ethics in the Practise of Magic, an advanced text on magical ethics. It covers difficult ethical debates such as privacy vs. use of divinations to prevent crimes, whether evil magic used to saved lives is still evil, and others. Most of them have no answers given in the book.
  • Book: Various conspiracy theory books: "Elayna Lyrue was a dragon", "Sice was actually a cross-dressing disguised elf girl", "There is a secret magic that can only be learned by standing around and letting monsters zap you with their attacks until you either die or learn it", "Bananas are actually sentient beings closely related to the aboleth".
  • Book: Advanced Studies in Eldritch Weaves and Mana Flow
  • Book: Spatial and Physical Transmogrifications and the Fourth Wall

The four towers of the main complex are each dedicated to one of the four founders, and each has a particular style associated with that founder. Each tower also houses the dormitories for each founder's house of students. Past the library is one of the towers. In this tower is the Mordrue commons, accessible only by students of the Mordrue house. The entrance to the commons is actually a mirror, on which a Mordrue student must inscribe a rune with a wand.

[edit] Application, Tuition, and Scholarships

The Academy tuition is 2000gp per year for an average of 10 years, totaling to 20,000gp for an education there. "Highborne" (the Medibarian noble class) receive a 40% out of deference for the money donated to the Academy by the Highborne in the past.

The application process involves a test and filling out forms. The forms have fields for full name, age, height, weight, race, nationality, home city, social rank, title (if applicable), mother's full name and title, father's full name and title, and yearly income. Forms are also required to go on a tour of the school. You also sign a liability release if you're harmed, and a nondisclosure agreement if you happen upon any magical discoveries during your tour.

The application process takes three days. The first day, the applicant has 24 hours and all the written resources of the Academy at their disposal to answer 200 questions on magic. Of the 200, 5 cannot be found in the library, and 5 are trick questions, questions about arcana that have yet be answered by the magical community. The next day, the applicant has 4 hours to complete a difficult, closed book test. The topic matter is difficult, but not very technical, and more focused on logic and problem solving. The third day, the applicant must pass beneath three arches and overcome "what has been", "what is", and "what will be". This final portion is highly variable and different for each applicant. Some applicants have come to harm in this final part of the test, and a few have died. The details of the application process are kept secret, in the interest of fairness.

There are many scholarships available to prospective Academy undergrads. If all of a student's scholarships exceed the attendance costs, the merit in particular will be depleted if the applicant goes over, but most others will continue to award. So, a very select few students actually make money by attending the Academy.

• • Organizational scholarships: Most of these require a scholar to promise to work with the sponsoring organization for a period of time after he or she graduates from the Academy.
  • Merit-based scholarships: These are based on the outcomes of the application tests. 400 gold per year is supposed to be pretty good.
  • Memorial scholarships: These are scholarships from pools created past Academy philanthropists. In order to better preserve the wishes of the scholarship funders, most memorial scholarships are granted based on the decision of a "chooser", an intelligent magical artifact left by the donor which decides who is worthy of the money.
    • Elayna Valsice Memorial: It apparently can pay upwards of the entire 2000 by itself but has only been successfully awarded once to a Freefolk boy Vanitri Duskrider, since Elayna was fairly recent and the chooser is fairly selective. Many students apply for this just for fun to see if they win the jackpot. Elayna Valsice's Chooser is an emerald sceptre. If it chooses an applicant, it glows brightly, a warm green, before excitedly announcing that it will offer the applicant 1500 gold in scholarship--if the applicant chooses to live in Elayna's house, Sice, that is. Otherwise, the amount is reduced to 500.
    • The Big 4 are the scholarships associated with the four great Houses of the Academy. These are interesting because the choosers hadn't been invented yet when the scholarships were instated, so there are other selection mechanisms in place, one of which requires the recipient to join the namesake house of the school's dormitories. Each of the big four pays out a quarter of the yearly tuition.
      • Headmistress Elayna Daryne Memorial: In memory of the greatest leader of the Academy since the founders themselves. This one focuses on dedication, energy, commitment, and caring for those less fortunate. But above all, Elayna Daryne values imagination and vision.
      • Omega Memorial: The applicant needs to have a past record of research or scholarship of note in the field of magical innovations or artisanship.
      • Mordrue Memorial:
      • Sice Memorial:
    • Jaedyn Limanthra Memorial: For gifted youngsters, in memory of the perspicacious young lad who passed away before his time. No chooser is involved in the selection process. (Secret: Jaedyn Limanthra was killed by the Dark Lord Elayna Valsice while she was actually at school.)
    • There is a modest scholarship for orphans who who don't have a home.
    • Anoura Valanise Memorial: A famous graduate who adored traveling to distant lands and developed groundbreaking research into translocation magics. Anoura's scholarship Chooser is a magical map that seems to be blank but draws beautiful pictures of different vistas, some visited by the applicant and others by Anoura herself, as it interfaces with the applicant. It later produces a map that details the applicant's entire chain of peregrinations across the lands. If the Chooser seems impressed with the applicant's travels and spirit of wanderlust, it will offer a small scholarship (at least once it was 250 gold per year) which doubles if the applicant chooses Anoura Valanise's house, Omega.
    • Elayna Lyrue Memorial: Granted based on arcane talent, strong leadership skills, and iron determination. It has been given out a decent number of times, though it isn't the easiest to get. Girls usually have the edge up over guys, but only in competitive years where there are two or more strong candidates for the scholarship. Though there is no chooser, the staff have enlisted the aid of an ancient entity that knows more about Elayna Lyrue than any living mortal, a being of such great stature that the scholarship is decided almost entirely based on her personal whims. The Mage Queen's pet kitty Mystara. Apparently, when her feline companion became ill, the Mage Queen created a new mechanical body for her, and it has survived to this day. Recently reactivated in the past century, she is smarter than most cats and able to speak Common, but the Mordrue scholars are upset that she has forgotten or never cared about most things they considered important, though she remembers well the taste of mice back when she was a flesh-and-blood cat. Mystara sometimes selects scholars by curling up in the applicant's lap to get some rest. The lesser of this type of scholarship is 250 gold.

[edit] The Founders

• Mordrue is one of the school's founders. Mordrue House is one of the major groupings of students. Mordrue students tend to be introverts. Mordrue dormitories do not completely separate the boys and girls, but boys and girls may not share suites. The entrance to the Mordrue commons is a mirror.
  • Divination and Abjuration are Mordrue's schools of magic.

• Daryne is not an original founder, but she was an important Headmistress during a pivotal time for the Academy. Daryne House is one of the major groupings of students. The entrance to the Daryne commons is a wall which ripples when touched and allows entry.
  • Daryne commons has its own small Imaginarium.
  • There is a secret library somewhere in the Daryne tower.
  • Illusion and Evocation are Daryne's schools of magic.

• Omega is one of the school's founders. Daryne House is one of the major groupings of students. The entrance to the Omega commons is a strange device made of three spinning rings with a diameter longer than a man is tall, each tilted at a different angle. This dimensional vortex can transport a visitor to a demiplane made of solid clouds. The vortex deposits visitors in a hall with a gided door that leads to the Omega commons, which connects to the various Omega dormitory rooms and facilities. The demiplane was originally created as a research project, it is called 'the Otherspace'. Whenever you exit a door on the other side, you can choose to reenter this space or walk into the normal hallway. The dorms are arranged in branches and clusters, with a large central common area for parties and get togethers. House Colors: Red
  • Enchantment and Conjuration are Omega's schools of magic.

• Sice is one of the school's founders. Sice House is one of the major groupings of students. The entrance to Sice commons is a wall with a rune on it. Sice students get finely furnished single rooms, much nicer than the other dorms.
  • Necromancy and Transmutation are Sice's schools of magic.

[edit] Classes Offered

• Class Offered: Portals and Planes, taught by Erlis
• Class Offered: Nexuses and Foci, taught by Grywald
• Class Offered: Curses and Malefices Throughout the Ages
• Class Offered: Basic Abjurations
• Class Offered: Force Magic
• Class Offered: Energy Magic and the Six Towers, involves planar diagrams, ley lines, and other arcane concepts, taught by Alair
• Class Offered: Introduction to Medibarian History, taught by Galton
• Class Offered: Versatility and Cantrips, taught by Namander
• Class Offered: Magical Items and Their Use, taught by Dralkin
• Class Offered: The Golden Age of the Medibarian Empire, taught by Dendril
• Class Offered: Cantrips and their Applications, Maldur
• More Classes Offered: 'Secrets of the Ancient Past', 'Mystic Runes', 'Illusion and Misdirection', and 'Charms and Potions', followed by 'Transmutation Arrays', 'Innovative Evocations' (this with Rayne), 'Arcane Nexuses', and 'The Magequeen's Legacy', and finally to get his Journeyman's degree 'Ley Lines and Power Vortexes', 'Enchantment and the Human Mind', 'Divination and Discovery', and 'The Four Founders: Sice'.

[edit] History

Apparently about twenty years ago, someone calling themself the 'Dark Lord' appeared at the school and began to gather followers from amongst the Highborne. The 'Dark Lord' preached about the superiority of Highborne and their special role in discovering the secrets of the universe and of magic, though other than espousing disdain and perhaps hatred for others, the lord didn't support any particularly troublesome activities until a spy tried to infiltrate and poke around at one of the meetings and was killed for such insolence. At this point, the Dark Lord made an ultimatum to return the Highborne to prominence and restore Medibaria's place in the world back to where it was in the ancient past. It never appears to have been followed through, however. As far as anyone knows, the Dark Lord just vanished and gave up on that goal, so to avoid alarming anyone, it was agreed to store the information in the secret libraries instead of the main one.

[edit] Rules, Bylaws, and Policies

In the Academy rules and bylaws, it says that if anyone is caught trespassing in secret areas (such as the Sice secret Library), they can be killed on sight without consequence.

It is official Academy policy that all items recovered from the ruins of the Old City are automatically owned by the Academy. The finder is not the keeper, and the finder is not guaranteed any compensation. It also applies to items found in other locations that are of 'significant historical or cultural value'. This usually includes all magic items of Medibarian origin.