Diatu Magicademy

[magicademymods]

Diatu Magicademy First of the Magicademies, exemplar of its kind, and legendary to every wizard who never went there, Diatu Magicademy is the greatest school of any kind in the Tenscore Kingdoms and most likely the world. When he almost singlehandedly wrote the Magicademy Order, Anastara Diatu unquestionably pattered its concepts and ideals off what he had already begun in what is now just the Grand Hall of the Magicademy: organized education in all forms. A wizard, in Diatu’s reasoning, must have access to all forms of study and learning, for simply mastering magic leads to reckless consequences, stagnation, and generally poor life decisions all around. Thus: the Magicademy Order, to set the standards by which wizardry should be taught for all time. Diatu’s peers accused him of selfishness, self-interest, and power-mongering by setting his own school up as the first Magicademy, but if the greatest wizard of all time truly had malicious goals at heart, they have not once surfaced in seven hundred years of Magicademy education. Modern wizards and historians generally agree that if he had an agenda, it was exactly as described: educate wizards better. For that has what Diatu Magicademy has done all that time. Of course, over time the Magicademy has expanded aggressively. Not simply for the needs of education, but to accommodate the many fine minds who work there or return to use the Magicademy’s resources as is their rights as alumni. These days the Magicademy campus takes up the entire space once occupied by Diatu’s old home city, while the new city of Anastara grew up around it over time. As a consequence, the Magicademy contains countless buildings dating back even before the Magicademy Order, along with graveyards and tombs, towers and caves, even a palace -- most of which have been forgotten, lost, or simply vacated over the course of the centuries. Diatu Magicademy is a singularly magical place, unsurprisingly. Stairs move up and down, trees occasionally relocate themselves, paintings change from one day to the next, occasionally a second moon pops up that isn’t visible outside the grounds… OOC note: Including various magic effects for the buildings, furniture, terrain, etc. of any sort in the course of your roleplay is acceptable and requires no permission. The locations listed below are by no means comprehensive; they comprise the locations known to students of the school. The Great Hall At the very beginning, the building known as the Great Hall was Diatu Magicademy; students lived in one wing and had class in the other. That was centuries ago, and nowadays the Great Hall is primarily an administrative and staff building, housing the offices of non-Professorial staff and living quarters for all employees and faculty. Students rarely have cause to venture too deep into the labyrinthine wings, but the Great Hall for which the building is named remains a central gathering point for meals and occasional events. The Promenade The entrance to the Great Hall starts off as a walk down a wide stone path, with trees on each side arching overhead to form a ceiling of branches some impossible height above. At some indefinable point on the approach to the great double doors at the walkway’s far end, the trees begin to blur and merge together, turning grey and white in subtle ways that never seem consistent, till by the time you reach the doors to the Great Hall you’re surrounded by stone walls and marble columns supporting a great ceiling high above. Being sheltered from the elements yet conveniently large and unique, the Promenade is a popular spot for students to relax and chat with each other, study, or practice minor spells (always in full keeping with Magicademy rules, of course!). The Great Hall The Great Hall is commonly used as a dining hall, serving food constantly throughout the day to accommodate the busy schedules of students and staff alike. Students eat by House affiliation at the great tables, while faculty, staff, and visiting wizards may enjoy more casual booths and tables not too far from a restaurant aesthetic. The means by which the Great Hall keeps food circulating are a popular discussion topic among students, with theories ranging from sensible Modification or Discovery techniques, to more esoteric forbidden Sundering spells of time manipulation, to the fringe theories that everything is just boiled rice and great Fantastics trickery. Perhaps to the disappointment of expectant students, the Great Hall is otherwise singularly nonmagical, the theory being that students should eat and converse in peace. The Office Wing Restricted. A former dormitory, the Office Wing is just what it sounds -- chock full of offices for the entire staff. Researchers, analysts, groundskeeping, foreign outreach, financiers, every single person has an office. Unsurprisingly, many of these offices go utterly unused, but nonetheless this is the nerve center of the Magicademy, where business gets done and the wheel of education are greased to turn one more day. The Living Quarters Restricted* Formerly classrooms, the Living Quarters have been repurposed into comfortable suites for the faculty of Diatu Magicademy, suitable for entertaining guests, conducting business or social calls, and of course sleeping in comfort. The faculty have full control over their decor and style, so Noan opulance might be separated from Turvish martial flair only by a strange semi-aquatic Malan/Cascadin fusion. While students are typically not allowed in the Living Quarters, one floor has been set aside for the use of Sundered who are unable to live in a House dormitory for reasons of age, species, necessary accommodations, or so forth. These rooms are single bedrooms, rather than suites, and all styles along the same comfortable but certainly not lavish comfort about on par with the House dorms. The Business Club Headquarters The Business Club does NOT advertise its existence; only those willing to put in the effort to find it or deemed worthy by a member are told of its private meeting room in the basement. Here, students interested in making money pool their ideas, efforts, and resources in various schemes ranging from sensible commerce to outrageous grift to occasional smuggling. Dark and warded against detection, it is an amazing place for secret meetings... Rumored Locations The Assembly Hall The Protected Workspace The Room of Catastrophe ????????????????????? The Five Spires Five dormitories for five houses, the Spires encircle the Great Hall with mathematical precision that only wizards can achieve. Each Spire rises a full hundred feet into the air, topped with a dome that radiate the house colors from the outside, but provide an unobstructed view of the sky and environs to those students working in the common rooms. Each Spire is built on the same blueprint and they are architecturally identical -- the bottom floor is an entrance hall which showcases the colors, achievements, and history of the House it holds, while the remainder of the floors are given over to dormitories (four per floor, each housing five) with the common room up top beneath the one-way dome. However, centuries of life and culture within them have seeped into their walls, making each one fantastically different on the inside. The Gekronus Maius Spire, for example, is perennially neat and tidy, everything spotless and shining and in perfect order. The Purifeul Spire’s rooms lock with mathematical puzzles rather than key or spell. Eiather is loaded down with books. Every one has flavor and flair, which reinforces the culture of that House on its students and is in turn reinforced by them. Dormitories Each dormitory has five beds, wardrobes, shelves, vanities, and storage chests to accommodate the comfort and personal belongings of its residents. Windows overlook the grounds, thought curtains offer privacy as needed. A pair of shared desks allows for students to study in privacy, should the common room be unsuited for their needs. Floors as a whole are co-ed, and every floor has two communal bathrooms. The doors typically may be locked, though every resident of a room has a key (or mathematical solution) so one person can’t lock all their roommates out. While comfortable, the dormitories are not intended to be suited to all-day inhabitations; the Magicademy expects that its students will spend time on the grounds or at least the common room. The Common Room The Common Rooms of each Spire are at the top of the tower, shielded from the elements by the domes above them. Despite their apparent size, they never become too crowded; to the contrary, they always are comfortable and a little cozy, whether ten or a hundred students are in them at once. This effect, one of the few known stable Forged Sunderings, is impressive beyond words, and in many ways a popular saying is true: only when a student understands just how big a deal this standard effect in their daily life really is can they truly be considered a proper wizard. Outside of ancient forbidden magic, however, the Common Rooms boast comfortable seating in the form of couches and chairs, tables and desks to work at, fireplaces that always manage to heat (or cool) the room to comfortable, and cabinets always full of healthy and nutritious snacks. Rumored Locations The Eaither Escape Tunnel The Missing Floor of Purifeul The Gekronus Maius Infinite Closet The Pool of Aer et Calculum The Hidden Gardens of Valhudor ??????????????????? Makerion Keep With Sunderings unbanned after five hundred years, Diatu Magicademy found itself with an unexpected sixth House to provide room and board for. The initial proposal to raise a sixth Spire was shouted down by angry Modification masters who said it was absolutely impossible to reorder the existing Spires to mathematically accommodate a new one, especially if that new one was not a precise architectural match to the others. So the Magicademy did the next best thing and repurposed a nearby existing building. Makerion Keep once was the fortress that provided safety and sanctuary to the town prior to the Magicademy Order. The Magicademy no longer needed its own military protection after the Order, and over time the boundaries expanded so that Makerion Keep couldn’t provide it even if they wanted. So the little castle fell empty, and over time, began attracting ghosts. LOTS of ghosts. Enough so that the faculty had to go through, catalogue them, and then have nice long talks about not harassing the Ka students with every one of them (and hope those requests would be honored). Now the old keep has been magically cleaned, set into good order, and opened up to be the dormitories for student of Sundering. Dormitories Dormitory rooms are a haphazard affair in Makerion Keep. A large number of them have been converted from barracks, and are fairly analogous to the ones in the Spires. Some lucky students have been placed in converted suite, which generally fit two in the bedroom and three in the sitting room, allowing for a little more privacy and comfort. The two watch towers are also bedrooms on a vertical scale, with each floor accommodating a cramped single occupant. Bathrooms have been shoved wherever space was available, so while all the conveniences of modern magic are available, the layout is not always the most accommodating. The Common Room The former dining hall of the Keep, the Common Room has few of the perks of the other dormitories, though it does offer a little more space unless it’s packed full. Whether one considers it an upside or a down, ghosts are frequently in this room, offering commentary on homework that ranges from highly insightful to angry ramblings about how back in their day, wizards walked ten miles uphill to cast a spell for daily bread and so on. Inveterate meddlers in the land of the living, the ghosts have taken “don’t harass” in a very strict sense, and consider relationship manipulation and harmless pranks to be among their permitted actions. Rumored Locations The Treasure Vault Secret Passages The Old Chapel The Sally Port ??????????????? Kedrigan Hall Constructed as the new classrooms once the school outgrew the Great Hall, Kedrigan Hall is the comprehensive center for education both scholarly and practical in Diatu Magicademy. It may also be the sanest place on campus. Classrooms Classrooms follow the same general formula: desks or tables in a large U, so that the professor may lecture from the front of the classroom or the middle as they see fit. Classrooms are minorly warded so that students may practice relatively simple spells or the steps to more complex ones without exploding the Hall. Beyond this, Professors most commonly use the same classroom for years running, and as a consequence have shaped them to their personal tastes. Laboratories The laboratories run from many small ones the size of a classroom to the great cavern-sized ones beneath the ground. Each of them is heavily warded and protected, and otherwise sparsely furnished, making them an ideal location for practicing magic (and the only location in which dangerous or large-scale spells may be practiced). Professors may schedule classes in them in lieu of classroom work, and those not in use are open for any student to practice in. Apolko Cavern According to legend, Apolko Cavern was carved from the earth by a magical experiment gone horribly wrong -- though the existence of the entire cavern complex beneath the Magicademy probably puts paid to that notion. Now serving as the largest lab, Apolko Cavern is the only lab authorized for Sunderings work. The River of Metal Named for its proximity to the Forges, the River of Metal is a clear, swift underground river that is tapped for countless uses, magical and mundane both, as it courses beneath the island to eventually emerge in the canals of Anastara. The Forges Referring to the art of Forging more than literal smithies, the Forges are numerous workshop/classrooms set up in the caverns beneath Kedrigan Hall. Relying on the River of Metal for many mundane uses, such as powering waterwheels where magical energy might interfere with enchantments, the Forges offer comprehensive education and resources for crafting and creation. The Crystals of the Gods Restricted. This hidden chamber, so far down the flow of the River of Metal that it is almost off the Magicademy grounds, holds countless crystal spires in a hemisphere, each of them pointed towards the end of one great stone slab clearly mounted here by human hands. A person who lies upon the slab, with their head at the focal point of these spires, finds that their ability to use Intimation increases dramatically; with but a thought, they can gain answers that would otherwise take extensive prayer and focus to come across. The price, however, is weighty: when used, the Crystals seek out a memory or thought the user does not wish to become common knowledge. Though no memory is lost, a small crystal chunk appears somewhere on the island, and whosoever touches it experiences that memory or thought for itself. The Waterfall If one travels up the River of Metal, one comes across an interesting sight -- a waterfall pouring down the side of the cavern wall, joining the 'true' river to practically double its size. The waterfall is coming from impossibly high considering the depths of the caverns, which should not be terribly surprising given that somehow a floating island constantly spawns a river in the first place. What may be surprising is the light that clings to the water as it pours down, a light almost immediately extinguished once it mixes into the river. However, if the waterfall never touches other fluid, it remains light and glowing indefinitely, so a person who knows of this place can, with a vial and good sealing wax, create a durable and effortless lamp or lantern. And perhaps do more with it... Rumored Locations The River’s Source The Shining Cavern Lab #23 ???????????????? The Library of Starchime The public library of Diatu Magicademy, the Library of Starchime contains books and documents on every subject, ranging from the accessible to the incomprehensibly dry. The library contains very little that could be considered remotely controversial or confusing; the collection is highly sanitized, though certainly not lacking. Students could possibly teach themselves the intellectual side of any subject simply by doing enough reading here. The Music Room Students of Fantastics or even just ordinary instruments use this room to practice from sheet music or other works in the library. The Music Room holds numerous cubicles which do not let any sound out from the inside, allowing full-volume music that will disturb no one. The cubicles are all open on one side, however, and librarians do walk through on rounds -- ostensibly in case anyone in a cubicle might need aid but is going unheard, but practically speaking it’s to discourage students from using soundproof cubicles from other than their intended purpose. The Performance Spaces Tucked away down a back hall lie a number of large rooms that in many ways mirror a theater, complete with magical lights and sound amplification. These rooms are barely used, since Diatu's focus runs towards music rather than theater, but nonetheless they are not restricted and offer an amazing opportunity for those who want to practice a show. Rumored Locations The Moving Shelf The Archives ????????????????? The Gates, the Wall, and the Walk Diatu Magicademy cordons off its grounds with a wall of stone, magically constructed around its substantial environs. For the most part the wall is unremarkable, holding no blazing sigils or bizarre gargoyles. The Gates The sole entrance (maybe) to Diatu Magicademy, the Gates are a full thirty feet high and twenty wide. They are composed of a strange magical mesh, strong as steel, but translucent so as to offer a foggy and mysterious view of the grounds beyond. Each morning, the gates open with the Colormarch -- the Gates shift to the colors of the House that has taken the lead in merit that semester, then open so that those colors race down the Walk clear to the Great Hall. The Gates remain open from six in the morning to ten at night, after which they shut dramatically to seal off the Magicademy’s nighttime hours from the rest of the world. Wayward students and staff are quietly admitted through a normal-sized door after-hours, though. It’s a little embarrassing, but the Magicademy recognizes that any sort of formal curfew on adults is bound to fail. The Walk A stone path that runs from the Gates across the campus to the Promenade, the Walk is the most singularly misnamed feature of Diatu Magicademy. It receives virtually no foot traffic, being used most frequently for vehicles delivering either goods or people. Most Magicademy inhabitants use the enchanted airway next to it -- simply step into the powerful column of wind and be instantly and harmlessly whisked to the Gates or the Great Hall, depending on which way you face. Rumored Locations The Back Gates to the Palace The Overhanging Tree ?????????????????? The Library of Fire and Ash Restricted. The Library of Starchime is sanitized and safe. The Library of Fire and Ash, conversely, is chaos and tumult, both intellectually and literally. Within this battered, burned-out building is a wealth of texts and treatises on almost every subject imaginable -- and not the student-friendly, prescribed texts the Magicademy wishes you to see, but esoteric and controversial works. As such, the Library of Fire and Ash offers information most students will never see -- if you can avoid the swirling ash clouds and sudden flame eruptions that occasionally break out within the walls. Somehow, the books never get destroyed, but they're constantly being swirled around by all this, so that any work you wish to find may not be in the same place you left it, and no organization or rules guide the haphazard placement of works within. The Plaza of Sun and Moon Restricted. On a small unassuming hill on the Magicademy's vast grounds sits a plaza of flat stone, looking simply like a flat dish most of the time. This plaza holds a secret, however: it is a powerful nexus of Modification magic, with countless symbols and equations worked so cunningly into the stone that they cannot be perceived unless the conditions are right. Different formulae reveal themselves at different times of day - midnight, sunrise, sunset, and high noon. Still more sigils reveal themselves beneath the full moon. Provided you visit the plaza when the time is right for the equations and sigils you need, the flawless masterwork will serve as a perfect focus for Modification magic. The Forgotten Knight's Monument Restricted. In one of the large forests that sprawls around the Magicademy's grounds, tucked in far enough that it is well-hidden from prying eyes, a stone sword of giant proportions sticks out of the ground as if plunged in by a divine hand. Time has not been kind to this monument, as its features are rounded from who knows how many years of weather -- but the inscription on its blade remains clear and sharp. What it says varies from person to person, but the sentiment is always the same: a recitation, a vow, an oath that reaffirms what the reader believes in, and gives them strength. Those who read from the Memorial will find their resolve enhanced, and thus, magic will come slightly easier to them for about a week as the willpower they can put into their spells grows. The Sundering Circle So incredibly restricted we were tempted to use a blink tag here. In the far-out wilds of the Magicademy campus, in a sunken hollow in the middle of a copse of trees, a complicated circle shines in the ground with a light that couldn't be more sinister if it tried. This is the Sundering Circle, a nexus of sorts. For whatever reason, Sundering is easier in this circle, less prone to failure, able to draw in larger things for longer times. What no one understands is WHY this is true, and that fact is more than enough to ensure this circle is never used. The True Maze Restricted. Past the crumbling facade of a former castle is a hedge maze, or at least so it appears from the outside. But no sooner does the intrepid adventurer enter than they find themselves in a maze of fierce and fiendish complexity. Not just bushes, but water, spike traps, unstable bridges, large cliffs, swamps, and all matter of terrain and inconvenience threaten to overwhelm the runner. Great iron doors or walls seal passages, requiring a fight with a guardian or a key from somewhere on the other side of this section of the maze. The only respite the maze offers the runner is that when they sincerely wish to leave, their next turn takes them on a path right out of it. No one has ever made it to the center and told the tale... Loch Lake Just over a small hill, hidden from casual sight, a lake sparkles blue beneath the Ascelion son. Or moon. Or cloudy sky. Loch Lake doesn't actually every stop sparkling, because it does not exist entirely in this world. Beneath its waters the bounds of reality become more like guidelines than inescapable laws. Those who dive underwater sometimes find rare and bizarre things never before seen in the Tenscore Kingdoms... or creatures with the same distinction. Main Community  Network Community  OOC Community Premise  Rules  Game Guide and FAQ  Reserves  Applications  Taken Magic  The Six Houses  Diatu Magicademy  NPCs  Familiars Anastara    (First Ring    Second Ring    Third Ring) Adventures  Classes and Student Teaching Hiatus/Drop  Suggestions and Feedback