Wizard schools: Lame? Cool? Only God's judgement is absolute, and He is silent on this issue.
D20
This School’s Teachings Focus On...
1
Haruspexy and its derivative workings: the magic of viscera and evisceration.
2
The perfection of a single spell.
3
Travelling to strange realms and plundering their treasures.
4
Developing new spells from the effects of miscasts.
5
Mirror-magic, workings of reflection and distortion.
6
Polemical lectures against its founder's theoretical opponents.
7
The purification of matter into ever-more rareified forms.
8
The duplication of the divine creation of life.
9
Pragmatic syncretism, playing off supernatural patrons against each other to minimize downsides and maximize benefits.
10
War-geomancy, the art of arranging walls and trenches
and rocket craters to mangle ley lines into shapes more deadly to the
enemy than one's own side.
11
Esoteric necromancy, concerned with workings beyond the raising of mere corpses.
12
Releasing the hidden virtues of herbs and trees.
13
The completion of a grand project started by its late founder.
14
The fundamental absurdity of magic.
15
Accessing ancient magic soaked into fossils and stones.
16
Comprehensively cataloguing all spells and enchantments.
17
Extracting magical secrets from supernatural creatures, whether through interrogation or dissection.
18
A mystical obsession with the ocean.
19
Forging unbreakable bindings and oaths.
20
An eclectic mix of subjects.
D20
This School Was Built...
1
Inside the sarcophagus of a titan. Its halls are carved from lapis lazuli and the titan's stone-hard mummified skin.
2
Gradually, as wizards clustered their towers together
to more easily share knowledge. The school today is an enormous
pincushion of gravity-defying spires connected by equally improbable
bridges.
3
Atop an artificial island that drifts with the
currents. Many among its staff and students are native to the world
beneath the waves.
4
At the center of a maze filled with puzzles only a
student of magic might be able to solve. A poorly-kept secret shortcut
exists for when the school's population can't be bothered with the maze.
5
Some time in the future, and was flung into the past.
6
Apparently in disparate pieces, but in truth it is a single structure with some parts folded through other planes of existence.
7
In a night and a day by a swarm of bound djinni. Their brass seals are worked seamlessly into the architecture.
8
With the donations and specifications of its alumni.
Each has contributed their aesthetic idiosyncrasies to their section of
the building.
9
From glamours. Learning to protect oneself from
exposure to elements the illusory buildings don’t protect you from is a
key lesson for new students.
10
Hanging on the underside of a perpetual thunderhead. Its copper-slag stalactites can cast down lightning bolts on targets below.
11
As a monastery dedicated to sealing away dangerous knowledge. Its vaults have since been cracked, and the monastery repurposed.
12
At the peak of a mountain, close to heaven. Its slid
down the mountainside some over the years, leaving an ugly furrow behind
it. Whether this is the result of poor construction or the weight of
its own iniquities we may never know.
13
From black glass and compressed tephra atop a dormant volcano, sculpted at the moment of eruption.
14
Without an eye to actual use and habitation. It’s filled with hazardous designs that might as well be traps.
15
Balanced on an enormous silver needle. Only the constant maintenance of enchantments keeps it there.
16
Before even the oral recording of history began.
17
To model the subtle and gross human bodies writ large.
18
According the the maddening dreams of its genius architect.
19
In the style of an asylum.
20
Across the ocean from where it is now. It was taken apart and reconstructed stone by stone.
D20
This School's Students...
1
Are disliked by the inhabitants of the town surrounding the school for their rowdy carousing.
2
Are typically pulled from the ranks of disgraced nobility, eager to regain their station.
3
Don’t seem to have any existence before they start attending the school.
4
Must be accompanied by a clone of the school’s founder at all times. The clones lack the magical talent of their progenitor.
5
Consume unhealthy amounts of designer entheogenic drugs to get an edge on their colleagues.
6
Shave their heads and wear identical grey uniforms.
7
Cavort with monsters every year under the black moon. It’s an ancient tradition.
8
Bear the scars of their brutal hazing process.
9
Are all sorted into one of five feuding factions identified by colour.
10
Enjoy a wide old boy’s network of connections after they graduate.
11
Have an inferior reputation in the wider world relative to students of other schools.
12
Are required to pool their magical knowledge and resources.
13
Must pay for tuition with their baby teeth. Most
students are legacy admissions, as not many parents would otherwise save
all their children’s lost teeth.
14
Are bound together by blood rituals that make them all biologically related.
15
Often find employment after they graduate in criminal enterprises.
16
Universally develop a phobia of cats.
17
Enhance their magic with crystalline symbionts that sprout from their flesh.
18
Carry a charm which teleports them back to the school when they break it.
19
Have the symbols of their specialties tattooed on their forehead.
20
Are quick to challenge those that offend them to duels.
D20
This School Is Rumoured To...
1
Bind the ghosts of passed faculty as undead slave-tutors.
2
Dominate local politics from behind the scenes.
3
Employ a demon as its headmaster, and sacrifice a soul from its graduating class each year as payment.
4
Steal the magic of its most promising students to distribute among the staff.
5
Make most of its money manufacturing arcane weapons of war.
6
Cover up scandals with murder.
7
Regularly blaspheme against the gods.
8
Contain paradox-creating grimoires in its vaults.
9
Be a scam.
10
Conduct business with a hostile extradimensional empire.
11
Produce nothing of its own research and simply steal others’.
12
Issue staffs to its students crafted from the spines of the school’s enemies.
13
Keep the brain of a prophet preserved in a jar to glean its wisdom.
14
Prohibit drugs, music, and sexual activity.
15
Know the languages of birds and flowers.
16
Be for magic to study people rather than vice-versa.
17
Be responsible for just about every disaster that happens in the region.
18
Maintain another campus on the opposite side of the world, connected by an umbilical tunnel.
19
Have faked its greatest claimed achievements.
20
Transform failed students into familiars for the successful ones.
D20
This School’s Symbol Is...
1
The burning cigar they use to cast spells by puffing glyphs with its smoke.
2
A three-headed dove.
3
An abstract representation of an open book.
4
Elaborately lacquered and sculpted nails.
5
A chrysalis-shaped amulet.
6
A ring made of green glass on one side and virdigrised copper on the other.
7
A skull opened to the universe.
8
A fractal heptagram.
9
The extensive scars on its students skin, from when the bones of dead alumni were transplanted into their bodies.
10
A split and braided tongue.
11
Derived from its founder’s family crest.
12
A wheel with serpents for spokes.
13
Incredibly yonic.
14
A chained star.
15
Stylized to the point of inscrutability.
16
Shapes which resemble the layout of old menhir complexes.
17
A featureless, armoured mask enchanted such that its wearer can still see through it.
18
A delicate, curved athame.
19
Particular calligraphic depictions of an infamous poet’s work.
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