Magical Universities

 

The Astrological Society of Dumi

The Astrological Society of Dumi is a small magical university originally founded in Dumi, on the Sea of Azane, but with colleges in and around Dumi, the Shining Mountains and the Hidden Sea. The Astrological Society itself is ancient, dating to the time of Tatra (~500 BCB), but it remained a small, regional guild of protoscientific and magical study for most of its existence. The college holds a fundamentally Azanist worldview, rejecting the existeance of Vehira as a goddess or as a planet around which Tear and its sister moons orbit.

Mages from the Astrological Society were invited to the Ivory Road Conclave in 709, to the Convention of Eastern Colleges in 1177, to the Desh Colloquium in 1235, and to many other gatherings that sought to align and unite groups of magical colleges. In the beginning, Astrological Society would send representatives, but invariably, these representatives would either end up rejecting the Azanist princples of the Astrological Society and 'defect' to a rival college, or they would return and attempt to undermine the Azanist principles of the Astrological Society itself, leading to censure, exile or in some cases, persecution or execution.

During the wars of the Imperial Era, the Golanicjan Crown struggled to gain magical support from the Astrological Society as they become increasingly secretive and isolationist and unwilling to work with the crown to train aspiring mages only to have them sent overseas where they would see Vehira in the sky for themselves and reject the Astrological Society. Consequently, while the great Magical Universities of the world continued to expand their reach and influence, the Astrological Society of Dumi became ever more insular.

By the time of the Enlightenment, the Astrological Society of Dumi includes only a couple of dozen small schools, all of which are located in central Golanicja, mostly in the Shining Mountains and the southernmost extend of the Red Plains between the Sea of Azane and the Hidden Sea.

By the late 14th century, particularly in the cities and towns surrounding the Hidden Sea, a radical epistomological trend toward rejecting anything that could not be directly witnessed or derived from first principles became fashionable among the upper classes (not the nobility). Both the Astrological Society of Dumi and the Circle of Azane (an Azanist religious order) took advantage of this trend to grow and expand their reach and influence in the affluent region surrounding the Hidden Sea. By the early 15th century, this trend toward Azanist fundamentalism had led to rising tension, religious intolerance and social division in central Golanicja.

The Campbell Institute of Magical Protosciences

The Campbell Institute is a small, independent Magical University in Waeyron which is distinct and fully autonomous from the many other, larger Magical Universities on Tear. It it formed by a cooperative charter originally created in 930, and signed by the Campbell Institute in Cairgherd and Taeves College of Magical Protosciences forming them into one college, and creating a pathway for other schools in Waeyron to join. By the Enlightenment, there are over a dozen small colleges that have joined the Campbell Institute, but many of them have fewer than 20 students. The Campbell Institute is administered from Cairgherd, but the campus in Taeves is larger. The Campbell Institute focuses most on instruction in the colleges of Natural Mysticism, and Meta-Mysticism, while instruction in Divine Mysticism in Waeyron is largely left to religious organizations. Instruction at the Campbell Institute is much more hands-on and less academically focused than in most other Magical Universities. Students are strongly encouraged to periodically serve as Fellows, travelling from town to town providing magical service to the people in manner of companions.

The Eastern College

As early as 1170, the writing was on the wall. All of the Empires were overextended militarily and over-leveraged financially. In Tulosz and in Golanicja in particular, a succession of overconfident, underachieving Kings and Queens had repeatedly dissolved advisory councils and pushed aside their wisest sages, leaving them surrounded by sycophants and political and financial parasites. Many of the banished advisors to these royal families were mages who had served as Court Wizards, Councillors, or in other advisory, or diplomatic positions for decades, and who grew frustrated as their counsel was disregarded and the Empires continued to spiral toward collapse. The majority of them ended up in academia.

In 1176, Doma Gavriella Elbu, Deaconess of the Szninida Paroha Hospital and University in Szninida, Tulosz petitioned to the heads of over twenty magical colleges and universities in Tulosz and Golanicja that they convene to discuss the futures of their various schools. In 1177, the Convention of Eastern Colleges was held in Resounding, bringing together the heads of over forty major magical schools from Tulosz and Golanicja, as well as a few from Marcosta. Together, they discussed the potential consequences to their various independent schools if centralized power structures (and funding) collapsed, and they agreed to consolidate their schools that they might persist through collaboration.

Over the next three years, they studied the structure of the Guild of Jumira, which had grown increasingly successful and powerful over a century and a half. Then in 1180, the Second Convention of Eastern Colleges was held, this time in Citadel, Golanicja. Here the heads of fifty-one different magical schools in Tulosz, Golanicja, and Marcosta agreed on the Mandate and Charter for the Eastern College, and appointed the first Council of Overseers. Over the following five years, the Eastern College streamlined and centralized their programs, and fortified relationships with important and wealthy Great Families across three continents.

When the Kingdom of Tulosz became insolvent in 1185 the Eastern College was embraced by many suddenly independent cities and their Great Families as a stable, powerful organization that could help them maintain their power and connections without a centralized authority. The stabilizing force of the Eastern College is considered one of the major factors that prevented civil war from erupting in Tulosz following the collapse of the Empire. A decade later, when the Kingdom of Golanicja began to default on various financial obligations to the Grain Bank, it was obvious to everyone (except the Golanicjan Royal Family themselves) what would happen. Impatient to be rid of Imperial incompetence, many cities in Golanicja began underreporting their financials to the crown, accelerating the bankruptcy and ultimate collapse of the Kingdom. Again, the Eastern College was there to buttress the social order against the cascading problems of a failed state, and within a few years, Golanicjan cities were rechartering and reforming their Councils in a return to the city state model that had dominated the Third Epoch.

Due to the fact that most of the magical schools in western Tulosz and Golanicja were affiliated with religious organizations, schools of the Eastern College specialize predominantly in Restoration, Alteration and Evocation magic. This has lead to a close relationship between the Overseers of the Eastern College, and senior officials of various churches and religious organizations. The friendships and rivalries formed among students from the different houses of the more prestigious schools of the Eastern College in one generation often become the religious politics of the great Churches in the next generation.

The Guild of Jumira

With the rise of Imperial powers around the world, and the wars that arose as a result of their expansionist tendencies, people in the Jumiran charter cities became increasingly concerned that growing and hungry Empires might turn their expansionist sights on a politically fragmented Jumira. As the cities of Jumira had not rallied around a heroic banner during the Orcish Conquests, there was no great family or house that could make a claim to centralized power, and no stomach among the population at large for such a structure to arise.

In response to growing fears Jumira might be conquered piecemeal, the heads of several major schools of magic convened a secret meeting in Ivory Road in 709 to discuss the matter.

The Ivory Road Conclave led to the constitution of the Guild of Jumira; a continent-spanning organization of magical colleges that set aside their differences and agreed to commit to a common curriculum and a mission of mutual support. More than a dozen major colleges, and many smaller ones joined the agreement. The Guild of Jumira was headquartered at the Koledya Gyaan in Sathirajan, by far the best school of Divination magic in the world at the time. The first head of the Guild was Chancellor Amesh Imubad, arguably the greatest Diviner who ever lived.

While the primary mission of the Guild was to promote magical learning in Jumira, their ‘real’ mission was to protect Jumira from potential Imperial aggression. The feared aggression never happened, but it is not clear whether it was the foresight and covert actions of the Guild or a simple lack of interest from the Empires that left Jumira largely at peace during the Imperial Era.

While Divination magic has always been important in the Guild of Jumira due to many systemic and organizational biases established early on, their most important focus is on the alchemical arts. Due to the incredible biodiversity in both Jumira and Sekhu, which fuels their industries for exotic foods, spices, dyes, minerals and livestock, the Guild of Jumira has access to the best alchemical ingredients in the world, and therefore draws the best alchemists in the world to study and to teach in their schools. Consequently, the Jumiran Guildhalls are among the most unusually populated places in the world - often filled with Spriggan, Ursan, and even Sectile mages, as these species tend to be the most insular, tend to come from the most remote regions, and therefore tend to disproportionately count shamans and alchemists among their mages.

Of the Five Colleges, the Guild of Jumira is the oldest, and their structure and operational framework was mimicked to some extent by the other Colleges as they were formed.

Koledya Gyaan

The Koledja Gyaan, located in the city of Sathirajan in Jumira is the administrative center of the collective of magical colleges that form the Guild of Jumira. The Koledja Gyaan is the largest individual magical school in Jumira, and is larger than the Koledya Mudinak, despite being located is a smaller city.

Koledya Mudinak

The Koledya Mudinak, often referred to as the Alchemical College of Mudinak is a school of mystical, alchemical and protoscientific study located in Mudinak - the largest city in Jumira. Attached to the Putangal Allotment, the Koledya Mudinak is a prestigious school and is considered the best school of Alchemy in the world. The Koledya Mudinak is smaller than the Koledya Gyaan in Sathirajan, and the two schools have a friendly rivalry.

The Ministry of Music

Following the discovery of Senecian treachery in the attack on the Tuloszian naval convoy in 712, there was a quiet, but bloody purge of senior officers in the Senecian military who were deemed to have failed to protect the secrecy of the operation. To ensure such a failure would never happen again, in 713 Empress Lucillia III ordered the formation of a Ministry of Truth that would oversee the selection and training of charlatans, spies, con artists, illusionists, performers, grifters and cheats of every imaginable sort. This essentially nationalized the creation of culture and propaganda, the training of an elite intelligence cadre, and the formation of a magical defence force under a single initiative. At the behest of her advisors, the Ministry of Truth was promptly renamed as the Ministry of Music to obfuscate its purpose.

The Ministry was placed under the direction of Brigata Inverno, a codename for an individual whose identity was never made public. Between 713 and 722 over two dozen schools scattered all across the Senecian Archipelago were absorbed into the Ministry. Most of these schools were magical colleges, but several of them were colleges of the arts; including colleges that focused on music, dance, theatre, and other performance arts. More surprising, however, was the direction to reform the schools around a paramilitary structure, with a strong emphasis on discipline and hierarchy, and service to Empire. The first years of the Ministry were difficult, with many students and instructors leaving, but things quickly turned around, and the Ministry of Music began churning out some of the best intelligence officers of the Imperial Era.

The Ministry of Music focuses on training students who are politically savvy, improvisational, creative, charismatic and fiercely loyal. Their magical instruction focuses on the Illusion, Divination and Evocation magic, though there is also a special College, the College of Furora, in the shadow of Mount Furia that is focused on achieving the highest levels of mastery of the College of Destruction.

Following the collapse of the Elven Empire in YEAR, the Ministry of Music ceased to exist as a Ministry in the literal sense, but the collection of Colleges that composed remained loyal to one another. With the dissolution of the Elven Empire, and other nation states around the world, many Ministry alumni who had infiltrated powerful organizations simply offered their services to new masters and continued their work. With so many powerful and influential connections available to them, in a time of such profound turmoil and transformation, the Colleges of the former Ministry took advantage of the shift in the flow of intelligence, and of the wealth and power that accompanied it. Thus, the Ministry of Music was able to retain its overall structure and continue functioning autonomously, while keeping their antiquated name for the sake of tradition.

The Northern College

As with the other major colleges, the Northern College formed from a group of smaller schools of magic scattered across Obersch, northeastern Golanicja, and central Kashdush. Unlike the other major colleges, however, it is unclear when the Northern College was formed, or by whom. The Northern College was not known to exist when the Desh Colloquium was called in 1235, but it was determined several years later that the reason so few representatives from Kashdush chose to attend was that their schools were already part of a secret organization of magical schools that had existed for some time.

It was not until 1316, when an enormous gathering of Wizards and Shamans met in Juhoenholt, Obersch to perform a magical ritual that they hoped would bring an end to the drought that had begun five years previously, that Matron Frubarwand, the head of the Juhoenholt School of Conjuration admitted to the existence of the Northern College. Even after this admission, how the College was administered and the number of schools that belonged to it remained a mystery.

By the 1330’s it became increasingly apparent that the Northern College had many schools in Kashdush, and the consensus among mages at the other four colleges was that the Northern College was quite old, perhaps dating back to the Spriggan and Ursan alliance that rose in the Orcish Conquests. If true, that would make the Northern College the oldest of all the magical Colleges by far. The passing of Matron Frubarwand in 1338, and her replacement by a Matron obviously not experienced enough to be the head an organization with the presumed scope of the Northern College, led to further speculation that Matron Frubarwand had not been the head of the Northern College either.

By the middle of the Enlightenment, most mages had come to be convinced that the Northern College was not headquartered or administered from Obersch at all, but rather from an unknown location - perhaps not even a school itself - in the wilds of central Kashdush. Aside from rumors and speculation, the only evidence to support this are seemingly fantastical stories of sailors in the far northern region of Blowhole Bay who tell of frequent sightings of powerful wizards sailing faerie-powered ships up the ice-clogged rivers that flow out of the Crown Mountains and the Kashdushan Shield.

The Odeshi College

In 1232, as the Great Families of Shahaifor, and other Great Families across western Ayodesh rallied together to plan the rebuilding of the ruined city, discussions began in parallel about elevating the study of magic across the continent. For centuries, the Guild of Jumira and the Eastern College - and to a lesser extent the Ministry of Music - had attracted the worlds wisest magical scholars to their schools, and the lifting of restrictions that made travel between Empires complicated was already accelerating that trend.

As discussions of creating a grand University in Shahaifor grew rapidly more serious, it became clear that building a world renown university from nothing would require uniting dozens of magical colleges across the continent, standardizing their curricula, and centralizing their hierarchy in order to compete with the prestige, power and influence of the already established magical colleges.

Thus, in 1235, the Desh Colloquium invited mages from every significant magical school in Ayodesh and Kashdush to come and discuss the formation of a new magical college to rival the other three. Adeh-Goza, on the northern coast of central Ayodesh was chosen to facilitate travel for visitors invited from Kashdush, but to the surprise of all, very few of them chose to attend (likely they were already committed to supporting the development of the Northern College in Kashdush, which was a well-kept secret at the time). Regardless, hundreds of others did attend, and the majority were supportive of collaborating to align their curricula - arguments to the value of independence and autonomy that had led to major points of contention five centuries previously when the Jumiran College was being discussed at the Ivory Road Conclave seemed patently absurd when looking at the results.

By the end of the Colloquium it was agreed that and Odeshi College would be formed as part of the planned University at Shahaifor, where it was agreed in principle that magical study would represent the ‘highest and most prestigious sphere of learning’. It was in this early agreement - that would ultimately be revised to become the mandate of the Odeshi College - that the language of ‘spheres of learning and knowledge’ was first used. Eventually, the University at Shahaifor would be named the University of the Seven Spheres, with the Sphere of Magic, as represented by the Odeshi College, being considered the most important of them all.

While the Odeshi College was the youngest of the five Colleges, it rapidly expanded to become not only the largest, but also the most diverse. All of the nine major fields of magic are studied there, and they have exceptional programs in the fields of Conjuration and Thaumaturgy, as well as being renown for their Enchanters.

The Golanicjan Colleges

As the major magical universities of the world were founded before, during and after the Imperial Era, many magical school in Golanicja elected not to join the universities that were being formed, but also not to come together and create a university that centered in Golanicja. It was only much later, after the end of the Imperial Era, that groups of magical colleges in Golanicja began to join together to complete with the larger, more powerful and globally influential colleges.

The three largest (not including the Astrological Society of Dumi, which is distinct) are the Red College, the Green College, and the White College. While these colleges are independent from one another, their programs of study are somewhat narrowed so as to not comepet directly with one another, and to allow them to focus on attracting better instructors and better students so that each may compete in at least one domain against the larger, global universities.