Acadamae

Appendix 1: The Acadamae

Acadamea

Among the oldest institutions in Korvosa, the Acadamae makes a bargain with its students: give 10 years of your life, and we will make you into a highly talented wizard. Of course, only seven in 10 of those students survive their full decade of instruction, and some of those who do swear off the use of magic entirely once they graduate, but many fledgling wizards take advantage of the expertise offered by the Acadamae’s staff, and become rather adept mages.

Founded in 4473 ar by Lord Volshyenek Ornelos, the Acadamae has grown from a single structure surrounded by a forbidding wall of black marble to a city in its own right, capable of supporting the needs of its students and faculty without any need for them to leave the grounds. Visitors are not welcome on the grounds of the Acadamae except during the Breaching Festival or if they have direct business with the school. Messengers, deliveries, and even repairs are watched with the utmost scrutiny, for fear that the secrets of the school might somehow leave its grounds—or worse, that the many wards protecting the outside world from centuries of magic might somehow be damaged by the wrong person wandering into the wrong corner of the campus.

Student Life

The first 3 years of a student’s stay at the Acadamae are very much the slave labor of most wizard’s apprentice tales—the apprentice mops, carries books, and performs other menial tasks for the staff and the senior students, who are only too happy to return the unkindness they experienced as apprentices themselves. Two of every 10 students at the Acadamae do not survive these first years, being slain by magic traps, wayward spells, or murderous imps, or simply dying from exhaustion or carelessness. The other eight then choose a school of specialization, and move on to their actual studies.

Students at the Acadamae are all wizards (or aspire to be), and all are specialized in a school of magic. Divination is considered a universal school, taught to all students but restricted as an area of focus. All students must likewise receive instruction in conjuration, and face a grueling examination in that field before they can graduate. No Acadamae student may choose conjuration or divination as a forbidden school.

The examinations that lead to graduation (both in conjuration and the student’s chosen school) are potentially fatal. Although some wizards reach only a rudimentary understanding of magic, the 10 years of enrollment hone the craft of a great many mages well beyond the skill displayed by low-level wizards; the most impressive of students can summon and control hell hounds, xill, or even erinyes as part of their graduation tests. These wizards usually apprentice themselves to senior faculty, serving as tutors to younger students and absorbing what they can from their masters. There is, however, no correlation between a student’s year and her level; a graduate of the Acadamae might range anywhere from level 3 to level 11. All students, however, must successfully summon a devil in order to graduate—at least a lemure, summoned (through the casting of summon monster II.

Campus Locations

A1. Hall of Summoning (conjuration): The primary building of the Acadamae and one of the largest structures in all of Varisia is the Hall of Summoning. Rebuilt only a quarter-century ago, the Hall of Summoning has only recently returned to full use as the primary locus of instruction for students specializing in conjuration. More than a dozen binding circles can be found throughout the massive structure, constantly reinforced to prevent the sort of catastrophic failure that destroyed the previous hall. Three larger circles surround the building itself, ensuring that a botched summoning—or worse, a calling of a terribly powerful being—will not endanger the rest of the school or the city itself.

All students receive at least some tutoring at the Hall of Summoning, and it is in the massive, central summoning chamber that students must face their graduation exam. To facilitate the instruction of so many students at once, the new hall’s center is dominated by Ornelos Auditorium, a spacious, 333-seat lecture hall and demonstration area where beginning students receive their first lessons in conjuration, their orientation to the school, and the reminder that leaving the school is not an option—one graduates from the Acadamae, or one does not leave at all.

A2. Hall of Seeing (divination): Entry to this hall, which was constructed and arranged to evoke auguries and portents, is gained through a pair of doors displaying giant harrow cards, which change to reflect the past or future of the last person to touch the doors. Spheres, crystal balls, scrying pools, and mirrors litter nearly every corner of the hall, and corridors lead to cryptic answers of unasked questions as often as they do to the appropriate room.

As is true of the Hall of Summoning, all students receive instruction in the Hall of Seeing at some time during their study at the Acadamae. For some, this study leads them down the road to madness, but their fellows in the other schools—particularly those at the Hall of Whispers—can often find other uses for them even then. A3. Ornelos Hall: The oldest building at the Acadamae, Ornelos Hall serves as the primary administrative building for the school, where meetings among senior faculty are held, records are stored, and interviews with prospective students are conducted. Until the rebuilding of the Hall of Summoning, Ornelos Hall was also the temporary home for classes in the school of conjuration, and a number of binding circles remain as a result of this temporary tenure.

A4. Hall of Induction (evocation): Known among the inhabitants of the school as the Cube, this building of iron—with smooth walls on three sides, and riveted plates forming the fourth wall—contains little more than a spiral staircase and five floors empty of classrooms, chalkboards, or even furniture. The only interior walls in the Hall of Induction are walls of force, erected by instructors to keep errant spells from obliterating unsuspecting bystanders.

Dedicated solely to the practical applications of the study of magic, lessons in the Cube are intended to teach students the proper way to cast their spells, gaining the most efficient benefit from their own spell energy. In addition to the Cube being the place where evocation magic is taught, many students also gain their knowledge of metamagic from practice in the Cube.

A5. Hall of Wards (abjuration): The best-guarded structure in Korvosa—and among the most secure on all of Golarion—the Hall of Wards is a nondescript building in which no visitor can reach any room, object, or person she is not intended to find. The hall is best known as the goal of contestants in the Breaching Festival, which has not been won in over a century and a half.

A6. Hall of Lies (illusion): Each morning, the evershifting school of illusion magic changes its appearance, though not by any conscious action of its inhabitants; the magic that cloaks the structure decides the appropriate look for the day. Within the building itself, one’s own senses cannot be trusted, which is both a warning and a lesson to students of the school: trust nothing you cannot control, and control all you cannot trust. It is through this lesson that illusionists from the Acadamae become such adept schemers, ever seeking to influence any whom they are unable to control directly through the use of their magic.

A7. Hall of Shaping (transmutation): Over the years, hundreds of would-be graduates from the school of transmutation have altered the Hall of Shaping as part of their exit examination—the goal of which is to alter, in some way, the building without causing its collapse. Each attempt to create a uniform appearance has failed, but only damaging the building itself is grounds for the school’s punishment: to live out one’s life as a songbird in a large cage of fellow-failures on the top floor of the hall.

A8. Hall of the Charms (enchantement): Unintentionnaly drawing on the latent power that comes from the city of Korvosa having been built over the ruined stronghold of Sorshen, Runelord of Lust, the Hall of Charms has produced a number of surprisingly powerful enchanters over the years, and continues to do so roughly twice every 10 years, imbuing random students with power well beyond their instruction. Instructors at the school watch for such adepts, and try their best to keep them separated, fearing what would happen if two students with such potent influence were capable to joining their powers together.

A9. Hall of Whispers (necromancy): The dread school of necromancy is the final home for many students who were unqualified to graduate from the Acadamae—or so the legends state. While students of the Hall of Whispers are shunned by their fellows in other schools, they do not have claim to the bodies of any unfortunate victims of the “accidents” that often happen on school grounds. Instead, many of the bodies that come to the hall are those of students who promised their corpses to the school for study, should they die before they were able to recoup a certain sum toward their tuition costs. If the families of such useless mages are unable (or unwilling) to pay in order to claim the bodies, the bodies are donated to the Hall of Whispers for experimentation.

A10. Staff Quarters: The senior staff of the Acadamae— the masters of each of the schools, the chief instructors in the Halls of Crafting, and the leader of the tiefling guard—maintain their opulent residences here.

A11. Halls of Crafting: These fairly new buildings were constructed in the hope that students at the Acadamae who were not as adept at creating spells of destructive might, and who were less interested in the summoning and binding of powerful devils, could direct their magic skills toward the crafting of items of power or utility for the school. In truth, the Acadamae’s instructors jealously guard the secrets of creating items that can retain power, and seldom reveal how to craft items beyond scrolls, wands, and potions. Although they gladly accept—or demand—the assistance of skilled students in creating more powerful items, the rods, staves, and wondrous items the school’s most talented crafters create are hoarded for their own use, sold to other senior staff, or sold at a significant markup to nobles across the city.

A12. Student Quarters: Acadamae students have barracklike dormitories housed in the thick, imposing outer walls of the school. Food and other supplies are usually delivered from outside the campus grounds— and paid for by the enormously expensive tuition— but students are responsible for providing their own diversions and entertainment, which mostly consist of tormenting younger apprentices, engaging in formal and informal duels with their fellow-students, and taking aim at the numerous imps on campus with spells.

Notable Personalities

Among the Acadamae’s many students, faculty, and other staff, the following NPCs are those most well known to outsiders or new citizens.

Headmaster Toff Ornelos (Male old human aristocrat 1/wizard 16): Toff Ornelos has served in his post for almost 30 years and is among the most skilled arcanists in Varisia.

Dean of Abjuration Julaei Cangi (LG female human abjurer 12): As head of the Hall of Wards, Master Cangi is ever concerned with the protection of the school grounds and the students, teachers, and staff within, and takes her job very seriously.

Dean of Conjuration Messida Vost (LE female human conjurer 12): Rumors that Mistress Vost takes great risks in summoning powerful demons are only partially false; the ambitious Chelaxian hopes to one day bind and subjugate a mighty qlippoth to impress the board of directors at the Egorian Academy in her homeland.

Dean of Divination Norva Allesain (NG female human diviner 9): The youngest currently serving dean, Mistress Allesain rose quickly through the ranks of faculty in the Hall of Seeing, ever seeming to be in the right place at the right time for promotion.

Dean of Enchantment Heresta Tarlan (LN female enchanter 11): The Hall of Charms’ homely headmistress has a reputation as many students’ favorite teacher, despite her gruff demeanor and her classes’ extreme difficulty.

Dean of Evocation Salgar Irevotnin (LN male human evoker 10): Dean Irevotnin has a reputation for ending arcane duels with deadly force, and uses this fact to maintain order in the classroom, threatening disobedient students with a single round of combat if they don’t behave.

Dean of Illusion Rombastle Falgeringer (CN male gnome illusionist 11): The only non-human among the Acadamae’s deans, Rombastle maintains an air of seriousness around his peers to avoid undue prejudice against his kind, but in private he enjoys making persistent images of his colleagues acting out elaborate and embarrassing charades.

Dean of Necromancy Orianna Delmore (LN female human necromancer 10): Rumors attribute Dean Delmore’s constant foul mood to failed attempts to attain lichdom, but these rumors are false; she abandoned such endeavors when her secret lover Terentius disappeared in last year’s Breaching Festival.

Dean of Transmutation Elgin Remorri (N old male human transmuter 12): An Acadamae institution, Dean Remorri has held his post longer than any of his peers. He grows uneasy when things remain static for too long, and in his old age has begun referring to students as “my little birds” when he becomes overly stressed.