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 The Scholomance High in the Carpathians, travelers speak of a strange castle over a high pass, seen only ever in the heart of storms, and never reached by any seeking refuge. This, say the locals, is the Scholomance - the Devil's School. Legend holds that it opens its doors only the best and most gifted, ten students who study under the school's headmaster for seven years. That headmaster is the Devil, who teaches them every secret and spell there is. After seven years, nine leave and one is claimed by the Devil forever. The Pope himself has sent a legate to investigate this rumored school of the Devil. The truth? There is a castle in a high pass in the Carpathians. The castle was a ghostly thing, appearing in a valley near Hermannstadt, which on calm days contains only a lake. During violent storms, the regio within the valley opens, and the Scholomance becomes visible on the edge of a cliff. Only in the rage of lightning is it accessible to anyone who comes, and it occasionally appears on cliffs away from the valley, for reasons even its current master does not truly understand. The Order of Hermes only achieved access to the place in the 1090s, and for many years it was just used a waypoint for Redcaps and training ground for House Tremere and others of the Transylvanian Tribunal to send servants. For the past decade, however, the headmaster of the Scholomance, Simium Arileins of Bjornaer, has been reworking it to also train the Gifted, alongside his loyal ally, the humanist philosopher and Tremere magus Andrew Melanchthon. You are now students at the Scholomance. Each of you has been brought to the school by your parens, the magus training you. They have each come to offer their services as teachers to Simium, in exchange for you being the first class to be taught. Each of you has been an apprentice for five years so far. Some of your masters may have been wanderers who brought you with them on their journeys, others raised in covenants. Now, however, you are alongside your peers - fellow apprentices. Your magic surges within you, and you long to become more than you are. Perhaps your parens is kind, perhaps cruel - but now, you will get many teachers, and many new experiences. People of the Scholomance Simium Arileins is of House Bjornaer and serves as the Headmaster of the Scholomance. He is a famous historian and philosopher within the Order and is an excellent writer who has written introductory texts on many subjects, though few for older audiences. He is a simple man who wears little but black robes and a black skullcap, and who can turn into a raven larger than a man. The locals who are not covenfolk believe him to be a strange demon-bird of some kind, perhaps the Devil. Andrew Melanchthon is of House Tremere and formerly of Germany. He was forced to leave his old life in the Rhine Triubnal after being branded an atheist and empiricist; he is an empiricist, but is merely a maltheist rather than an atheist, vocally rejecting the idea of God as a loving father. He is an excellent philosopher who teaches rhetoric and moral philosophy, but is notable for favoring blasphemous or heretical texts in order to push an agenda of humanist philosophy. Sebastian has always been here. He has been in the tower since the Order found its way in, and has not aged a day since, but appears to have no powers, whatsoever. Only the Headmaster knows Sebastian's secrets, whatever they are, but he knows more of the castle than anyone else. He is a caretaker as well as a tutor in languages and the liberal arts. He always appears to be a plain man in his forties who takes pleasure in knowing more than others, but who takes even greater pleasure in teaching. Some rumors tie him to the mythical king of the Carpathian mountain dragons, Azevastjepan, but most dismiss this as mere schoolboy rumor. Ludmilla is a witch, a Romanian strigoica. She has strange and potent abilities, which she is willing to tutor pupils in, should they have the talent for it. She does so in exchange for access to the Scholomance's texts and the under-the-table right to recruit occasional students for her coven of witches. She is an aging beauty, now in her mid-fifties, who is never seen without her fine gloves on. Rumors vary as to why.  Ground Rules First, talk to me on IRC or Discord if you want in here. No applications - I'll just be hand-picking people. Second, once you're in, just post character concepts. Both your Apprentice and any Companion you choose should be between the ages of 10 and 20 and have reason to be attending the Scholomance. (Noble or wealthy children might be in as repayment for a favor to the Transylvanian Tribunal or House Tremere, for example, while others might be attending to become agents of the magi in the future. Or for Mysterious reasons.) Second, when you do, name and describe your parens, and what sort of magic they tend to do - as well as some idea of what their goals might be, since they'll be directing your communal adventures at least for a few years. To help, see the next post for an idea of what apprenticeship in each House tends to be like. (I normally use Discord rather than forums; however, I can access forums at work, so forums.) Mors Rattus fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Aug 18, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 02:53
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Life As An Apprentice House Bjornaer: House Bjornaer practices a sort of communal apprenticeship by Septs - 'families' of magi connected by bonds of training, Heartbeast shape and sometimes blood. While an apprentice will still have only one parens, their septmates will often visit to help with training or initiation into the House's secrets. These septs are small - generally no more than three or four members. These groups are often very tight-knit and familial, and House Bjornaer tends to give apprentices somewhat more freedom and responsibility than other Houses, especially once their Heartbeast is granted, which generally happens after ten to twelve years of apprenticeship. House Bonisagus: House Bonisagus, unique among the Houses, may choose to take an apprentice from another House as their own; it is rarely done, but if so, it will interrupt that training and replace it. Bonisagus training is either highly academic, focusing on learning the depths of magic, and is usually heavily focused by the interests of the parens, or highly political and social, teaching mastery of travel and diplomacy as well as magic. However, they practice fosterage in a similar way to House Jerbiton, sometimes coming together with another magus to jointly train both apprentices. House Bonisagus takes training apprentices extremely seriously, and almost always chooses quite young and very intelligent children. House Criamon: Every apprentice of House Criamon is presneted with a list of fifteen riddles (and their obvious solutions) when they are apprenticed. It is intended that they should ponder these over the entire apprenticeship, to understand how the riddle is linked to the answer, why, and how they all link together. These riddles often seem shallow, sometimes even humorous, and the trick is to find the hidden depths behind the brief answers, integrating these and the other discoveries of life into their world. The House focuses heavily on the study of philosophy and mystical secrets. House Flambeau: House Flambeau tends to favor a mix of both magical and physical training. They generally maintain tight control over their apprentices, ensuring that the children learn best what the master wishes them to, rather than allowing them to guide their own choice of study. They also encourage religious study and moral philosophy. Honor and duty are major components of Flambeau training, and their later years of training will often feature challenges to allow the apprentice to prove themselves. Despite their strictness, House Flambeau also encourages learning how to take part in competitions and games of magic. House Guernicus: House Guernicus is extremely strict. As well as magic, its apprentices are taught moral philosophy, ethics and investigative and deductive skills. Magical, yes, but also mundane, with a focus on understanding guilt in others, finding physical clues and piecing together plots. They spend relatively little time working in the lab, and the House views apprentices as a valued resource. Most Guernicus magi will happily help a parens traing their apprentice, and they're also big on field training. House Jerbiton: House Jerbiton aggressively looks for apprentices with the Gentle Gift, and they often are noble, though rarely firstborn. Their apprenticeships are highly social and often feature tours of other areas or fosterage with other magi for a brief period. They are also encouraged to become familiar with the locals and their culture, rather than focusing purely on magic. Pursuit of art and other hobbies is often encouraged, as is letter-writing and correspondence. Depending on the parens, they may also be indoctrinated into political views, most often a hatred of the conquerors of Constantinople. House Mercere: There are extremely few Mercere magi, and they're all family. Every Mercere magus is related to a Redcap, and is often a lineal descendant of the Founder Mercere. Apprentices are exclusively chosen from family of the House. Therefore, their apprenticeships are often much more intimate and informal than others, and apprentices are usually directly related to their parens. It's the family business. Redcaps, on the other hand, are taken from many kinds of life and do not have to be related to the House; their apprenticeships usually focus on practical skills. House Merinita: House Merinita varies wildly, but there is almost always a heavy focus on interaction with the fae. Often, there will also be indoctrination into a pagan religion of some kind, as many of the House are pagan. These apprenticeships are usually very eclectic and strange by Hermetic standards, and often start quite young - five or six years old is not uncommon, when most magi take children around age eight. House Tremere: House Tremere is very strict about obedience, and apprentices are expected to obey their parens unquestioningly, no matter what. Their training focuses on practical use of magic, certamen dueling and political maneuvering. Even after graduation, an apprentice must obey their parens politically until they win a challenge to claim their own sigil. Apprentices are raised knowing they must be soldiers when the House calls on them, and must be ready at any moment to fight for the Order. House Tytalus: House Tytalus is infamously the most difficult House to be an apprentice in. The apprenticeship of a Tytalus magus is highly formalized abuse, designed to encourage rebelliousness and the ability to hide that rebelliousness - being caught is harshly punished, and failure to rebel is often cause to be given to another House for training. A study of philosophy and the life of the Founder Tytalus is common, but the philosophies focused on tend to revolve around the importance of conflict and the practical use of rhetoric and combativeness. The Book of Instruction is heavily used - a set of rules laid down by the House to formalize the treatment of apprentices and encourage rivalry between master and apprentice via arbitrary penalties and displaying the rulebreaking culture of the House post-apprenticeship. House Verditius: House Verditius apprenticeship is focused equally on magical skill and crafting skill. A parens will spend just as much time teaching the apprentice how to make a proper item as how to enchant it. Beyond this, these apprenticeships are rarely alike, as Verditius magi are extremely arrogant, proud and individualistic. However, they are often done in contact with small groups within the House that share a crafting interest - swords, say, or Christian imagery, or pagan smith-cults. Whatever the case, Verditius apprentices are encouraged to be proud and to craft wondrous things. House Ex Miscellanea: They're hedge mages of all kinds. They could do anything. Often, they will combine teaching a hedge tradition with getting another magus to come in and help teach formal Hermetic magic.
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Aug 18, 2017 02:54
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Iiiiiin
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Aug 18, 2017 03:37
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I too am intrigued. Are you using the troupe style thing at all or are we waiving those aspects due to the format of the location?
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Aug 18, 2017 11:35
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Companions are in, if that's what you mean. There's a town nearby, plus the place does still teach some non-mages.
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Aug 18, 2017 12:08
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Magus: Silke, Wild-child brat girl Bjornaer with a penchant for pranks and mischief. Fox, of course. Her Parens is named Georg, he's a wolfish man, prematurely grey-haired, with a lot more patience than most. Companion: a spoopy ghost maybe MollyMetroid fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Aug 19, 2017 |
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Aug 18, 2017 18:54
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Making a Tremere boy who keeps trying to get girls to play chess with him.
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Aug 19, 2017 08:10
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Magus: Criamon child of traveling entertainers who ran away from the circus to become a magus. Companion: 3rd daughter of minor nobility who fled an arranged marriage and has gained entrance to the school due to being Smart, though untalented
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Aug 19, 2017 20:43
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MAGUS: A Tremere apprentice being groomed to be some kind of political wheel and deal, but her (possibly his, but probably her) heart burns to blast poo poo with Ignem for glory and God, and is thus SORELY TEMPTED by Flambeau. COMPANION: i have no idea but probably some kind of spooky ghost or skeleton if that is feasible
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Aug 19, 2017 23:24
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A ghost is easier than a skeleton but both are possible; fair warning, either will be a magical being that will have a very slow advancement.
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Aug 19, 2017 23:27
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Instead of me doing a spoopy ghost too I might do a pixie
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Aug 19, 2017 23:34
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Mors Rattus posted:A ghost is easier than a skeleton but both are possible; fair warning, either will be a magical being that will have a very slow advancement.
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Aug 20, 2017 01:03
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I am an awful stinky child
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Aug 20, 2017 22:45
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Currently, our lineup is: MollyMetroid: A Bjornaer awful stinky child (Silke) and a pixie. Parens: Georg Winterfang, nature mage and warrior. Nessus: A Tremere firebrand and a spoopy undead. Parens: ??? chin up everything sucks: A Tremere teenage boy and ???. Parens: ??? K Prime: A Criamon former circus kid and a minor noble girl. Parens: ??? That's a pretty good lineup - I might look into maybe one or two more, but I might not.
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Aug 22, 2017 21:06
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my second character could be a mundane natural philosiphie (sp) teacher. He takes people out to poke at frogs and bugs.
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Aug 22, 2017 22:46
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I feel like with Silke's limitations on town adventures a pixie may not actually be the best thought for a companion actually. Maybe I should come up with an alternate thought.
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Aug 23, 2017 20:20
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Due to circumstances beyond control, chin up everything sucks will not be able to join us for the game. If any of y'all know someone who'd be interested and is cool, point 'em to me.
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Aug 27, 2017 17:24
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Magus: Zoya (no surname). Russian farmgirl with too much curiosity picked up by a Merinita magus passing through to learn the ways. Parens: Palmira d'Esposito. Italian wandering magus investigating places of power in nature (forests, mountains, etc.) and looking for passages to Arcadia. Partially joining the school for access to the library. Favors Auram/Aquam/Animal. Companion: Mitya. Talking polecat. Too smart for his own good. Wahad fucked around with this message at 10:08 on Sep 5, 2017 |
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Aug 27, 2017 17:58
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Currently sheeted: MollyMetroid: Apprentice Nessus: Apprentice K Prime: Apprentice and companion Wahad: Apprentice and companion Molly, Nessus, hit me up when you see me around.
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Sep 7, 2017 16:05
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will do
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Sep 7, 2017 16:26
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Nessus has had to drop out; if you guys know anyone that is interested, please direct them to me. In the meantime, the thread should go up this weekend.
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Sep 30, 2017 00:55
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| # ? Apr 23, 2024 12:08 |
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Thread.
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Oct 16, 2017 02:12
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