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[Ghazkull]

Welcome to Colleges of Magic, a game in which you, the players, will take control over Schools of Magic.

The core idea is that you manage the daily affairs of your school, build it up, hire staff, determine the curriculum and see to your students future. At the end of their seven years in your school (or fewer in some cases) your students will graduate and take a randomly generated career (which you can influence to some degree).
Your Alumni will then provide you with boni and points and eventually determine the Winner of the Game.

Now on to creation. There are several things you need to vote on collectively to determine the setup of the game and several things you will determine for yourselves. Warning some Collective choices might reduce your range of options on the individual level.

Type of School (collective)

A) Magic School - Think Hogwarts. An actual School for the express purpose of training pupils in the arts of magic. Your Teachers will be employees and teach students in regular classes. Money is gained either through study fees or through patrons or various other means. You will have to manage not only the needs and wants of your students but also deal with your teachers as employees.

B) Tower of Mages - Not Hogwarts. The Focus here is not the education of your students (although that might be yours). Instead your Mages are Professors who come to your Academy to further their own private research. These Professors can choose to take on apprentices or pupils, although they are not forced to. Money comes through Patrons, the Research of your Professors or indeed simply from your Professors themselves. This makes the game far more political as you can't simply force the professors to teach new students. Politics and Influence on the Campus play a major role.

Scale (collective)

A) Humble - You start with one simple tower with a few rooms and not much else. In short you build up the academy bit by bloody bit.
B) Ham - You start with a very generous credit line, allowing you to build a relatively large academy from the very beginning
C) Hogwarts - You come as a new Headmaster to an already established school. You get a "randomly" generated built up School to deal with.

Magic (individual)
A) General Studies - You teach all kinds of magic with the exemption of the Dark Arts. You can easily build your school in Public Places and pretty much anywhere. Since you are just teaching all sorts of Mages, you will neither have any undue attention from forces of light or of darkness. Dark Arts of course still can be taught beyond prying eyes. This option allows you the freest playstyle.

B) Convent of Light -  Congratulations Inquisitor. What you are building here is a training facility for future healers and soldiers on the frontlines of war. The Inquisition will constantly interfere and closely monitor you, your studies are not as free as you would like them. Furthermore Students and even Teachers might be conscripted and oftentime be years away on some mission or other to fight the forces of evil. On the plus side: Exurcsions! Oh also the forces of Darkness might attack your School.

C) The Dark Arts - You teach with a focus on the dark arts. This means providing corpses (and sometimes living beings) for the purpose of studies. Of course most kingdoms don't want an academy teaching necromancy or demonology on their grounds so...good luck with that. And don't forget some well-intentioned paladins or inquisition witchhunters kicking down your doors every now and then.

D) Thaumaturgic Studies - You teach the very fundamentals of Magic. Going above and beyond the normal magics you are more interested in the science behind it. This is the Theoretical Quantum Physicist versus the Engineer actually applying that knowledge. You are the Physicist in that comparison. You will not usually be targeted by light or darkness or anyone really but you will have to deal with catastrophic happenings far more than other schools of magic. Cause if you mess with the Fundamental Laws of Reality, Fundamental Laws of Reality is going to mess with you.

More Set-Up choices will become available once these three votes are out of the way.

Other Info

Students
Students come ina ll shapes and forms. But most importantly are several stats to them:

Intelligence
Determines the ability of students to succeed in their studies. Brilliant students learn consierably faster than dumb ones and thus have a higher chance of turning into something more than some Hedge Wizard.

Wealth
A Wealthy student can afford to study not only longer (so the full seven years) but can also afford any other services your school might charge for.

Traits
beyond these stats your student might come with stats or might aquire them during his studies which make him more or less attractive for your school and might even determine his future!

Houses

Houses are basically the exact same thing from Harry Potter. Except there is no sorting hat (unless you really want one) and they actually have a use beyond sorting students of the same character together.

Houses allow you to fine-tune and prioritize studdies for large bodies of students.
Example you could create House Phoenix, which only takes brilliant students which get priority access to all teachers and study facilities, while House Penance contains your students in need of remedial classes and discipline. Or you can determine which kinds of magic your students should preferably study or you could determine which facilities certain houses have access to. In short its a tool to organize your students better. And if you want you can even have a House Cup.

Teachers

Field of Study
What the Teacher Studies or Researches

Effectiveness
How good your Teacher is at what he does

Traits
Things that determine his effect on students, his private studies and a myriad other things.

Staff, Pets, Defenders, Servants

Beyond your Teachers and students, you also need to hire Staff to take care of daily things like cleaning and food (or you let your students or teachers do it themselves). For various Studies like Necromancy, Nature Magic and so on you will also need to aquire beasts and corpses and your school can fill up with familiars, pets and undead. And then of course if your students are wealthy or noble enough or simply if you want there is also the issue of servants.

And finally your school needs defenders. After all the forces of light and darkness and simple thieves might want to murder, pillage and burn their way through your academy. So on top of all of that before, there might also be templars, mercs and gods know what be lurking around your academy.


Sign-Up

First things first: this game will have a significant bureaucracy element. And i mean there will be excel tables.
It is also a management and strategy game, so if you are not ready for some pencil-pushing and being bothered with the nitty-gritty details, this game will not be for you.

That out of the way Sign-Up Sheet:

Name of your Academy:
Name of your Headmaster:
Votes:

[Taricus]

Name of your Academy: Sorlvatheim Magical Academy
Name of your Headmaster: Aganthe Thelarmis
Votes:
B) Tower of Mages
B) Ham
B) Convent of Light

[Dustan Hache]

Name of your Academy: N/A (use someone else’s academy name)
Name of your Headmaster: Zavas Elamo
Votes: B, A, C

Join our tower, we have light and dark!

[Shadowclaw777]

Name of your Academy: Draconis Polytechnic of Eldritch Studies
Name of your Headmaster: Essar Orbihisso
Votes:
Magic School
Humble
The Dark Arts (Individual)

[notquitethere]

Name of your Academy: The Drebbellian School of the Arcane
Name of your Headmaster: Sullivan Wardrobe
Votes:
School: A
Scale: B
Magic: A

[Nirur Torir]

I'll apply, just in case it's not first-come-first-served and you really wanted a Thaumaturge, or if someone decides they don't want to deal with spreadsheets.

Name of your Academy: Deeper Studies of Reality Inversal
Name of your Headmaster: Thaddeus Thatcher
Votes: B, A, D

[Naturegirl1999]

Name of your Academy: Gearson Tower
Name of your Headmaster: Greta Gearson
Votes:
B: Tower of Magee
A: Humble
A: General Magic

[Maxinum McDreich]

PTW. Really cool concept.

[mightymushroom]

I keep coming back to look at this thread. Why not give it the ol' college try?

Name of your Academy: Tulip Academy of Celestial Self Discovery
Name of your Headmaster: R.J. "Junior" Starwalker
Votes:
A) School
A) Humble/New
A) General Studies – but I promise to play with a bias toward D if I see how to do it

A relatively new institution, founded by an idealistic commune. Now entering its second generation of leadership, working out the balance between budget and freedom of expression.

[micelus]

Name of your Academy: The Institute for Applied Arcane Engineering
Name of your Headmaster: Estalin DeEquipo
Votes:
A,B,A

[Ghazkull]

Naturegirl, NirurTorir and DustanHache are in. the rest will be added to waitlists if they so want.

Also hey makes the first game where Naturegirl arrives on time to get a spot ^^

Anyhow Final Vote is thus:
Tower of Mages and
Humble Beginnings

_______________________________________

The Disputed Kingdoms is a vast and disunited set of petty kingdoms, duchies and wannabe empires, forever squabbling for superiority against each other. Years of warfare against elven warhosts, inquisition mage progroms and desperate actions to stop the ever so often appearing dark lord has made wizards and mages exceedingly rare.

Organized schooling is unheard of and most mages rather keep their own secrets rather than share them, seeing the knowledge of magic ever more depleting and the number of its users with it, you three have decided to open your own mage towers in the hopes of training new mages and keeping the knowledge of your craft alive.

Gearson Tower (Naturegirl1999)

Greta Gearson is a woman of simple practicality, all magic is useful and thus all of it should be taught. However, before she can even think about these things where did she build Gearson Tower?

1) Mount Olden, home to a Dwarf Hold and in the prosperous and relatively liberal Kingdom of Wenst.
2) The Great Forest of Wenst...again in Wenst.
3) The Farmlands surrounding the Capital of Wenst, Goldstett.

Setting this aside, the tower is using up much of her meagre funds and not that impressive to begin with, this makes getting excellent professors of your choice a difficult proposition to say the least. Without being able to be picky you have to choose a general field of study rather than hiring very specific specialists...at least for now.
1. Thaumaturgy
2. Elemental Magic
3. Nature Magic
4. Light Magic
5. Dark Magic (Forbidden in Wenst)
7. Obscure Fields

And then there is of course, your apprentices. With no insurance that the professor would want to teach them you can't really demand study fees...still you can sort your student applications through specific criteria to lower the amount of paperwork for you.
(you can choose multiple here)

1. Sort by Gender (specify which)
2. Minimum Intelligence (Dumb, Slow, Average, Smart, Brilliant)
3. Minimum Wealth (Ruined, Poor, Average, Well-Off, Wealthy)
4. Race (specify which you want to ban. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Greenskins, Beastfolk, Miscellaneous)

The stricter your criteria the less applications you will recieve.

The Unnamed Tower ((Dustan Hache))

Despite his strange name, Zavas Elamo was never particularly good when it came to name things and so his tower stayed without one for now. Which was just as well as a Dark Tower should be hard to find. And without a Name that should be accomplished.
Unfortunately building a Dark Tower is difficult business and so Zavas choices were rather limited.

A) The Western swamps on the very borders of the Elvish Lands. expect regular attacks and raids.
B) The Farthermost North, away from everything and everyone situated amongst the Ruined Empire of Far Moss.
C) The Forests of Unst, Home to the Convent of Her Divine Retribution...a convent training inquisitorial battle nuns.

Now unlike others the community of Wizards and Mages working in the Dark Arts is relatively small, close-knit and everyone seems to know everyone else. That would be the case if you weren't that far removed from where you learned magic. For now you just have to put out your feelers in a rather general direction for some professors willing to teach and research at your tower:

A) Necromancy
B) Blood Magic
C) Nature Magic
D) Ancient Lore

Dark Towers have oftentimes a problem when it comes to applicants. One does not simply get an application to study necromancy...there are other ways to aquire students for the Dark Arts:
(you can choose several, the more options, the more paperwork and applicants for you)

A) Orphans (always ruined, otherwise random stats)
B) Criminals (allows you to restrict them to certain levels of wealth and intelligence, stricter criteria mean more dangerous criminals
C) Cultists (Sanity Optional, sometimes strange traits, intelligence never over average, wealth can be adjusted however)
D) Slaves (always ruined, freely choosable criteria, cost money to aquire)
E) Fugitives (freely choosable criteria at the cost of unwanted attention)

Academy of the Deeper Studies of Reality Inversal (Nirur Torir)

Thaddeus Thatcher has indeed a job easier than the other two mages when it comes to founding his tower, the Forces of Dark are rarely interested in the nitty gritty details of thaumaturgy, since its effective use for evil require too much research and education, in comparison to say necromancy, where already simple spells allow for more combat potential.
On the other hand, the Inquisition is more interested in hunting "real" mages, than what they presume are dusty reclusives in old forgotten places who rarely venture out.

1. Anywhere in the Kingdom of Wenst
2. Anywhere in the Kingdom of Unst
3. Anywhere in the Confederacy of Goma Hen, a collection of squabbling city states, where the law is decided by those with too much money on their hands.

Unfortunately, Thaumaturgy rarely produces anything of tangible use and so you are reliant on a patron.

1. The Holy Inquisition (You will be expected to send out your Thaumaturges to deal with the aftereffects of Magical Crises)
2. Some Shady Folks (You will be expected to produce...questionable things for them to sell and/or use)
3. A very, very rich patron who wants to remain anonymous ()

Like Greta you have the pick of you applicants:

1. Sort by Gender (specify which)
2. Minimum Intelligence (Dumb, Slow, Average, Smart, Brilliant)
3. Minimum Wealth (Ruined, Poor, Average, Well-Off, Wealthy)
4. Race (specify which you want to ban. Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Greenskins, Beastfolk, Miscellaneous)



This will be part one of your Academy creation. in the Second Part we will go into your initial setup (aka rooms, anemities, staff, line of credit and special rules at your school, as well as any starting houses you wish to set up), you will also recieve your first batch of applicants and your sheets.

[notquitethere]

Sure, waitlist me, this is a neat game concept.

[Naturegirl1999]

Greta Gearson

2)The Great Forest of Wenst...again in Wenst.
7. Obscure Fields
2. Minimum Intelligence (Slow)
3. Minimum Wealth (Ruined)

Greta hopes that taking in the downtrodden and helping them learn rarer magic will allow them to get jobs that will help them move up in society

[Dustan Hache]

Zavas preferred a hands on approach to teaching necromancy, but the secrets of death were proving particularly difficult to unravel. He needed fellow researchers, and so he sought them out.

Most of the ones he found were part of a cult, and spying an opportunity he took a few that could pay for their own travels.

The forest was quiet that morning, as Zavas finished settling them in and went to seek pupils of his own from the slave markets.

Choices: C,A, C+D
(i was thinking we would be sharing a tower. ah well.)

[Nirur Torir]

Sweet!

Thaddeus Thatcher has indeed a job easier than the other two mages when it comes to founding his tower

1. Anywhere in the Kingdom of Wenst
I'm interested in being fairly close to a town in the heartlands. A middle ground of safety and being remote enough that nobody will mind magical accidents too much, and I might be able to become a Big Name in town by bringing prosperity with interesting discoveries. (Or just the farmlands near the capital if I don't get to make stuff up)

Unfortunately, Thaumaturgy rarely produces anything of tangible use and so you are reliant on a patron.

1. The Holy Inquisition
Me going Inquisition-aligned balances us out nicely, and cleaning up magical disasters is great experience for when I cause my own. I might even make a house focusing on it.

Like Greta you have the pick of you applicants:

2. Minimum Intelligence: (Dumb[1], Slow[2], Average[3], Smart[4], Brilliant[5])
3. Minimum Wealth (Ruined[1], Poor[2], Average[3], Well-Off[4], Wealthy[5])
4. Race: Ban greenskins.
I would like a point system for int+wealth, with a minimum of 4 points. That's dumb/average, slow/poor, or average/ruined.