The Academy was formally established in 130, agreed to by a treaty signed jointly by the countries there were then, a brainchild of the legendary magician Roel Maydark. The Academy is Teraf's oldest educational institution. It is also the most notorious and probably the most important, owing its existence to the need to control and regulate, as much to encourage, spellcasting. This is still a real need, despite the (still unexplained) field surrounding Teraf which makes magic far more difficult than on Ellniss. Lying in what is now northern Erenland, outside the city of Market, the Academy trains students in basic and specialised magical arts, gives the official seal of approval for magic outside its walls, funds research and scholarship and tries to keep its arts supported by but not manipulated by politics. It is the dominant partner in a surprisingly tranquil relationship with Mages College in Kakranfé, an institution the Academy itself established.
The Academy is founded on four basic principles of magic. These are:
1. The God's Balance. Matter cannot be created, it can only be transferred. If a spell creates something, whether a fireball, an illusion or an object, the energy for this must come from somewhere else. It is taken from the body of the wizard.
2. The Gift Of The Gods. Magicians are born not made. The energy required to cast a spell is of a different kind to that required for movement etc. Few people have this special energy. The ones who are given it from birth. However, it will usually lie dormant for a number of years – most commonly until the start of puberty, sometimes even later. The Gift of the Gods is handed out randomly, regardless of gender, race, family etc.
3. Spells are easy. And bad. Anyone with the Gift of the Gods can do virtually anything with magic. Without training, though, they won't know the consequences of each spell. Most of all they won't know the drain on their energy and can easily kill themselves. Learning the Academy's repertoire of rigid, limited spells is not necessary to do magic, but to do it safely.
4. Teraf's Blessing. Spells require far more energy on Teraf than they do on the continents of Ellniss or Sh'rlathia. People are also less likely to have the Gift of the Gods. Nobody's really figured out why this is yet.
5. Magic destroyed Ellniss. Or at least, it created the vast stretches of wasteland and desert on the continent, and probably bred the creatures (orcs, snakemen etc.) which almost wiped out mankind. Humanity has flourished on Teraf precisely because magic is so difficult here. Of all the Academy's principles, this is the hardest to prove and the most widely challenged.
Due to the need to formally control magic, the Academy spends considerable effort tracking down those with the 'Gift of the Gods' and makes this the only criteria for membership. This, in effect, makes it one of the most egalitarian universities in Teraf, magical ability not being aware of class or gender divisions. This simple entrance criteria helps explain its rather ambiguous standing with the less enlightened local nobility as well as the Academy's perennial financial crisis. The number of new members each year is tightly controlled, aligned to the total number of student places in the institution. Each potential entrant, whether discovered by recruiting officers or approaching the Academy on their own initiative, has to pass a formidable series of physical and mental tests. Anyone who fails and survives (which isn't guaranteed) may sit again next year, for the rest of their lives if they so desire. The entrance tests are held in the month-long May recess of the Academy, and those successful begin the university year in June. The Academy, if necessary, provides all food, lodgings and tuition for free, though rather leans on the wealthier students to make their own arrangements. Five years of basic training are given, with examinations, again a mixture of mental and practical, held every six months (failures of these tests are encouraged to repeat their last six months rather than being thrown out. Likewise, those wanting to quit the Academy part-way through their studies often have a fight to do so - it believes in the dangers of a little learning). After the initial five years students may leave though will still not be registered to practice magic - they are just considered to be good enough to control what powers they have. Full authorisation can only come after a further four years of more specialised study with one of the Academy's five colleges, following which they are registered with the Academy as licensed sorcerers. Those who want to move higher into the arts of the Divine Trickery must endure further years of education, between three and eight, increasingly taken on research and teaching posts to supplement their studies. After this ends, after a total of twelve and seventeen years (length is dependent on the field chosen) and umpteen exams, the few remaining students generally enter the Academy payroll in some capacity and begin their progression up the hierarchy.
The five colleges, each dealing with a separate type of magic, form the basic structure of the Academy. The colleges are:
Kineticology, the creation or manipulation of physical matter
Animisim, the study of magical properties in nature, especially herbs
Psychosubstantiation, the art of illusion and other spells which influence the mind
Eleology, the summoning of supernatural beings, most commonly elementals
Scribing, which draws on the spells of the other four and tries to plant them in a physical, usually a written form.
Relations between the colleges, as is always the case, are fragile and fluctuating. Generally the biggest players, and the main rivals, are Kineticology and Eleology, two different ways of achieving much the same effects; the latter is more high profile and attractive, but the far safer Kineticology has the largest membership and biggest budget. Both distrust Psychosubstantiation and all three patronise the artisans and spaced-out scholars of Scribing. And all four look down their noses at the rustics of Animism, or Old Wives College as it is known. Sensibly all the colleges are under the rule of a unitary higher body, the Council of the Marchfeld. In times of particularly epic inter-faculty bickering, the head of the Marchfeld is often an outsider drafted in from Mages College to preserve neutrality. The current head, however, is a former Academy Scribe Venislan Thentho, who is generally far too interested in dabbling with external politics to take any sides in internal disputes.
All colleges share the same central building, though occupying different sections of it. This building is the vast, grand Maydark Hall, named after Roel Maydark, the Academy's founder. In the Maydark Hall are the Maydark Library, Teraf's primary magical library, the Feasting Hall where staff have their meals the Bullick Hall (after Robart Bullick the 10000's illusionist) where students have their less feast-like meals, most of the lecture halls and laboratories and the sleeping quarters of many staff members and senior pupils. The Maydark Hall is a tall octagonal building which lies in the centre of Academy complex. Less austere constructions scattered around the complex include Zantrick House, the halls of residence for most of the junior students, a big slab of limestone which is as grim internally as it is externally; laboratories for some of the more dangerous magical experiments which are banished to a ragged string of huts scattered around the south wall; assorted storage rooms, kitchens, stables etc. needed for more mundane functions, etc. The whole complex is slowly growing over time, beginning from a single tower (the Maydark Hall replaced the first building in 465) and extending out, more a reflection of the growing diversity and autonomy of the Academy than a boom in its membership. Spells which maintain the buildings have been perfected but are used sparingly, and things are allowed to crumble almost to collapse before they are repaired. Lawns and flowerbeds cover the areas between the buildings; the general atmosphere is of a slightly dilapidated but still grandiose set of buildings, a general air of peace with just strains of the tensions and dangers which lie under the surface.
The Magically Gifted
Collectively called magicians; also called wizards, mages and sorcerers, the names commonly used interchangeably but used officially to denote different levels of seniority. Wizards are those who have finished their nine years and got their papers; mages are the more junior members of the Academy hierarchy (the name of Mages College was intended to be slightly belittling, reminding those there that the Academy alone gives higher training), and sorcerers the few magicians near or at the very top. Apart from gathering in gangs at the Academy and Mages College there are usually several licensed magicians in each of Teraf's major towns and courts, and most of the larger universities have a couple. These, of course, are the true magicians, who can channel energy from within themselves to external use; mainly using it for material/mental effects but also for contact with the supernatural. The Christotan gag, that the only job of a spell caster is to find another spell caster and stop them casting them, isn't strictly true, though a major function of a local Academy magician is scouting out and controlling wizardry in their area.. But they do other things; sometimes training local Gifted in the rudiments on the spot, sometimes helping create a useful, but basically tame, magical artefact for someone and, at times, and with Academy approval, directly using their powers, usually to help local authorities. Often this is to help governments in catching particularly horrific or elusive criminals, though aid is also given if humans are threatened by non-human races (e.g. Astmad's war against the Orcs in the 700's). More peaceful uses of magic also exist - most notably the aid given to the building of the Triple Cities in the 1000's. A distinction should also be made between licensed magicians who completed their nine years and have minimal contact with the Academy, and those who are part of the staff. The former are more numerous, and tend to be selling their services either to the free market or to local governments, lords etc. They tend to be involved in the more practical but small-scale magics, most commonly artefacts or potions, though can be involved in more grandiose projects with Academy permission (the sorcerer who helped the construction of Orien i'th' Lake was a freelancer). But the Academy also has a network of official representatives scattered across Teraf, who earn their keep partly through private means and partly through a retainer paid by the Academy for their services. Whatever magic they undertake, their importance is usually more mundanical; they make sure the freelancers aren't straying off the approved paths and submit reports when the latter's license is up for renewal, they are the main means for spotting, controlling and sometimes obliterating the Gifted in the native population, and the most senior act like ambassadors from a foreign country, negotiating on behalf of the Academy with the local authorities.
Of course, the most lively branch of magicians are the non-licensed variety. Most of these are those who left after their five years and are granted dispensation seals, and most behave themselves because they are watched like hawks by the Academy for the rest of their lives and rather instantly destroyed if they step out of line. Of the others, some are Gifted but not yet detected; some are perennial failures of entrance exams or those who left in mid-training out of sheer exasperation (look for tell-tale chips on shoulders); some are those who have had their licenses revoked but who the Academy daren't touch; some are non-college trained but are snuggled into discrete understandings with their local authorities; some are Gifted but trying very hard not to be; and a few are just out-and-out trouble makers. A lot just use their gifts in very simple ways, light tricks for their children or helping to subdue a horse for example; only a few are dangerous and mostly just to themselves. But it's a case of when they are bad, they are very very bad... A necromancer in the north in the 200's conjured up a large undead army which it took a combined Norse-Dwarf force a real struggle to defeat, most of the infamous experiments on humans and animals under the Jurick Empire were carried out by a renegade wizard, and, more recently, the Ellniss sorcerer Al Azniz seized Savacia 862-7, destroying a large Labbish fleet when he made his escape. These are the horror stories the Academy tells people to keep them in line.
Magic Users
There are also a fair number of people who are considered non-Gifted but who nonetheless have studied it or can use or understand magical properties in other things. Very occasionally mundanical people may act as tutors for the Gifted in the ways of magic, but this is rare. More common are those who understand and can use magical items - swords, lamps and the like - with a number having Academy permission to use, trade in or even manufacture such items. The most common in this category, however, are the herbalists. The Academy, and Animism College in particular, have long sought to bring Teraf's herbalists within their scope; if not directly training all herbalists themselves then at least forcing all to register on their books. However the sheer volume of herbalists scattered across Teraf, and the importance they have in local societies and economies, makes this something of a pipe-dream. In most rural areas herbalists have been practicing for centuries without any form of licensing, and any attempt to regulate or even detect them generally sees a fierce closing of ranks by neighbours and villagers. Even in the towns Academy control is often nominal; nations like Christoté and Norisca make registering with the Academy purely optional and have brought in their own civic licensing systems.
Recruiters
The largest and most notorious group on the Academy's payroll. Recruiters exist because of the Academy's belief that all the magically gifted must receive its formal training. They also exist because these unlicensed wizards are annoyingly hard to detect with magic alone. So the recruiters are needed, effectively policemen who seek out reports of unusual activities, track them down to their source and see what needs to be done. They operate in every country and every town and city; the charters between the Academy and the host country giving them a certain amount of freedom. Their notoriety comes from the Academy's conviction that the training is necessary, regardless of the feelings of the gifted. And, in extreme cases, it is better to kill them then let them continue. The result has been a steady stream of abductions carried out by recruiters. The fact that most first feel their magical powers when still adolescents scarcely helps the PR. The liberty of recruiters to carry out the more extreme acts varies from country to country; ranging from almost none in Christoté, where they are regularly prosecuted, to an almost free hand in Erenland and many Flaugian states.
Recruiters themselves are not wizards. They receive a small amount of training in artefacts and spell detection but rely most often on guile and intuition. Most are hired from the local population, usually ex-soldiers desperate for money. Each is equipped with a neutraliser – an artefact which can safely disperse all but the most powerful spells. Equally important items of equipment, though, are the sack, the rope, the sleeping drug and the dagger.