P A R A G O N
The College of Glass
The College of Glass and the subsequent Tower of Glass, is the bastion of the Order of the White Robes. These mages who are taught that magic is a tool that should be used in service to others and the world. The College of Glass has always been extremely selective of its members, seeing many prospective students either disenrolled or reassigned to either the College of Sands or the College of Entropy where they might be better suited. The White Robes maintain strict standards of ethical practice of magic and see many of its members move on to become battlemages in the Sky Guard, or even Oathkeepers for the Circle of Spells. This has fostered a reputation for being some of the most capable militant sorcerers that the region of Karnor knows. The College of Glass has the highest survival rate of its initiates because of the extreme lengths they go to in order to ensure their students are adequately prepared to receive a rune of magic.
Common disciplines wielded by White Robes are: Elementalism (Water Arche, Ice Blending), Kinetics, Reaving, and Negation.
Common schools practiced by White Robes are: Alchemy, Scrivening
Every student of the College of Glass will be offered initiation in up to (2) Runes of Magic and instruction in (1) World Magic. No more and no less.
The Student Artifact of the College of Glass is a wand. Additionally, all students of this college are given a pouch of white sorcerer’s sand to further assist them in their spellcraft.
Order of the White Robes
Ryom
Race: Synnekar Avialae
Order: White Robes
Bio: Head of the Order of White Robes and Grandmaster of the Oathkeepers, Sage Ryom-Yun Briathos is the eldest son of House Briathos and one of the most formidable mages in all of Karnor. An accomplished battlemage and warrior, he spends a great deal of his time training the battlemages of the Kalzasi Sky Guard. Additionally, he serves as the chief guardian of a place known only as the Vault of Ages, which is rumored to be a repository for artifacts and relics that the Circle deems too dangerous to be loose in the world. Among the warriors of Karnor, he is reputed to be one of the few people to have ventured all the way to the Fourth Deep of the Warrens and survived with his sanity intact. He is a noted practitioner of both Reaving and Negation, powers he puts to good use in helping to keep his homeland and the Circle safe. As Head of the White Robes, he is a supreme believer in the idea that magic exists to serve the public good. Having witnessed firsthand the horrors that are out there, he vehemently opposes the very existence of the Order of Reconciliation. He goes to painstaking lengths to ensure that those who pick up the practice of magic, will wield their powers wisely.
Nezendae
Race: Half-Orkhan
Order: White Robes
Bio: The daughter of an Ecithian Orkhan explorer and an alchemist mother, Nezendae grew up among the Otherwilds of the Second Deep of the Warrens. She was taught herbalism and medicine by her mother and how to defend herself by her father. Her parents long ago made the decision to move to her father’s homeland of Ecith but Nezendae chose to continue the work of studying the many flora and fauna of the Otherwilds. She is one of the most brilliant alchemists that the Circle of Spells has ever seen and wields the powers of Elementalism with an uncanny ease that makes some believe she might have Moratallen ancestry as well. As a teacher, she is infinitely patient and guides her students toward the solution to problems with a compassionate hand. She routinely takes her students to the relatively safer areas of the Otherwilds so that they may experience firsthand some of the wonders that magical forces can produce. Those who travel with her, do so with the knowledge that she is rarely alarmed by the dangers that are present there for she is seldom unprepared to face them.
Syun
Race: Synnekar Avialae
Order: White Robes
Bio: Savant Syun can come across as very rough around the edges. Having spent the majority of his life working alongside the Slayer’s Keep hunting some of the vicious monsters that make their homes in the Warrens and in the Wildking’s Forge. As a result of his career, he has become an expert survivalist with a knack for knowing when danger is around the corner. An accomplished practitioner of Kinetics and a notable tattoo artist, he is skilled in the use of pictograph tattoos. As one of the more accomplished user of Scrivening in the Circle of Spells he has developed a variety of theorems, techniques and practices that blend together and manipulate magic in quick and practical ways. He teaches that magic is only as good as the individual who wields it, meaning that if you cannot adapt your use of magic to suit the circumstances in front of you, no amount of knowledge in the world is going to help you. His strict teaching regiment aside, he genuinely believes that magic can and should be used to make people safer. He grew up in Kalzasi and has no desire to call anywhere else home, as a result he has seen some of its most dangerous aspects, being one of the first people to respond whenever a need to deal with incursions from the Warrens crops up.
Curriculum
Students of the College of Glass are drilled in the importance of ethical use of magic. They are taught to wield their powers responsibly and with morally good intentions. Teamwork is of vital importance in the use of magic and as such, they are taught to be leaders and critical thinkers. Quite often, they are shown how to use their powers and skills in ways that can be put toward the public good. This includes agricultural applications, healing and medicine, and putting in place protections for people. Their first several weeks of instruction are filled with courses focused on understanding the basics of aetheric manipulation. This is a broad overview of the fundamental laws of magic and how it functions.
Upon entering into their sixth week at the college, students of the College of Glass will be given their initiation into the Rune of Magic that they have been training to receive. This is when students see the second wave of class thinning. Those who do not survive their initiation are given a ceremonial pyre funeral. There is a one week break between initiation and resuming studies.
Studies see that the student begins wielding their rune of magic, displaying competency and mastery over the abilities they had been practicing with using their Student Artifact. From here, the focus of their instruction becomes more specialized as they explore the nature of their given runes of magic not from the perspective of an artifact, but from their own use and power. They are pushed to test the limits of what they can do within a controlled environment and as safely as can be managed. When the student has reached the rank of Apprentice in their given rune of magic, they will be offered a second rune of magic. Again, this is where some of the classes may see a thinning of their numbers but generally speaking, if one was strong willed enough to survive their first initiation, then typically they will survive their second. Again, if there are any who do not survive, they will be given a pyre funeral. Regardless, students see another week break before studies resume.
After receiving their second rune of magic, this is when students will also see the incorporation of their period of instruction involving their chosen World Magic. The College of Glass is most adept at the schools of Scrivening and Alchemy, as a result most of its students receive one or the other.
Once the students have reached the rank of Journeyman in all of their respective magics, they will enter their Capstone.
Capstone
The College of Glass tends to engineer their capstone into a task that serves the community. This is a project wherein the student must showcase all that they have learned and put it to use supporting the ethics and doctrines emphasized by the White Robes of the Circle. This is a period that often takes weeks of preparation and planning by the student until it is ready to be presented to the Sage of the White Robes for assessment. Their capstone project will be reviewed and critiqued before its implementation and once successful, the student will then be scheduled for their Trial of Judgement.