The Arcane¶
Institutional presence of learning and magic. The wizards, academies, and towers that keep the craft alive.
Theme: Wizard's Tower¶
A single wizard in isolated residence with apprentices.
| Scale | Creatures | Features | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small Installation | 1 Wizard, 1-3 Apprentices | Trait: Personality, Focus, Wards, Trouble, Quests, Magic Items | Arcane: Tower |
Theme: Academy¶
An institution of higher magical learning.
| Scale | Creatures | Features | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Town | 1 Headmaster, 2-3 Masters, 3-5 Scholars, 6-10 Apprentices | Trait: Personality, Focus, Wards, Trouble, Quests, Magic Items | Arcane: Academy |
| City | 1 Headmaster, 3-5 Masters, 6-10 Scholars, 15-25 Apprentices | Trait: Personality, Focus, Wards, Trouble, Quests, Magic Items | Arcane: Academy |
Theme: Great Academy¶
A grand institution of magical research and learning with a Grand Headmaster and rival houses.
| Scale | Creatures | Features | Locations |
|---|---|---|---|
| City | 1 Grand Headmaster, 10-15 Masters, 30-50 Scholars, 60-100 Apprentices | Trait: Personality, Focus, Wards, Relic, Trouble, Quests, Magic Items | Arcane: Great Academy |
Details¶
Creatures¶
Apprentice. Student at an academy or apprentice to a wizard. Uses the Apprentice Wizard stat block. Loot: simple robes, a slate or wax tablet.
Grand Headmaster. Head of a Great Academy or city university. Uses the Archmage stat block. Loot: spellbook, 2d10 gp.
Headmaster. Head of an academy. Uses the Mage stat block, or Archmage for an especially famous academy. Loot: spellbook, 2d10 gp.
Master. Senior faculty at an academy. Uses the Mage stat block. Loot: spellbook, 1d10 gp.
Scholar. Junior faculty or advanced student. Uses the Apprentice Wizard stat block.
Servant. Academy staff: cooks, groundskeepers, etc. Uses the Commoner stat block.
Wizard. A mage in isolated residence. Uses the Mage or Archmage stat block. Loot: spellbook, a wand or staff, 2d10 gp.
Features¶
Personality. Persistent trait. Roll d6 by theme.
Wizard's Tower:
| 1. Reclusive (rarely leaves the tower; hates visitors). | 2. Ambitious (seeking a discovery or a patron; open to guests who might help). | 3. Paranoid (convinced someone wants his research or his life). |
| 4. Eccentric (unusual habits, unusual pets, unusual demands). | 5. Mentoring (takes on apprentices freely; teaches openly). | 6. Declining (health failing; struggling with his own wards). |
Academy:
| 1. Rigorous (traditional curriculum, hard on apprentices). | 2. Political (Headmaster angles for higher office; Council votes cost him time). | 3. Innovating (a Master has published a controversial theory; rival Masters oppose). |
| 4. Impoverished (endowment shrinking; the academy is quietly selling books). | 5. Fractious (schism between Masters; two research programs are at war). | 6. Rising (a discovery or graduation drew attention; enrollments swell). |
Great Academy:
| 1. Grand (the city's pride; graduates seed royal courts and rival cities). | 2. Stern (rigorous, moralizing; expels students for minor infractions). | 3. Political (the Grand Headmaster holds real power beyond his academic seat; sits on the crown's councils). |
| 4. Corrupt (chairs bought and sold; degrees issued for coin). | 5. Troubled (a scandal, a schism, a rival school siphoning donors). | 6. Legendary (a name that travels; students come from three kingdoms). |
Focus. What the academy or wizard studies. Roll d10.
| 1. Elemental theory. | 2. Astronomy and celestial magic. | 3. Alchemy and transmutation. | 4. Divination and prophecy. | 5. Abjuration and warding. |
| 6. Necromancy. | 7. Healing and biomagic. | 8. Illusion and mind-work. | 9. Planar theory and summoning. | 10. Ancient languages and forgotten lore. |
Wards. Magical protections active on the tower or academy. Roll d6 by theme.
Wizard's Tower:
| 1. Alarm (any breach triggers a chime the wizard hears; DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to detect). | 2. Aversion (a subtle unease pushes intruders to turn back; DC 13 Wisdom save to resist). | 3. Illusory door (the front door isn't real; the real one is hidden; DC 15 Wisdom (Perception) to spot). |
| 4. Warded threshold (crossing without a token deals 2d6 force; DC 12 Dexterity save for half). | 5. Servant familiar (an animal or minor spirit watches the entrance and reports). | 6. No wards active (the wizard trusts distance and reputation). |
Academy / Great Academy:
| 1. Alarm (rings in the Headmaster's suite when the treasury or Reliquary is entered). | 2. Shielded library (the rare books cannot leave the reading room; DC 15 Intelligence (Arcana) to bypass). | 3. Sealed laboratory (a Master's working room admits only the bearer of a key or a token). |
| 4. Aversion at the perimeter (unauthorized visitors feel unwelcome; DC 13 Wisdom save to resist). | 5. Warded vault (breach deals 4d6 force; DC 14 Dexterity save for half). | 6. Minimal wards (relies on Guards and locks instead). |
Relic. The centerpiece of the Great Academy's Reliquary. Roll d6.
| 1. The founder's spellbook (bound in strange leather, still active for those who can read it). | 2. The mummified hand of a great sage (rumored to move on the anniversary of his death). | 3. An artifact from a defeated extraplanar being (planar theorists study it; sometimes it seems to study them back). |
| 4. The crystallized breath of a legendary dragon (the alchemists guard it jealously). | 5. An ancient tome of lost magic (partially decoded; each generation reads a little more). | 6. An empty case. |
Trouble. Roll d6 or choose by theme.
Wizard's Tower:
| 1. A ward on the tower has begun failing intermittently and the wizard cannot pinpoint why. | 2. An apprentice has been secretly copying pages from the wizard's spellbook. | 3. Something the wizard summoned last month has not gone home. |
| 4. A rival mage has begun sending polite inquiries about the tower's contents. | 5. A courier from the crown has arrived with a summons the wizard cannot easily refuse. | 6. Someone or something is trying to reach the wizard through his dreams. |
Academy:
| 1. A visiting inspector is demanding to review the endowment. | 2. A Master's experiment has escaped a warded laboratory and the halls are being evacuated quietly. | 3. A senior Master is publicly claiming another has plagiarized his work. |
| 4. An Apprentice has vanished from his dormitory; the last person to see him was a Master. | 5. A rival academy is trying to poach a signature Master. | 6. A prized text or reagent has been stolen from the library or the reagent store. |
Great Academy:
| 1. The Grand Headmaster is ill and the succession is contested between rival houses within the school. | 2. A section of the great library has been sealed; something inside is answering back. | 3. A Master's political maneuvering at court is exposing the school to the crown's displeasure. |
| 4. A relic from the Reliquary has been switched with a decoy and only one Master knows. | 5. A great convocation of scholars from three kingdoms is due and the endowment is short. | 6. An expelled student has returned changed, and refuses to leave the gate. |
Quests. typically offered. Roll a d8 or pick.
| d8 | Quest |
|---|---|
| 1 | Retrieve a rare book, reagent, or artifact from a specific site: a distant collector, a sealed vault in a ruined tower, an item taken from the Reliquary that must be recovered quietly. |
| 2 | Investigate a magical incident: a whispering artifact, a Master vanished during a lecture, or a haunting the wizard cannot dismiss remotely. |
| 3 | Search a specific site for a lost text or working: a ruin, a crypt, or a sealed wing. |
| 4 | Explore a place mentioned only in old sources: an abandoned observatory, a buried temple to a forgotten patron, a tower gone silent. Return with a map or an artifact. |
| 5 | Rescue an apprentice, Master, or expedition gone silent inside a known site. |
| 6 | Escort a rare specimen, visiting Master, or unstable artifact in transit. |
| 7 | Deliver a warded artifact, sealed spellbook, or message between institutions where magical interception is a threat. |
| 8 | Clear a wing gone wrong: a warded laboratory sealed after an experiment escaped, an abandoned tower whose apprentice was left to fend for himself, a deep vault no one has entered in generations. |
Magic Items. 2-5 items (d4+1), each rolled on Magic Item Table A (d6 1-3), B (4-5), or C (6).
Locations¶
Academy. A compound of magical learning:
- Grand hall: where lectures, ceremonies, and moots are held. Rows of benches, a raised dais, and a lectern.
- Library wing: stacks and reading tables. Rare books in locked chests or a barred reading room.
- Laboratories: rooms where Masters conduct research. Alchemical benches, warded workspaces, notebooks. One per senior Master.
- Dormitories: shared sleeping quarters for younger Scholars and Apprentices. Rows of pallets and footlockers.
- Studies: private rooms for senior Masters. Books, writing desk, and a locking chest.
- Headmaster's suite: the Headmaster's residence and private study, adjacent to the Grand Hall. Reception rooms, private quarters, treasury behind a strong lock.
- Refectory: dining hall for the household. Long tables and benches.
- Gatehouse: the walled entry with guarded gates.
- Loot: books and manuscripts; laboratory equipment; the Headmaster's records.
Great Academy. As Academy, plus:
- Cloistered gardens: herb and rare plant gardens around a central patio.
- Reliquary: houses the school's central relic (see the Relic feature) and its wider collection: spellbooks, historical artifacts, and other curios.
- Vaults: sealed undercroft beneath the Reliquary. Old labs walled off, older archives below those, and levels no living Master has entered.
Tower. The wizard's isolated tower. Multi-story stone with a spiral staircase; laboratory at the top, library below, apprentices' quarters and household beneath. Heavy door at the base with a standard lock and at least one active ward from the Wards subtable. Loot: the wizard's spellbook (100-500 gp), laboratory equipment (100 gp), library (2d100 gp), the wizard's cashbox (5d20 gp) behind a strong lock.