Test Drive #1

[magicademymods]

Test Drive #1



The Airship There

By carriage or coach, spellwagon or ship, perhaps even on the wings of magic, the Sundered heed the call to gather at the Tenzin High Dock of Vulbaria. On this, the appointed day, a great passenger airship sits in the dock, the seals of the six Houses fluttering from flagpoles along her length and her wooden planks atremble as if it is eager to be off. At last, the gangplank descends, and the Hand of Diatu opens her doors to the Sundered so they can take their first step on the path towards protection and salvation.

Inside, you may choose from long comfortable couches, broad circular tables surrounded by straight-backed, cushioned chairs, or viewing seats at the glass front of the ship. Sundered who need special accommodations are quickly provided for, ensuring everyone travels in comfort. Trays drift through the air periodically, offering snacks and drinks to the passengers.

This may be the first chance you've had to truly relax since being swept to this strange world. Certainly it is the first chance you've had to meet your fellow Sundered. As the airship lifts gracefully off from the High Dock, your journey to Diatu begins. Excited? Nervous? Simply angry? Or perhaps searching among the crowd here for a familiar face or some sign of hope?

Rain, Rain...

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. It's raining.

Seriously raining. One of those downpours that feels like a curtain has dropped on you, that soaks to the bone within a second of stepping into it. Obviously, this won't do, and a civic-minded cluster of Purifeul students has taken it upon themselves to solve this problem. No sooner do you step through the gates then you practically run into a giant and complex runic diagram being drawn out with long staffs by several students, all of them speaking seeming nonsense about derivatives, limits, and equations. Magic! In action right before your eyes!

And yet, just as their mathemagics wind towards the center of the diagram and they all make their final stroke -- one student slashes his line off on a weird tangent, speaking an equation that sounds nothing at all like what his fellows utter. The spell completes... weirdly, as the students look in horror at each other. The temperature abruptly drops seventy degrees, and a cold wind begins to blow.

Welcome to Diatu Magicademy. Please get out of the blizzard before you freeze.

Thaumaturgy 101

After some fifteen minutes of grumbling from Professor Loshakle, followed by half an hour of theory and basics, the grouchy old man finally gets to drawing a magical symbol on the board. "This is straight out of Fundamental Principles of Wizarding," he says, writing Sense Magic next to the symbol. "As is everything you'll learn here. I'll emphasize yet again, you MUST know the name of the spell and the proper gestures. You can't simply wave your wand in any old pattern and say any old words. That isn't how it works," he says, glaring around the class as if daring someone to question him.

But he gives no one the opportunity, instead producing a wand and making the gesture to trace the symbol he'd drawn in midair. "Sense Magic," he intones, and the air and his wand both shimmer.

"Now. You all try." Just like that. What the Professor doesn't mention is that this spell can produce some very interesting results if the symbol is off, or the timing...

Bala-inlota Practice

Bala-inlota is the main interaction the Magicademies have with each other -- the sport of wizards! Two teams take the field, with the goal of heaving a ball through their opponent's hoop. The rules primarily revolve around not inflicting lethal injury, because bala-inlota is a free-for-all at best, where each team relies on both physical and magical might to win the day.

You kind of wish someone had told you this BEFORE you got hauled onto the field so the coach could see if you've got what it takes.

Now half a dozen players are charging down the field at your ragtag group of semi-willing recruits, while another half-dozen are preparing spells that you've been absolutely assured aren't as nasty as the ones deployed in actual play. On your side: the ball, your wits, your physical ability, and maybe three classes's worth of magical education.

On the upside, magic is pretty good at healing.

Comments

Vaarsuvius | Order Of The Stick

[gender_neutral]

Rain

V was still trying to get used to this place. Well, no, actually, the place itself was not all together odd, it was the infernal frustration of being trapped here, magical might whittled back down to potential rather than skill while the fate of the world might well be waiting to weigh on slender elven shoulders.

Still, V would not be V if the chance to learn new forms of arcane might were ignored. One must always be open to new ways to make the laws of physics sit down and shut up. And seeing the spell being worked by the students was fascinating at first, but quickly the problem became obvious. Even before the student's errant line, it was clear this spell would never work.

And of course V was exactly the sort of person to let them know this! Even with all the recent character development, slipshod magery could not be tolerated.

"Listen to me!" V said, three fingered hands raised into the air. If the small stick figure mage was aware that no one was paying the least bit of attention to the indignant words being spoken, nay, shouted at them... well no, it was pretty clear that the purple haired elf was unaware of the utter lack of rapt attention.

Or perhaps someone was just used to it....


"This diagram is fundamentally flawed from the start! Count how many people you have working upon the casting, you need to either remove three of them or add ten! Numbers are crucial in epic level spells! Not that Control Weather should even need this many mages! It is a seventh level spell! Sure, you could in theory increase the duration or area of effect with more mages, but the amount of feats alone to make that work is simply an impractical use of resources. What is more, one could deduce that your intent is to halt the rain, but that is not even what this diagram would do as you are drawing it! It would simply turn the rain into some odd colour, perhaps blue! Why anyone would waste such effort to change the colour of falling water is beyond me, which is why I must presume this is an error and not your intent."

"But have no fear, I am here to help you fix your simple mistakes so that you might all learn. While my spell slots may well have been stripped from me in this curst place - a place I can only presume is where my soul is being held by those fiends - my knowledge of the arcane is intact! And I, Vaarsuvius, shall bend my hundreds of years of study to your aid! Now, if you simply alter the mandela to...."

And that was when the student made the errant line.

"NO! NO you fool! That line will alter the spell! If you cast with it like that it will...."

A sigh as the temperature shifted.

"Snow."

V huffed a bit. "First the boats, then the dragon, now this.... will these side arcs never end? Some of us have a quest to attend to, a plot to finish, and a villian to foil, hopefully by the end of the next book!"

"Fine. I have done what I could." A sigh, then a single hand was lifted to cast a simple spell. "Protection from spells." Nothing happened. "Ah. Right. As Sir Greenhilt might say, were he present, stupid railroad plots."

And with that, the elf turned to go inside, rather disgusted.