Zennez Academy
This charity-based academy is known for taking in orphans and other disadvantaged children from nearby settlements and training them in the martial art of kukalai at no cost. The Academy is known for being kind yet strict. Several well-known adventurers trace their origins back to this organization.
Structure
The Academy is led by its headmaster, whose duties involve various supervision, management, and decision-making responsibilities for the entire school. The department heads lie beneath the headmaster. Their role is to manage the teachers with expertise in their primary subject.
Culture
Zennez Academy fully embodies the core tenets of most who practice kukalai. Selflessness and self-sacrifice is promoted here, as is performing acts of service for others. Respect for those older than oneself is of the utmost importance.
Public Agenda
The Academy's main goals are to provide food, shelter, and education for youths whose parents are unable to care for them, thereby forming them into model protectors capable of defending themselves and others in the process.
Assets
Zennez Academy owns a building complex on a mountainside a few miles outside [Unnamed City]. The Academy primarily relies on donations from wealthy inhabitants and the Head Council of [Unnamed City] for the resources it requires to continue running, though former pupils who have since graduated and found careers for themselves are known to contribute from time to time.
History
The Academy was founded nearly fifty years ago by a Suktu woman named Kuwata Zennez. She was well into her sixties, having spent a significant portion of her life providing protective services enhanced by her reputation as a skilled kukalai practitioner, when she decided to aid her nephew by taking his son in and providing for him in the midst of his immediate family's financial struggles. With the money she had saved over the course of her career, Kuwata and her family felt that the child would be better off temporarily staying with her. The boy ended up taking an interest in kukalai himself, so Kuwata taught him the basics in the months before his family's financial situation stabilized and they could take him back again. Much to everyone's surprise, the child insisted on staying with Kuwata, having discovered that he thoroughly enjoyed practicing kukalai with his grandaunt and wanted to continue. Kuwata couldn't say she was disappointed. She had enjoyed the child's youthful company and found fulfillment in teaching him what he knew.
Knowing full well that there were other families in her area who struggled to provide for their children, as well as orphaned youths with little chance at life, Kuwata began to encourage her friends from her working days to follow in her footsteps. Many of those friends were in a similar position as her, having reached an age when they were no longer in their prime yet still possessing plenty of energy in need of an outlet, and Kuwata believed that mentoring children would provide them with a sense of purpose as well. Over time, Kuwata and her friends would form a circle known for generously taking in youths who were experiencing hardships in order to provide them with care and train them in kukalai.
For the ambitious Kuwata, the next step was only natural: securing funding to expand her operations. She had the connections to accomplish that thanks to her career spent working with [Unnamed City]'s wealthiest residents. With some convincing, she even managed to acquire a grant from the city's Head Council, as well as the rights to a rundown mountainside estate whose former owners had lost their fortune some years ago. Renovating the place took time, but Kuwata was determined. She had found her vision for the second act of her life and was intent on making it a reality.
Kuwata's mission was successful. In the years since it was founded, the Academy has continued to grow in size and renown. It now bears her family's name, though the still-living Kuwata herself no longer holds any official position of power within its walls.