Castlewick

Established 636 CE

Pax Magica brought in an era of powerful magics, an egalitarian continent wide government and "prosperity for all." What we know of the timeline is in dispute, and relics from the era are confounding at best, outright malicious at worst. What's not in dispute, however, is that mankind reached too high. They reached into the clouds and angered the gods with their power or parties or petulance. Their arrogance brought in The Fall with a capital F. Mankind was nearly wiped out. Cities turned to rubble, empires scattered, and worst of all... libraries burned.

It is said that the The Builder loved mankind so much for their craftsmanship and daring architecture that when it looked as though all hope for their survival was lost, he walked into the ocean, fought off the dragons and leviathans, bowed himself down into the sea and built Castlewick. Upon his back formed the walls, doors and towers of the majestic university and with the last of his power, brought about two powerful creations: His daughter Fate and the pattern for Crossing Doors.

Fate was given instructions to use the door to gather as many humans as would fit and to use his body as the strongest repository of knowledge the world had ever seen.

It's a beautiful, romantic story, but don't let the bards convince you it's true. Here's what we do know to be actually true:

• Castlewick was founded in 636 CE by a group of mixed race scholars looking for a way to store information between ages. They had become frustrated with the "Games of the Gods" very often casting knowedge into the fire and setting back research hundreds of years. These founders were:
  • ██████████ - "The Shadow", An elfkin from ████████ who had access to ████████████ and other guarded knowledge
  • █████████████████ the Fourth - An elfkin from ████████ with unmatched magical engineering prowess. Generally credited for the design of the Library and probably the Crossing Doors
  • Jarl █████ of ████████████ - Leader of the Weaponsmiths in Cinder Seat, dwarfolk of great renown and battle prowess.
  • Klicks - A reformed ████████████ from the Bleaklands. Contributions include the first Field Offices, access to otherwise lost texts, and designing the governing structure of the institution.
  • Zia Zeral - The first university president and heiress to the Sheik Te'hattar fortune.
• The original Crossing Door’s Providence is not confirmed. It's suspected to have been invented by the Fourth. However, the first Field Office was confirmed to have been in Er'za where Madam Zia originated. It was largely from her father's fortune that the original structure and staffing were funded.
• The original structure consisted of the three towers surrounding the quad and 2 levels of the lower archives. The other 25 levels of The Archives have been added as needed over the last ~1,400 years.
• The Hub was created after the 6th Field Office was established in 702 CE and the local militia attempted to use the Crossing Door to hide from a Goblin Outbreak that wasn't being well contained. Now, the Hub acts as a Rapid Response inflection point connecting defensive resources with urgent issues.
• The first shop in the Way of Possibilities was Kendles Candles by a chemistry student in 922 and it continues to serve customers today.
• The dragons were not part of the original horizon. The first few showed up around 1200 CE. It's theorized they were attracted by the literal horde of books and dangerous artifacts. While their population continue to grow, the Stone and Claw Pact of 1310 ensures there are only occasional dragon attacks, and when they happen, the others of their kind deal swiftly with the deviant.
• The original island surface area was barely more 2km². Over time, by using the stone from archive excavations, it has been extended to just over 3.6km²!

Corpora & Curricula

Castlewick has two primary objectives: 1) Discover and secure at risk knowledge, 2) Replicate and redistribute that knowledge. There is a very little dispute Castlewick houses the largest repository of mortal knowledge. The Archives house some of the most dangerous and restricted materials while The Stacks are freely open to all students and patrons and pay per knowledge unit. Combine these corpora with the Work Exchange Program where students willingly receive four years of education at the cost of an additional four years of residency and Castlewick quickly becomes a machine for cranking out educated robust cultural assets.
Within the University are smaller Colleges which teach a variety of subjects:

• Center for Field Readiness - Skills useful to field agents to survive various environments and dungeoneering situations.
• College of Battle - Combat, tactics, strategy and first-aid.
• College of Civilizations - The day to day of building a civilization. Civil Engineering, City Design, Architecture, Law and Politics.
• College of Engineering - Manufacturing, systems design, Enchanting/Tinkering, Applied Magical Theory.
• College of Health - Understanding maladies and restoration of the Mind, Body and Soul.
• College of People - History, Humanities, Music, Art, Mythology, Religion
• College of Wonderworking - Broken up into subgroups, research and theoretical studies on:
  • School of Magics - Expressions of Will onto physical domains. (Evocation, Divination, Abjuration, etc.)
  • School of Science - Understanding and Cataloging the physical domains. (Physics, Biology, Chemistry, etc.)
  • School of the Mind - Expressions of the physical realms on the cognitive realms. (Psychology, Psionics, Sociology, etc.)
• Institute of Codified Knowledge - Responsible for acquisition, storage and retrieval of all knowledge at the University.
  • The Stacks - Public library and knowledge brokerage.
  • The Archive - At risk information storage.

Politics

Most nations see Castlewick as a strategic ally.

• The Most Experienced Educators from across all kindred.
• Highly advantageous Alumni
  • Trained Military Leaders
  • High Level Researching in nearly every Field
  • Charismatic and Influential Political Leaders
• The Hub as a last call for Outbreaks
• The Institute of Codified Knowledge granting access to hundreds of generations of knowledge.

Local Popularity

Field Offices build up local regions and raise up the quality of life of the area around the office. They're generally seen as cultural anchors. They tend to the needy, topple corrupt governments and help rebuild and reinforce the people.

Field Offices

Castlewick's leverages the Field Offices as their embassies and recruiting stations. Each office includes a Crossing Door. As power allows, access to the crossing is available to patrons, researchers, and emergency personnel. Traditionally, the doors are open during nominal business hours, though passage can affect time a little differently.

Issues with Royalty

Admittance to Castlewick is gated by Field Office recommendations. The methodology for who is approved and who is rejected is completely opaque to applicants. What's absolutely clear, however, is money will not buy you admittance. This can cause quite a lot of consternation for wealthy families and "heritage leadership" positions. A lot families would have liked to kick Castlewick out of their regions, but any attempt to do so is met with riots.
In these regions, Castlewick is a uncomfortable foreign agent that must stay.

Vision

Violence and Ignorance are overcome with Compassion and Reason

Mission

Bring up the people in wisdom and strength and they will bless all generations.

Motto

知恵の守護者
Chie no gādian
Guardians of Wisdom

Additional Links

• Work Exchange Program
• Crossing Door
• Field Agent Assignments

Campus Map - Castlewick

Notable Zones:

• The Hub - Central intersection for all Crossing Doors
• Way of Possibilities - The Tokyo like central stores.
• Barbican - The entrance from the drawbridge (gate) and the portcullis. Has revenants.
• Halls of the Interred - Graveyard
• Field Readiness Tower
• Battleyard
• Library