Magicorps Academy

The Magicorps Academy is a training facility for the KInilan Army in an ancient castle near the city of Antius, where apprentices within the Corps are trained in the arts of magic and warfare.

Purpose / Function

The Magicorps Academy has one very specific purpose: to turn young people with a knack for magic into warriors capable of taking a life with a snap of their finger and joking about it later that day. While its students are still called apprentices, the training program is very different from a traditional apprenticeship in magic. In the traditional approach, students are carefully guided, taught patience and determination through helping their master in their studies and conducting further study on their own, slowly being guided to develop their skills over years. The Magicorps needed them to be faster.
Under the Academy program, the magic deemed useful for war is simply provided as complete magical formulae for these apprentices to memorize. This was mixed with a tough regimen of physical training to bring even the most bookish, lazy apprentice up to fighting shape, and a series of psychological lessons intended to teach apprentices that might makes right, hardening them to the point where they could unleash their magic on a target without remorse.
This led to a number of "accidents" - Magi trained to use their skills aggressively often fail to consider the consequences. Some were legitimate tragedies - a miscast fireball catching a servant in the training yard, but much of the time the term was used to cover disciplinary problems among the students. After all, why teach a promising young war mage restraint just because a couple of civilians got hurt along the way? It wasn't long after the Academy was founded that the people of Antius learned it was wise to steer well clear of the place, and the officers running the facility had to go further afield to recruit menial labour to keep things running smoothly.

Alterations

Over the years, the keep has been occupied by a variety of groups over the centuries, and the marks of this are readily apparent. It features several tiers of curtain walls and towers, as the defenses were continually improved during its first few years as a defensive fortress. Many of these improvements show their age quite clearly, as most of its noble inhabitants have only bothered to maintain the inner castle grounds and what those approaching from the road could see on their way in - and even then, much of this was achieved not by repairing the stone work, but by covering it with painted wooden facades, which have long since rotted and been swept away.
Noble families that claimed the castle made adjustments to improve comfort - knocking out arrow slits in favour of windows, removing interior walls meant to deter intruders, and generally making the dull and dreary castle interior into something bright and cheerful. Much of the central keep retains this sense of grandeur, though somewhat tarnished by age.
The fortress was also briefly used as a gaol, with much of the grounds having been converted into long, simple stone cell blocks featuring small sleeping quarters and very sturdy doors. The keep itself was used by guards and staff at the prison, who made the necessary adjustments to turn the grand hall into a large, practical dining room and upscaling the kitchens to produce sufficient food to feed both staff and prisoner populations. Smaller chambers like cabinets and boudoirs were converted to courtrooms, and a gallows built in a separate courtyard, though many of those who stood trial faced lesser penalties.
For its use as an academy, the facility was given a comprehensive overhaul. Gaol cells became student dorms, with glass windows replacing bars and locks being removed from the doors. Several courtyards were set up as target ranges for magic classes and exercise yards for physical training. (What was left of the gallows became a target for the first class of students learning fire magic.) An obstacle course was built near the outer curtain wall. The cabinets and boudoirs became classrooms and offices for senior instructors.

History

The fortress was originally built in the first century after the fall of the First Empire, one of many structures built to defend the country from a series of invasions as splinter factions either tried to reform the Empire or claim Kinilan and its valuable agricultural lands. It was largely left abandoned by the third century, and has sporadically been claimed by noble families and left abandoned in the centuries since. It was put to use as a gaol during the latter years of the Kinilan Revolution, holding nobles and Royalists who opted to face trial rather than go down fighting.

Type

Military base / complex