Alder University

Alder University is the name of the tiny campus in the town of Giniw, Canada. It was constructed by one of the mayors of the town in the early 80's in an attempt to improve the town's standing and put it "On the map."
Unfortunately for the town, the University never really kicked off. And the campus has since been used by the Vayer of the town to teach curriculum that is considered by most of the normal folks to be rather strange. It has become one of the best places for learning about the paranormal and otherworldly, and people have taken to calling the place "Canada's Miskatonic."

Structure

The Headmaster:

Stands at the top of the organization, against all odds, despite nearly every Headmaster before them being a Vayer (Magic user), Headmaster Harold Gurdson is a perfectly normal individual. Well, that is a stretch. He is known for going "Bigfoot Hunting" in the surrounding national forest that Giniw is nestled in, and he has a vast collection of "Paranormal" parephenallia, from a crystalline skull that looks like some alien being (That he insists is made from silicon, not cubic zirconium), to an ancient Hand of Glory (Most Vayer believe it to be a fake). He hails from Germany, and while he does not teach any lessons (and the Vayer of the school have to keep the actual magic a secret from him), he is quite skilled at bookeeping. His curriculum is equally as utterly strange as nearly every headmaster before him, with the usual "Parapsychology 101" and "Paranormal Science" being two of the major degrees the school offers, with other degrees being "Ancient History." "Secret History." "Alchemical Studies." "Pagan Theology." and "Authorial Intent."

Show spoiler

Which is apparently a class that teaches the theory of "Authorial manifestation" which suggests that what is written may well become real if you aren't careful, they focus largely on the works of H.P Lovecraft as a baseline for this theory.

Beyond his usual works, he also decides personally who is permitted to join the Valedictoral class, which would be fine if he was a Vayer himself and understood what that means, but it unfortunately has resulted in a few innocent people brushing against the paranormal in ways they never really wanted to. The Valedictorians are the students who become Vayer, and learn the real magic in extreme secrecy.

Teaching Staff:

Below the Headmaster lie the teaching staff, whose purposes are simply to teach the lessons. Nearly every professor in the staff is a Vayer of some description, and most of them specialize in a specific Vayermancy, which they often teach whenever they are called to the Valedictoral lectures. Their names in order of importance are below:

Professor Dumont:

Professor Alexander Dumont is the lead professor of the Paranormal Sciences, he is a Vayer specializing in the aspect of Time, and teaches its Vayermancies to the other Vayer students. He is considered by most of the students to be strict, dour, and rather rude. But he is mostly just strict, Time is a dangerous aspect to learn, and he has lost a lot of good friends and people to the practices of that aspect, and he gets especially frustrated when he has to teach all the normal people about the (Mostly fake) pseudoscience and theories about aliens, bigfoot, cryptids, and so on, when he knows full well what's fake, and what's real. He hails from Ireland, and came to the school when he heard that a place of higher magical learning was operating in secret in Giniw.

Professor Boggart:

Professor Miranda Boggart is the Parapsychology teacher here at Alder U, and she is a Vayer that specializes in the aspect of Eye, she likes to collect things that have interesting histories, and her lecture hall is filled with all sorts of strange and eclectic items, everything from an ancient spear that she claims has never seen combat despite thousands of wars it has been around for, or an old ratty scarf that apparently once belonged to an old homeless woman who was the witness to at least three of the Zodiac killings. She is often considered by most of her students as the "Cool teacher" and she gets along well with her students, even when it means her Parapsychology lessons often end up flying off in some tangent or another. Even when she is teaching Eye to her students in the Valedictorial classes, she has a tendency to veer of in some other direction mid-lesson, and often needs to be pointed back to the lesson at hand.

Professor Smythe:

Professor Robert "Robbie" Smythe is the professor of Pagan Theology at Alder University, and he specializes in the aspect of Dream. He was actually a stage magician when he was younger, used to work in Vegas, something he likes to remind his students of almost constantly. His props often find their way in his classes somehow, which is odd considering the subject of the class. Most of the students consider him to be eclectic, but not quite the cool eclectic Professor Boggart is. When it comes to Dream, he is a strong advocate for the use of psychedelic's to improve ones control over dreams themselves, and while he has not been caught providing his students with these "performance enhancers" the rumors abound that he has a stash of mushrooms in his office somewhere.

Professor Willow:

Professor Harry "Stand's Like" Willow is one of the aboriginals who live in the forests around Giniw, they have their own culture rather separated from traditional Algonquin roots, but they still identify themselves as Algonquin regardless. He is the professor of Alchemical Studies, a class which studies the ancient uses of Alchemy and how they were applied in modern Chemistry, most students consider it to be a glorified chemistry lesson with some interesting history on immortality elixirs and how they were made with mercury and other heavy metals. By virtue of being a chemistry professor, Willow also gets to be one of the "cool teachers" with wild displays like setting the classroom on fire without causing any of the students to get burned being one of his favorite openers for new students. It also helps that he is a specialist in the aspect of Rose, teaching the control of nature herself, and how to mend and heal through magic, as well as how to rend and deal damage.

Professor Skye:

Professor Sonya Skye is one of the only teachers besides Willow that is actually a native to the town, though Skye was born and raised here, and has almost no ties to the aboriginal population of the town. Her mother was Pilipino, while her father was apparently from somewhere in Europe, and she was raised with a healthy appreciation of the paranormal. She specializes in Tome, and teaches the "Secret History" class. Secret History being described as "The history provided by various secret organizations and less-reputable writers throughout history." It takes a look at the various histories, creation myths, stories, and outright lies of the many fantastical organizations and cults throughout the world, and tries to look at it with a more open mind, to attempt to fit it into what we currently know. Most of the students see it as, again, a glorified ancient history class with some interesting tidbits on how the Gnostics used to believe the world was created thrown in. When it comes to Tome, she has a place hidden away in the depths of the school where she keeps the less friendly books, a library of tomes that have to be chained to the shelves, sorted not by some decimal system or alphabetically, but instead sorted by how well one book appreciates another book. She is also the schools mundane librarian between classes, and somehow still finds time in her day to teach the occasional "Authorial Manifestation" class.

Professor Bahari:

Professor Abdul Bahari is the only non-Vayer member of the teaching staff, he teaches the Ancient History class, and compared to all the other teachers in the school, he is remarkably boring. Often most students who do come to the school take his class as part of their curriculum, so they might at least be able to get a job as a teacher or at a museum between paranormal adventures. Despite how boring most of the students think Professor Bahari is, some people have heard rumors that he actually used to go on big game hunts years ago, and that the polar bear fur in his lecture hall is actually one of his kills.

Ol' Sweepy:

The students have no idea who Ol' Sweepy actually is, he has been the lead custodian of the school since its founding, and even then he has only ever been referred to as Ol' Sweepy. He is actually (To the suprise of most of the students) a Vayer and professor for the Valedictorial class, he specializes in Skull, and often has to explain to his students that he used to be a soldier, and he was deployed overseas. First had the curtain torn away when he saw his entire squadron get torn apart by zombies that had been raised by an insurgent Vayer. He watched the Vayer's concentration be broken by a stray bullet, and saw the zombies turn on him in turn. He managed to fight his way out of there, and dedicated his life to studying the arts of Death, to ensure that nobody else would have to witness such things, and to teach the dangers of the aspect of Skull.
His job as a Custodian in the school is not merely the sweeping of floors either, Ol' Sweepy is the main reason why Spirits avoid the university grounds like the plague, as he deals with any Spirit that seeks to take advantage of the young kids or fresh-faced Vayer with extreme prejudice, and whenever he can't deal with something, he calls the towns resident Witch Hunter to take care of it instead.

The Fraternities:

Despite the size of the university grounds being exceedingly small, and the university itself lacking many of the common trappings of your typical college (such as a sports team, a track team, many club houses, etc) where there is a university, there will be a frat house.
There are currently only two houses, one Fraternity and one Sorority, they are as follows:

Kappa Epsilon Phi:

The KEP frat is the main Vayer fraternity, KEP often hosts meetups and organized events where Vayer can practice their arts in a more practical environment, they do not let students in that aren't Vayer, and most of the normal students of the school see them as some mysterious and aloof frat.

Phi Phi Phi:

The 3P's is the only Sorority house, and it is where most of the female Vayer go, unfortunately due to the lack of the strict signup rules of KEP, combined with being the only Sorority in Alder, a lot of their members are normals. This would ordinarily result in the female members of the school being unable to have access to the practical applications of their art like KEP has, but the 3P's have taken advantage of the strong connections Wicca and other "magical" pagan faiths have with the real magic Vayer can perform, and have flavored themselves as a "Witchy" sorority, complete with Wiccan initiation rituals and other religious trappings often disguising or being used to perform real magic right under the noses of their normal fellow members.

Contra ignorantiam stamus

Founding Date

1986

Alternative Names

Canada's Miskatonic, "That one creepy school."

Demonym

students/professors