Scholomance

As I am on the subject of thunderstorms, I may as well here mention the Scholomance, or school supposed to exist somewhere in the heart of the mountains, and where all the secrets of nature, the language of animals, and all imaginable magic spells and charms are taught by the devil in person. Only ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when the course of learning has expired and nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment, and mounted upon an Ismeju (dragon) he becomes henceforward the devil's aide-de-camp, and assists him in 'making the weather,' that is to say, preparing the thunderbolts.

Based on folklore, not much is truly known about this location. The great archaeologist Herodotus investigated the land but did turn up some interesting tidbits.

Here we find that the drac is the devil in person, who instructs certain persons to be magicians and medicine men in a college under the earth. Of these, one in eight receives instruction during fourteen years, and on his return to earth he has the following power. By means of certain magical formulae he compels a dragon to ascend from the depths of a loch. He then throws a golden bridle with which he has been provided over his head, and rides aloft among the clouds, which he causes to freeze and thereby produces hail.

The earliest, and likely quite distorted, account of Herodotus occurs (followed by all later authors) in a passage that explains, I think, the origin of the Scholomance, whose modern name is a corruption of Solomonari with influence from words for scholarship.
Herodotus wrote:

Zalmoxis was not really a god but a slave of Pythagoras, and that after being freed and gaining great wealth he prepared a banqueting-hall, where he received and feasted the chief men of the tribe and instructed them meanwhile that neither he himself nor his guests nor their descendants in succession after them would die; but that they would come to a place where they would live for ever and have all things good. While he was doing that which has been mentioned and was saying these things, he was making for himself meanwhile a chamber under the ground; and when his chamber was finished, he disappeared from among the Thracians and went down into the underground chamber, where he continued to live for three years: and they grieved for his loss and mourned for him as dead. Then in the fourth year he appeared to the Thracians, and in this way the things which Salmoxis said became credible to them. (Histories 4.94, Macaulay translation)

Architecture

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History

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RUINED STRUCTURE
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Type

Dungeon

Parent Location

Ionnarus Realm

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