Professors at the Arcane Tower
The Arcane Tower, located on the Island of Maginsula (between the human and elvish cities of Maginsula), is a political entity of its own, due to the fact that, as valuable as it might be, neither the humans nor elves wants to fight each other for it. The relatively few inhabitants of this island look to the Arcane Tower as their source of authority, and this tower contains a few particularly prominent wizard professors.
Diona is the headmistress of the entire school. An elvish woman, she is around 5 centuries old - by far the oldest person still teaching at the school. She knew Vignosa personally, before the legendary founder of Maginsula disappeared around 250 years ago to explore new and unknown territories. Diona has done her best to keep the school running in proper order, with knowledge passed on to everyone. She specializes in divination, and uses her powers to watch over students on the island, as well as Maginsula more broadly, both on the human and elvish sides. While humans and elves have always had their political disagreements, for the most part her island at least remained outside the worst of it. However, Diona is very concerned about the recent increase in necromancy activity - as well as a number of random teleportations, and of late she's been frustrated that she doesn't always know where to scry in order to find all the information she needs.
Diona teaches classes, mostly higher level ones for already competent wizards, but she also teaches one introductory course. Magic of Awareness is the title of her class. She teaches the philosophy of the school, as dictated by Vignosa: Seek Knowledge. Always seek to learn and understand everything. Her class includes a lot of philosophy on the nature of magic, as well as a focus on spells like Detect Magic and Identify. She tries to help students learn to actually cast Detect Magic themselves, but if they have trouble she has them use a wand of Detect Magic so at least they can become familiar with the colors of the different schools of magic.
Constantine is the second most powerful wizard at the school. He's an 85-year-old half-elf (which means that he is still quite young, as it happens). He takes Vignosa's edict to heart, and experiments in every kind of magic he can imagine. He especially enjoys the colorful conjuration and evocation spells, as they create fascinating displays for his students to watch - and he loves watching their expressions when they learn how to conjure such elements themselves! His hair is blue now, yes, though it wasn't always - it seems to have decided to start growing that way after one of his experiments worked out differently than he intended - he liked the change though, so he hasn't been trying to reverse it!
Constantine teaches classes for all levels - he loves the thrill of teaching more advanced students how to conjure elementals, but he also enjoys the pure excitement of seeing a kid figure out how to cast a simple fire bolt for the first time in his life. Two classes that he offers are available to introductory students: Intro to Elements, in which he explains about various elements in the world, a little about the history of understanding elemental magic, different types of magic damage (acid, cold, fire, force, lightning, poison, psychic, radiant and thunder). Some spells he teaches in this class include acid splash, burning hands, and thunderwave. He also teaches Common Useful Household Magic, in which he teaches that even minor spells can be super useful, like Mage Hand, Floating Disk (for moving objects around), and Unseen Servant. This is a very practical-focused class.
Nikolai is a 58-year-old human from a wealthy upbringing who decided to learn magic - and then decided to focus on enchantment, specifically. He has a reputation as a womanizer, and he's never settled down with anyone in particular in all his years. He enjoys his job teaching at the university, as it gives him prestige and a chance to meet many charming people.
Nikolai teaches a few classes, including one introductory level class just called Intro to Enchantments. In this class, he teaches about such spells as Charm Person, Hideous Laughter, and Sleep - emphasizing that these are ways a wizard could settle a conflict more peacefully, without need of bloodshed or explosions. But he does emphasize to be careful about spells such as Charm Person - after all, it wears off after a time, and an unwilling participant who realizes they were charmed usually isn't happy about it, so only use it in important cases. He never uses it to seduce someone, for example - he'd rather his encounters leave with fond memories of him.
Abernon is an 87-year-old dwarf from Fjelsmidt. He was a trained warrior, in service of the king, and very effective at using his warhammer to defend. However, one day he came down with an unfortunate case of magic talents. To protect the kingdom, of course, the king had to banish him - they could not risk the dangers of magic from unknown sources existing in the kingdom. While personally regretting the need to leave, Abernon did also understand. He headed to Maginsula, and decided to take a few classes to hone his control over his powers. At this point, he's not bad at it - but he decided to specialize only in defensive magic, given he still felt suspicious of the stuff.
Abernon became enough of an expert in defensive magic that he was appointed chair of the department, and now teaches classes - particularly low-level classes to beginner and intermediate level students. He teaches Intro to Defensive Magic, in which he emphasizes that magic can be a very dangerous thing. He'll go over examples of the dangers of magic (and cite examples from Constantine's and Nikolai's classes as things to watch out for). But then he'll note that magic can also be used defensively - and this is perhaps the best use of it, according to him. Clearly everyone ought to learn spells such as Alarm, Mage Armor, Shield, and Absorb Elements in order to protect themselves. He'll also mention Thought Shield as a protection against anyone trying to figure out their thoughts, but this he's discovered is usually too high of a spell for his introductory students to catch on and cast. Still, he lets them know of its existence.
Narissa is the youngest professor at the school, only 24 years old. But she's somehow become quite good at transmutation and illusion spells, so they asked her to teach students about these things. She's rather shy as a teacher, acting as though she lacks self-confidence. She teaches a class called Intro to Illusions. Whereas other teachers usually include a philosophy aspect to their classes and advertise and justify their branch of magic, Narissa just says, "I'm here to teach you about illusions and transmutations. Things don't always have to be as they seem." She usually focuses on Minor Illulsion and Prestidigitation at the start of this class, then later says by the way, some other spells in this category include Mending and Message, which you can use to fix things and communicate with people. Also, Feather Fall can be used to save you if you fall. And Color Spray is pretty fun. She's still relatively new to teaching, so lessons might seem disjointed at times, but she is very good at what she teaches.
Children
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