History: The Advent of Adventurers

"The Advent of Adventurers" is a phrase often attributed to the commemoration of the New Calendar's beginning in Mirahl, as penned into law by the first of its cities: Calvard. These "Adventurers," as they became known by profession, differed quite substantially from their archetypal counterparts. Whereas the archetype of society would paint the commoner who undertook risky journeys for their own rewards, be them fame or money or glory, the professional Adventurer was far from that being the case.
On the eve of the New Calendar's decree, it was declared that upon the Calvard Academy's construction, it would begin to produce a new breed of freelance guardian for not just the well-being of Calvard, but of all the neighboring cities who would fall by treatise under their jurisdiction. Mirahl could be a very unforgiving environment, who's nature was unpredictable. With the iconic Mirrors realms being a mystery yet unsolved by Calvard's scholars, Adventurers must be prepared to take on any potential threat that may come from these realms one day merging. They are skilled individuals, expected to be well educated by the Academy's Masters in their various fields of expertise; however, the Adventurer is a very archetypal but fluid defender. Their ancestries, their backgrounds, and their own preferences on how to protect not just themselves but others too have created a wide variety of casters and martial fighters alike; some even blur the lines to perform both simultaneously!
What the Academy strives to achieve in an Age of Adventuring is to create individuals who are willing to make all of Mirahl a better place to live for their peers and their families, both old and new. Even those with sadistic and cruel dispositions were expected to be given a fair chance in the Academy provided they behaved themselves like any other; there were more ethical expectations than moralistic ones to be upheld, after all. However, the Academy made it their primary goal to stress to these Adventurers-in-training that their responsibilities to their planar communities would not be merely about wielding tremendous power as a killing machine and nothing more. The Adventuring profession, as born by Calvard Academy, would be one that would teach valuable life skills in its wandering peers. Adventurers would develop a good conscious for those peoples unable to care for themselves in the face of otherworldly or supernatural threats.
They would be the ones to deliver on such tasks as peacekeeping during anarchal times, dungoneering in mysterious underground chambers, suppressing those outlawed and wanted by city justices, capturing wanted monsters, assisting in humanitarian construction projects, moneylending and conducting commercial bargaining, record-keeping and carouseling, and above all else to contain and combat the supernatural when it threatens the stability of mortal civilization.

Historical Details

Legacy

Amidst the Academy's graduating classes, it is recorded that a total of 7 Classes have graduated with successful honors. These Classes represent some of the most mature, prestigious and hardened Adventurers the Academy has ever produced, and even though many have not lived after their graduation day to see the current state of the Academy, there do still exist some very few powerful Adventurers who visit from time to time.
The foremost of these Classes are the Torchlighters; Graduates who paved the way forward for the Academy's reputation. This class was little more than 40 individuals in size at the time, and many of them were ill-experienced with the very concept of Magic at all, leaving them primarily focused on more down-to-earth expertises. These are the oldest and strongest warriors the Academy has ever produced, who have since become known as military officials for distant lands and help to regulate the rules of war for many a city-state alike. When they do visit, it is typically to inspect the Academy for its state of discipline, and sometimes deliver lectures to aspiring students of their craft: military leadership.
The Torchlighters passed their torch on though, and with it Calvard Academy began a slow but steady growth of able-bodied graduates. Among the following four generations that came along, casters would become ever so more prominent as arcane knowledge spread by the House of Orasmyn became more readily available to the new youth groups. Wizards, above all else, would be the key-defining feature of these generations, and for that reason the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Classes' graduates are often dubbed "Spellswords" infomally. They do not often recognize this term, however, as not every graduate who studied the Academy's understanding of the arcane also dabbled in martial combat. Nonetheless, these were the ones who introduced it as a new archetype to describe such hybridization, and henceforth Spellswords would be treated as a general term for such students. What became of these 115 some graduates is mostly unknown, however; they were infatuated with knowledge, and secluded themselves to more remote aspects of the world to perform research in relative peace. Very few, then, have ever returned to visit the Academy. Those who do however often bring new texts of magical nature for the Academy's review or publication; the Academy thanks those of these classes for furthering their understanding of the surreal forces that infest Mirahl's unnatural laws, and rarely may call upon a Spellsword to assist with a matter of grave magical importance.
Oddly, none speak of what the successive 5th graduating Class was ever known for. It's numbers were uncharacteristically low, however; only 11 students are known to have left the Academy in Year 13. Some suspect that their disappearance from both archives and memories is attributed to the workings of a vile outsider, who tampered with these students and drove them to very, very far off lands indeed. Their whereabouts and capabilities are unknown, and the Academy publicly recognizes this gap in its records as the Lost Generation, blaming an arcane error for 'taking them away from us so soon.'
Fortunately, their successors proved to be much more colorful and interesting for the public researcher! For the following three years, the remaining graduating classes were diverse with a wide array of creative artists, clerical aspirants and magitek engineers who all applied the inspirations of the arcane in different ways. Bards, Jesters and Dancers alike would all play their harmonious trade with such fervor that it elicited heart-felt compassion from all who watched. These Adventurers brought joy and laughter wherever they went, and would go on to become the Academy's finest humanitarian workers. For Clerics, Invokers and Paladins of all assortments, it went to show that Calvard was not completely lost from the eye of its watchful Gods. Divinity, a long forsaken concept, was making a slow but steady return in the form of an unusual, inexplicable type of magic most would call "Miracles." These Miracles did not appear to be tied to any particular, tangible deities however; merely the act of calling upon human belief would invoke these special forms of magical power. Thus, they would become natural healers of the arcane variety and set forth to combat unearthly plagues that lingered in Mirahl's people. Finally, there was the more esoteric batch of Artificers, Tinkerers and Alchemists who were becoming experts in applying the cornerstone of human civilization: crafting ingenuity, to practical and impractical problems alike. Oddly, these disciplines were actually invented by these graduates by applying varying combinations of magical and martial teaching to their home cities' advanced technologies and industries. Firearms became a staple choice for their trade, and soon they were out in the world to share their knowledge with all of Mirahl, often returning to the Academy to spread knowledge of new resources and innovations being developed by other city-states.
These were not all that came out of the Paramount Graduates, who wore their titular honorific with pride. Many still pursued their aspects of martial, magical, and a plethora of interpretations in between as their primary discipline. But all Paramount Adventurers would share in common their ability to innovate new, inspiring ways to perform their profession in a way most suited to them. In addition, Paramounts were among the first to introduce the idea that members of any race could achieve unbiased success in the Academy's system. Thus, city-states of more xenophobic nature began to open up to the idea of the Academy, and its numbers would swell. From these three generations came classes of some 22, 54, and 76 students respectively.
The current generation of nearly 80 students that is expected to graduate at the beginning of Year 17 has not yet been awarded a nickname or honorific, and it is not certain what their key-defining characteristic or legacy may be. The only thing that is certain, however, is they are showing a greater investment in becoming permanent members of the Academy than most past Classes have. Should it succeed, this would mark their 8th successful graduation yet!

Type

Record, Historical

Location

Academi vei Calvard, the Calvard Academy