College of Aether

Sphere: Academic The College devoted to the study of Theology and Magic, based at Silvilim Hall in the Clock Tower. Historically trained battle-mages for the Maxim Club, Society of Lights, and the The Cult of Smoke. Following the Godswar, the Department was forcibly demilitarised and a new leadership installed; since then, research has focused on more benign magics and abstract metamagical concepts. More recently, House Osmanali have taken a close interest in the College's activities, sponsoring a number of highly esoteric research projects and commissioning the creation of a range of new spells to ease communication with the afterlife. This has sparked a great deal of controversy and some active opposition from the Scions of Fate, but the research currently continues.

Notable Departments

The Department of Aetheric Confluence pushes back the bounds of the possible, inventing new magics and taming them for use by others. The Departmental Choir performs once a year, in both a concert and an exhibition of their recent research. Tickets fetch an enormous price, despite the dangers of attendance. The Department of Aetheric Metallurgy is concerned with what non-mages call enchantment - granting special properties to inanimate objects, through a mixture of Inanimate Alchemy and Rune Magic. While basic enchantments are common throughout Ur, the Metallurgists believe that a deep understanding of the properties of different materials and the spirits within the metals will unlock more powerful and far-reaching applications of the transformative arts. The Department of Vital Sophistry pursues Animate Alchemy, the magic of transforming living things. New students are only accepted occasionally, but most live orders of magnitude longer than other members of their species. This has the consequence of enabling very slow research projects - the Chair of Candid Taxonomy has been waiting for the flowering of five lilies for two centuries with perfect equanimity. The Department of Curious Magics seeks to understand the leftover magics and artefacts from before the Godswar and, where possible, harness or neutralise them. Many warehouses in the Mirror Ward are filled with items on their research plan, placed under the strongest magical wards - this has led to thieves giving the Mirror Ward a wide berth, as robbing one of the Vaults, as they are known, is invariably a death sentence, but they are otherwise indistinguishable from the other warehouses in the Ward.