BogMod/FourLotusAcademy
The Four Lotus Academy is located on the foothills of the northernmost part of the Fire Mountains. Since the time of the Shogunate has it served as a seat of learning and education for those who come to it. The manse is a large and sprawling structure set within tall walls. Red, orange and yellow stone form its primary building material with angular rooves to the buildings. The center most building stands largest and tallest with the rest spread around the grounds. It has gardens in the foothills nearby, fields and tracks for physical training within the walls and well appointed buildings for education in a variety of subjects. In total perhaps a thousand souls could comfortably live in the dormitories and living chambers of this academy.
Hegni is the one who owns and operates this manse school. A Lesser Elemental Dragon of fire very few at all have the strength to try to take it from him by force. Second of all he has the backing of the Realm and Empress or at least he did once. With the Empress gone though long tradition in the area helps to keep him in power. Even the Immaculate Order supports his position and for those Patrician's who can afford it his school may not have the prestige of some on the Isle but its quality is without doubt. A four lotus pattern forms his personal seal and shows up in a lot of the imagry around the manse. The manse produces a Bright Eye of the Fire Dragon Stone which he uses to keep tabs on the goings on inside the Four Lotus Academy.
The Four Lotus Academy is a level 4 Fire aspected manse. It possesses the powers of Subtle Breath of Sextes Jylis, Magical Conveniences(Special candels light up whenever approached or in some places burn eternaly, automated doors, it can produce all the basic tools needed for teaching if provided raw materials, and its library can sort itself), Central Control, Archive(Sword training for melee, alchemy for occult, enchantment for occult and geomancy for occult), The Glorious Halo of Hesiesh(a modified version, it can make very accurate imagry but all images are clearly essence based projections) and finally the Mela's Sweet Whisper power for use for academy wide announcements. Ritual flower burnings every month by the students maintain the powers that flow through it(Maintenance 2).
There are two kinds of people admitted to the School. Those who pass Hegni's personal interviews are permitted to enjoy the 10 year program. Almost every mortal who finishes the program leaves the place with Awakened Essence. Otherwise there are 1 year, 2 year and 5 year courses available. The secret of Hegni's success lie in two things. The first is that Hegni is a very accomplished Astrologer. He has developed a rite that almost flawlessly weeds out those applicants who couldn't succeed under the school's teaching methods. The second is that the school's teaching methods constitute a potent Geomancy rite. It operates similiar to Essence Enlightening Sutra but takes 10 years instead. With these two techniques he can ensure the true students of the school achieve true success.
The school has a rounded education available to those who take part in it. Its specialties lie in the teaching of swordplay, geomancy, alchemy and enchantment arts of Thaumaturgy but it teaches many other fields. Normal things like math, history, geography and more as well as able to offer instruction in the thaumaturgical arts of Astrology, Husbandry, Warding and Excorcism and Weather Working. Arts dealing with the dead, demons, elementals and gods are not taught at all both due to the interests of its Headmaster as well as Realm pressures.
Major Staff
Ledaal Abiding Effigy, an Earth Aspected Terrestial from the Realm is one of the teachers here and heads the department devoted to Geomancy. A patient teacher he has been in charge of his department for 7 years now.
Lord Svathis is a longtime friend of Hegni and is an elemental as well. An ifrit he handles the physical education department of the school. The second longest serving staff member if you count Hegni he demands respect from his students and is more then happy to take them to task if they do not show him his due.
Willow Fox is a middle aged mortal woman who runs the alchemy department. You wouldn't know it by looking at her how old she was though. She uses potions of her own devising to keep the beauty she had in her youth. A word of advice if you want to pass her class with high marks don't ask her age. Though she is vain she is very intelligent and advanced her essence as far as any mortal can.
Ragara Yon runs the Department of enchantment at the School. He has worked there for little over 50 years now and now that he approaches his 200th birthday is thinking about stepping down from his position. Still his position there has been useful to his House in finding skilled people to work for the Ragara family and even if he steps down from running the department he will surely stay on staff teaching for a little while longer.
Peleps Tavyn is a fourth coil immaculate and handles the religious matters of the School. She has been on staff for about 15 years now, another in a long line of teachers for the school and to of course maintain proper Immaculate Order teachings in the area. A master of the Water Dragon style she is also there as a form of understanding between the Realm and Hegni that certain teachings wouldn't be allowed. Should any Dragonblooded exalt while attending to the School she handles their care until a descision about them is made.
Bados is a Tengese man by birth. He must have done something good in a past life as his quick rise to the top of the Astrology department is but another in a string of successes in his surprisingly short life. In only his late twenties he has an important position in the school. Sadly his success is not truely his own. One of his rarely seen assistants is an agent of the Gold Faction. His life and his choices are not truely his own thanks to the sorcery placed upon him.
Strong Bow is the head of the academy's Husbandry department. She is a native of the Realm and grew to be a thaumaturge within the Realm's systems before she ever became a teacher at the manse. Strict and severe she prefers theory far more then practice but no one would ever say she doesn't know her stuff.
Rhaem comes from the nearby city on the coast. The child of graduates of the school, and a graduate of the school himself, with one of his children in the academy as well he takes pride in his long familial assosciation with the manse and its ways. He is in charge of the Warding and Excorcism department.
Nyssa is herself not a thaumaturge or even an essence wielder like an exalt or a god. She is a brilliant savant though and is in charge of the other aspects of the school's education. She used to work in the east as an appraiser of antinquities before she moved out west. She has never exactly explained why she has.
Plot Hooks
Hegni has decided to risk Heaven's wrath and expand his enlightenment beyond that of a Lesser Elemental Dragon and become a Greater one. Only his students can talk him out of his mad scheme.
The Wyld Hunt has arrived. There will be an Anathema on campus. Can the agents of righteousness catch the demon or will its powers be too great for even them?
