Education in the Magical World:
Finklenook Institute of Higher Magical Learning and Research

How Children are Educated

In the magical world, there are no primary schools for young sorcerers and sorceresses. Those children born in the magical world are either home-schooled by their parents or sent to mundane human schools for their education. They learn about magic when they are very young because they grow up around it.

This isn’t the case for those children who live in the modern mundane world. Usually they have no idea they are sorcerers or that their magical signatures are being cloaked by the Protectors, volunteers that look out for the welfare of young sorcerers and protect them from the clerics of the Antimage, who take up residence in the human world, intent on capturing and destroying potential sorcerers before they come of age.


How Children from the Mundane World Learn to Use Their Powers

There are “summer camps” where these children are taken and taught the basics how to use their magic once they reach the age of thirteen, but if they want to increase their skills they have to pursue their studies in technical schools or colleges on their own.


How Magical Skills are Developed

Knowledge is the only way to become more powerful. They can’t create what they don’t know. For this reason, sorcerers are all considered to be highly intelligent and driven to learn.

As the Antimage likes to tell his followers:

”They are not content to live as we live, they have a hellish desire for knowledge and a devilish drive to conquer all things in Heaven and on earth.”

Often this “drive for knowledge” is how the Antimage and Clerics identify sorcerers in the mundane world. They usually have a very full and varied curriculum when enrolled in classes, and do well at them. Not every bright student is a sorcerer, but all are suspect. Sometimes mistakes are made by the clerics, and the bodies returned, broken and drained of blood. Of course it is attributed to ritual killings or some twisted serial killer.


What is the Finklenook Institute of Higher Magical Learning and Research?

The Finklenook Institute of Higher Magical Learning and Research is progressive learning institute for gifted adult sorcerers who wish to increase their magical abilities. They are referred to as Undergrads.

Finklenook Institute accepts those who have finished their basic curriculum in the real world, although sorcerers attend school for years, normally never stopping their personal education. Many of the elderly seen attending college are in actuality magical folks still pursuing knowledge. Of course, since they live five hundred years, there’s a lot of moving around. Sometimes they have to wait for the current human staff to die out, or pretend to be the offspring of themselves twenty years later. Whatever they have to do, they do.

Finklenook is run by Dean Aloysius White. The staff is varied and educators rotate throughout the classes, each bringing their own knowledge to the students. No staff member teaches just one class and they often leave the institute for extended periods of time to pursue other avenues before returning. A sound knowledge of all aspects of magic is considered more useful to a sorcerer than a targeted knowledge of one particular field.

Built on a lush, rolling landscape that stays green year around, from the outside, the institute appears to have no way in. No doors, no windows, no ventilation shafts, nothing.  Assuredly it does have doors, windows and other forms of access, but its forbidding almost prison-like structure is one way to discourage visitors and curiosity seekers from dropping by without an appointment. They will not get in unless someone who either attends the institute or is a staff member brings them in.  The institute is a lot like Vegas in this aspect.

What goes on in Finklenook, stays in Finklenook.

The institute utilizes modern technology as well as magical. There is electricity, computers, phones and other mundane articles. It has a medical ward and a dragon weyr as well. The animals are intelligent and communicate with their riders through images almost in the same manner as familiars, but they can speak to any human this way, whereas most familiars are able to speak only to their masters.

The average age of the student body of Finklenook is about 80 years if you take everyone into consideration. There are a few sorcerers over 400 years of age in attendance, and that hits the curve a bit. But the youngest are usually in their mid-twenties.

No children attend Finklenook.


Who Does Attend Finklenook?

The institute does not accept everyone and an undergrad has to already have an impressive amount of magical ability to be enrolled. Sorcerers have to apply to gain entrance and competition is fierce. Every undergrad has to contribute in some way to the institute itself as well as excel. Low grades or poor skills is a definite way to be bounced out.


What Courses are Taught at Finklenook?

Finklenook is a progressive institution.  Most undergrads focus on strengthening their abilities, learning othe forms of magic, and compiling their findings to be of use to others. Some university courses are offered at Finklenook, taught by sorcerers who have already completed their own studies in that field in the mundane world.

Magical degrees are offered as well, although they aren’t that important to most sorcerers who consider them more for show than anything else. Something to hang on the wall. A sorcerer can become a Spells Expert or Concoctions Expert, but someone without a degree can usually brew or use magic just as well if they’ve applied themselves to study.

But the main benefit of having a degree can help land a magical job without the sorcerer being extensively tested. It’s like a free pass. Those who don’t have degrees must prove their skills.
 

How are Undergrads and Staff Housed?

There are dormitories to house the undergrads, although many commute to the institute. The staff have assigned quarters..


Does Finklenook have a Main Objective or Purpose?

Finklenook’s main objective is magical research and development. Creation magic is a major theme and there are a number of “Creation rooms” in the lower levels where magically created objects and creatures are kept in a safe, controlled environment to coalesce. This is important for both increased knowledge and the continued survival of sorcerers.

Finklenook is the one place creatures can safely be developed. Currently, the Creation rooms are overseen by Educator Artimus Rogue.


Is there any Use for the Created Creatures?

Usually the creatures that are developed and useful are used in the war against the Antimage. The more sorcerers that have this skill, the greater the chances of everyone’s survival. Although there is no structured organization against the Antimage, Finklenook’s attendees offer the best hope for victory because they are so skilled.  You can read more about the rules of creation by clicking the link to "How Magic Works"