The Grand Academy of Rasia

The Grand Academy of Rasia [RAH-see-uh], more commonly known as the Rasian Academy, was once the greatest centre of learning in the Civilised World. It taught a wide variety of disciplines but specialised in thaumaturgical theory and practice.

It was located in a valley above the city of Rasia and existed as a centre of learning from approximately 1080 BME, until the sacking of the city in 236 ME, during the Long War.

Rasia was most famous for two things. Firstly it was a unique centre for learning and practice of the thaumaturgical arts, commonly known as magicplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMagic

In common terms, magic is the art of producing a desired outcome through occult means. Various arts are described as magical, from common street illusionists, village herbalists, and rituals for the intercession of deities. However, true magic is the art and science of elemental mastery, harnessing elemental creatures and instructing them to perform simple or complex tasks.. Second was its Library, the greatest archive and repository of ancient texts and knowledge in the world, encompassing the whole of human history back to the Age of the Godmen.

Today the Academy is a small and ruined institution of barely a few hundred inhabitants, passing on their ancient arts in the isolation of a desolate city, half buried in earth and encroaching forest.

The Academy is built in a shallow valley in the uplands south of Rasia, colloquially known as The Coom. It is a glacial valley with a relatively flat floor and steep sides, with a stream running through it called the Coomwash. Historically the flat valley floor was marshy, but the Coomwash was dammed for drinking water supplying the Academy, the outwash flowing through a series of channels.

The oldest parts of the Academy were laid out on an east-west axis following the plan of ancient Giftdark temples, with the wide open courtyard of Barbican House at the west end, passing through successively smaller and darker halls and courtyards.

City residents and students generally referred to the Academy as The Coom to distinguish it from the city.

• c. 10,000 BME - Ancient Period - Earliest evidence of human settlement at Rasia
• c. 2300 BMEplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigBME (Before Modern Epoch)
  
  Used to date years Before the Modern Epoch. - Foundation of the Grammarian School
• <2000 BME - Classical Period
• c. 1900 BME Foundation of the Metamagician School
• c. 1700 BME Foundation of the Holistician School
• c. 1180 BME - Magicplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMagic
  
  In common terms, magic is the art of producing a desired outcome through occult means. Various arts are described as magical, from common street illusionists, village herbalists, and rituals for the intercession of deities. However, true magic is the art and science of elemental mastery, harnessing elemental creatures and instructing them to perform simple or complex tasks. banned in Rasia City, Academy relocates to the Valley
• <1100 BME - High Period
• 672 BME - Ferokian becomes Grandmaster
• 62 BME - Belikast becomes Grandmaster
• 50 BME - Expurgation of Belikast
• <50 BME - Magisteriate Period
• 219 MEplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigModern Epoch (ME)
  
  The Modern Calendar is a dating system acknowledged throughout the Civilised World. It numbers years from the Modern Epoch, abbreviated ME and BME (Before Modern Epoch). It is also called the Modern Era.
  
  Calendar
  
  This is in a series of articles about calendars and dating systems.OrorrHartheraHMOrorrHartheraOrorrOrorrHMHartheraHMHartheraOrorr - Long War begins
• 236 ME - Fall of Rasia - Rasia sacked by Anretian army, academy essentially destroyed
• >236 ME - Late Period

Rasia is one of the most ancient cities in the world. According to legend it was founded by the Godmen as a stronghold during the time of ice, and a storehouse for their most ancient knowledge. Throughout history it was renowned as one of the greatest centres of learning in the Civilised Worldplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigCivilised World

The Civilised World refers to the known regions of human civilisation, notably the continent of Anásthias, the Natorn Archipelago and surrounding islands.

Gastrinimer's 3rd century BME Map of the World, showing Anásthias and the Natorn Isles. Note: old maps place north to the right.AnásthiasAnásthiasAnásthiasAnásthias, holding libraries of unique works copied from the most ancient times.

The city grew and deveped to service the agglomeration of schools, colleges and workshops dedicated to various arts and disciplines, both practical and esoteric. The various college buildings, along with all the staff and services that supported it, turned Rasia into a wealthy city.

The Classical period of Rasia was dominated by masters who each had groups of followers, students and disciples. Masters were aligned with the different schools, although there were rivalries. The masters held symposia and open lectures in the city, and often publicly debated with each other.

In the late classical period the rivalries between the various schools often erupted into open conflict, with students waging magical war against each other. Whilst dueling was kept amongst themselves and followed strict rules, it was tolerated. After a particularly bitter war of assassination in which fires erupted throughout the city, the city elders decreed that all use of magic was banned within the city walls.

As a result, the Academy was forced to relocate to a valley above the city, where it languished for half a century.

Rasia city still relied on magic for its economy, so investors from cities throughout the north investigated in building halls, inns and college buildings, which grew over time into a small city in its own right.

By the time of Belikast, the Academy was dominated by three great Schools of Thought; academic approaches which each claimed to offer a complete explanation of the universe. In theory the three major Schools were philosophies independent of an institution or college, but in time they came to dominate whole fields of expertise, carving up academic fiefs between themselves and excluding all others.

The schools were the the Grammarians, the Holisticians, and the Metamagicians. The academy consisted of many colleges of inter-related disciplines, but the three schools came to dominate, in broad terms, the fields of behaviour, bio-ecology and physics, respectively.

Other Schools of thought existed on the very fringes of Academic life, including the Signtists, Gnosticians, Numeromancers and numerous folk tradtions. These were seen as either ridiculous, anachronistic or mere quackery, though academicians occasionally called upon their skills or archives.

Lesser Schools

• Oughtistsplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigOughtism
  
  Oughtism is a moral and philosophical system, claiming an ancient inheritance from the moral codes of the Godmen. It continues to be influential throughout the Anrel Isles, and it's guiding principles have been the foundation of legal and religious codes throughout the
• Signtistsplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigSigntism
  
  Signtism is an ancient philosophy and subculture in the Anrel Isles, one of the many Schools of Thought who found a home in the Rasian Academy. The Grand Master Belikast was born into the Signtist community of Larford, and his association with the culture and the city led to its utter destruction during the
• Gnosticiansplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigGnosticians
  
  The Gnosticians were a minor school within the Rasian Academy who studied gods, the god-magic of theurgy, rituals and theologies.
  
  Rasian Academy
  
  This is in a series of articles about the Rasian Academy
  
  See also:
  
  * Magic * Schools of Thought
  
  The Gnosticians were originally founded to study the origins of god-elementals, or 'magicmagic
• Mekanistsplugin-autotooltip__small plugin-autotooltip_bigMekanism
  
  Mekanism was a School of Thought at the Rasian Academy. It viewed the universe as a single integrated machine, made up of intricate interlocking parts, from the smallest particles of matter to the great wheels of the heavens.
  
  Rasian Academy
  
  This is in a series of articles about the

The Magisteriate Period followed the downfall of Belikast. It saw the decline of the authority of the Great Schools, and the dominance of the Magisters, who used their moral authority to subsume all of what was seen to be the Academy's degenerated ruling institutions into themselves. The Magisters officially eradicated Belikast's system of covert Watchers, instead sending official representatives to various courts around the land. Using spells of lie-sense, the magisters played an increasing role in the judicial system.

Although the Magisteriate worked well for a time and saw a great integration of cities and political institutions, over time the Magisteriate was perceived to be increasingly oppressive and corrupt. It was implicated in the assassination of several Anretian nobles, the spark which began the Long War.

After the 'Fall' of Rasia, when the city was sacked during the Great War, the Academy was closed and the colleges disbanded. Only the Magisters remained, in bitter isolation. The arts of the Metamagicians were maintained only in their grossest forms, by the body that became the Rinesti, the administrative order of the Hexact. The Holisticians were utterly discredited, though their archives and experience went to establish the Senasi, dedicated to the promotion of human health without the deeper philosophical purpose.

Signtists almost entirely disappeared, their works distributed amongst smiths, engineers and interested amateurs. Belikast was sympathetic to the Signtists, and many latterly joined the Church of the Nameless, led by his disciples. The Signtist school owned land on the river Lar, east of Rasia. Centuries later it was settled by the Church, in secret, and became their stronghold.

The arts of the Grammarians were taken over by the Magisters, and the search for the “deep languages” was forever abandoned.

The Oughtists became increasingly irrelevant after the downfall of Rasia, and under the new regime of the Hexact, they were eclipsed by the new secular orders which in some ways inherited Oughtist authority.

The Academy had a labyrinthine organisational structure due to the way it evolved over time, with an overlapping system of Schools, Colleges, Courts and their associated Inns and Halls. Confusion was compounded by buildings and institutions keeping their name despite retaining their function, so that some inns and halls were official buildings which had once been residential, and some courts were residential despite once being academic.

Throughout the classical period academics refused any reforms to its complexity, which was seen as both quaint as well as a challenge to the intellect and fortitude of students: if they could cope with obfuscating academic mire, they were considered worthy to become members.

Throughout the Classical period, the three Great Schools divided control of the various institutions amongst themselves.

• The Bounds - the physical enclosure of the academy campus, bound by gates and walls at its eastern end, and hills and dykes elsewhere. Visitors were not permitted within the bounds without permission, and students were not permitted beyond the bounds. Practicing magic outside the bounds was particularly forbidden without licence. The rules were routinely violated by masters and students alike.
• Halls - residential buildings generally associated with particular colleges, accepting any student who applied and paid. Halls had communal dining and limited communal facilities. Through history there were a handful of independent halls, but these were mostly subsumed by colleges or failed.
• Inns - originally privately owned dining drinking establishments, with more sumptuous rooms for visiting guests. Inns also rented rooms to wealthier students which were far more luxurious than halls. When ownership of private property within the Bounds was abolished, most inns came into the ownership of colleges, except for those owners nominated as honorary academics.
• Courts - the equivalent of halls but for magisters and academic staff. Courts had apartments for more senior academics, and were often built on a courtyard with a private garden, a restful break from the clamour of students outside. Some academics lived in courts with their spouses, though most had rules against children living in court. Academics keen on having a family were expected to have the means and sense to take a house in the Coomb.
• Masters - heads of each Great School. Masters were all required to be magisters.
• College of Masters - the ruling body of the academy, consisting of the masters of the Great Schools, and the Provosts of each college.
• Grand Master -
• Provosts - heads of each college. Provosts were administrators and researchers, so not required to be magisters.
• Colleges - buildings which teach a specific discipline, some aligned to a particular School, others teaching and researching more common skills
• Bailiffs - the academy's police and security force
• Serjeant-at-Arms - chief of the baliffs
• College of Magisters - trains and judges students to gain a source
• Court of Programmarians - provides schemas and cantrips
• Proctors - the proctors were in charge of general discipline amongst both academicians and students. Physical order was maintained by the Bailiffs, their enforcers. The Proctors themselves were responsible for magical descipline.
• Court of Masters - the nominal residence of the masters of the Great Schools, all of whom had grand apartments in the building. In practice the Court of Masters was the official residence and offices of the Grand Master, with most masters living in colleges aligned to their School.