admiralty academy of arcanima

Admiralty Academy of Arcanima
& Natural Philosophy

"Many hands, one circle; many minds, one horizon."

Synopsis

Located in one of Limsa Lominsa's more regal, imposing seastack-towers, the La Noscean Admiralty Academy of Arcanima & Natural Philosophy, commonly shortened to the Admiralty Academy of Arcanima or simply AAA (pronounced 'Triple A') by its students, is a Lominsan institution of higher learning with close ties to the Admiralty's Navy, Mealvaan's Gate, and the Nymian Restoration Society. The wealthiest and most talented of Vylbrand's budding arcanists attend Triple A as a far more rigorous, prestigious, and thorough understanding of arcanima.In addition to its scholastic role, the academy is an apparatus of soft political power with an administration that has been described as ‘open-minded’ or even 'favourable' to a more nationalistic, meritocratic, and magocratic La Noscea. Students are often exposed to these political ideologies either through lecture discourse, or through the authority of the student representative council, for whom the administration has taken a 'policing their own' policy by granting them an unusual amount of authority in managing, organising, and disciplining their peers while on campus, which regularly escalates into undocumented bullying and hazing behaviour that is tacitly approved of by the administration through their hands-off response and minimisation of its magnitude.

Curriculum

A sneak-peek at their lore-fluff curriculum. These are expanded further on the discord. Students complete core education before being applied to a track system based on skill and aptitude in these colleges.

College of Theoretical Metaphysics - Raw theory of aether, spellcraft, and experimental arcanima
College of Tactical Arcanima & Battlefield Applications - Combat magic, battlefield command, group harmonics.
College of Civic Practics & Administrative Aetherengineering - Reagent sourcing & supply-line management, aetherically-receptive design, aetherengineering, permanent arcane structures & rituals, familiars, runework, logistics.
College of Nymian Studies & Political Theory - History, law, rhetoric, propaganda, Nymian history & contributions, civic philosophy, morale adjustment, and social moderation.
College of Psychomathematics at Scale - Prestige majors involving wide-reaching self-system aetherinterfacing. A student must be invited.
College of Physical Excellence - Doesn't oversee any majors, only athletic extracurriculars.

The Office of the
Student-Marshal

The student-marshal is the representative and de facto leader of the student body. As a way to encourage collective cooperation and hierarchy among peers, and to alleviate strain to the faculty and the administration, the marshal is given an unusual amount of authority over the student body to ensure many of their needs are met, their voice is heard, and their infractions disciplined.Elected from their peers, a marshal's term lasts for the duration of their enrollment at the school, barring expulsion or a three-fifths student body appeal, with elections being held in the departing marshal's final quarter.To be considered as a marshal nominee, a student is held to exceptional standards and must meet a number of criteria before having their application confirmed by one of the deans: be within the top ten academic percentile; belong to an arcanima-related major; be in “good standing” (no outstanding fees or fines; no disciplinary action for current or prior semester); be a member of an honours or athletic program; and provide a petition of supporting signatures from at least ten students (also in good standing).

Duties of Office

appointing dormitory deputies and organising their quarterly (or as needed) inspections; occasionally overseeing the proceedings in person for deemed-sensitive inspections
working with faculty and administration to organise large-scale academy events, such as tournaments, festivals, and formals
filtering and submitting “deemed-reasonable” administration requests from student to faculty including supplies, dormitory alteration, faculty complaint reviews, and so forth
regularly travelling to and partaking in events (sometimes multiple times in a month) hosted at the academy's satellite campuses in Ul’dah and Ishgard, or for any reason deemed appropriate by the deans
approving and denying “non-trivial” spellcraft on campus outside of regular courses and formal academy functions, fetes, and competitions, in addition to: providing comprehensive guidelines for the spellwork itself and the ritual space it will be performed in; reviewing, provisioning, and tailoring licenses for prolonged spellwork usage
disciplining students within the guidelines laid out in the student-marshal primer

Student Representative Council

The student-marshal has more obligations and responsibilities than any person (let alone a full-time student with honours) could hope to manage, and is thus authorised to appoint up to six councillors with partial authority for delegating their workload. Although the administration requires an appointed councillor to be within the top ten arcanima percentile & in good standing, any failing of theirs or their task is seen as a failing of their marshal who claims full responsibility of them when they're appointed to the role.Together, they make up the Student Representative Council that acts as the liaison between the student body and administration to champion their peers’ needs and provide organisational and disciplinary measures to lessen the burden to faculty. [ note: assume that all six seats are reserved in-universe; if a pc assumes one of the unmarked ones later, we can either say a.) the previous councilor was removed or b.) retroactively say they'd been here all along... ]

"...the school, the city, our shining Vylbrandian shores... everything runs more smoothly when every person knows their place... and if you aren't ambitious, if you don't choose to be exceptional, then you've chosen to be at the mercy of those who have."

▍ MEHRI IMASHA, STUDENT-MARSHAL

Administrative magic specialist, tennis athlete, and marshal of the student representative council. Mehri is a hardworking collectivist, firm-handed authoritarian, proponent of rather ruthless hazing, and the highest authority among her peers beneath the administration itself. She's also been accused of abusing her authority...

▍ ILVATI KIERNA, NYMPOL STUDIES
Mehri's bestie and right-hand on the student council. Captain of the school soccer team and heiress to an entrenched line of La Noscean admirals. Spoiled, arrogant, and far more 'physical' and openly-demeaning than her peers. When she's not being chummy.

▍ DEVINA HUXLEY, THEORETICAL METAPHYSICS
A daughter of the esteemed Huxley family cannot and will not carry herself like a fool, and Devina is no exception. Equal parts calculating and guileful, she dislikes wasting her time on individuals who are beneath her. Schedule an appointment; she has more important things to do.

▍ URUHA DU LORRAINE, TACTICAL ARCANIMA
Of distinguished Coerthan blood. Beneath cool elegance & grace, Uruha hides someone equal parts thoughtful & poetic, a lover's lover... if not often driven to obsession, or with just as much capacity to be ruthless and even cruel when required.

▍ [ EMPTY SEAT, STUDENT REP ]
[ This seat is currently unoccupied by a player character! ]

Low-Stakes & Grounded Atmosphere

As fantasy RP communities often lean towards either a heroic / epic or grimdark / gritty atmosphere with more extreme and inflated behaviours and actions, it’s important to set some atmospheric guidelines for a more low-stakes, relatable, and lived-in environment like what could honestly be described as a magical girl / non-transphobic hogwarts school life anime mixed with dark academia:

your character is a student at the moment (probably between 18-24), possibly even an exceptional one, but they are not a great wizard yet and they don't want to get expelled, which would involve them being removed from the project; many of these rules are to prevent that
do not pull weapons on people for any reason besides your life being at risk
do not cause huge scenes and massive destruction of property
you can still be a piece of shit, though (it's actually encouraged), just don't be really thoughtlessly breakfast club-cringe about it
consider the spell you're using: ex. there is no 'gentle' fire, do not attack a student with it, it tends to permanently scar and also spread and destroy stuff
your social circle matters - the school is clannish and cliquish and ruthlessly competitive; it chews up mouthy 'lone wolves,' so better have friends (pc or npc)
these rules are further expanded on in the discord under the 'Character Guidelines' guidebook section

Preliminary Rules

be 18 years of age or older
no transphobes, misogynists, fascists, capitalists/libertarians, anti-Palestinians, all that ooc yucky stuff you get the idea
not considered a 'beginner-friendly' group; solid grasp of role-play etiquette expected
lightless is mandatory, sorry; not only is the uniform a mod, this is intended to be a casual side-project for several members and i don't want folks thinking they need to level / boost a whole new character for it
modbeasts: heavily discouraged, hard to really define a hard line for this rule, but when modding try to prefer vanilla textures (mash-ups and the like) and follow a 'less is more' approach with regards to c+ and heavily-modded sculpts
tomestones-as-cellphones will be a thing in the setting, as will some modern-adjacent concepts and clothing (be cute & chic my darling lambs), but try to otherwise keep modern-to-sci-fi tech to a minimum (and no sol9, way too larger-than-life for this). this is in the spirit of fun, artistic anachronism, and just not taking ourselves too seriously
this is a sneak-peek of the most immediately-important ones; there will be more on the discord server

Join the Discord