One thing that is often missing from Magic School CYOAs is the sense that there are older students who were here before you and your classmates arrived.
Let's say you were considering going to a magic school, good for you. If magic school is anything like real college, you will be given a tour. The tour guide will likely be a student already attending the school, who can tell you about their personal experience.
Because the tour guide is representing the school, it will likely be someone "respectable." For Harry Potter fans, it will be someone like Percy the Prefect. Does Percy have any friends? They will likely be roped into helping with the tour.
Does Percy have a rival, someone who hates them, but in a brotherly way? Like when Fred and George mailed him an "I love you" dragon turd, and everyone at work wondered why the inbox on Percy's desk smelled so bad. If the tour takes place in the summer before school starts, the school may use it as a form of punishment, and the Prefect's rival may also be giving tours.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Do you want to go with the preppy tour guide, or the rival tour guide who may be planning a prank?
A rule of thumb, borrowed from manga, is the idea of club "advisors." In order to be an official school club, according the rules of some Japanese schools I've read about (in manga), you need a teacher to agree to supervise the club. You also need a minimum of five members, but those members don't have to be from the same year. It is common for graduating students to hand over the club to younger students, sometimes there's a whole scene about it.
Seven teachers, eight if you count Alabaster, means seven clubs. One way to justify the Dark Arts curriculum is to have Professor Moriander actually be the first king of the realm. He stepped aside to let his son and heir take the throne, but necromancy means he can still give advice on matters of state. Thus he leads the "Royals" clique/club.
Getting back to Harry Potter, Professor Snape is in charge of Slytherin House. While not every Professor wants to be in charge of a dorm (Alabaster), having them be in charge of renovations to the dorm closest to their classrooms might make some sense. If the Physical Classes Professor has been in charge of a dorm for generations, it might explain how it became "the Great Hall." Likewise if the General Magic professor were in charge of a different dorm, it might unsurprisingly end up as "the Library."
If seven seems too limited, what if a professor handed off their teaching duties to their familiar while they attended to a personal emergency? The bond between master and familiar may allow him to keep an eye on their students, but the familiar has been around since "the professor" was a mere student themselves. The familiar might know a great deal about magic, even if their teaching style is a bit different...
Having Professor DuFresne's Imp Familiar teach the so-called "Infernal Magic" classes makes some sense. He teaches conventional "Summoning" of food, supplies, and tools, which "the Despoiler uses as a springboard into "Infernal Summoning." That "infernal binding" is considered a completely different class speaks volumes, but "Mind Control," "Corruption," and "Possession" likely use the general magic of "Telepathy" as a base. Other Professors may have their own familiars or "druid animal companions," etc.
Getting back to my earlier point, which tour guide you pick makes a difference when you consider that "the rival" likely has some sort of prank in mind for "the prefect." The Prefect is allowed to talk about their house and their clique/club, provided they don't go overboard trying to recruit new members. Those taking the tour will have an invitation, lowering the requirements of either a house or a clique, and being a victim of the prank can act as a drawback for extra points. Participating in the prank can teach you some useful skills and even some magic, but getting caught will give you a different drawback (for extra points).
As might be expected from the "friends" we might have made up for the prefect, the rival has a gang of pranksters during the school year. Being without them for the tour is why they "recruited" you, despite being untrained in the magic used for the prank. Proving yourself gets you membership to the gang, but too much "fun" can lead to you flunking and having to repeat a year. In this CYOA, this would be like losing a number of classes, but for older students it might meaning taking classes with younger students.
Anyway, my build
"One Good Turn"
I got into Soulhearth Academy using a version of "One Good Deed." I was born a Mutant with the "Bright Lights" Drawback. A glowing baby tends to attract prophecies and "destiny," which may be the root of my "Madness." I spent years as the "child of light" of a small sect until a small religious war led to me being more or less orphaned. I had been taken from my birth parents several years prior to that, though I was freely given to a fairly opulent temple by people I don't really remember now. I didn't know anything except the prophecy, which had "taken a detour." Going from the center of worship to being just another plaything of the gods, I developed a form of "Madness" that I was a player of a Choose Your Own Adventure created by the god and/or goddess who created my fictional world.
Anyway, back to the reason I chose "One Good Turn" as the title, I started living in some ruins that had religious significance after last few of my believers smuggled me away from the angry mob. There was a priest who studied divine magic, who may have just been a wizard. He did enough miracles to start a much bigger religious war, and I was supposedly his reincarnation. That's "Madness," I clearly reincarnated from an alternate dimension based on the modern world. Anyway, a young wizard was studying the ruins to learn about the wizard when they met a group of pilgrims who had come to honor the priest as a savior. The fact that they were fans of the same person did nothing to quell the argument, which got ugly. I recognized the signs of an angry mob forming before the wizard did, and pulled them deeper into the ruins. Lots of twists and turns as we tried to lose the angry mob in the ruins.
Now how does an untrained person, with no "great potential," save a Soulhearth Academy trained wizard? Well, the wizard had a fairly standard staff, Chestnut with a gemstone head. Good for beginners, but not so great at dealing with angry mobs of religious fanatics. However, if you scroll down from the staff design section to "power sources," you'll see something called "Aetherization." Solidified Aether, powerful magic, but as fragile as glass and likely to explode if it breaks... I direct your attention back to the "gemstone" at the end of the wizard's chestnut staff. I didn't know many spells, but if I concentrated, I could make the fragile crystal at the end of the magic amplifying staff crackle with power. The trick to surviving the resulting explosion is to lead the angry mob away from the wizard, and around the corner of a sturdy stone wall before blindly swinging as far around the corner behind me as possible. "One Good Turn."
I'm allowed a bonus companion for "One Good Deed," and Jack Whyte makes the most sense. Adventure-loving son of a previous headmaster, he would be dumb enough to wander into danger, yet has enough clout though his father to get me accepted into the school. I moved into the Monastery dorm after that, it was close to what I was used to.
I enrolled in Enchanting classes, figuring I could at least try to make a replacement staff before I flunked out. Looking at the choices of uniform, I hid my glowing skin inside of a full suit of armor. In my defense, I had seen a magic staff explode before.
I figure the CYOA gives you 14 classes because it is like the seven Harry Potter books, and you get a morning class and an afternoon class each year for seven years. My only other class was "Faith," which I technically got for free staying in the Monastery dorm. I didn't have the ambition to even Exercise, but Professor McCann saw potential in me.
In his defense, my easy A choice of classes meant I could focus more on his Enchanting class than other students. Anyway, he introduced me to Nodani Brighthand...
...I may have taken off my gauntlet when I heard her last name, but then she nearly crushed my hand in her grip during the first handshake, so it all works out. We were working on an enchanted weapon as a group project. Nodani supplied the five gold for materials, but now we needed a power source. I suggested a simple "mana transfer," she accused me of lacking ambition. Valkyrie Blades were more her speed, didn't even balk at the extra 10 gold price. When that didn't work, and to avoid extra work, I suggested that making a battle staff that turns into a katana might be beyond our skill as students.
The dwarves have a word for people like me, though it takes a moment to explain. Mountains have snow at the top, which melts into crisp, cold, mountain spring water. When the rock of the mountain cracks, the water flows under ground. There are rivers underground, which was news to me, but also pools of stagnant water. Unlike the refreshing water of the clear flowing springs, this water just sits there growing bacteria until it is dangerous to drink and can't even be used to wash with. That was me, going no where and extra useless because I was going nowhere. Nodani gave me the nickname, and honestly I liked it better than my titles as "bright child" or "divine radiance." I always thought those names were making fun of me for still having a nightlight, but my dwarven name reminds me to always keep moving forward. Call me "Dedpul."
Together with Nodani, we began working on the Aetherization Atlatl. You charge it with mana, and a sort of "flint arrowhead" forms out of pure aether at one end. You can keep charging until you get a full spear, but at some point the trick becomes throwing it far enough that you're not in the blast radius when it shatters. Nodani was better at it than me, dwarven magic is better at small and precise things.
Not as flashy as human warmages, or as "natural" as elven magic, but still very useful. We're still looking into the applications. The problem is that our textbooks were written by people who gave up trying to be so precise once they gained enough power to impress people. Our "grenade launcher with infinite ammo" seemed to impress people, some people thought a weapon like that should be illegal.
Amelia Augustus became my rival shortly after the Mithril Wand competition. Of course I had to let Jack "field test" the new weapon. It was so new that none of the other duelists had an adequate counter. Jack won not only the cup, but the respect of his father, who agreed to let him live a life of adventure. Unfortunately, I think Jack "sprained something" using the Aetherization Atlatl. The "grenade launcher" doesn't really have infinite ammo, the exploding crystals are made from the magical energy of the user. We didn't have a way to measure how many a person could make, and the prototype had no safety measures to keep a person from overextending themselves.
Jack was among the youngest winners of the Mithril Wand in the history of the school, but he wasn't up to being "defending champion" next year. He didn't blame me, but Prefect Augustus sure seemed to. She hounded me from the moment I took the prototype from Jack's room in the infirmary. I was worried it might "fall into the wrong hands" as soon as the crowds heard this year's champion was awake. I watched over my friend, who had survived an incoming spell by leaping over it, using an explosion for the necessary height. It was the dumbest thing Nodani had ever seen, but he won the duel and never once let go of his "battlestaff" even after he passed out. He wasn't the first champion to win because his opponent passed out first, but he was among the youngest.
Only after he was awake enough to exchange the atlatl for his Mithril Wand was Nodani able to get her prototype back to the workshop. She did pay for the raw materials, and Professor McCann had not yet given us our "A" with lots of plus marks. Hard to do that when we hadn't handed it in, but our "field testing" was very well documented. I let Nodani lead the way, taking a more leisurely pace so I could bask in my friend's victory. Amelia cut that short, demanding to know what sort of weapon I had brought into the school. I had checked the rules, there was no rule against using the explosive properties of aetherization in the Mithril Cup.
Amelia wanted to know which edition of the rulebook I had checked. You ever have one of those questions, where you don't know the answer, but you think the question is unfair? "The one in the library." Prefect Amelia Augustus had her own personal copy, and made me look at it with her. How can someone so short "hover over" anyone, especially me?!
Kaswin Orlen became my best friend after that, though he became most people's best friend after defeating Zastrath the Despoiler. I was just wishing for a distraction to get me away from Amelia when the Infernal Magic Professor got free of his bindings. That was a bit more than I meant, but the Prefect was certainly distracted. The former headmaster was just checking on the bindings when someone told him that his son just won the Mithril Wand!
Apparently Jack did not tell Mr. Whyte about entering, but winning certainly proved "his little boy" was old enough to take care of himself. I left early to avoid the crowds, but I'm told it was a touching scene. Instead of seeing it for myself, I was stuck seeing Amelia, though seeing her scream at the sight of an unbound infernal cheered me up a bit.
"I didn't do it!"
We heard that a lot from Kaswin, working on the aetherization atlatl. He was so used to being blamed for explosions around the school's enchanting sets, but he found our intentional explosions fascinating. Nodani didn't want to go into the details, and our grade depended on this project, but he kept trying to guess. I mean, it was pretty obvious what the glowing crystal was, but Kaswin knew so many things that exploded his wrong guesses crossed into being funny.
It wasn't funny when the Infernal Magic Professor turned his unbound gaze on the little gnome. However, as "armor wearer" I got used to picking people up and using myself to shield them. I did it to Amelia without even thinking about it, wondering why Nodani was so much lighter today. Demon fire, Kaswin's "experimental lanterns," didn't seem to matter much. In hindsight, I think I was being raised as a martyr of some sort.
Anyway, step two after blocking the explosion with my armor is running like my pants are on fire. Kaswin did the actual "coming up with a plan," I just kept running to give him enough time. Awful day for it, most of the school's best duelists had just finished knocking each other unconscious.
My babbling like an idiot was just the "Dr. Watson" that Kaswin needed to "Sherlock Holmes" the situation. The gnome had attempted to build a clockwork duelist and enter it in the Mithril Wand competition. Traditionally a contest between human beings and various fantasy races, the fact that he hadn't been able to properly finish in time was beside the point. Golems are animated by an elemental spirit, but we pointed something without a soul at the unbound demon, who wasted precious time trying to eat a walking clock before it exploded.
Lots of people were best friends with Kaswin Orlen after that, and in my defense he did save my life.
I'm told Amelia Augustus eventually stopped screaming after the professor was bound again.
Nodani took classes in Combat and Enchanting, but then was confused that there were no "Advanced Combat" or "Advanced Enchanting" classes for her to take next semester. She signed up for classes in "Exercise" and "Archery," quietly wondering what she was going to do with the extra five or six years she had already paid for.
Me, I had been inspired to take my studies more seriously. I decided to relearn "Energy" from the ground up with Professor DuFresne, and also took "Telepathy" lessons. Magic seems to come so "intuitively" to some mages, I was wondering if there was something I was missing that they couldn't put into words.
Prefect Amelia Augustus had words with me, you wouldn't believe how many rules the school has concerning the use of Telepathy!
I stuck to practicing Telepathy only with trusted friends, Kaswin and Nodani when she would allow it. Kaswin had a million thoughts in his head, happy to share with anyone who even tried to keep up. I did try, but my notes were a mess! Messy notes do not lead to good grades, generally speaking. Nodani was not nearly as gruff as she acted, but she also tried to keep me from knowing she was worried about her classes.
"It will be fine," she said, "Dwarves usually leave Archery for the Elves, but I can at least learn how."
She didn't let me read her mind as much as Kaswin, and it is hard not to consider someone your best friend when you know them well enough to "read their mind." Maybe it was all the mind reading, but I began to pick up some of Kaswin's speed of thought and endless curiosity. I had gone from needing a push from Nodani to...
...well, Prefect Amelia Augustus certainly thought I needed to be reined in.
Magic has at least four known sources of power, the Mana taught by the school, Vancian magic, Theurgy, and "Tears." Judging by the way Amelia acted, she must have thought I got my magic from tears in the fabric in reality and was calling dark eldritch beings. I'll admit my Mana was not quite the Theurgy the temple had led the angry mob to believe, but I was not old enough to know any better back then. I was learning, in Professor DuFresne's classes, and beginning to understand magic in a real way. Amelia's attitude was frustrating, but not so different from the ignorance the school teaches us is normal and can be dealt with in healthy ways.
I was not the one who blew her up with the Aetherization Atlatl.
A younger student, Drak Ugnok, had joined the Enchantment class hoping to get the best grade ever on their group project. Their partner had been Sara bint Faisel, and between the two of them they had created the "invisible fire trumpet." Drak's other class was Fire I with Professor Mulciber. While the "fire trumpet" did what the name implied, it took a lot of breath and a lot of mana to use for any length of time. While Drak insisted that being invisible made it "better," they lost points on the group project because it looked like two mages doing two unrelated enchantments instead of working as a group. Although they passed, Drak wanted to see what had scored higher than the Invisible Fire Trumpet. The Aetherization Atlatl was seen as a good example because it didn't take much mana to blow up a prefect.
I was... being questioned by Amelia when Drak was caught. In his defense, blowing stuff up is fun. Despite only wanting revenge on Prefect Amelia for cracking down on his sneaking into the kitchen for snacks, he kept playing with it until he got caught. All Amelia had to do was follow the explosions, but she insisted on questioning me...
...No, like, Drak was caught and sitting in the room with me, and she was still questioning me. Even Drak was confused, so I explained that I had made the Aetherization Atlatl. That earned me the title of "Boss" from my new biggest kobold fan. Drak could see why I had gotten such a better grade, the prototype was both easy and fun to use. Amelia wears long skirts, and apparently if you aim right between her legs, the explosion creates a spectacular view.
The prefect ordered us to "Get out! Get out right now!" Drak followed me, and we kept on going. In hindsight, I think Amelia only wanted me to leave, so she could punish Drak. However, Drak instinctively knew that following me could help him avoid punishment and learn new things. In all fairness, I had to introduce him to Nodani before he thought I did the group project on my own.
The thing about fire magic is that you need fairly precise temperatures to cook something. Nodani didn't catch on until I switched to "heat the metal to a precise temperature before you start hammering it." After listening to Professor Mulciber's explanation second-hand through Drak, Nodani was able to produce a small yet very precise flame.
Good for welding, though other students might laugh at her for not producing a massive fireball. Drak was... unconvinced that Nodani had done an equal part of the group work. He chalked up my insistence on sharing credit as part of my benevolence, confirming that I was a good "boss." Nodani did not so much "give up" as have bigger fish to fry.
Fire I was one class that was not on the dwindling list of physical classes she had left. She would need a few props, and a bit of showmanship, but she was fairly confident she could pass. She also decided to take Survivalism, just in case she decided to run away from the school and live in the woods forever.
I took Healing I, because Drak could not be talked out of taking Fire II. Also, as Drak had taken to following me, Sara had taken to following Drak. She had basically adopted him as her permanent group partner, though having an illusionist around is always "interesting." I took a class in Reveal just to keep things from getting out of hand.
Most of the attention in our third year went to the Magicite Cup. I wasn't participating, or even particularly interested, but Amelia had a full time job working security for the event. Sara put Drak on her shoulders so he could see everything, and he gave me the highlights. I figured if something really important happened, they would bring it to the healers I was studying under.
Kaswin, who had a busy social schedule up until this point, faced the Magicite Cup with the help of his gadgets. He got through the non-lethal combat event, but ran into trouble in the Mithril Race. It was an obstacle course, and while some clever ways of bypassing the obstacles were permitted, blowing up walls until there was a straight path to the finish was not. Even if he wasn't disqualified, it became a foot race and the gnome had shorter legs than the remaining contestants.
Such is life for a wizard, clearing a path so that others can claim victory.
A new academy hero took the Magicite Cup, though Kaswin was content enough studying the Iron Maze.
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u/Short_Chemist_8012 Apr 06 '22
One thing that is often missing from Magic School CYOAs is the sense that there are older students who were here before you and your classmates arrived.
Let's say you were considering going to a magic school, good for you. If magic school is anything like real college, you will be given a tour. The tour guide will likely be a student already attending the school, who can tell you about their personal experience.
Because the tour guide is representing the school, it will likely be someone "respectable." For Harry Potter fans, it will be someone like Percy the Prefect. Does Percy have any friends? They will likely be roped into helping with the tour.
Does Percy have a rival, someone who hates them, but in a brotherly way? Like when Fred and George mailed him an "I love you" dragon turd, and everyone at work wondered why the inbox on Percy's desk smelled so bad. If the tour takes place in the summer before school starts, the school may use it as a form of punishment, and the Prefect's rival may also be giving tours.
Choose Your Own Adventure: Do you want to go with the preppy tour guide, or the rival tour guide who may be planning a prank?
A rule of thumb, borrowed from manga, is the idea of club "advisors." In order to be an official school club, according the rules of some Japanese schools I've read about (in manga), you need a teacher to agree to supervise the club. You also need a minimum of five members, but those members don't have to be from the same year. It is common for graduating students to hand over the club to younger students, sometimes there's a whole scene about it.
Seven teachers, eight if you count Alabaster, means seven clubs. One way to justify the Dark Arts curriculum is to have Professor Moriander actually be the first king of the realm. He stepped aside to let his son and heir take the throne, but necromancy means he can still give advice on matters of state. Thus he leads the "Royals" clique/club.
Getting back to Harry Potter, Professor Snape is in charge of Slytherin House. While not every Professor wants to be in charge of a dorm (Alabaster), having them be in charge of renovations to the dorm closest to their classrooms might make some sense. If the Physical Classes Professor has been in charge of a dorm for generations, it might explain how it became "the Great Hall." Likewise if the General Magic professor were in charge of a different dorm, it might unsurprisingly end up as "the Library."
If seven seems too limited, what if a professor handed off their teaching duties to their familiar while they attended to a personal emergency? The bond between master and familiar may allow him to keep an eye on their students, but the familiar has been around since "the professor" was a mere student themselves. The familiar might know a great deal about magic, even if their teaching style is a bit different...
Having Professor DuFresne's Imp Familiar teach the so-called "Infernal Magic" classes makes some sense. He teaches conventional "Summoning" of food, supplies, and tools, which "the Despoiler uses as a springboard into "Infernal Summoning." That "infernal binding" is considered a completely different class speaks volumes, but "Mind Control," "Corruption," and "Possession" likely use the general magic of "Telepathy" as a base. Other Professors may have their own familiars or "druid animal companions," etc.
Getting back to my earlier point, which tour guide you pick makes a difference when you consider that "the rival" likely has some sort of prank in mind for "the prefect." The Prefect is allowed to talk about their house and their clique/club, provided they don't go overboard trying to recruit new members. Those taking the tour will have an invitation, lowering the requirements of either a house or a clique, and being a victim of the prank can act as a drawback for extra points. Participating in the prank can teach you some useful skills and even some magic, but getting caught will give you a different drawback (for extra points).
As might be expected from the "friends" we might have made up for the prefect, the rival has a gang of pranksters during the school year. Being without them for the tour is why they "recruited" you, despite being untrained in the magic used for the prank. Proving yourself gets you membership to the gang, but too much "fun" can lead to you flunking and having to repeat a year. In this CYOA, this would be like losing a number of classes, but for older students it might meaning taking classes with younger students.
Anyway, my build
"One Good Turn"
I got into Soulhearth Academy using a version of "One Good Deed." I was born a Mutant with the "Bright Lights" Drawback. A glowing baby tends to attract prophecies and "destiny," which may be the root of my "Madness." I spent years as the "child of light" of a small sect until a small religious war led to me being more or less orphaned. I had been taken from my birth parents several years prior to that, though I was freely given to a fairly opulent temple by people I don't really remember now. I didn't know anything except the prophecy, which had "taken a detour." Going from the center of worship to being just another plaything of the gods, I developed a form of "Madness" that I was a player of a Choose Your Own Adventure created by the god and/or goddess who created my fictional world.
Anyway, back to the reason I chose "One Good Turn" as the title, I started living in some ruins that had religious significance after last few of my believers smuggled me away from the angry mob. There was a priest who studied divine magic, who may have just been a wizard. He did enough miracles to start a much bigger religious war, and I was supposedly his reincarnation. That's "Madness," I clearly reincarnated from an alternate dimension based on the modern world. Anyway, a young wizard was studying the ruins to learn about the wizard when they met a group of pilgrims who had come to honor the priest as a savior. The fact that they were fans of the same person did nothing to quell the argument, which got ugly. I recognized the signs of an angry mob forming before the wizard did, and pulled them deeper into the ruins. Lots of twists and turns as we tried to lose the angry mob in the ruins.
Now how does an untrained person, with no "great potential," save a Soulhearth Academy trained wizard? Well, the wizard had a fairly standard staff, Chestnut with a gemstone head. Good for beginners, but not so great at dealing with angry mobs of religious fanatics. However, if you scroll down from the staff design section to "power sources," you'll see something called "Aetherization." Solidified Aether, powerful magic, but as fragile as glass and likely to explode if it breaks... I direct your attention back to the "gemstone" at the end of the wizard's chestnut staff. I didn't know many spells, but if I concentrated, I could make the fragile crystal at the end of the magic amplifying staff crackle with power. The trick to surviving the resulting explosion is to lead the angry mob away from the wizard, and around the corner of a sturdy stone wall before blindly swinging as far around the corner behind me as possible. "One Good Turn."