Why I Made A Wizard School Game
The basis of Academia Arcana
Academia Arcana is crowdfunding in a few months. It’s essential a “teenagers in wizard school” game that uses a customized version of the DCC RPG rules. So why would a guy go and create a whole “wizard school” game when they don’t even like Harry Potter? Well, the reason is I did it because I don’t like Harry Potter. I’m practically the same age as the actors, meaning as a dorky young child, that I was the prime demographic that those movies were going for. But I never had buy-in to the HP stories because I simply didn’t believe that 10-year-old would be capable of defeating an actual trained wizard.
From the very first HP movie, I couldn’t suspend my disbelief. Plus, I really dislike the “prophesied chosen one” trope so that was another knock against it. But as someone who grew up while HP was inseparable from pop culture, I learned a lot via osmosis. Eventually, I dated (and eventually married) a girl who was a huge HP fan until JK Rowling went off the deep end. But it wasn’t until my mid-20s that I watched all the movies and learned about the rest of the strange flaws that series contains. So here’s my general thoughts that really led to the creation of Academia Arcana.
Institutions don’t just continue for hundreds of years through sheer benevolence.
A wizard school, like almost all long-term institutions, inherently needs to be self-serving or it will eventually crumble. There’s an element of this in HP, but its portrayed in such a half-hearted way. And there’s a bevy of questions just about the practicality of an institution such as a magical school. Stories don’t need to answer every possible question. I’m certainly a fan of the “fruitful void” concept. But it shouldn’t have story elements that feel like their in conflict with themselves.
For example, why do professors teach?
There’s obviously going to be variety in the answer from teacher to teacher. Here’s a few options that make sense to me:
They are paid a stipend and need to save up so that they may rebuild their wizards tower or acquire rare materials for other magical nonsense.
The school offers protection. The teacher would be hunted down, should they leave.
Access to the school libraries and other resources so that they may further their own research.
They simply enjoy teaching and wish to nurture young minds.
They find the school to be a place where they can acquire comfort, respect, influence, and perhaps even power.
When do students progress into more advanced classes?
The idea of “you got a C in elemental magic but it’s been a year so now you’re in advanced elemental magic” doesn’t sit right. With the inherent dangers of magic, it seems to me that students would not be allowed to progress in subjects that they do not master. They would be pointed towards other schools of magic where they may be more naturally talented, or simply not allowed to attend any further. After all, life experience outside school is often a far better teacher that scholastic pursuits.
When do students graduate?
They do so when the school has no curriculum left to offer then it would instead encourage them to pursue their own research. That may be in some kind of self-directed “graduate program” or out in the real world.
Why don’t these powerful wizards just rule the outside world?
Some do. Some don’t. There are many planes and worlds! I imagine that ruling kingdoms and worlds offers more headaches than it does any reward that a wizard might generally desire. The school in Academia Arana exists on a demi-plane so it avoids the headache of dealing with political squabblings of nation-states.
What are the goals of the institution?
Though it may have once had other goals, now its primary concern is that it continues to retain its own power and ensure its own longevity. There are other wizard schools that exist (many described in an appendix within the upcoming core rulebook) and they would happily take the knowledge of the Eternal Academy.
Fun note, yes, the default magical school is called the Eternal Academy. Before this project experienced scope creep (and was still just an idea for a zine), I was calling it Sezrekan University. Mostly because then the school could be a kind of pyramid scheme to get more people to patron bond with him. And also because I had the mental image of the students yelling “Sez U” at rival schools during wizard sports games.
Who decides and enacts these goals?
I envision the headmaster as similar to the Sovereign from the Venture Brothers. Or at least the presentation of the Sovereign as a giant head of flame (or similar stuff), but never physically appearing. No one sees the headmaster and the headmaster has always simply been the headmaster? Is the headmaster a sentient spell, the astral projection of a powerful wizard, or perhaps the ghost of a cosmic being? While you can interpret it differently at your own table, I run it (though this answer isn’t something just obvious to players) like the headmaster is an expression of the Phlogistonic Continuum.
The Phlogistonic Continuum is conceptually something in between the concept of Star Wars’s idea of “returning to the Force”, Star Trek’s “the Q Continuum”, and Star Trek’s “DS9 wormhole aliens/ Bajoran prophets”. To be more specific, it’s the idea that the first instance of new magic joins a sentient conglomeration of magic. The different magics in the Continuum exist in much the same way that a “fire elemental” would exist. Again, some specifics are left open so to create a “fruitful void” that gives room for judges’ and their groups to create their own stories.
Conclusion
You may have noticed that I didn’t talk much about Harry Potter after the first couple paragraphs. I don’t wish to emulate that setting or those stories. If we broaden our horizons when looking for inspiration, then we can create something new. So I’ve looked to media where high schoolers solve mysteries (which often involve their own school) so I was taking bits from things like Batman Beyond and Riverdale. I’m also interested in stories that are resolved through solving problems and mysteries without violence, such as in Star Trek. I drew upon my memories of The Wheel of Time books, which I have not read in many years, but they were my first books that included “wizard schools”.
I hope this gives some fun background to Academia Arcana. If this sounds appealing to you, hop on over to Backerkit and follow the project! Doing so will link you to the free Quickstart Rules. I’ll be occasionally dropping posts about Academia Arcana for the next few months so stay tuned!
Ask me more about it on Discord!
What Else’s Going On?
Cairn Press Adventure Double Feature!
Two brand-new adventures the Cairn RPG: “What Haunts the Harwood” and “The Drops of St. Jerome”
Sanctum of the Whispering God
A sword–and–sorcery adventure for low-level characters in Dungeon Crawl Classics!
