[Innocent + Will O' Wisp synergy unlocked! Trait gained: Local. Turns out, there's one swamp on the continent untouched enough to have innocent wisps, and it's pretty close to the WEA]
Well, okay, there may have been a bit of going back. Your tribe wasn't far off, and you could probably visit on the weekend occasionally, but somebody had to be responsible. Peppy used to dare you to touch the gates. Flaky wouldn't even stand guard duty. And that's not even -beginning- to get into Pinguid.
You miss them already.
Fortunately, you can still catch the occasional light show even if you're not sure how helpful they'll be. Besides, from your cursory examination of 'civilized' society moving out is supposed to feel like this.
You're not sure that moving out usually involves navigating streets arranged like a spiderweb with the help of rail-mounted hovering chairs, but it certainly helps you explore all the places with available dorms.
Speaking of, you should probably try to get a place in the:
[Choose residential district]
[ ] Market Quarter
The Academy as a whole consumes magical ingredients and reagents like an average settlement consumes food, not to mention all sorts of other curiosities that find their way to the world's edge. Dorms are average in size and amenities usually housing between two and four people per room. Being so close to the markets means you have the first crack at buying and selling items and would have an easier time fitting a job into your schedule. ['Checking the Markets' occasionally lets you do shopping without spending an action. Easier access to rumors and gossip from the main roads. Faces west, towards the nearest city.]
[ ] Crafting Quarter
Slowly digging into the mountains beyond the academy complex as it expands is an industrial sprawl of ateliers and foundries; most dorms in the crafting district have at least some equipment of their own. Whether it be a forge, a potion lab, a greenhouse, or more esoteric forms, you can usually find something to start a project of your own right in your backyard. The actual rooms however are small with four people bunking together. [You can learn Magic Crafting as early as your first year and don't need to first book facilities to start a new craft. Faces north, towards the Dragonthorn Mountains.]
[Local Trait Bonus: You have met the Academy's head of crafting and are reasonably certain he is not going to kill you, and may even be an ally on the staff. You'll still have met him even if you don't move into the Crafting Quarter, but he's very busy and less likely to remember you without constant exposure.]
[ ] Library Quarter
A quiet trio of tall towers, newly built and so loaded with spacial magic that they will never run out of rooms. Built up rather than out in between the two main libraries, right next to each other on a narrow strip in a district otherwise mostly made up of warehouses. Most private out of the dorms, you can get a single room easily, but can also get a double if you want to. [Mysterious space towers will randomly generate rooms with different effects each week. Also, personal space and easy book access make learning a spell from a tome 2x as fast. Faces east, towards the Marsh of Iridia, which contains your home tribe.]
[Local Trait Bonus: Thanks to a student once getting dumped in your swamp, you know that there are teleporters squirreled away about the dorm, and if you really learn the networks, you can get to classes or the markets instantly. There are even rumors of a passage to the forbidden wings of the library. You could also get dumped in the swamp, but that's fine for you.]
[ ] Dungeon Quarter
The "Dungeon" Quarter technically stands outside of the academy proper, out on the outskirts to the south, near the World's End Ravine. The craggy ravine is dotted with caves that are always crawling with hostile, curious, and valuable monsters to hunt. Closer to a barracks than a dorm, housing is focused on accommodating the formation and support of teams delving into the dungeon. [Action costs halved for dungeon delving on academy grounds. Battle Magic tutoring comes free if you can find the time. You WILL either be lifelong besties or mortal enemies with your 1-3 roommates. Faces south, towards the World's End Ravine. It's actually not full of apocalypses; it was just the geographical border of the so-called civilized world until Khariad was settled.]
[Local Trait Bonus: Ordinarily monster hunting would be at least a bit hypocritical of you, but if you deem it best for your cover, you do actually know which caves have the biggest jerks in them.]
[ ] Central
The most prominent of the academy dorms, it is more akin to a high-class townhouse or hotel than what one would assume of a dormitory. The favorite of nobles attending World's End, its rooms consist of adjoining suites with options supporting both socialization and support from attendants. Many would say that it is the best place if one wishes to establish a network of relationships. [Double relationship gains with faculty and nobility, access to rumors and gossip from all districts. Can be thrown out and lose ALL dormitory benefits if your grades drop below 'ridiculously amazing'.]
Once you arrive, you conveniently find an open dorm, and the people seem fairly nice! Okay, a couple of them ask about your 'foundation' and the answer of "My family made a deal with a fire elemental for bloodline magic but I'd still rather know the right way to do it." (You'd practiced that story, the most average possible admirable backstory for a human magister.) is not what they meant, but at least one person was more excited than anything when they realized they'd get to explain the concept of makeup to you.
It was a little like being thrown into the sinkholes when you've only just started to learn to pass through peat.
You're not sure you'd recall half the social interaction later, just a lot of
[Co-ed dorm or not?]
[] People
[] Girls
Milling around you. At the very least, there's no indication anybody thinks of you as anything but one of them. And their good-natured attempts to get to know you let some of your less concealable personality traits come out, already giving the impression of you being.
[Choose two major personality traits and a flaw. You will have other personality traits, these are just guidelines and the ones with mechanical effects.]
Traits
[] Workaholic - You prefer staying busy, and if you'd had the opportunity for a summer job, you'd have taken it. Now that you can, you can see a path to feeling a lot more proud of yourself. [Job actions do not increase stress, but -not- taking a job action does. Doubles your overwork meter as well]
[]Sword Nerd - You bloody love weapons. While others wasted their time flirting, you studied the blade. But, like, actually though. [+20 bonus to appraising weapons of a type of your choice, and +15 in combat if you are wielding one. May make you annoying.]
[]Brave - You do not flinch or falter no mater what presents itself before you. Others look at you with awe at the tasks you undertake. [If you fail to resist a fear effect you get another chance, unlocks additional approaches in events that others might consider insane.]
[]Diligent - You are a real go-getter aren't you? Giving it your all to whatever you put your mind towards. [25% chance a task is completed with one fewer action or with one additional degree of success.]
[]Social Butterfly - No matter where you go or who you are with, you are fast to make friends and connections. And once are established in a place others will turn to you for the who's who and the happening. [Relationships are easier to raise and other people are more likely to reach out to you.]
[] Hardy - Where others would fall you continue to stand, able to push past the pain and keep on going. [Injuries are 30% less impactful and you recover from diseases two turns faster.]
[] Quick Learner You are just like a sponge when it comes to absorbing information. [The thresholds of success for learning and improving skills are lower. Learning Spells from books is 1.5 times faster]
[] Insightful - It is hard to hide something from you, the hidden patterns and unconscious trends that others would overlook come to you clear as day. [Massive bonus to inventing your own spells, an otherwise herculean task. Although you're still not exactly going to be ready for it as a first year.]
[] Natural fighter - You take to the tantalizing dance of violence as if you have lived it your whole life. Crossing blades or spells with someone else is in your view one of the best ways to know them on a deeper level. [Gain a stacking bonus to the prowess for each round you are in combat. Chance to gain relationship with someone when you fight them.]
[] Sarky - You sass with the best of them, and the bite of your tongue blows sticks and stones out of the water. [Highly resistant to mental control. Penalties to all checks opposing your own spells based on deception and manipulation. Halved suspicion growth.]
[Can also pick from the following page 1 traits:
Courtly Politics
Unaccustomed to Luxury
??? Awareness]
Flaws
[] Traumatized- Be it the horrors of war, a childhood tragedy, or seeing a premonition of your own death something has left a mark upon you, shaking you to the core. [Opening up to others will be much harder and anything that reminds you of the trauma will cause a heavy penalty]
[] Cowardly - Fear has its grip upon you. Your first instinct when faced with a threat is to run away. [You have disadvantage when trying to resist fear-based magic. Anything scary or threatening requires an additional Charisma check to not run away from.]
[] Maladaptive- Be it shutting yourself away, indulging in hedonistic desires, or simply putting off important tasks until the last moment, you do not handle stressful and demanding situations well. [Stress grows more quickly and actions taken to reduce stress have a chance to inflict some other negative effect]
[] Vengeful - The word forgive is not in your lexicon, and any slight against you must be paid back. [Actions must be taken against rivals and enemies when possible. Cannot gain relationship once it is negative with someone.]
[] Shy - you don't speak up easily, and interacting with other people can be a huge burden. [First impressions are much harder and initiating social actions may cause a malus towards other actions in a turn]
[] Sickly - you have never gone a year without getting sick, and suspect you never will. [Will pick up an exotic and troublesome illness every few turns]
[] Dim - you're not actually that smart. [Trying to learn to be a wizard anyway is pretty admirable, teach them the meaning of hard work! ...You are going to learn spells twice as slowly though.]
[] Overconfident - you got this [You do not got this. Thresholds of success look much lower than they actually are when you commit to an action, and your dice rolls sometimes lie to you, making you think you succeeded until later when it all blows up.]
[] Actual Pacifist - Violence is wrong. [Ahahahahahah! Oh wait you're serious. Oh. Oh no. You cannot take any offensive actions in combat, ever, unless something forcibly removes this trait, which will replace it with Traumatized to represent how you feel you've betrayed yourself.]
Once the meet and greet ends, you think you have at least learned something, but you'd need to sleep on it to figure out what. This entire day seems like a daze, and you're not sure you feel yourself. But a good night's sleep always helps, and tomorrow you'll be ready to truly start your quest.
[What did you focus on during orientation?]
[ ] Orienting Yourself - You tried to actually learn the school, of course! [A preliminary rundown of facilities, faculty, and classes will be provided before you have to start making decisions about them.]
[ ] Meeting People - You tried your hardest to leave a good impression. [You start with 1 point in relationships with everybody in your dorm and -5/100 suspicion instead of zero.]
[ ] Going with the Flow - You just tried not to get overwhelmed. [You start with 0/5 stress points instead of 1]
[Goodnight Macabre! Choose a final bonus trait from me.]
[ ] [Otherworldly Sensitivity - you can communicate as easily with incorporeal and extraplanar creatures as you would with anybody else. Granted they still have to be near you, and beings from higher dimensions have a lot more space to roam around in, but elementals are everywhere.]
[ ][Oblivious - faith based magic does not work as well on you, and any weaknesses you may have to 'holy' things and rituals are negated]
[ ][Quick Change - you cannot fail to swap between your human and real forms, and you'll be exceptionally talented at any natural shapeshifting (not spells) you pick up in the future]
[BONUS QUESTION:]
[Do you want to have some influence over your roommates? We won't exactly be running through character creation another three times, just there will be pre-sets to choose from.
[ ] No, not at all - what kind of college student gets to pick their roommate? That's not part of the experience at all!
[ ] Maybe a BIT - write-in. [Include any traits you absolutely cannot stand and I'll remove them from the pool.]
[ ] Yes please - [I'll still roll for how many roomies you get stuck with, but from there you can pick from a list of basic traits in its own post]
