Advice on magic academy build (101 magic academy rooms)


Advice


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So i am making a magic academy for my campaign. And i am still unsure in what to put, i want the place to be somekind like Hogwarts from Harry Potter, i giant castle with lots of history and cool places.

As this task is too big for one mind to brainstorm, i would like some help. mostly i need ideas for cool places, rooms and encounters.

so far i have:

1. Secret library (ofc)
2. Homunculi room
3. Simulacrum room
4. Time travelling room.
5. temple for Nethys.
6. an infinite stairway, like the plane of stairs.
7. fake principal room.

any help would be deeply appreciated. let's have fun.


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I don't even know how you would start to explain this academy having time travel, but I digress...

8. Some kind of rec room for familiars during classes. Possibly with a poker table.


Pathfinder Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Room full of chickens, monsters have to eat after all!

Collection of various monsters, especially magical animals.

Collection of magical plants.

holodeck Illusionary recreation room

Summoning practice room with permanent circles of protection in it and a warning not to use this room unattended.

Some sort of comfortable communal lodging for the various common types of familiars (owls, eagles, bats, rats, etc).

Targeting range, practice with various ranged spells.

Fighting area, cover the very basics of melee along with touch melee attack spells.

Multiple libraries and laboratories, most likely segregated by year in school. A few staff only as well.

Crafting areas, teach how to craft various magical items.


Traditionally there's a hall of mirrors in such places. In PF call it the scrying room.

The library may or may not include the student records. The records could be held within an intelligent magic item (q.v. Sorting Hat) or could be a stuffy room staffed by an overworked bureaucrat, or maybe they've outsourced it to Hell.

There have to be catacombs somewhere, whether raw materials for necromancy or elaborate tombs for past principals. Or the present one if they're a lich.


If you're going for the Harry Potter feel you have to have something akin to the Room of Requirement. A room that only appears to you when you truly need it and that has exactly what you need.


For a d20/3E Harry Potter type game check out Matt Forbecks Redhurst Academy of Magic. It is usually available on ebay for around $ 10 and the book is really quite gorgeous. The Player's Guide is available for free as a 155-page PDF download that presents the full school information, maps, and background but does not include the GM's secrets and the rules.

Reviews were good too.


What about the dorms? The apprentices have to sleep somewhere. Also for Potter-esque feel, try:

Potion room
Scriptorum (for writing scrolls)
Fearconquer Hall - a lecture hall for practicing concentration checks
The Elemental Courts - Outdoor/underground spaces devoted to the four prime elements
Enchanter's Lab


I imagine such an institution would have vaults devoted to hiding-away and securing important and dangerous items from the world.

It would also likely have a dungeon or two where a few certain dangerous individuals would be kept; the kind of prisoners no king's dungeon could contain.

A magic academy would have some world-renowned experts in residence; wizards and sorcerers who explore the limits of magic and mortal existence. They would either teach classes as part of their tenure at the academy, and/or have a staff they would instruct to teach a certain curriculum, and teach a new generation of wizards and magic-users.

Speaking of "vaults", I am of the opinion that the corollary to liches and their unholy quest for immortality is old wizards who use magics like Clone and Ethereal Jaunt to secure their aged bodies away in safety and suspended animation while their souls pursue important missions in the the Astral Plane, the Outer Planes and the Dreamlands.


More free Redhurst bits...

Grand Lodge

What about a music room - either just for entertainment purposes, or for practitioners of bardic magic?

It would probably be under some sort of reverse silence spell, so you can make all kinds of racket inside the room without bothering anyone else around you. So, if you wanted to practice playing a horn of blasting, for example, you wouldn't take out the neighboring rooms.


definitely need a mage duel arena. possible with an enchantment that prevents spells from being lethal.


I went with a tower for each school (classrooms, labs and about half devoted to offices. Dorms and workshops are in the walls between the towers. I set it up around a multi-purpose courtyard (dueling arena, practice field, etc) inside a renovated Shell-Keep. Extra towers hold the Magus barracks, a library, a prison and an aviary. The exact total of towers is iffy in case the game needs another one or four. I will be cribbing from this thread.

I also have a clearing house for customers to connect to the right mage for a specific job.


The Fall of Greymalkin Academy was a Dungeon Magazine advent I used to create my magic school. Living quarters (for the students and possibly staff as well) are an easy thing to forget. There were rooms devoted to teaching each of the magic schools. Because magic is dangerous and students sometimes need to be protected even from themselves, the "security" of the school were constructs.
The clinic had animated beds that could restrain people if necessary.
As a showpiece, in the main lobby they had the skeleton of a dragon hung up on the ceiling as a display (much like we do for dinosaurs in museums) that was animated just enough for the head to turn and follow the strongest magical aura that entered the room. That freaked my players out.


whoah this is really helping me, actually i was reading the name of the wind, and got the idea for a lot of stuff, including the music and painting room.

the redhurst stuff was superb and of course all the different ideas shared are deeply appreciated :} i think i'm ready to build the main structure now, i will go to cartographer's guild for some help there also.


Don't forget the mundane necessities like guest quarters, kitchens, stables (especially for exotic creatures), maybe some sort of vet area for when familiars get into it, etc.

-TimD


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For a nice investigative adventure set in a neighboring fighter academy check out the haunting of Soldragon Academy

Or how about the 2e Wand of Archeal for an all wizard party?

Pathfinder module Academy of Secrets takes place in a Mage school.

d20 Penumbra Unhallowed Halls is another mystery adventure taking place at wizard school. (Review available here)

Check out this old thread for adventures involving a wizards tower and this younger thread for interesting wizard builds for an all wizard party

Setting wise Headless Hydra Games Mor Aldenn City of Mages should be mentioned. HHG has a nice Mor Aldenn: City of Mages [BUNDLE] available on rpgnow (sadly not on paizo). The idea of their Mor Aldenn mini setting (complete with a tower for each school of magic!) is axplained on their site here.


is there a way of getting those books on PDF? because i don't want them printed.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Don't fill out all of the rooms. Fill in what you absolutely need and save the rest to be revealed when plot demands it. That's what they did in the Potter movies after all. Remember that many of them will be living spaces. dorms, teacher apartments, etc.

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