Table of Contents

Locations of Note: Central Campus

The central campus is the heart of the Academy. Its extensive grounds include residence halls, dining halls, administration buildings, classrooms and laboratories (mostly used for first-year classes and interdisciplinary studies), and space for social gatherings.

The Great Library

The Great Library acts as a hub for learning and gathering for students across campus.

The center of the Academy of Magic is the Great Library, the university's main library. Individual colleges also have their own private libraries, but the main library holds the majority of all research materials, including copies of many mundane texts throughout the multiverse. At the heart of the library is a snarl, a tangle in the fabric of magic, that glows like a miniature sun in the grand Hall of Oracles. A star arch called the Dawnbow curves across the sky above the library, marking its location as a center of mystic learning.

Arches welcome inquisitive minds into the library. Inside, almost every surface from the floor to the high ceiling is jammed with stacks of books. The interior of the Great Library is vast, with long hallways, archive chambers tall enough to have their own weather, and even pools and moat-passages crossable only by boat.

Five lines of beacon-towers radiate from the Great Library like enormous spokes. These Torches of Enlightenment stretch out to the five main campuses and beyond, more than a hundred miles into the surrounding countryside. They burn perpetually with magical flame, symbolizing the path toward learning and an escape from ignorance.

Library Features

The Great Library has the following features:

Ceilings. The ceilings throughout the first floor of the Great Library are 50 feet high. The second- and third-floor ceilings are 30 feet high.

Magic Stairs. As in all campus buildings, the stairs and steps leading into and within the Great Library are enchanted to move and reshape for full accessibility. These magic steps and staircases respond to the needs of those who use them. The steps might shift up or down like escalators, or they might flatten out completely before raising or lowering like lifts to accommodate larger creatures and mobility devices, depending on users’ needs. In certain multistory buildings (including the Great Library and Captain Dapplewing’s Manor), magic transport circles also allow characters quick access between different levels.

Transport Circles. A runic circle is painted on the floor near each staircase in the Great Library, as well as at the top and bottom of the steps leading to the main entrance. These circles are permanent, customized teleportation circles. When a user moves onto a circle and mentally focuses on the floor to which they wish to travel, they are transported to the destination floor, arriving at that floor’s runic circle for that staircase. The circle at the bottom of the front steps transports users to the circle at the top of the steps and vice versa.

Students and Professors. Students of all years and colleges can be found at the Great Library, as can professors from all the colleges.

1st Floor

2nd Floor

The tables are covered with flyers from the Dead Languages Society, the Dragonchess Club, the Dragonsguard Historical Society, Future Entrepreneurs Club, the Intramural Gymnastics Club, the Intramural Wanderball Club, the Intramural Water-Dancing Club, the Mage Tower Cheer Squad, the Iron-Lifters Society, the Show Band Association, the Sorcerer's Star, and Student-Mages of Faith, and are staffed by some of the students associated with them. Extracurricular groups not here can be found elsewhere in the Great Library.

has a flag displaying the Academy star symbol hanging on its back wall. Here, a student council publicly debates Academy policies that most affect the student body and determines how to divvy up the half of the Student Activities Fund they are responsible for. The leaders of the school’s Extracurriculars come to the council to conduct matters of business, and the council usually meets on the first day of every month. Outside those meeting days, the room is used for other official university business or stands empty.

3rd Floor

without requesting information from a reference librarian. Characters who look for information without obtaining help discover what they're looking for only with a successful DC 20 Wisdom (Perception) check. At the center of this area stands a statue depicting a mighty, benevolent dragon. The magical statue reads aloud the contents of most books placed in front of it if a character makes that request verbally or mentally. (The magic of the statue can assess text such as verbal curses that present a danger if read aloud, and the statue ignores requests to read such text.)

Archway Commons

Just south of the Great Library, a star arch curves overhead like a smaller echo of the Dawnbow, and a lush park, Archway Commons, marks the site. More familiarly called the Commons, the park is a favorite spot for students—especially first-years—to gather in fair weather or to wander through on dates. Some of the Academy's clubs also use the park to host social gatherings and games, including live-action roleplaying games and casual sports.

Firejolt Cafe

At the edge of Archway Commons and just outside the Great Library stands the cozy Firejolt Cafe, where students cram both information and caffeine into themselves before exams. The cafe's name comes from its trademark beverage, which the manager, an elf mage named Ellina, brews with her fire magic. The Firejolt has a reputation as a hangout for first-year students, but older students from all ten colleges can be seen inside at all hours.

Firejolt Cafe is the most popular place on campus to grab tea or coffee, chat with friends, or study among the hustle and bustle of a typical day on campus. The cafe’s interior is clean and well lit, and its walls are decorated with fun, cartoonish scenes animated by permanent illusion magic. Well-known scenes include a jovial frog in a wizard’s hat stirring a cauldron, a dancing trio of lightning bolts with grinning faces, and a raven wearing a cravat and sipping daintily from a cup of coffee held in one wing.

Cafe Features

Ceilings. The cafe’s ceilings are 20 feet high.

Doors. At night, the exterior doors to the cafe are closed, locked, and sealed with an arcane lock spell. Only certain faculty members and Ellina Tanglewood, the cafe’s manager, know the arcane lock's password.

Cafe Locations

All descriptions assume the characters are in the cafe during the day. At night, the cafe is locked and devoid of students and staff.

shelves for personal belongings and cafe supplies. The cafe strictly sells coffee and tea, but Ellina and the other talented baristas can make nearly any form of those drinks on request. A relatively common coffee or tea costs 1 cp, while a more complicated order might cost 2 cp. The cafe’s signature firejolt latte costs 10 gp; it confers resistance to fire for 1 minute after drinking it, and it can be brewed only by Ellina using her fire magic.

classwork. Up to ten students are typically found in each of these rooms, engaged in quiet study.

Bow's End Tavern

At the western end of the Dawnbow, where it meets the ground, stands a smaller university landmark: Bow's End Tavern, which serves as a hangout for older students. Most patrons come for the live music, deliciously greasy food, and various potions and beverages. Others come to settle their differences in wild duels in the lot behind the tavern. The tavern's manager is a kind but strict orc named Tulk “the Bulk” Tusktooth.

Bow’s End Tavern is the Academy's most popular late-night hangout. It opens at 6:00 p.m. and closes at 11:00 p.m. on class nights and 2:00 a.m. on weekends.

The tavern is a squat but comfortable-looking building, its gleaming wooden exterior carved in overlapping Academy star motifs. The interior is dim and cozy (if loud), featuring rich mahogany floors and well-worn furniture of oak and black leather. Live musical acts often set up on the tavern’s patio, including performing groups made up of students, faculty, and staff alike, and occasionally musical acts are booked to perform in the main dining room as well.

Tavern Features

Lighting. The magical lights inside the tavern are muted, but creatures can still see normally in all areas.

Ceilings. The tavern’s ceilings arc 20 feet high.

Doors. After closing, all exterior doors to the patio and tavern are closed, locked, and sealed with an arcane lock spell. Only certain student employees and Tulk “The Bulk“ Tusktooth, the tavern's manager, know the arcane lock's password.

Magic Steps. The steps marking the boundary between the overflow seating area and the main dining room are enchanted to move and reshape themselves for full accessibility.

Patrons. Students of all years and colleges can be found in Bow's End Tavern.

Tavern Locations

All descriptions assume the characters are in (he tavern during its hours of operation. Outside of those hours, the tavern is locked and devoid of other students or staff, except for Tulk Tusktooth and a few staff members who perform cleaning duties during the day.

Food or Beverage Cost
Water Free
Coffee, cola, or tea 1 cp
Premium fare 4 cp
Caster's stew 2 sp
Curtie's Special 2 sp

conversation. Additionally, at least one older student employee can be found working here as a server.

who wish to work in the kitchen must approach her directly. The most prominent features in the kitchen are the cooking cauldrons along the north wall, which are always bubbling with strange and wonderful concoctions. A small break room is set in the northwest corner of the kitchen, while a pantry takes up much of the east wall. A back door leads to the tavern's back lot and is marked “Staff Only”, but isn't locked during operating hours.

Academy Stadium

This large stadium where thousands gather to watch students play Mage Tower, Wanderball, and sometimes other sports, is located near Bow's End Tavern. Chapter 4 offers more information about Mage Tower and the Stadium.

Aerojaunt Field

Mage Tower practice commonly takes place on Aerojaunt Field. This practice field is on the central campus, and it’s available for anyone to use. The dirt field is carefully maintained dirt field. In the center, an elongated hexagon etched in glowing, magical chalk outlines a series of ramps built into the dirt. Dugouts face each other on opposite sides of the field. North of the dugouts are bleachers, and south of the dugouts are some outbuildings.

Aerojaunt Field was once the university's primary sports field. Now, years after the construction of the Academy Stadium, the field sees far less use. Its official purpose is as a dedicated practice field for the Academy's high-profile student teams, whose official matches take place in newer facilities elsewhere on campus.

However, less competitive teams hold their matches on this field, most notably the Intramural Wanderball Club. The elevated ramps used in wanderball matches were permanently built into Aerojaunt Field, whose name evokes a popular wanderball move that involves using magic to hop through the air with the ball.

Locations

Captain Dapplewing's Manor

Captain Dapplewing’s manor house is used as a learning annex by esteemed dual-college faculty members and their favored students. A two-story home, the house is located on the central campus and serves as both faculty offices and the setting for lavish dinner parties and intellectual gatherings.

Tucked at the end of a leafy path on the central campus, Captain Dapplewing’s Manor is a quiet relaxation spot for elite faculty as well as a place of academic meditation and counseling for their students. The manor dates to the earliest days of Strixhaven, when the owlin mage and military veteran Captain Raymous Dapplewing held faculty appointments in both CWCA and CoC Colleges. Wanting a quiet place to retire in the evenings—and to host lavish dinner-parties-turned-colloquiums—the professor used his significant military pension to build this manor house on campus.

Upon his death, Captain Dapplewing bequeathed the manor to the Academy, which honored his legacy by giving the house his name and keeping most of its original furnishings in pristine condition. The house’s upper-floor libraries were converted into offices for esteemed dual-college faculty members, and those faculty members meet here with students on academic matters during the day. In the evenings, the manor is the site of dinner parties and elegant cocktail hours for those faculty members, their most promising students, and visiting alumni.

Since no one permanently lives in Captain Dapplewing’s Manor, the building is closed and locked from 10:00 p.m. until 6:00 a.m. Because it holds many valuable antiques and volumes of sensitive research, security measures are in place in the manor outside office hours.

Manor Features

The manor has the following features:

Ceilings. The ceilings throughout the manor are 20 feet high.

Doors. The manor's outside doors are locked at night. A character can pick a lock using thieves' tools. Anyone can easily break the glass doors, but doing so summons security (see below). The inside doors are unlocked unless otherwise noted.

Lighting. By day, the interior of the manor is lit by continual flame spells; by night, the interior of the manor is in darkness.

Magic Stairs. Stairs and steps in the manor are enchanted to move and reshape themselves for full accessibility.

Transport Circles. A runic circle is painted on the floor near each staircase in the manor, as well as at the top and bottom of the steps leading inside the building in area Cl. These circles are permanent, customized teleportation circles. Anyone can move onto a circle and mentally focus on the floor to which they wish to travel. (The circle leading to the attic is in the manor’s hidden staircase, which must be found first.) When a character is teleported from a circle near a staircase, they arrive on the destination floor on the runic circle nearest the corresponding staircase. The circle outside the main entrance automatically transports characters directly in front of the manor’s front doors.

Security. If an outside door is smashed or the characters engage in noticeable vandalism, two professors or a squad of campus security arrive at the manor in ld4 rounds.

Self-Restoration. All of the Constructs found here have a self-restoring quality that allows them to repair damage taken during a skirmish.

Automata: The constructs at the Foyer are controlled by professors during office hours, and animate to defend the Manor outside office hours.

Locations: 1st Floor

lounging in a baroque style.

the locked glass door leading into the manor. Bushy magic cacti grow in pots along the manor walls.

Locations: 2nd Floor

Locations: Attic

This cramped attic holds oddities considered too strange to display on the manor's main floor, along with peculiar items confiscated from students over the years. A fine dress with wings made of bones and a display shelf holding dozens of dolls are among the curiosities here.