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Geras Letter


Schwarzbart

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Please help me to get this letter updated so that it is useful for DLC 16

Here my Rework for letter 3-5 what in my opinion needed the most work:

 

 

Letter 3

 

Gera continues:

You have two main things to improve during your time at Academagia one are your Skills and the other is your Study of the class you visit.

Study, you find it on your calendar under Action, teaches you how to talk about a subject in class to get good grades.

While Train, you find it also on your calendar under Action, improves your skills.

 

There are hundreds of little skills out there for a kid to master, and some of them combine together to make big skills so, like, if you learn about Hiding and Lying and working Lockpicks, youre going to find out youre learning how to be a Spy. Learn about Baking and being a Greengrocer and learning Recipes, and youre learning how to be a Cook. Right? Right.

 

Now, when you Train, you take a Step toward mastering whatever little skill you choose. Some skills take more Steps than others, both because theyre harder and because well, maybe theyre Intelligence skills, and youre kind of a moron. If so, hey! Me too! Or maybe theyre skills that require Finesse, and your strengths are of the mind. Whatever. Work at any skill long enough, though, you can get it to its Maximum (usually around level 10), no matter how dense or clumsy you might be.

By the way, if you want to give yourself number scores well, lets talk about your skill with Music. If you can read Notation like a 3, you have a Voice like a 2, play Harpsichord like a 1, and all your other music-y skills are at 0, youre a level 1 Musician. The level of the Parent Skill is always that of the weakest of your three best subskills. Which, yeah, is unfair a lot of the time. Sorry about that!

 

Letter 4

 

Anyway, back to Training. Some good skills to learn early is with what we call the School Survival skills making the most of your natural curiosity, getting to know your familiar (more on that in a minute), learning to study effectively, learning to keep the other kids from making your life miserable. All good stuff! Some of those little skills can also teach you enough to Train other skills, or show you how to pull off cool Actions or complicated Abilities so getting good enough at general Social Skills will let you learn how to guide Conversations, or Listen to a friend grumble for hours at a time without yawning. A Schoolyard Education will teach you how to throw a Punch without breaking your hand. That kind of thing.

 

I know, it sounds complicated. I promise, though, once you start you pick it up fast.

 

Right, what else? All Classes will actually Train you off and on in various skills; all you have to do is sit in your desk every day. Studying you have to do outside of Class. It raises your Study Level, and the Study Level is a big part of how well youre going to do on tests. [The good news is that every Class only has the one Study Level. It's not like skills, where you have to Train in three at a time to raise a Parent Skill Level.] You can be the most amazing Glamour wizard in all Elumia, and if your Study Level is 1, youre just going to choke when it comes to writing out what you know how to do. Alternatively, there are people out there who cant cast a single spell without breaking their fingers, but can end a year of Glamour classes with 102%.

 

Letter 5

 

Heres a basic tip. To get the best grades in your Classes, make sure your main Skill and your Study Levels are all at 5 by the start of your fourth month in the school (which would be Cheimare, unless theyve really moved the calendar around because of those idiot pirates), and make sure theyre all at 10 by the end of the academic year. So, come Cheimare, if youre taking Incantation, youre going to want three of your four Incantation subskills (Incantation Methods, Incantation Phemes, Incantation Spells and Theory of Incantation) at 5, and youll want your Study Level at 5. Simple!

 

But also let me suggest you to not just use use Study or Train, instead look for action or ability that give you more then one Study or one Skill. For the start you might want to use Study at the Venalicium Library, you find on your calendar under Ability, as it let you study for a class while also teach you some things about Research. Research is an other important skill to learn early as from it you learn where you find the other Library what are great places to learn your skills. It was my biggest failure that I realized to late how important the library's are.

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For reference, here's what Gera's letter says in DLC 15, and I assume DLC 16 because why would that have changed?:

 

Letter 1:

 

The first page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Hello, new student!
My name’s Gera Tolmin, and your dorm room here was mine this time last year. Sorry about the smell - making your own candy isn’t as easy and splatter-free as they’d make you think! Stupid candy liars.
Anyway, I’m gone. By the time you read this, I’ve gone back home. It’s a long story, it involves pirates, and you’re probably better off not knowing it. And, look, I know you’re going to get a mentor by the end of your first day, and maybe it’ll be a good one. Mine just made me carry her books and told me to keep my eyes open, though, so maybe not. For what it’s worth, here’s what I wish someone had told me at the start.
In one of the boxes the College set out for you, you’re going to find a calendar. It’ll show you a week of your life at a time, and the people who run the school have already set it out for you. Five days a week they want you going to class, then going to class again, then resting. And, sure, you can do that!
At the start of every single day, though, you have the option of changing your plans. Change any and all entries you like - instead of going to class, you can try to cast a Spell! Instead of resting, you can go on an Adventure! If you go overboard, they’ll make you pay, but for the most part no one’s going to force you to do anything. Up until you Validate your actions - our funny way of saying “walk out the door,” committing yourself to the day’s choices - your imagination is the limit!
The most interesting and unpredictable things will hit you when you’re not trying to do school stuff, let’s say that up-front. Random events will just wander up and smack you on the side of the head while you’re in the middle of your own business, and you’ll probably go out looking for Adventures (which usually continue off and on for days at a time). What both have in common is that they’re going to challenge you; you’ll find a problem, you’ll think of two or three ways you might get around it - or maybe you’ll Investigate and find a better way - and you’ll make a choice.
Here’s one of the places where I went wrong: it’s fine if you make mistakes. You’re young! You’re magical! The world is your oyster, or whatever seafood you like! If you fail a challenge, sure, you’ll get stressed out, or confused, or even beaten up, but you’ll also learn enough about the skill you tried to use to be able to train in it. (If you succeed, you’ll learn stuff and find stuff and impress people and become super-awesome and all the rest. But I figure that goes without saying.)

 

Letter 2:

 

The second page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Training is a big deal - you can find it listed as a choice on your calendar under “Action.” Here, too, learn from my lousy example: I didn’t do enough. There are hundreds of little skills out there for a kid to master, and some of them combine together to make big skills - so, like, if you learn about Hiding and Lying and working Lockpicks, you’re going to find out you’re learning how to be a Spy. Learn about Baking and being a Greengrocer and learning Recipes, and you’re learning how to be a Cook. Right? Right.
Now, when you Train, you take a Step toward mastering whatever little skill you choose. Some skills take more Steps than others, both because they’re harder and because… well, maybe they’re Intelligence skills, and you’re kind of a moron. If so, hey! Me too! Or maybe they’re skills that require Finesse, and your strengths are of the mind. Whatever. Work at any skill long enough, though, you can get it to its Maximum (usually around level 10), no matter how dense or clumsy you might be.
By the way, if you want to give yourself number scores… well, let’s talk about your skill with Music. If you can read Notation like a 3, you have a Voice like a 2, play Harpsichord like a 1, and all your other music-y skills are at 0, you’re a level 1 Musician. The level of the Parent Skill is always that of the weakest of your three best subskills. Which, yeah, is unfair a lot of the time. Sorry about that!
Anyway, back to Training. A good place to start is with what we call the School Survival skills - making the most of your natural curiosity, getting to know your familiar (more on that in a minute), learning to study effectively, learning to keep the other kids from making your life miserable. All good stuff! Some of those little skills can also teach you enough to Train other skills, or show you how to pull off cool Actions or complicated Abilities - so getting good enough at general Social Skills will let you learn how to guide Conversations, or Listen to a friend grumble for hours at a time without yawning. A Schoolyard Education will teach you how to throw a Punch without breaking your hand. That kind of thing.
I know, it sounds complicated. I promise, though, once you start you pick it up fast.

 

Letter 3:

 

The third page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Right, what else? Oh, for the record: Training isn’t the same thing as Studying. They're separate Actions. Training teaches you how to use a skill; Studying teaches you how to talk about a subject in class to get good grades. You'd think they'd be the same thing, but they're not.
All Classes will actually Train you off and on in various skills; all you have to do is sit in your desk every day. Studying you have to do outside of Class. It raises your Study Level, and the Study Level is a big part of how well you’re going to do on tests. (The good news is that every Class only has the one Study Level. It's not like skills, where you have to Train in three at a time to raise a Parent Skill Level.) You can be the most amazing Glamour wizard in all Elumia, and if your Study Level is 1, you’re just going to choke when it comes to writing out what you know how to do. Alternatively, there are people out there who can’t cast a single spell without breaking their fingers, but can end a year of Glamour classes with 102%.
Here’s a basic tip. To get the best grades in your Classes, make sure your main Skill and your Study Levels are all at 5 by the start of your fourth month in the school (which would be Cheimare, unless they’ve really moved the calendar around because of those idiot pirates), and make sure they’re all at 10 by the end of the academic year. So, come Cheimare, if you’re taking Incantation, you’re going to want three of your four Incantation subskills (Incantation Methods, Incantation Phemes, Incantation Spells and Theory of Incantation) at 5, and you’ll want your Study Level at 5. Simple!

 

Letter 4:

 

The fourth page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Now, I said earlier I’d come back to familiars. Actually, wizards capitalize that word in formal settings, so “Familiars.” Most kids get them early - dogs or cats start following them around, and then those dogs and cats start getting more able to understand humans, and then the next thing you know things are getting set on fire right and left. Here’s the thing: magic is weird. If you don’t have a Familiar now, something will probably find you. You may not like what comes looking, but neither one of you is going to have much choice at first. Something to do with the ley lines and imbalanced reactions and who knows what.
The connection between you and your Familiar is called a Bond, and you can kind of treat it like a skill - you can Train it. What we call the Bond of Iron has to do with the physical connection between you and your whatever it turns out to be - as Iron goes up, it just means as one of you gets more physically capable, the other’s likely to do the same. The Bond of Silver is the same, but with brainy stuff, and the Bond of Stars is… I don’t know. Fate. Astrology. Not my subject. The Parent Skill for those three - like the skill of being a Spy is to Hiding and Lockpicking and Lying - is just called Bond.

 

Letter 5:

 

The final page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
There's a lot more you'll pick up. Exploring will Inform you of new Locations, all of which give you either temporary bonuses or new things to do. Just be warned, if you're exploring where you don't have Visitation Rights, there's a Chance you'll be Discovered and get in trouble.
You’ll build Relationships - Gossip is good for that, and don't let anybody tell you it's a waste of time - and you’ll make Friends, and those friendships will make some things easier for you. Same goes for sucking up to teachers. Sorry, gaining "Favor." You’ll annoy people and fight Duels. You'll obviously learn about Spells and Phemes - that's kind of the point. Maybe you’ll even run into pirates and monsters. I kind of hope you don’t, for your own sake, but… well, from the time the first dragon reared its evil head, it seems like humanity’s hopes haven’t always counted for very much.
Anyway, take care of the room, please. I always liked it.
Yours in magically burning things,
Gera.

 

Addendum:

 

Gera seems to have ripped out a page from a textbook and attached it to the main letter. It reads:

We owe it to the dragons for teaching the wizards of old the basic building blocks of all Spells: Phemes.
Spells are made of Phemes and cannot be cast without them. Beware, however, when you learn a Spell, you do not necessarily learn the Phemes that make up that Spell! Adding additional Phemes to a Spell can enhance its power and make it formidable, indeed. When you choose to cast a Spell during the day, its Phemes are automatically considered to be added to it- if you wish to add more Phemes to a Spell, you may do so just before you cast it. Only Phemes you have learned can be added to Spells.
If you find yourself engaged in combat, you will need to Add Phemes to your Palette. You must have the correct Phemes on your Palette before your Spell can be cast, meaning that Spells usually take more than one combat Phase to cast- watch what your opponent is doing!

 

 

And here's my draft of Gera's edited Letters (this is going to be a long post, thank goodness for spoiler tags!):

 

Letter 1:

 

The first page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Hello, new student!
My name’s Gera Tolmin, and your dorm room here was mine this time last year. Sorry about the smell - making your own candy isn’t as easy or splatter-free as they’d make you think! Stupid candy liars.
Anyway, I’m gone. By the time you read this, I’ve gone back home. It’s a long story, it involves pirates, and you’re probably better off not knowing it. And, look, I know you’re going to get a mentor by the end of your first day, and maybe it’ll be a good one. Mine just made me carry her books and told me to keep my eyes open, though, so maybe not. For what it’s worth, here’s what I wish someone had told me at the start.
In one of the boxes the College set out for you, you’re going to find a calendar. It’ll show you a week of your life at a time, and the people who run the school have already set it out for you. Right now it'll only say Attend Classes and Rest, but that'd be a really dull way to spend your first year. And before you ask, I don't know why the professors don't tell you to study for classes. I'm sure they want you to!
At the start of every single day you have the option of changing your plans. Change any and all entries you like - instead of going to class, you can try to cast a Spell! Instead of resting, you can go on an Adventure! If you go overboard, they’ll make you pay, but for the most part no one’s going to force you to do anything. Up until you Validate your actions - our funny way of saying “walk out the door”, committing yourself to the day’s choices - your imagination is the limit!
Of course either way you'll be getting into plenty of trouble. Random events will just wander up and smack you on the side of the head while you’re in the middle of your own business, and you’ll probably go out looking for Adventures (which usually continue off and on for days at a time). What both have in common is that they’re going to challenge you; you’ll find a problem, you’ll think of two or three ways you might get around it - or maybe you’ll Investigate and find a better way - and you’ll make a choice.
Here’s one of the places where I went wrong: it’s fine if you make mistakes. You’re young! You’re magical! The world is your oyster, or whatever seafood you like! If you fail a challenge, sure, you’ll get stressed out, or confused, or even beaten up, but you’ll also learn enough about the skill you tried to use to be able to train in it. If you succeed, you’ll learn stuff and find stuff and impress people and become super-awesome and all the rest. But I figure that goes without saying.

 

Letter 2:

 

The second page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Training is a big deal, and like me you probably don't know how to practise your skills other than using the Train Action. Here, too, learn from my lousy example: I relied in it too much. There's much better ways to train your skills than practising them in your room. For example you can Study in your room (as I did), but you can also Study in the Venalicium Library - that's listed under "Abilities", BTW - and learn something about Research while studying for your classes. I'm sure there's all kinds of cool places to train skills, but I never found any worth mentioning, so I can't give you a better example. But hey, at least you'll know where to train your Research!
Actually, something you should know is that skills come in two flavors - Parent skills and Subskills. Both will reveal stuff as you train them, but parent skills (like Research) cannot be trained directly. Instead you train a parent's subskills, which in turn increases your parent skill. Sound complicated? It's actually pretty simple: A parent skill is equal to it's third highest subskill. So if you can Lie to a Dragon with a straight face and Hide from every professor on campus, but can't work a set of Lockpicks to save your life, you'll find that you're not a good Spy.
Another thing you should know is that some skills are easier (or harder) to train than others. Part of it is from the skills themselves - some are just not as easy to learn - but another part comes from you. Filing is easy to pick up if you have a good Insight, whereas Intimidation is easier when you're big and strong. Each skill requires you to be something to train it effectively, although you can get good with anything if you put your mind too it. It'll just take forever.

Anyway, back to Training. A good place to start is with what we call the School Survival skills - making the most of your natural curiosity, getting to know your familiar (more on that in a minute), figuring out how to handle your class tests, learning to keep the other kids from making your life miserable. All good stuff! Some of those little skills can also teach you enough to Train other skills - become Informed of them as it's formally put - or show you how to pull off cool Actions or complicated Abilities. So getting good enough at general Social Skills will let you learn how to guide Conversations, or Listen to a friend grumble for hours at a time without yawning. A Schoolyard Education will teach you how to throw a Punch without breaking your hand. That kind of thing.
I know, it sounds complicated. I promise, though, once you start you pick it up fast.

 

Letter 3:

 

The third page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Right, what else? All Classes will actually Train you off and on in various skills; all you have to do is sit in your desk every day. Studying you have to do outside of Class - in the Venalicium, if possible. Doing so raises your Study Level, and the Study Level is a big part of how well you’re going to do on tests. The good news is that every Class only has the one Study Level, it's not like skills where you have to Train at least three to raise a Parent Skill Level. The bad news is that they're essential for your exams. You can be the most amazing Glamour wizard in all Elumia, but if your Study Level is low, you’re just going to choke when it comes to writing out what you know how to do. Alternatively there are people out there who can’t cast a single spell without breaking their fingers, but can end a year of Glamour classes with 102. That's out of 50, if you didn't know.
Oh, another important thing is that Study Levels are more important that you'd think! They will teach you stuff just like a skill, sometimes useful things you won't be able to get anywhere else, and at the start of your fourth month in the school (which would be Cheimare, unless they’ve really moved the calendar around because of those idiot pirates) there'll be midterms. I can't say what you'll need to get the best score, that depends on your classmates (and I've heard plenty of stories about some prodigy beating the second best by a full 20 or 30 points), but if you have all your Study Levels and relevant Parent Skills at at least 5 at the start of Cheimare you should be able to avoid reprimands. As for finals, which are taken in Kaliri, you'll want to raise both all the way to 10. My advise is to get your studying done early. It's not an exiting way to spend your time, but it has to be done eventually and you'll get in trouble if you don't do it sooner rather than later.

 

Letter 4:

 

The fourth page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
Now, I said earlier I’d come back to familiars. Actually, wizards capitalize that word in formal settings, so “Familiars”. Most kids get them early - dogs or cats start following them around, and then those dogs and cats start getting more able to understand humans, and then the next thing you know things are getting set on fire right and left. Here’s the thing: magic is weird. If you don’t have a Familiar now, something will probably find you. You may not like what comes looking, but neither one of you is going to have much choice at first. Something to do with the ley lines and imbalanced reactions and who knows what.
The connection between you and your Familiar is called a Bond, and you can kind of treat it like a skill - you can Train it. What we call the Bond of Iron has to do with the physical connection between you and your whatever it turns out to be - as Iron goes up, it just means as one of you gets more physically capable, the other’s likely to do the same. The Bond of Silver is the same, but with brainy stuff, and the Bond of Stars is… I don’t know. Fate. Astrology. Not my subject. The Parent Skill for those three - like the skill of being a Spy is to Hiding and Lockpicking and Lying - is just called Bond.

One important thing to remember is that in order to train your Bond, you have to train your Familiar. You can't train your Bond by yourself, nor can your Familiar train himself (herself?) - you have to train your Familiar. As for how to train your Familiar, well, there's the Train Familiar Action, which does exactly what you'd think, but like the regular Train action it's not great. Also like the regular Train action I'm sure there's better ways, and while I never found any myself it seems pretty obvious that College Morvidus is the best place to start looking for one, so maybe grab a textbook on Revision or Zoology sometime.

 

Letter 5:

 

The final page of a letter you found in your dorm room. It reads:
And there's a lot more you'll pick up. Exploring will inform you of new locations, all of which give you either temporary bonuses or new things to do. Just be warned, if you're exploring where you don't have Visitation Rights, there's a Chance you'll be Discovered and get in trouble. And there's a lot of places that you're not allowed to go.
You’ll build relationships - Gossip is good for that, you just need to get good at the skill for it to really show - and you’ll make friends, and those friendships will make some things easier for you. Same goes for sucking up to teachers. Sorry, gaining "Favor". You’ll annoy people and fight Duels. You'll obviously learn about Spells and Phemes, that's kinda the point. Maybe you’ll even run into pirates and monsters. I kind of hope you don’t, for your own sake, but…well, from the time the first dragon reared its evil head, it seems like humanity’s hopes haven’t always counted for very much.
Anyway, take care of the room, please. I always liked it.
Yours in magically burning things,
Gera.

 

Addendum:

 

Gera seems to have ripped out a page from a textbook and attached it to the main letter. It reads:

We owe it to the dragons for teaching the wizards of old the basic building blocks of all Spells: Phemes.
Spells are made of Phemes and cannot be cast without them. Beware, however, when you learn a Spell, you do not necessarily learn the Phemes that make up that Spell! Adding additional Phemes to a Spell can enhance its power and make it formidable, indeed. When you choose to cast a Spell during the day, its Phemes are automatically considered to be added to it- if you wish to add more Phemes to a Spell, you may do so just before you cast it. Only Phemes you have learned can be added to Spells.
If you find yourself engaged in combat, you will need to Add Phemes to your Palette. You must have the correct Phemes on your Palette before your Spell can be cast, meaning that Spells usually take more than one combat Phase to cast- watch what your opponent is doing!

 

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Hmm, going for study level and class level 5's at mid-terms - I generally have half my skills with no study level at midterms and often have skills under 5 as well and have no problems, from an efficiency point of view you are better slamming each study class to 10 in turn, focusing on those which give you an ability boost in an ability you are bad at.

 

The effect on final score will bug the true perfectionists, but its fairly trivial.

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The problem why I left it as it original was written was that this letter couldn't really tell you what class you should raise to 10 early and what could be wait for later as this is meta knowledge. Otherwise we also could tell hey people have a look at the wiki and start with topic x followed with topic y. If at all I would suggest to get study to 10 by midterm because for some class like History or Grammar midterm make 20% and endterm only 80% of the result counting in year 2! So a player who have History midterm 10% and endterm 110% only have a real score of 90% while the NPC with 60% and 100% get 92%. But for other class midtherm count only 1% so its not that easy to give a general rule here. (What reminds me that I need to get the History study to 10 before midterm)

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Which is why I not so vaguely advice players to get their studying done sooner rather than later, that Study Levels unlock goodies just like anything else, and that the Venalicium exist. People that put two and two together will end up getting the libraries early.

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  • 9 months later...

I think Geras letter is good the way it is, he wasn't the best of students, but he gives new people the basics to get them started.

Then you find out your own Formulas to sucess and your own goals.

 

If he had been that great he wouldn't have been tossed out like that. Politics do happen and Rupprecht can seem scary. But he took on more than he could handle. And he admits it.

 

Still, I think the letter is in character and thoguhtful and somewhat funny at the same time. The part about his failure with candy just underlines his incompetence and the need for improvement. But like I said, his notes are helpful to get started, and it Points to the need to find out more than he did.

 

One of the first things you do Before leaving for the summer in Y2 at the start of the game if you imported a character, to decide if you want to leave Gera's papers for the next student or improve on them or write something more helpful for the next student... Or possibly just prank them. Evil prank, just laying there, waiting for months for a victim unknown to you to take the bait.

 

Then as you return after the summer you can hear the chatter about it!

 

Or if you were really helpful there might be a short few lines of thanks from the student who received helpful guidance. It may or may not be your first year student assigned to you.

 

Personally I think the mentor assigned is the person who lived in the room/bunk the year Before, to make things easier on the faculty(lazy). Unless they are extremely unsuited for the task, or no longer there.

Gera for example got expelled therefor he couldn't be your actual mentor, otherwise he likely would have been by that system.

So instead Orso Orsi asked a for a thirdyear of good repute who did well at this task. Which landed you with the third year Oan.

 

Makes sense doesn't it? That's why you got singeld out to get a thirdyear even though the usual solution is to give each noew student a second year mentor. The letter is tied up with the Mentor and Gera mention the part that you will get a mentor assigned to you that will show up any moment now.

 

Least, it seems to make sense in my mind. You character isn't special when it arrives at school, it could be anyoen of any background, the only common denominator is that you Always get Gera's letter and you get Oan as a mentor.

First principles and Logic at work in Academagia :P And Faculty planning procedures.

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It may be in character, but the letter's purpose is to point the player in the right direction. "Train is important" is not the right direction. Gera would have learned something over the course of...I think her stay, even if she did too late to make use of it herself.

 

And I don't think the PC getting Gera's room and Oan as a mentor is that simple, really. Remember, the Academagia took on three last-minute additions and because of that they ran out of mentors. And no, the PC is not one of those three. So why does the PC get the third year as a mentor if his/her presence at the Academagia was planned from the start? Who knows. It all depends on who are the three...maybe.

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It may be in character, but the letter's purpose is to point the player in the right direction. "Train is important" is not the right direction. Gera would have learned something over the course of...I think her stay, even if she did too late to make use of it herself.

 

And I don't think the PC getting Gera's room and Oan as a mentor is that simple, really. Remember, the Academagia took on three last-minute additions and because of that they ran out of mentors. And no, the PC is not one of those three. So why does the PC get the third year as a mentor if his/her presence at the Academagia was planned from the start? Who knows. It all depends on who are the three...maybe.

Gera was supposed to be a mentor, until Gera got kicked out. I'm assuming most year classes are somewhet equaly large and most students start their second year since it's very rare to get kicked out Before year 2.

Each new year the students are assigned new, possibly more prestigeous accomodations.

 

When they move people up a floor or something it makes sense to use the old list of roomholders from last year when assigning mentors. That way you got a finnished list already and the mentor knows where to go, since it pretty much says, go to your old room and greet the new student.

Our student was indeed planned, but the second year from that room is no longer attending the Academagia.... Therefor they needed a replacement and sought out a third year, in the players case, Oan.

If they needed more mentors then it makes sense that they fill that need by similar means.

 

Why else would the player have been singled out? Coincidents do happen, but it makes sense that the two incidents are linked. The previous occupant got kicked out of school, and the system the professors were using had a hole which they had to plug.

 

There is that whole Three students and the names in the hat thing, did they put all the first years names in that hat? or just Three unassigned students who would all get third years?

 

But, yeah, I see your Point, I never put much thought into that whole process of getting the student assigned to Oan. I guess I didn't find that detail to be the most interesting.

 

Putting all names in the hat would have been fair but more work for the Legate, and he doesn't seem like the person to like work. But it isn't that imporant I guess. In that case all second years did qualify for getting an apprentice, or there were fewer first years this year and the failures didn't cause that much of a lack of mentors. They only needed Three extras to fill in.

 

On the flipside, having a third year might have been easier than the secondyears who might have been riding their firstyears more harshly and with eager anticipation, while Oan already had that stuff out of her system and had third year stuff to do and only did it as a favor to the Legate.

The PC probably got a winning lottery ticket with Oan, by Geras description his Mentor wasn't very ncie or useful, Gera had to carry the mentors books and stuff. Some might have been worse than that.

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...When did Gera get expelled? S/he's already out come the PC's first Juvenalia, so it must have been before then, but if she got expelled during the previous year wouldn't the faculty have been more than able to plan around that? Unless s/he pulled that stunt on von Rupprecht during, like, late Theriventus, but the Academagia is closed during the summer, I don't think Gera sneaked in just to pull a stunt that no one was going to see. And I don't think VR would have allowed her to write and leave that letter in her room if she was "expelled" during the summer, either, she'd just have been escorted out since her room would have already been empty.

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Maybe the prank was activated during the summer. Maybe they rigged something crazy that only Vin Rupprecht would activate, and after some astrology he figured out they were the one that made the prank. Afterwards it would just be a matter of sending a letter home like "Don't come back".

 

Or something more official-like

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Here's an except from Random Event - Gera Was Here:

"Oh, yeah. Sorry. You're Gera, right? We finally finished putting your wand back together. Ordinarily, we'd charge an arm and a leg, but... well, for what you did to ol' Stink-Eye Sixt von Rupprecht, we'll call it even for just fifty pims."

Persuasion. Tell him the truth, pay the 50 pims, and find a way to send Gera's wand to its rightful owner.
"Oh, man," the delivery guy groans. "I knew it! We all heard about the prank back at the workshop, and some of the guys thought that Stinky breaking the wand was gonna be the end of it. But me? I said, 'Any time you put that much magical singing pig crap in a professor's office, you're looking at the slow boat back home.' Guess I was right." He sighs. "Well, if you can get this thing to its rightful home, you'd be doing us a huge favor. I'm sorry to charge you at all, but... ah, you know what? Forget the money. Just wish Gera well for all of us, if you can."

So, you take the wand, and before your classes start you run down to the legate's office. Orso Orsi isn't around, of course, but his assistant listens to your story and takes the wand with a look that comes pretty close to reverence. "It'll be taken care of," he promises.

And now you can officially consider the welcome note paid back in full.

 

I don't think that's the kind of thing a first year can hide until it activates based on proximity, particularly if Gera never figured out something better than Train. I also don't think s/he'd be summoned to the Academagia over the summer only for Sixt to break her wand.

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