Legate of Mineta

And, for Schwarzbart: "Both. Orso has control of really ancient defenses, but they're geared more toward warfare than theft. Then he's entitled to lay down whatever enchantments he likes on the Academy grounds to supplement the original defenses. He was also responsible for defusing some of the traps left behind by previous legates, it should be said."

First, for Metis: "The anti-burglary enchantments are objectively fairly poor, unless reinforced by specific professors. In theory, the dorms completely refuse outside access, but it's not at all uncommon for older students to leave unshielded points of entry for friends to slip in and out - and any competent astrologer can eventually pinpoint a means of ingress. In some respects it's harder to steal from classrooms; even when doors are unlocked, most of the furniture and essential supplies are magically associated with the room. That said, there usually aren't regular inventories taken in the classrooms, and things regularly get moved around by the students, so if someone does manage to grab something small and sneak it past the wards, it could be a long time before its disappearance is noticed - which means there's plenty of opportunity to scrub it of magical flags and alarm bells. That said, it's very hard to steal from the forges - some of the magics protecting them are non-human. And it's borderline insane to try to steal from the Venalicium, because the library itself might get angry. Or hungry. As for faculty responses: well, as a rule, theft from a student is supposed to be reported to the student's regent, so responses vary. Von Rupprecht will tear into you for being careless, but there's a pretty good chance he'll want an example made of anyone who steals from one of his kids; Massioti will express great sympathy and then file a pointless report with the Minetan Guard and forget the whole thing ever happened. Theft from the school itself (unless it's specifically property owned by one of the colleges) is Orso's responsibility, though, and his response rests almost entirely on how many competing crises he has going on. If, as you say, it's low priority, he'll probably ask students to investigate (as the Main Character can no doubt attest), or just ask some of his friends in the Thieves' Guilds to keep their eyes open for things coming up for laundering or resale. If he's got a few free moments, he'll probably also try some basic astrology to try to track either the items or the thieves down - or at least get a clue or ten he can pass along. The thing about Orso, though, is that he likes investigations and he likes the hunt. There's always going to be a chance he'll make a theft his business - especially if Briardi's trying to get him to go negotiate the purchase of several crates of detained cleaning supplies at the same time."

M; Now, I can ask...but this seems like the kind of suspiciously-worded question that makes a Legate's skin crawl.

M; "'Magic Japan' is [Redacted] (which, by the way, Miya's people seem to remember as "Renpo"), but the colonies in the northeast are extremely anti-Mastery and are considered eccentric about Gates. They respect the prohibition - maybe more than some of their neighbors with High Elumian ancestry - but in theory they often argue that Gates magic is simply the flip-side of Astrology, and that mastering one without learning the other leaves one susceptible to a kind of magical imbalance. The last person to steal the Durand necklace wasn't a student. Heh heh hehhhhh. As for von Rupprecht's seizing of the History portfolio, two notes: 1) It was actually a major part in his power play against Strom. He had the prestige of expanding the feofdom, as it were, and as long as he had Piaxenza's semi-official support Strom couldn't reassign the professorship to a different Aranaz flunky. 2) Three years later, Piaxenza helped back von Rupprecht's ouster of Strom, while keeping his fingerprints mostly off the metaphorical knives. It's worth remembering that Finus Piaxenza may be the most talented and farsighted political player among all the regents. He just generally seems to value stability, so he doesn't attract as much attention as Team Aranaz."

"As to "curious why that number is what it is," well... Academy graduate students have been debating for centuries. Be careful who you ask..."

Metis; See the Academagia World thread for this answer.

And: "Aranaz: Regent Strom has already been discussed. He was conspicuously tall, very blond, and devastatingly seductive in any number of ways. He was also arrogant and careless, and when von Rupprecht finally got him thrown out (again, for trading in illegal magic artifacts) the word quickly spread that he was in the pocket of draconic cults and Saisyne spies. How true it is is open to question - von Rupprecht has been absolutely meticulous in destroying his reputation and burying any exculpatory facts. That said, the facts wouldn't be particularly exculpatory. Avila: Valeria Krantz - the woman responsible for imprisoning Avila boys in Tower 8 and implementing a program of beatings and religious orthoxies - was Avila Regent from `42 to `53. Even the girls found her...unpleasant, though most of her ire was directed toward the few boys who were in place when she arrived. Her predecessor was Regent Ioanna Scarletti, who was more or less Kate Badcrumble's direct inspiration. (Kate first came to the school as a student in `38, so she started with Scarletti and then had to witness the end of the Golden Age first-hand.) Durand: Technically, the previous regent was a man named Stag Orens, an amiable drunk who only got the job because he was Legate Wheelwright's nephew. In practice, the person running the show for most of that time was Negation Professor Una Junger. When Briardi got Junger's job, she also learned to do Stag's job - so when Orso finally forced the latter out, Polisena was the natural successor. (Though, of course, there was enough scandal in her background that her position seemed fragile at first.) Note that regarding the Great Steam Engine's donor, it wasn't actually Stag who made a gift of the thing in `50 - it was Una. It says something about her reputation that everyone just came to remember it as coming from the Durand Regent. Godina: The previous regent was one Tomasz Sandor, who got the job almost entirely because he was much calmer and less dangerous than Aliviera Battori, his predecessor. He's remembered for spectacular gardens as much as anything else. (The gardens were demolished by Massioti, who wanted the space for Rimbal training fields.) Hedi: Piaxenza's predecessor was Imeldis Silvermark, who's remembered for general holiness and impeccable manners - and for hunting the undead in the summers. She left to become a nun after the death of her husband. Morvidus: Regent Kim Haxney, Storey's predecessor, is now mostly remembered for her disappearance. She was hunting for a semi-mythical creature called the Aurean Bear, off in the Forest of Diamond Lakes, and she never came back; all anyone ever found was her deserted camp and a travel journal that described the strange sounds she heard at night. Vernin: Di Lucca Alazzo's predecessor was Antoine Azair, perhaps the greatest magical jeweler of his age. He was also flamboyant, often wearing a golden cape instead of work robes, and was known for profoundly unwise and inappropriate romantic liaisons. Rederico Agnetti was Orso's immediate predecessor, serving from `42 to `52. He was famously "medium-looking," which is to be expected - his mother was the former head of the Ombra, Mineta's secret police, and a Legate in her own right. It was commonly understood that Rederico was her agent for most of the years he held office. Rederico's predecessor was Herland Wheelwright, who swept in as a great reformer, got his nephew a job, and then left town when he was given titles and lands up north. Wheelwright's predecessor was Ecarla Agnetti, head of the Ombra, known (not fondly) as the Scorpion Woman. The Captain couldn't stand her and couldn't get rid of her - not for years, anyway. Ecarla's predecessor was Palo Cantrell, a history professor who had been the protege of crusading Durand Regent Mario Ghiberti in the `10s and early `20s. Cantrell's predecessor was Bonifatio Randsom, a secret Gates "cultist" (which implies he was in regular contact with certain extra-planar entities) and sworn enemy of, yes, Mario Ghiberti.

Oh, no. St. Huld is a hostel - it's just housing that incoming students used before being admitted to the dorms.

And: "1. Can you tell us about some of the old traditions that the Academagia likes to uphold even though it makes little sense to do so in the modern era? 1. One standout is the Procession of the Flowers to St. Huld's Hostel. The hostel is situated right by the Canal as it joins Ardica Lake, and historically incoming Academy students would stay there until their formal matriculation into a college at the start of the academic year.In the old days, an Imperial dignitary would sail down the canal to greet the St. Huld's students and escort them to campus on the last day of summer - and they would be met along the way by students about to begin their final year of studies. These older students would offer the younger ones flowers (traditionally lilacs and purple irises) to bring them good fortune in the years ahead.When Imperial representatives stopped coming, incoming students generally stopped staying at St. Huld's - though Catherine Chard and Flore Yveuillet both did before their first years - but every college still sends one student with a purple iris and a bag full of pims to the last day of summer. 2. How long after death can it take ghosts to manifest? 2. It varies wildly. In some cases it's the very next night (and it is usually nighttime). In other cases it seems to be the next moonless night. In other cases, there seem to be specific triggers - comets, significant objects being disturbed, loved or hated people having major life events. 3. What sort of things do people compare items to when commenting on their noteworthy pricetag, be it especially low or high? For example locally for me it is (or at least was) common to call things "expensive as pepper", dating back from when pepper was actually insanely expensive several hundred years or so back. What would someone in Mineta say? 3. "You couldn't buy that for a pirate's cap." The idea is that bringing back a pirate's head was supposed to earn you a significant ransom - but even someone so blessed couldn't afford to buy Item X. 4. Who was the youngest person to get a job as a professor teaching magic at the Academagia? Possibly Anathias Ranz, who was nineteen when he started teaching geometry back in 1416 (though he was qualified much earlier). That said, older school records don't necessarily contain professors' birthdates - not least because in the old days elite wizards didn't believe in sharing astrologically significant information with bureaucrats - so we can't say that profs noted for their youth at the time (i.e., Liturza Ottavia Gotto) were definitively younger or older. 5. Now that I think about it, wouldn't that mean that Piaxenza became a Regent after von Rupprecht did? I thought old VR punting out his predecessor was the most recent change. Legate, when did the current regents assume their position? Or at least, in what order?5. In chronological order:Term beginning in 1634: Oliver Storey becomes Regent of Morvidus. Term beginning in 1646: Finus Piaxenza becomes Regent of Hedi. Term beginning in 1649: Sixt von Rupprecht kicks Regent Strom to the curb and takes over. Term beginning in 1652: Orso is brought in as Legate. Shakeups ensue. Term beginning in 1653: Kate Badcrumble becomes Regent of Avila, Giovanni di Lucca Alazzo becomes Regent of Vernin. Term beginning in 1654: Polisena Briardi (who only started as a Negation Prof in 1650) becomes Regent of Durand, and immediately raises von Rupprecht's ire. Term beginning in 1656: Leo Massioti is seduced from the world of professional coaching to take over as Regent of Godina.6. Anything noteworthy that one of the Academagia's Rimbal players are endorsing?6. Leo Massioti's best-selling book, All on the Field.

Schwarzbart: "1) Herland Wheelwright became Marquess of Angrim's Strand (in Langsey) in `62, and had to hurry back north to secure his claims and start cleaning up the messes left by the last Marquess. 2-4) There's no record of any student who traveled through four or more colleges. Colleges have to accept new transfers - and if you've already gone through two colleges the rest start to question your seriousness. In the past, people who were unsettled in the college system eventually found themselves in the College of the Optiones, subject directly to the Legate, or else they just left the school altogether. The difference now is that Orso has shown no interest in reactivating the College of the Optiones, and the various colleges aren't generally involved in the kinds of conflicts you saw even fifty years ago - though the Durand/Aranaz feud does show signs of heating up. As for joining five or more colleges, we think Orso would find the idea amusing enough to allow if the various regents could put up with it...so...possible. As for how the character would be viewed... well, honestly, there would probably be a fair amount of hostility until it had been going on long enough to seem harmlessly eccentric. Students are encouraged to take real pride in their colleges, and in many cases have very close relationships with their regents - a student who drifted in, tried it out for a year, and then decided it wasn't good enough would rub a lot of his or her peers (to say nothing of the alumni) the wrong way."

Ascartand; Bannerlord!!! It's installing, but I still have no idea when I'll be able to play.

S; Let me ask.

M; Here you are: "Who is the current (acknowledged) oldest living mage, and is this person still active, or living like a hermit? Indeterminate. There's a pair of twins, Ineza and Janiero Solis, born in 1494 and still kicking at the start of 1658. Each asserts that the other was born first.They travel together and stay as guests in different courts, but the nature of their connection is that only one can be awake at any given time.And, yes, this seems awfully young for the oldest living wizard, given what magic can do. There's speculation that the really ancient wizards have either isolated themselves, gone into a cloister, or changed their public identity - or else just wiped one another out. Regardless, the oldest known surviving wizards are the twins. P.S. [Redacted]Has there ever been a regent who studied in one college and later became a regent for the college's rival?It's strange to say, but: apparently not.A regent needs a core bloc of supporters among the alumni, as a rule, and it's just Academy tradition that someone who forsakes or "betrays" her own college shouldn't be rewarded with high honors by another. They can be professors associated with a different college, but that's generally as high as they can rise. Now, there have been former Aranaz students who taught Negation - thereby associating with Durand in their professorships - who went on to become Legate. That's not scandalous at all. (The most recent example was Herland Wheelwright, Negation prof from 1630 to 1636, then Legate from 1640 to 1642.) But, assuming you were an Academy student in your youth, you can only be regent of your own college. It's not a written rule, but it's a rule nonetheless."

Ascartand; Oh, let me get a snack and settle in.

S; This is a fantastic suggestion.