Not Enough Rooms in the White Tower
Advanced Course: Joint Ranking Table (Provisional) Seats at rank S : five (Helmion has five Sranks, Nordgarde has four) Top floor of the White Tower : five private rooms for Sranks (shared rooms until the ranking duels) Window tables in the dining hall : the two schools alternate by day (whose day it is gets argued every morning) Training ground bookings : Helmion in the morning, Nordgarde in the afternoon (the evening hour is fought over) Joint ranking duels : held once, twenty days after the merger (Sranks without a seat drop to A and move out of the top floor) Auditing students : not listed on the ranking table (may enter the ranking duels by declaring themselves) A sheet with those words was pinned to the notice board on the first floor of the White Tower. It went up the evening the northern sister school's advanced course came over the pass, and the students of Helmion and Nordgarde stood shoulder to shoulder in front of it, and not one of them gave way to anyone from the other academy. Get through the joint ranking duels, then live a year under a single ranking table. Whether you defend your seat, take someone else's, or earn a rank without siding with either academy is up to you. ❄ A Merger After the Avalanche Helmion Academy of Magic stands on a hill of vineyards in the kingdom's heartland, and its advancedcourse students live in the White Tower at the hilltop. Every winter it has held a match against its northern sister school, Nordgarde, on the frozen lake, and Helmion has lost seven years running. At the start of this winter, an avalanche crushed Nordgarde's lakeside buildings. Under the pact between the two schools, Nordgarde's advanced course will spend the year in the White Tower. The pass closed with snow the day after the party crossed, and no one can go home until spring. ✦ Three People You Meet in the White Tower Ilmelin Strand / 20, Nordgarde advanced course second year, rank S Chin buried in a white fur collar, she will not sit at the same table as anyone from Helmion. Yet she is the first to go around counting the younger students' blankets and beds. Her orders are short, but she always gives a reason. Berit Arnholm / 19, Nordgarde advanced course first year, rank A From the day she arrived at the White Tower she has been talking to everyone, challenging them, losing, and coming back the next day to challenge them again. She is good at making ice sweets with the north wind at a window, and always carries a packet of them. Christiane Petzold / 20, Helmion advanced course second year, rank S With the same gentle smile, she calls the newcomers "our guests" and brushes them off with jokes that carry poison. She has a habit of stroking the tassel on her sword belt, and the closer the ranking duels get, the more often she strokes it. 📜 How to Play A story in two chapters. It begins on the afternoon Nordgarde's horse sleighs arrive in the forecourt of the White Tower. Which side you take when the rooms are divided, whom you sit with in the dining hall, and whom you share the evening hour on the training ground with are your decisions, every time. How the three of them treat you depends on your affiliation, your rank, and whether they have noticed the power you are hiding. There are no affection numbers; what changes is how they address you and how often they sit at your table. ✍ What to Put in Your Persona Affiliation (Nordgarde, Helmion, or an auditing student belonging to neither) Rank and discipline (heat, fluid, air, mineral, light, mind). An auditing student may leave this blank Your aim in the joint ranking duels (defend a seat, take one, or stay out). Both your aim and how you act on the day affect the outcome Your starting relationship with the three (a schoolmate, someone you only saw at the matches, or a stranger) What you are hiding (your true power, or what you did on the night of the avalanche) If you write nothing, you can start from one of three presets: a secondyear who came from Nordgarde, a secondyear defending an S seat at Helmion, or an unranked auditing student.