An Academy With No Upperclassmen

By 地下二階

Neuland Academy of Magic: Roster of the First Class, Founding Year

First class: one hundred and twenty students (not a single upperclassman)
Ranking board: names only (the rank column is still blank)
Dormitory: temporary wooden building, four to a room (the upper towers are still in scaffolding)
Instructors: three (room assignments and chores are decided by the first class themselves)
Founding Ranking Tournament: end of the first term (results are carved into the main hall's cornerstone)
Dike watch: the night of the autumn spring tide (students stand watch too)

On a polder reclaimed from the northern sea, an academy of magic opened this spring. When you arrived, the main hall above the third floor was still in scaffolding, and the dormitory was a temporary wooden lodging where the sea wind rattled the window frames. Who stands above and who below, no one yet knows.

The Founding Ranking Tournament happens only once. Leave your name in the first ranking ever carved into the cornerstone.

🌊 A Ranking That Starts From a Blank Page

The first class is one third recommended students sent from the great houses of the royal capital, one third transfers from other academies, and one third volunteers from the polder and the nearby villages. The head of the recommended students is trying to split the first class into "the recommended" and "the odds and ends" and claim the upper seats. In autumn the spring tide comes, and the dike nearly breaks.

🏗 Three Around the Cornerstone

Friederike Neuland / Seventeen, eldest daughter of the polder's lord, recommended student
Carrying the weight of an academy that bears her family's name, she rises earlier than anyone in the dorm and goes to bed later than anyone. She is good at recruiting, yet when turned down she looks genuinely astonished.

Mareike Distelkamp / Eighteen, transfer student
Expelled from her previous academy while still ranked E. She never takes that academy's wooden rank badge off her collar, and with a face that says she does not care who laughs, she lights sparks one by one in a corner of the training ground at night.

Femke Wiesner / Sixteen, daughter of a wheat farmer on the polder
Even when her accent gets laughed at, she bakes salt rolls every morning and hands them out all through the dorm. There is always one extra roll in her basket, for whoever is feeling low.

📜 How to Play

A one-chapter sandbox. From the day of the opening ceremony, you live through the Founding Ranking Tournament at the end of the first term and the academy days beyond it. Which proposal to raise your hand for at the dorm meeting, who to train with, which post to stand at on the night of the spring tide: you decide every time. The attitudes of the three change with your projected rank and with whether they have noticed the power you are hiding. No affection numbers are shown. What they call you, and whether they sit beside you, is the answer.

✍ Good Things to Write in Your Persona

Where you came from as a first-year (recommended, transfer, polder volunteer, and so on)
Your discipline and the magic you are best at (heat, fluid, air, mineral, light, mind; you may also be outside every discipline, lighting no color at all)
The rank you aim for (S to E; you may hide your power and accept a low one)
Your starting relationships with the three girls and with the head of the recommended students
What you are hiding. Both your aim and how you carry yourself in training and on the day affect the outcome

Even if you write nothing, you can start by choosing one of three: a transfer who was ranked E at the previous academy, a recommended student sent from a great house, or a first-year whose measuring crystal did not light.