Morgrave High: Setting

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Morgrave University[edit]

“A beacon of knowledge illuminating the secrets of the past”


Dear Sir/Madam/Neuter,

I am delighted to inform you that your application for admittance to the ranks of the Morgrave University Junior Associates has been approved. Your thoughtful application, remarkable personal accomplishments, and outstanding written essay, convinced us that you possess the drive, determination, and intellectual clarity necessary for admittance to our prestigious institute. Indeed were it not for your age, I would judge you worthy of full admittance as a student at Morgrave University, and I trust that after four years with our Junior Associates program, you will do just that. I formally welcome you to the Morgrave University Junior Associates Institute class of 998 YK.

As you know, the Morgrave University, founded in 738 YK by Lareth ir’Morgrave, has quickly risen to become the foremost institute in the fields of Archaeology, Cryptozoology, Applied Theurgics, and Old World Studies in all of Khorvaire. Not content to rest on the laurels of his ancestors, the current Dean, Larrian ir’Morgrave, sought to expand the University’s mandate for learning to a younger student body in 995 YK by opening the Morgrave University Junior Associates Institute. At MUJAI, precocious young students like you will undertake a four year education in the fundamental skills necessary for eventual admittance to both Morgrave University proper and its sister program, the Morgrave Outreach Association. Come this fall you’ll be eligible to sign up for such classes as Applied Arcanic Resonance, Underground Survival Training, Advanced Trapspotting, Mythobiology, Draconic Language Studies, and Unorthodox Combat Techniques. Thanks to our partnership with the Wayfinder Foundation, the Library of Korranburg, the Twelve, and the Rekkenmark Academy, Morgrave University Junior Associates can look forward to studying under some of the best minds in all the four nations, as well as visiting professors from such exotic locations as Aerenal and Darguun.

Again, I congratulate you on taking your first step towards becoming a part of our fine university. I look forward to both the unique mix of skills and attitudes that you will surely bring to Morgrave, and your inevitable accomplishments in your chosen field.

Sincerely,

Headmaster Argo ir’Witt


Campaign Pitch[edit]

What is Morgrave High? Morgrave High takes Hogwarts, Mean Girls, and X-Crawl, stitches them together into a flesh golem, kills it, and takes its stuff. Morgrave High has classes on dinosaur wrangling. Morgrave High has a warforged that teaches sex-ed. Morgrave High takes field trips to the Underdark. Morgrave High has a basement full of giant hive-spiders who think and speak as men and also write interesting little vignettes for the student paper. Morgrave High is odd, and interesting, and possibly very, very dangerous.

Morgrave High -- or Morgrave Low, as the students sarcastically call it, since it’s located one tier below the University proper on the Upper Menthis plateau in Sharn -- is nominally a private preparatory school designed to prep students for entry into Morgrave University’s “unique” academic environment. Since Morgrave University itself is widely regarded in academic circles as a disreputable front for grave robbers and black market artifact peddlers, this entails a slightly different approach than traditional educational institutes. Students are trained not only in history and geography, but high arcana, obscure lost languages, hand to hand combat, antivenin preparation, and every other skill necessary to survive in exotic locales on four continents. Morgrave High is an entire school dedicated to producing adventurers.

Why?

Money. Flat out. With the war over and a tenuous peace stretching across the land, the movers and shakers of Khorvaire are turning their thoughts to the future, and in Eberron, the future is the past. A century ago, three bloody, half-starved explorers stumbled out of the jungles of Xendrik clutching the shattered remains of a man-shaped creature they found guarding the tomb of an ancient giant emperor, and within twenty years House Cannith was turning out the first prototype warforged. Centuries before that, one half-mad gnome stumbled across a dragonshard filled with swollen darkness in the heart of a mysterious orrery at the top of a brass tower in the Demon Wastes, and though he later exploded under mysterious circumstances, his descendants learned the magical techniques that let them bind elementals to power airships and lightning rails. The future backbone of Khorvaire’s economy lies not in gold, or even dragon shards, but in relics of the ancient past. History, as Larrian ir’Morgrave was fond of saying, is where the treasure is hidden, and he has gotten a number of members of both the Aurum and the Dragonmarked Houses to agree with him. With their funding and resources he created the Morgrave University Junior Associates Institute, where the entrepreneurs of tomorrow are trained to be the bloodthirsty, jungle-drunk giantslayers of today.

Morgrave at a Glance[edit]

Morgrave High

a.k.a, the Morgrave University Junior Associates Institute

School colors: Purple and black

School mascot: the Morgrave Fighting Drakes. (Spire Drakes are a species of tiny flying reptiles that are native to the city of Sharn. They make their nests in the eves of rooftops and spires throughout the City of Towers, and survive mainly by eating pigeons.)

School Uniforms: Because of the nature of its educational mandate and the diverse nature of its student body's bodies, Morgrave High has a very lenient policy when it comes to uniforms. Most students wear the traditional uniform: a collared shirt, tie, and long trousers for boys and slacks or a skirt and a blouse for girls, all in the school's colors. Students may also opt to wear robes or a gown paired with a stole or chausible bearing the school's colors and insignia. Students are encouraged to paint or enamel their armor in the school's colors as a way of expressing school spirit.