The Magus University Superdraft

[Bazza]

4 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Lin Carter claimed (in an appendix of sources for one of his books) the witch from Hansel and Gretel was named Mother Gothel, but I don't remember if he said what the source was. Not that it matters; people like that tend not to be limited by single names.

 

Dean Shomshak

 

Speaking of fairly tales, will you be visiting the interior of the earth and when purified find the hidden stone VITRIOL? ( )

[Psybolt]

Professor (specialty: Deities, Domain & Alignment) :   Darkness (Legend)

 

[DShomshak]

Option: Notorious Alumnus: Alexander Scriabin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scriabin

 

Considering the importance of music to the Ars Hermetica, it should be no surprise that many students of the Paolini Institute become skilled musicians. Conversely, several well-known composers and musicians through history have been secret Hermetics. Or not so secret…

 

In life, Alexander Scriabin was better known as a virtuoso piano performer than as a composer. But he made no secret of his interest in Theosophy and the mystical theories of Rudolf Steiner. Some of his compositions, such as The Divine Poem and Prometheus: the Poem of Fire, had explicitly mystical themes. And his design for a “color organ” that correlated musical pitches with colors? Hermeticism 101. Scriabin sought to perform musical-magical workings on an epic scale, which would transform humanity. He not only strove to reach beyond the universe, he wanted to take the entire world with him.

 

So the Institute killed one of its most brilliant graduates.

 

It wasn’t done lightly. Magister Paolini conferred with faculty and other masters from Marsilio Ficino back to Orpheus. They agreed: Scriabin had to be stopped. For all things have their opposites: and as there is an All-Highest beyond the world, an Unmoved Movers, there is a contrary center of whirling motion; a drain as well as a source; a descent unto annihilation. As the Chaldaean Oracles warn the seeker beyond the world:

 

Step not down, therefore, to the Darkly-Shining World: beneath is spread the Abyss, forever formless, lightless, foul, joying in illusion, irrational, precipitous and sinuous, ceaselessly whirling around its own maimed depth, eternally wed to a shape inert, not breathing, and void.

 

[Aside: Dang, I wish I could write lines like that.]

 

And it was all in Scriabin’s music. Ecstasy was become madness. Well was his Sonata #9 called The Black Mass. His music was becoming, well, eldritch.

 

It was a well-executed… execution. A pimple on Scriabin’s lip. A nick to the pimple while shaving. And the infection spread into fatal septicemia.

 

Afterward, the Institute collected and destroyed Scriabin’s unpublished and incomplete works — especially the plans for his climactic working Mysterium. They saved the world.

 

But the rumor persists among Institute students that not all of Scriabin’s work was destroyed. That the mad composer’s own piano, modified and consecrated for his special purposes, is still hidden in some secret vault. And that when one should be alone in the Institute at the dead of night, sometimes one can hear faint strains of weird piano music carried through the walls. Do not try to find the source.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Bazza]

52 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Step not down, therefore, to the Darkly-Shining World: beneath is spread the Abyss, forever formless, lightless, foul, joying in illusion, irrational, precipitous and sinuous, ceaselessly whirling around its own maimed depth, eternally wed to a shape inert, not breathing, and void.

 

[Aside: Dang, I wish I could write lines like that.]

We are already there…plus it is a good description of quantum mechanics. 
 

[ditto.]

[Sociotard]

Artificer lights flooded the arena, and illusionists projected huge versions of the two wizards entering it for the crowd to better see. The first stroked his shining bolus and smirked. "I'm actually impressed you made it this far. Truly. This is a moment you should savor. You're about to see what a real mage can do."

"Oh, you're a mage all right. Just not an Archmage."

A raised brow. "I suppose you'll tell me the difference?"

Lightning exploded in arcs from the second wizards bolus in dazzling lines that jumped out of the arena and clear to the sky. "PRESENTATION"

 

Star Pupil: Megamind (Megamind)

 

 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

12 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Option: Notorious Alumnus: Alexander Scriabin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Scriabin

 

Considering the importance of music to the Ars Hermetica, it should be no surprise that many students of the Paolini Institute become skilled musicians. Conversely, several well-known composers and musicians through history have been secret Hermetics. Or not so secret…

 

Sorry, D, you already have three picks with Holst. I'm afraid you jumped the gun with this one. (Though you're probably safe.)

 

REMINDER: We're taking weekends off so people can catch up or write. 

[Bazza]

Mental note: must poach, err, recruit Alexander Scriabin from Dean’s clutches. (  )

[DShomshak]

2 hours ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

 

Sorry, D, you already have three picks with Holst. I'm afraid you jumped the gun with this one. (Though you're probably safe.)

 

REMINDER: We're taking weekends off so people can catch up or write. 

Sorry, I didn't realize there was a rule that the number of entries posted for the Superdraft cannot exceed the number of days it's gone on. (And at the time of posting, it was still Friday here.)

 

Assuming Bazza doesn't claim-jump me, I'll re-post bright and early Monday morning. And I should have the Freshman Student ready to post Tuesday. (And it's a tough choice, but a few options would work better for other departments. I look forward to seeing if they appear.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[assault]

On 3/4/2023 at 4:14 AM, csyphrett said:

I would like to pick Atomic Robo Tesla as a teacher of historic exotic sciences

CES 

Snipe! Although I wasn't going to use the Atomic Robo version of Tesla.

 

So my Galvano-Biology Professor will have to be: Rotwang!

 

And I need another pick to catch up.

Professor of Constructive and Reconstructive Surgery: Charles Atlas

Quote: "Let me prove in 7 days that I can make you a new man!"

 

 

So far more Mad Science than Magic, but I'm not the only one.

 

[Bazza]

7 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Assuming Bazza doesn't claim-jump me

 

Not from me. Others still might snipe* you (*=claim-jump)

And it has been a decades long tradition that we pick one per day unless the rules for that super draft say otherwise. Initially, with the very first one it was whenever it was noon in your time zone). 

 

[csyphrett]

7 hours ago, assault said:

Snipe! Although I wasn't going to use the Atomic Robo version of Tesla.

 

So my Galvano-Biology Professor will have to be: Rotwang!

 

And I need another pick to catch up.

Professor of Constructive and Reconstructive Surgery: Charles Atlas

Quote: "Let me prove in 7 days that I can make you a new man!"

 

 

So far more Mad Science than Magic, but I'm not the only one.

 

Nick Tesla is still free. Robo is his robotic son and successor as the protector of humanity from weird stuff

CES

[Bazza]

Noted! 🤔🤫🤔

[death tribble]

The other professor will be Dr Drakken

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Kim_Possible_characters#Dr._Drakken

 

Robots.

Robots that cause destruction or can be destroyed

 

He amuses Dr Destroyer for he can come up with ideas that Destroyer can improve on.

[DShomshak]

15 hours ago, Bazza said:

 

Not from me. Others still might snipe* you (*=claim-jump)

And it has been a decades long tradition that we pick one per day unless the rules for that super draft say otherwise. Initially, with the very first one it was whenever it was noon in your time zone). 

Ah, but I wasn't participating in superdrafts years ago. Up until now, I've only participated in the World Creation Superdraft, whose rules may be unique, so I've had to try inferring the rules that nobody thinks to say. So everyone please make allowances for the ignorant visitor from another planet.

 

(I did figure out the colloquial meaning of "snipe" years ago; it's been used elsewhere. "Claim jump" has a slightly different shade of meaning that seems apt.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Bazza]

No worries.  

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

50 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Ah, but I wasn't participating in superdrafts years ago. Up until now, I've only participated in the World Creation Superdraft, whose rules may be unique, so I've had to try inferring the rules that nobody thinks to say. So everyone please make allowances for the ignorant visitor from another planet.

 

Not a problem. No harm, no foul 😎

 

Glad you're with us on this one! 

[Hermit]

Soooooonnnnn.....

 

 

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Very excited to pick it up again this week. Finally figured out my star pupil. 

[Cancer]

I'll be deferring today to make a double pick tomorrow.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

The Puck Institute's Star Pupil is Tiana!

 

Tiana is a promising young cook from New Orleans with an affinity for Cajun cuisine. Her “swamp gumbo” is what got her accepted to the Puck institute, but she refuses to share the recipe. Not even with her professors. She says with a wink that she got it from her friends on the other side. “C’est tout.” Tiana has a voodoo-streaked history which practically destined her for a career in magical cookery. An involuntary shapeshifter, Tiana finds that she can still communicate with animals. 

Tiana is an intelligent, resourceful, and driven young woman. She makes friends easily and fries up her special beignets for her colleagues every week. She’s also an ambitious (some say obsessive) student. This year, she convinced Dean Brown to stage a special Mardi Gras celebration at the Institute. As a department, they made up an enormous King Cake capable of feeding the entire student body. 

 

 

[Enforcer84]

The School of Magitech's newest rising star Freshman - just ask him - is a war veteran looking to expand his knowledge so that his fiance doesn't have to constantly fix things for him. Meet

 

Edward Elric, 

[Bazza]

Option 1: Visiting Professor: Archimedes.
 

Specialties: Mathematics, Physics, Astronomy, Mechanics, Engineering. 
 

https://imgflip.com/i/1l8rw0

[death tribble]

Dr Drakken needs an assistant. Shego

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shego

 

Dr Destroyer likes sparring with her as she realises what he is upto and won't let him give Drakken grief. It also means that people take te department seriously.

[Hermit]

To say the kid was green was to put it mildly. He even dressed in the color, and looked and sounded like he fell off a turnip cart. Still, his scores on short term prophetic accuracy were off the charts, and that and his aptitude for clerical expertise was enough to make the admins drool about perhaps eventually recruiting him to serve the academic bureaucracy.  That combination netted him the scholarship.

 

That didn't stop him from looking utterly lost on campus. Clearly out of his depth away from his home farm, the poor guy ended up running errands  for someone who mistook him for some kind intern. Clearly, a backbone insertion would be needed, and perhaps... just perhaps, more frequent showers. He ended up in Amicitia-Mancy as soon as they saw he had brought his own ursine friend. Boy howdy, THAT was embarrassing.

 

Pick for Freshman: Walter Eugene O'Reilly

 

[Old Man]

56 minutes ago, Enforcer84 said:

The School of Magitech's newest rising star Freshman - just ask him - is a war veteran looking to expand his knowledge so that his fiance doesn't have to constantly fix things for him. Meet

 

Edward Elric, 

 

An actual snipe!  Well done!