DShomshak

*cries in America Online*

Dr Destroyer is on record saying it is the fault of those using and promoting magic on the university as his department could have caused a death but not what came after.
You see there is a ghost or spirit if you will that is obsessed with explosives and they are quite mad. Any mention of explosives or any phrases such as 'this will go like a bang' will invoke the spirit. Several near exorcisms have so far failed.
https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Crazy_Harry
 
This second clip is typical of its behaviour
 

Every school needds a holier than thou, arrogant grad student. And since I have no magical powers, we're going with Victor Von Doom. 

 
 
*sound of Agatha Heterodyne rolling her eyes so hard that they rattle in her skull*

Well, now this isn’t something I honestly expected on my BINGO card…
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-64992727
 
BBC News: ICC issues arrest warrant for Russian president

Option Pick: The Dean's House
 

 
Design is the "House for a Cosmopolite" (1783) by Antoine Vaudoyer. It seemed appropriate. Google it, and you can find sections and at least partial floor plans.
 
The Paolini Institute itself occupies a larger building of a different style.
 
Dean Shomshak

Option Pick: The Dean's House
 

 
Design is the "House for a Cosmopolite" (1783) by Antoine Vaudoyer. It seemed appropriate. Google it, and you can find sections and at least partial floor plans.
 
The Paolini Institute itself occupies a larger building of a different style.
 
Dean Shomshak

Option: Board of Regents trustee Hermes Trismegistus
 
Legendary founder of Hermetic mysticism. Possibly and Egyptian wizard, possibly a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Mythical either way, but also the author of The Emerald Tablet, the foundational text of Hermetic magic. He recently wrote a lighter guide for interested laypeople, The Emerald Tablet for Dummies.
 

 
Dean Shomshak

Option: Board of Regents trustee Hermes Trismegistus
 
Legendary founder of Hermetic mysticism. Possibly and Egyptian wizard, possibly a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Mythical either way, but also the author of The Emerald Tablet, the foundational text of Hermetic magic. He recently wrote a lighter guide for interested laypeople, The Emerald Tablet for Dummies.
 

 
Dean Shomshak

Option: Board of Regents trustee Hermes Trismegistus
 
Legendary founder of Hermetic mysticism. Possibly and Egyptian wizard, possibly a syncretism of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. Mythical either way, but also the author of The Emerald Tablet, the foundational text of Hermetic magic. He recently wrote a lighter guide for interested laypeople, The Emerald Tablet for Dummies.
 

 
Dean Shomshak

Okay, how about this?
 
 

 
 
Or this?
 
 
 

FLAVOR TEXT: WITCHCRAFT PERFORMS A MAJOR HERMETIC WORKING
 
(Not meant to make light of the weather disaster going on in California, but this is the sort of thing one could wish there were real magicians to perform. An example of one of the classic purposes of magic: commanding the powers of nature.)
 
(Stay safe, Cali comrades!)
 
Weather forecasts tell Witchcraft that yet another atmospheric river is heading toward California — a big one — and the state just can’t take any more. As a special project, she travels to the state and performs a rite to change the weather.
 
Even for a grad student, simply dispersing a storm is too big a feat of magic. All that water still has to go somewhere. Moreover, disrupting the weather that drastically could have much worse consequences later on. Witchcraft decides she will only redirect the rain a few hundred miles north or south, to some place that isn’t already so waterlogged. Meteorologists will be puzzled, but nothing obviously magical has happened.
 
Of the planets, Jupiter governs wind and weather generally, but the Moon has the strongest connection to water in particular. Therefore, Witchcraft builds her spell around the power of Jupiter encompassing and controlling the power of the Moon.
 
Preparing a ritual chamber on the West Coast, she hangs the room with blue cloth (the color of Jupiter) bearing crescent moons, owls, crabs, rabbits, and the symbol of the zodiac sign Cancer — all Lunar symbols — in silver paint. Blue vases hold bouquets of willow twigs, lilies, moonwort and rosemary (Lunar) with twigs of oak, beech, poplar, olive or fig, with shamrocks and stalks of grain (Jupiter). A brazier burns saffron, lignum aloes, and ash seed (perfumes of Jupiter). For a magician’s rod she carries a javelin of oak; her blue and white robe is pinned with a brooch of tin, the metal of jupiter. Candles with blue glass shields light the scene.
 
Her friends in the Champions stand in the corners within small magic circles so they can watch the rite without disrupting it. Everyone bathed before the ceremony and wears simple white robes that were exorcised with smoke from a censer and salt water sprinkled using a bundle of dried herbs.
 
At an hour propitious to Jupiter, draws an elaborate magic circle and consecrates the enclosure with incense, sprinklings of water, and invocations to the angels of the cardinal directions. A lectern in the circle holds a disk of blue paper, a pen, silver ink, and other small tools. Each tool receives its own incantation. Witchcraft uses the silver ink to draw a 9 x 9 magic square on one side of the disk, and the Sixth Talisman of the Moon on the other. Her hands tremble slightly as she draws the talisman, moving more slowly. Her friends feel their skin prickle at the building power. The air smells of ozone. Though the room is sealed, small breezes ruffle the curtains.
 
At last the talisman is complete. Sweat beads Witchcraft's forehead but her voice is firm as she commands the winds to blow as she directs, invoking the names of angels, the ruling spirits of Jupiter and the Moon, and Almighty God. She lays the completed talisman over a map of the Pacific Ocean and blows. Even the other Champions can feel the tremendous power flow out of the room. Far out over the Pacific Ocean, air pressure will rise on one side of the atmospheric river, and drop on the other, bending the path of the fast-flowing current of moist air.
 
In game terms (Champions Complete), the base Power is Change Environment: generate 1 level of wind, in the direction Witchcraft chooses, to push the atmospheric river off course. Advantages are:
* Indirect (+1/4) so the magic can leave the ritual chamber. The magic originates at a point Witchcraft chose before she cast the spell (and allocated the points from her VPP);
* Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), so the wind fills an area;
* MegaScale (1m Area = 1,000 km; + 1 3/4), so the Change Environment has a big area;
* MegaScale (1m Range = 100 km; +1 1/2) to send the center of the magic up to 5000 km away, far out into the Pacific;
* Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1), so nobody knows any magic was even done;
* Costs Endurance Only to Activate (+1/4), so Witchcraft doesn’t have to keep pouring END into the spell; necessary since Witchcraft doesn’t have the points to make the base Power Long-Lasting. She must stay awake for hours, maybe days, while the conjured wind slowly moves the oncoming storm.
 
Total result; 30 Active Points. But the GM doesn’t allow characters to perform MegaScale effects at the drop of a hat, so the spell also takes these Limitations:
* Gestures (only to activate; -1/4) as Witchcraft manipulates her ritual paraphernalia;
* Incantations (only to activate; -1/4) for all the, well, incantations;
* Extra Time (20 minutes, only to activate; -1 1/4) for the ceremony;
* Focus (OAF, Arrangement; -1 1/4) for all the aforementioned paraphernalia;
* Increased Endurance Cost (x7 END, only to activate; -1 12), because casting magic like this takes a lot out of you;
* Side Effect (3d6 CON Drain if the ritual is disrupted in any way, or there’s any magical interference; -1/4), because magic like this is not entirely safe.
5 Real Points, 21 END.
 
Bonus! A story seed:
 
The paper talisman bursts into flame and blue light strobes around witchcraft. She cries out in pain and falls to the floor. Despite the earlier warning to stay in their circles, the other Champions rush to her side.
 
“Stars and stones,” Witchcraft gasps. (She picked up the expression when she took a class from Professor Dresden over in Modern Urban Magics.) “There’s other magic at work.” Defender helps her to her feet. Her expression hardens. “These aren’t natural storms. This is an attack. And whoever’s doing it is going to regret it.”
 
Dean Shomshak

FLAVOR TEXT: WITCHCRAFT PERFORMS A MAJOR HERMETIC WORKING
 
(Not meant to make light of the weather disaster going on in California, but this is the sort of thing one could wish there were real magicians to perform. An example of one of the classic purposes of magic: commanding the powers of nature.)
 
(Stay safe, Cali comrades!)
 
Weather forecasts tell Witchcraft that yet another atmospheric river is heading toward California — a big one — and the state just can’t take any more. As a special project, she travels to the state and performs a rite to change the weather.
 
Even for a grad student, simply dispersing a storm is too big a feat of magic. All that water still has to go somewhere. Moreover, disrupting the weather that drastically could have much worse consequences later on. Witchcraft decides she will only redirect the rain a few hundred miles north or south, to some place that isn’t already so waterlogged. Meteorologists will be puzzled, but nothing obviously magical has happened.
 
Of the planets, Jupiter governs wind and weather generally, but the Moon has the strongest connection to water in particular. Therefore, Witchcraft builds her spell around the power of Jupiter encompassing and controlling the power of the Moon.
 
Preparing a ritual chamber on the West Coast, she hangs the room with blue cloth (the color of Jupiter) bearing crescent moons, owls, crabs, rabbits, and the symbol of the zodiac sign Cancer — all Lunar symbols — in silver paint. Blue vases hold bouquets of willow twigs, lilies, moonwort and rosemary (Lunar) with twigs of oak, beech, poplar, olive or fig, with shamrocks and stalks of grain (Jupiter). A brazier burns saffron, lignum aloes, and ash seed (perfumes of Jupiter). For a magician’s rod she carries a javelin of oak; her blue and white robe is pinned with a brooch of tin, the metal of jupiter. Candles with blue glass shields light the scene.
 
Her friends in the Champions stand in the corners within small magic circles so they can watch the rite without disrupting it. Everyone bathed before the ceremony and wears simple white robes that were exorcised with smoke from a censer and salt water sprinkled using a bundle of dried herbs.
 
At an hour propitious to Jupiter, draws an elaborate magic circle and consecrates the enclosure with incense, sprinklings of water, and invocations to the angels of the cardinal directions. A lectern in the circle holds a disk of blue paper, a pen, silver ink, and other small tools. Each tool receives its own incantation. Witchcraft uses the silver ink to draw a 9 x 9 magic square on one side of the disk, and the Sixth Talisman of the Moon on the other. Her hands tremble slightly as she draws the talisman, moving more slowly. Her friends feel their skin prickle at the building power. The air smells of ozone. Though the room is sealed, small breezes ruffle the curtains.
 
At last the talisman is complete. Sweat beads Witchcraft's forehead but her voice is firm as she commands the winds to blow as she directs, invoking the names of angels, the ruling spirits of Jupiter and the Moon, and Almighty God. She lays the completed talisman over a map of the Pacific Ocean and blows. Even the other Champions can feel the tremendous power flow out of the room. Far out over the Pacific Ocean, air pressure will rise on one side of the atmospheric river, and drop on the other, bending the path of the fast-flowing current of moist air.
 
In game terms (Champions Complete), the base Power is Change Environment: generate 1 level of wind, in the direction Witchcraft chooses, to push the atmospheric river off course. Advantages are:
* Indirect (+1/4) so the magic can leave the ritual chamber. The magic originates at a point Witchcraft chose before she cast the spell (and allocated the points from her VPP);
* Area Of Effect (4m Radius; +1/4), so the wind fills an area;
* MegaScale (1m Area = 1,000 km; + 1 3/4), so the Change Environment has a big area;
* MegaScale (1m Range = 100 km; +1 1/2) to send the center of the magic up to 5000 km away, far out into the Pacific;
* Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1), so nobody knows any magic was even done;
* Costs Endurance Only to Activate (+1/4), so Witchcraft doesn’t have to keep pouring END into the spell; necessary since Witchcraft doesn’t have the points to make the base Power Long-Lasting. She must stay awake for hours, maybe days, while the conjured wind slowly moves the oncoming storm.
 
Total result; 30 Active Points. But the GM doesn’t allow characters to perform MegaScale effects at the drop of a hat, so the spell also takes these Limitations:
* Gestures (only to activate; -1/4) as Witchcraft manipulates her ritual paraphernalia;
* Incantations (only to activate; -1/4) for all the, well, incantations;
* Extra Time (20 minutes, only to activate; -1 1/4) for the ceremony;
* Focus (OAF, Arrangement; -1 1/4) for all the aforementioned paraphernalia;
* Increased Endurance Cost (x7 END, only to activate; -1 12), because casting magic like this takes a lot out of you;
* Side Effect (3d6 CON Drain if the ritual is disrupted in any way, or there’s any magical interference; -1/4), because magic like this is not entirely safe.
5 Real Points, 21 END.
 
Bonus! A story seed:
 
The paper talisman bursts into flame and blue light strobes around witchcraft. She cries out in pain and falls to the floor. Despite the earlier warning to stay in their circles, the other Champions rush to her side.
 
“Stars and stones,” Witchcraft gasps. (She picked up the expression when she took a class from Professor Dresden over in Modern Urban Magics.) “There’s other magic at work.” Defender helps her to her feet. Her expression hardens. “These aren’t natural storms. This is an attack. And whoever’s doing it is going to regret it.”
 
Dean Shomshak

As previously mentioned, one young freshman was expelled from the Paolini Academy, though Doctor Destroyer promptly gave him a scholarship to the Department of Destruction. That student tried to get out of chores done for a professor by using Mercurial magic to animate a common household item as a servant. It went very wrong. Bob the Librarian complained that even with magic it took weeks to dry out and repair all the books.
 
But the student did have help. He drew upon the power of one of the Institute's many formidable items crafted in centuries past to channel the power of the Celestial Realms. Ever since "the Broom Incident," the Institute has made it more difficult for students to access such artifacts of cosmic power.
 
Option: Notable Achievement: The Archmaster's Hat
(Or given the Diskworld inspiration for the Superdraft, perhaps it should be called the Achchancellor's Hat.)
 

 
Dean Shomshak

FYI for @DShomshak 

Chaldean Oracles (Rearranged)

Ok, I’ll do that but tomorrow unless anyone does anything similar. 
 
Anyone pick a Magus university newspaper yet? 
 
New option 3: School paper: The Magic Squares*
 
*squares as in nerds. So, those who attend a magic university.  

As previously mentioned, one young freshman was expelled from the Paolini Academy, though Doctor Destroyer promptly gave him a scholarship to the Department of Destruction. That student tried to get out of chores done for a professor by using Mercurial magic to animate a common household item as a servant. It went very wrong. Bob the Librarian complained that even with magic it took weeks to dry out and repair all the books.
 
But the student did have help. He drew upon the power of one of the Institute's many formidable items crafted in centuries past to channel the power of the Celestial Realms. Ever since "the Broom Incident," the Institute has made it more difficult for students to access such artifacts of cosmic power.
 
Option: Notable Achievement: The Archmaster's Hat
(Or given the Diskworld inspiration for the Superdraft, perhaps it should be called the Achchancellor's Hat.)
 

 
Dean Shomshak

Probably Ancient Discoveries, because IIRC the Greeks had a steam cannon that modern researchers were trying to figure out.  It was a two-chamber device that in all probability used superheated steam.  Basically if you overheat water way past boiling in a pressurized vessel, and then suddenly release the pressure, all the water flashes to steam at once.  That gives a really high pressure spike that can be used to propel a projectile with great velocity.
 
Not a terribly practical weapon because of the weapon's mass and reload/charge time, not to mention the near-suicidal hazard to the operators especially given the metallurgy of the time.

Option 2: Ex-student and now rival: Isaac Newton.

I had considered Harry Dresden for my Grad Student, but then what about Bob? Even if I used the TV version instead, it felt... awkward.
 
So instead: Why should DT be the only one to recruit from the Champions Universe? When she isn't fighting villains and miscellaneous Forces of Evil, Witchcraft improves her skills at the Paolini Academy.
 
It's sometimes a little annoying having another grad student Bethany. but they manage.
 
Page 71 of The Mystic World has a decent picture of Witchcraft performing Hermetic ritual magic. I'd post it, but it does not seem to exist online. And the few images of the Champions Online version of Witchcraft were, eh, uninspiring.
 
To compensate, later I'll try to post a few examples of what a Hermetic Magus can do with a 30-point VPP. Maybe later tonight, or on Sunday. (Not Saturday, I have gaming then.) Not additional entries, but supplemental to this one. Okay with that, Logan?
 
Dean Shomshak

I had considered Harry Dresden for my Grad Student, but then what about Bob? Even if I used the TV version instead, it felt... awkward.
 
So instead: Why should DT be the only one to recruit from the Champions Universe? When she isn't fighting villains and miscellaneous Forces of Evil, Witchcraft improves her skills at the Paolini Academy.
 
It's sometimes a little annoying having another grad student Bethany. but they manage.
 
Page 71 of The Mystic World has a decent picture of Witchcraft performing Hermetic ritual magic. I'd post it, but it does not seem to exist online. And the few images of the Champions Online version of Witchcraft were, eh, uninspiring.
 
To compensate, later I'll try to post a few examples of what a Hermetic Magus can do with a 30-point VPP. Maybe later tonight, or on Sunday. (Not Saturday, I have gaming then.) Not additional entries, but supplemental to this one. Okay with that, Logan?
 
Dean Shomshak

There's an old story in the science fiction canon bearing on this sort of theme ... Arthur C Clarke's The Nine Billion Names of God.