The Charter Schools of Sorcery

Internal Hierarchy

From the Great Charter Schools to the most isolated Charter Academy, each institution run by the Charter is organised in the same fundamental way. A headmaster or headmistress and deputy headmaster or headmistress are nominally in charge of the institution and have full powers to oversee and affect every aspect of day-to-day operations. According to the Charter itself, tradition has it, the headmaster or headmistress of an institution must not be a sorcerer, and this rule is maintained in every institution of the Charter, everywhere. It is therefore customary that the deputy be a sorcerer, where this is possible, but it is also customary that a deputy have been to university, or to a Charter School in the case of a sorcerer, and this level of education is not always locally available. Where this happens, membership of the Executive Council is freed from its traditional membership restrictions.   Ranked directly below the head and deputy head is the Executive Council. Members of the council bear the title of Governor, and this group of senior individuals can act as a counterbalancing authority to the head and deputy as they can overturn decisions with a unanimous agreement. Their primary function, however, is to administer the various departments of the institution they preside over.

Great Charter Schools

A Great Charter School is maintained on each continent of Leoram. Each of these great schools is a regional hub that oversees the regulation and training of sorcerers across the entire continent. The leaders of these schools form the Charter Council, which oversees the worldwide operations of the Charter Schools. The Great Charter Schools also act as research centres for the organisation as a whole. Only at the Great Schools is such activity allowed, under the watchful eyes of the Charter Council members, and the only topic of research permitted is the Undead and the Plague of Undeath.

Charter Schools

Ranked directly below the Great Charter Schools are the 'ordinary' Charter Schools. These are the universities of sorcery, offering instruction in advanced and specialised sorcerous practices. Their entry requirements are strict, and include military experience. Charter sorcerers vie for the privilege of studying at these institutions, but ultimately perhaps 4 in 10 sorcerers earn their place in a Charter School.

Charter Academies

Charter Academies are the mainstay institutions of the organisation. They take in students as soon as they are identified as sorcerers and educate and train them until they reach the local age of majority.

The culture of the Charter Schools of Sorcery is run by a single, fundamental dichotomy: that sorcerers are not to be trusted and yet are one of the most necesary tools for a variety of aspects of civilisations, most particularly the detection and destruction of the Undead.

The Charter Schools of Sorcery are committed to two main duties. Firstly, they exist to identify, train and educate sorcerers such that their powers are available to benefit themselves and their communities while preventing them from growing so powerful or power-hungry that they seek to rule over their normal peers. Secondly, they are considered instrumental in the ongoing battle against the Plague of Undeath, and every Chartrite, both sorcerer and not, is expected to provide what support they can in the event of an attack by the Undead.

The Charter is as old as the New Era. The original document has long since been lost, but the tenets are common knowledge across the world, a fact that the Chartrites work hard to make continuously true. Their warnings about the dangers of unchecked sorcery and the horrors of the Mage Wars are embedded in culture across the world.