Ravenloft Domain: The Montauk Academy for Magical Excellence Wizards Academy of horrors Darklord: Headmaster Gaspar Montauk Genres: Dark Fantasy, Psychological Horror Hallmarks: Cruel teachers and students, students forced into specific "roles", dangerous magical experiments, dungeons filled with monsters, ghosts of slain students roaming the halls. Mist Talismans: A brochure for the school, an Owl's leg which moves and can grasp objects, a blood splattered report card, a valedictorian ring. Nestled in the mountains overlooking the small quaint village of Potter's brook is a hug crumbling castle, while it looks like no one lives in this towering edifice, it is quite active. As it is the home to the Montauk Academy for Magical Excellence (Or the Academy for short), a place that claims to be Ravenloft's foremost institute for magical learning, having produced some of the most powerful and influential magic users in Ravenloft's history.....or so it claims. They can't name any alumni by name, and the reunion dances are unusually sparse, but they exist, trust us. Actually no they don't. Montauk has never produced a wizard of
note, in fact a vast majority of student's never make it to graduation. Those who do manage to get out are so mentally broken that most have complete mental breakdowns before long, and even those who survive with their minds intact only become mediocre magic users at best. That is because the Headmaster and Darklord of the Acadamey, the Imperious and autocratic wizard Gaspar Montauk, is more interested in breaking down promising students to his school and turning them into what he thinks they should be. Montauk does not want to teach, he wants to indoctrinate, he does not want to guide, he wants to control, and if any student fails to live up to his impossibly high expectations, or attempts to think for themselves, then they cease to become a student and become an experiment for the other students, or sent down to "detention" from which there is no return. Noteworthy Features: Those familiar with The Montaul Academy for Magical Excellence know the following facts. *The Montauk Academy is a Wizards college who caters to young adult magic users who wish to expand their magical knowledge. It is head by Gaspar Montauk, a former Silverquill teacher at the famous Wizards school Strixhaven. *The students are split into five different colleges which act as a mirror to the Strixhaven colleges, and also contain a different type of student, there are Regalcrown (Blue/White, Rich kids),
Necrogen (Blue/Black, Nerds), Hellblood (Black/Red, goth), Burnbeast (Red/Green, Punks) and Oakarm (Green/White, Jocks). Students are placed in houses at the commencement ceremony when their house is picked for them by the eye of judgement. Houses are expected to keep to their own for friends, regardless of what friendships they had before they came to the school, and they are expected to act in according to the ideals of their house. *The school itself is an ever shifting maze of rooms, stairwells, and floors, with students needing magical compasses to get around. There are numerous pocket dimensions and portals around the school. The most notable place is the basement, which is an expansive dungeon filled with monsters and other horrors. Those who go in rarely come out. *In the valley beneath the school is the small town of Potter's crossing. Students are allowed to visit the town on their time off and procure goods at the many shops there, but are encouraged to return to the school before dark, as there are often numerous disappearances of students in and around the town. *The ghosts of former students and teachers can sometime be seen wandering the schools halls. They are considered more a curiosity than anything, but one might note there are a lot of them. Settlements and Sites: The main sites are the Academy itself and the town of Potter's crossing, The school itself is very large, and consists of numerous
different areas of note, some of the more noteworthy areas are the following. The Dorms: The personal living quarters of the students, each dorm is decorated according to that particular houses particular idiom, In addition, Gaspar has weaved powerful enchantments into the rooms which cause students to sleep there to begin to shift, physically and mentally, into the stereotypes associated with their particular house, slowly their personalities begin to shift, their memories cloud as they forget their old selves, they even begin to change physically. This happens gradually, and can be avoided by sleeping someplace other than the dorms, or by not sleeping. Unless someone is particularly strong willed, they will become virtually unrecognizable from their old selves after a year at the Academy. The long term consequences of this can include severe mental stress and even emotional breakdowns later in life. There are five lodges at Montauk Academy, each one specializing in a different school of magic, and each one fitting into a certain "role" Montauk feels needs to be filled in his school. When students arrive at the school they are sorted into the houses by a magical artifact called the Eye of Judgement, which resembles a huge glass eye on a pedestal, which sorts the students based on their "fate". In truth, the eye is a sham; its a scrying device Montauk can communicate through, in truth he decides which student goes where based on his won impressions and prejudices, and sometimes even arbitrarily.
The Five Houses of Montauk Academy are as follows: Regalcrown: The house that specializes in enchantment, reserved for the wealthiest of students. Montauk favors this house over the others, and will always side with them or cover up their trangressions. Regardless of their former temperaments, Regalcrown students tend to become increasingly entitled, cruel, and petty as the dorms magic takes hold on them. They love using enchantment magic to play cruel pranks on other students or humiliate them in other ways. A few students go even further, enslaving others to be their puppets and even indulging in murder, as long as its discrete, Montauk allows it. Necrogen: The Necromancy house, Necrogen specializes in coming up with new and horrific forms of undead, which often go on rampages through the school. The dorms magic causes Necrogen students to become increasingly obsessive, awkward, and socially inept, as well as causing their physical health and appearance to deteriorate. Some students try and overcome these physical frailities by using Necromancy, and there is a high turnover of students becoming various types of undead, with Deathlocks being a popular choice, along with vampires, ghouls, and Brains in jars. Hellblood: The house devoted to Conjuration and summoning, The Hellblood students are a gloomy, morbid, fatalistic lot, mainly because the curriculum mainly focuses on summoning fiends and eldritch horrors (and also because of Montauk's meddling). Demonic possessions are common among students, as well as students getting dragged into hell dimensions. The house also
makes regular study expeditions to places like Blutespur in order to study the local fauna, some students don't come back. Burnbeast: The Evocation school. Burnbeast students tend to be bad tempered, confrontational, and prone to violence (thanks to the dorms brainwashing). To make matters worse, after one year a werewolf student was admitted, now over half the house are Lycanthropes, with non lycanthropes pressured into joining the pack constantly. Oakarm: The house dedicated to Transmutation and alteration, Oakarm is all about achieving physical perfection and self experimentation. Driven by the dorms brainwashing, Oakarm students are obsessed with turning their bodies into the peak of physical perfection and then lording it over others. Some Oakarm students change themselves into hulking brutes that can barely think, others transform themselves into beings of such inhuman beauty it hurts to look upon them. Most of these self experiments go horribly awry, leading to the creation of new and more horrible monsters for the dungeons. The Labs: The Academy contains numerous interconnected demiplanes which simulate a number of different envronments, here students can "safely" test their new spells and experiments. Notice the quotations. In truth the safety precautions on these labs is minimal, and the portal entrances are quite chaotic; sometimes shorting off and sealing students in them (At least a few students have starved to death waiting for rescue in a closed off demilplane) or dumping their contents into random locations. The Dungeons: Below the main school is a huge dungeon complex
containing multiple levels. Monsters and horrors of all varieties lurk in this dungeon; former student experiments, former students, strange creatures which seem to spawn at random in the dark recesses. These creatures are hungry, and will attempt to creep up into the school to feed if not regularly fed. To remedy this, Montauk occasionally sends what he considers "problem students" (AKA Students who don't succumb to brainwashing) down into the dungeon for "extracurricular activities" or "Detention." Potter's Crossing: The only other populated site in the domain is the small town of Potter's crossing. Nestled in a valley and built around a river that runs through the domain, Potter's crossing is very much a college town, with the students being their primary source of income. It has numerous shops which sell magical reagents, minor magical items, wands and scrolls, as well as various restaurants another other attractions. Most of the students (in particular ones who have been thoroughly brainwashed.) look down upon these "townies", and the feeling is more than mutual. The people of Potter's crossing also suffer from the magical mishaps of the Academy, and in fact were once a fishing community before the rive became polluted by magical runoff. The water has also affected some of the townsfolk, turning them into bloodthirsty killers who hunt the magical students. Gaspar Montauk: Once Gaspar Montauk was a teacher at the prestigious Strixhaven Academy, well renowned as one of the greatest schools of magical
learning in the multiverse. Well, Strixhaven may have been a great school, but Gaspar was a poor teacher; he was a gifted Silverquill alumni, but he had trouble translating that into being an actual teacher. To make matters worse, Montauk was extremely arrogant, cruel, mean racist, classist, and controlling. If he decided someone didn't belong at Strixhaven, Montauk would do everything he could to ruin that student, up to even deliberately underscoring them on projects or sabotaging their work. Montauk's antics were discovered several times, and each time he was put on probation and warned that more severe punishments awaited him if he continued his actions, but Gaspar persisted. Then one year a new student came to the school, a bright young Silverquill who Gaspar recognized as the son of his old college rival and the girl he had a crush on in those days. Gaspar's resentment at the young man was palpable, and he did everything he could to ruin the lad, but to no avail, as the young man managed to overcome every hurdle Gaspar threw at him. As the young mage continued to survive, Gaspar's frustration grew, and as graduation neared, Montauk was determined that this student would not graduate one way or another. One night, Montauk slipped silently into the Silverquill dorms, to the room where his target slept, he intended to plant a feeblemind spell on the young man, just long enough to justify keeping him from graduating, he could explain it away as the stress getting to lad, just wasn't cut out for the world of wizarding, takes after his father. However, when Montauk prepared to cast his spell, his victims eyes shot open. In a panic, Montauk cast the
wrong spell, a disintigration spell, and in a flash his victim was gone. Montauk only had a flash of regret, followed by a supreme and lingering sense of satisfaction, in his mind he had won. So chuffed he was by his victory that he barely noticed the mists creeping into the room at first, and soon he realized he was no longer in Strixhaven, but a new school, with teachers calling him Headmaster. Montauk was elated, for years he bristled under Strixhaven's dragons and their free wheeling running of the school. Montauk would do better; no longer would students be allowed to frivolously choose their own schools and follow their own absurd passions. Montauk would choose the paths for them, and he would make sure they went down those paths whether they wanted to or not. Montauk's Powers and Abilities: Montauk has stats similar to an Archmage. Being a former Silverquill teacher, Montauk favors enchantment spells and prefers to manipulate and dominate opponents rather than outright kill them. Master of the Manse: Montauk is connected to the Academy he rules. He can teleport to any location in the school at will, and he can see through any reflective surface or painting and communicate through them. He is also capable of animating objects within the school to attack targets. Five souls: Montauk's soul no longer resides in his body. It was
divided up into five segments and hidden in the five dorms of the school. As long as even one of these segments (each one located in a different object) is intact, Montauk will rejuvenate from death after 24 hours. It should be noted that Montauk is not a lich, and still has mortal needs and requirements. Montauk's Torment Montauk wants his school to be world renowned for producing the finest wizards in the multiverse, however his own actions get in the way of that. *Montauk is a poor teacher, more concerned with controlling his students and forcing them into little arbitrary categories than he is with actually teaching them, as a result most students who manage to survive and retain their sanity tend to go on to become lack luster mages or give up magic entirely, their passion for magic having been burnt out of them. Any students who do show promise inevitably end up being broken by Montauk or killed by the myriad of hazards at the school. *Montauk is also a terrible administrator as it turns out. He doesn't trust anyone to run the school but himself, and as a result he spends most of his time doing administrative duties, which he hates, also his shoddy administrating leads to lax safety measures and incompetent teachers. *The ghosts of the former students roam the halls of the school. Each one a reminder of Montauk's failure as a teacher. Seeing them frustrates Montauk to no end, as he considers their
continued existence a mockery of his work. He also secretly lives in fear of seeing the ghost of the young promising mage he murdered.