The Schools of Hunters
The School of Boars
Stocky hunters using large, blunt instruments, the School of Boars students are patient and insightful. To reach the school’s remote campuses, students must trek through deep forests, and up the sides of hills before they are greeted at the noble, oaken gates. This is a kind of entrance exam. Only those who make it through the perilous journey have the potential to join. Some come to the forest willingly and seek greatness. Others are dropped at the mouth of the woods, the journey their only choice.
Members of this School are characterised as mountains, with its graduates being tall, broad, patient hunters with a skill for animal kinship. Many are the children of farmers and animal handlers. They’re tasked with rigorous weapon training and animal rearing; working in stables, barns, lakes, and fields, caring for a wide variety of animal life, learning their behaviours, diets and tracks. The final task of a Boar student tests kindness and empathy; without it, they’ll never leave.
The School of Elk
Those trained at the School of Elk are patient, studious, intelligent hunters gifted in the art of the arcane. An Elk student begins their training in all manner of skills, but their mentors are looking for the student’s arcane gifts to see if they express an affinity toward a certain kind of magic. Later, their tutelage encompasses a healthy mix of weapons training, combat practice and arcane studies. The Schools of Elk are found high on the barren mountain ranges of the continent, where survival without a gift for magic is near impossible. In that way, sign weaving not only becomes a daily routine, but a necessary means of survival. The final task of an Elk student tests patience and resistance; without possessing these qualities, the student will never graduate.
The School of Ravens
The students at the School of Ravens are crafty, intelligent, inspired, and resourceful. They prefer to finish their prey quickly, with minimal effort, relying on their strategic and creative minds. To reach a Raven campus, you must first track down the School’s entrance at the base of a mountain. This entrance leads deep into a labyrinth of tunnels and caves. This is their first test; if a prospective student can find the campus, they’ll be accepted. Their curriculum includes weapons training, practical acrobatics and gymnastics, tactics drills, and workshops where they learn all they need to craft their weapons and tools. The campus sports huge training fields where resources are carefully controlled to force students out of their comfort zones, making them think on their feet. Once suitably prepared, mentors will test their students’ willpower and ingenuity, which all of them must demonstrate for successful graduation.
The School of Owls
The School of Owls is a roaming college that treats its students more like interns and apprentices, providing them with real-world experiences and hands-on learning, teaching them to be fast, silent, and to have excellent minds for strategy. These students train in the world they will be traversing on their quests; identifying and foraging real alchemical ingredients, interacting with a variety of cultures, and struggling through real combat encounters. However, the students also learn how to be covert; throughout their whole student lives, no person can ever know they are hunters in training. The final task of an Owls student tests selflessness and endurance; without these qualities, they will be forever an apprentice and never a master.
