To the mages and scholars of the Tolarian Academies, magic is one science among many. Their books of lore contain eldritch runes as well as elaborate equations, and they employ complex constructs alongside enchanted golems. What happens to bronze if you transmute the tin it contains into iron after smelting? Does introducing an electrical charge enhance the scrying ability of a crystal ball? To the Tolarians, there's nothing strange or even interdisciplinary about these questions—even if the answer in either case could easily turn out to be: "It explodes."
Heroes of Tolaria
Students of magic come from all over Dominaria to the Tolarian Academies, and both the student body and the faculty reflect this. People of virtually every intelligent species on the plane can be found somewhere among the Tolarians, and students and faculty might hail from any of the plane's human cultures.
Suggested Classes
Tolaria is a wizard school, and virtually everyone at the Academy—students, teachers, scholars, and administrators alike—is a wizard skilled in or learning the practice of magic. Professors within each academy can trace their educational history back to different members of the original Tolarian Academy, including Urza, Barrin, and Rayne. Members of different lineages typically focus on different subjects, employ different teaching styles, adhere to different ethical standards, use different jargon, and even adopt distinct accents when addressing students. At least in theory, members of other classes can study at the Tolarian Academies, though some amount of magical talent is a requirement for entry. An eldritch knight or arcane trickster might learn magic there while honing other skills, or a sorcerer might try to elevate the mastery of their innate abilities through rigorous arcane study.
| d6 | Ideal |
|---|---|
| 1 | Teaching. Tolaria is a school where the world's most promising wizards can learn from masters of their craft. |
| 2 | Restoration. Every day, lost knowledge is regained and devastated lands are renewed. It's our duty to use our magic to help this effort continue. |
| 3 | Responsibility. Following the philosophy of the Academy's original headmaster, Barrin, I am dedicated to keeping powerful magic out of the hands of those who would abuse it. |
| 4 | Innovation. Like the ancient artificer Urza, I believe progress comes through bold and radical new design. |
| 5 | Progress. Like the kind Tolarian chancellor Rayne, I believe progress comes through careful iteration and measured experimentation. |
| 6 | Self-Improvement. Like Urza's brother Mishra, I believe that the improvement of the body through genetic and artificial modification leads to the general improvement of humanity. |
| d6 | Bond |
|---|---|
| 1 | I have a former student I'm convinced will do great things—for good or for evil. |
| 2 | I bought a cheap curio from a secondhand store, and I was expelled when it caused a magical accident. |
| 3 | I've gotten tangled up with illegal research by way of the Shadow Academy, which uses interdimensional spaces to facilitate communication. |
| 4 | By virtue of a parent who is emeritus faculty, I have the rare privilege of citizenship in one of the Academies. |
| 5 | One of my old teachers has a knack for contacting me at the strangest times. |
| 6 | I believe that my genetic makeup was manipulated for some unknown purpose. |
Tolarian Adventures
Students and scholars at the Tolarian Academies are engaged in a tremendous range of research, providing a fertile field for adventures. Magical mishaps, wonderful discoveries, mages driven mad by power, and forbidden research can all provide starting points for adventures dealing with the Academies.
Tolarian Quests
Characters who are associated with the Tolarian Academies might be students, who are often sent on dangerous assignments in order to pass a class or advance in rank through the schools' three-tiered system of levels. Or they might instead be teachers, scholars, or researchers whose work draws them into unexpected danger.
| d6 | Quest |
|---|---|
| 1 | Retrieve a unique magical device from the ruins of a catastrophe—but be careful, because the device might well have been what caused the catastrophe. |
| 2 | Copy a spell from the spellbook of a mysterious or hostile wizard. |
| 3 | Find a way to reverse the effect of a disastrous magical experiment. |
| 4 | Decide what to do with a notebook you found, which is full of forbidden research into Phyrexian transformation. |
| 5 | Steal a magical object that's on display in a museum on campus in order to uncover its secrets or harness the energy it holds. |
| 6 | Try to reproduce the research of a wizard who has gone missing, without ending up missing yourself. |
Tolarian Sites
The two Tolarian Academies in the Domains are Tolaria West, in the northwestern Spice Isles; and the Academy at Orvada on the island of Walassa to the east—part of the mercantile Orvadan Empire. Each Academy is a small city in its own right, and both offer plentiful adventure opportunities. Other locations involved in Tolarian adventures are likely to be places of heightened magical activity (past or present), which often draw the attention of students or faculty. The Tolarian Sites table provides some examples.
| d10 | Adventure Site |
|---|---|
| 1 | An underwater ruin left behind by a terrible catastrophe |
| 2 | The trap-filled tower of an eccentric, suspicious, and powerful wizard |
| 3 | An arcane workshop or laboratory filled with inexplicable and undoubtedly dangerous devices |
| 4 | A laboratory where research was once conducted—or still is conducted—on living monsters |
| 5 | A small stronghold drifting through the air or across the ocean |
| 6 | A library hidden in an extradimensional space |
| 7 | An ancient Phyrexian or Thran artifact, now overgrown by nature |
| 8 | A crater where a meteorite or a flying vessel crashed to the ground centuries ago |
| 9 | A newly discovered ruin from an ancient era of advanced magical technology |
| 10 | An area that has just returned after being phased out of the flow of time |
Tolarian Villains
Most Tolarian wizards are drawn to knowledge for its own sake, or actively try to use magic to make the world a better place. Some are dedicated to keeping dangerous magic out of the hands of those who would use it for selfish or evil ends. But a rare few members of the Academies are inevitably drawn to use magic to dominate, plunder, and destroy—and these wizards make extremely dangerous villains. The Tolarian Villains table offers some examples.
| d8 | Villain |
|---|---|
| 1 | A member of the Society of Mishra seeks to be transformed into a biomechanical demon of fused metal and flesh. |
| 2 | A Gathist involved in illegal genetic experimentation seeks to create a race of super-soldiers to forge a nation through conquest. |
| 3 | A collector steals magical items and treats them like valuable works of art. |
| 4 | A professor of temporal studies seeks to hasten the process of rebirth and renewal—by shifting the entire world backward in time to its "glory days." |
| 5 | An archaeologist has discovered an ancient magical weapon that caused untold devastation, and is trying to find a use for it. |
| 6 | A professor has imprisoned students in a tower and compelled them to participate in genetic, biomechanical, psychological, or other research. |
| 7 | An artificer built a golem that has achieved its own evil consciousness, and which seeks to better understand living creatures through vivisection. |
| 8 | A misguided master wizard is trying to trace a single "true Tolarian ancestry," so as to prevent those who don't belong to that human bloodline from entering the Academies and studying magic. |