The Boxton School

On a small strip between the evil swamp known as Kalil's Blunder and the eldritch Stone Forest a secret school exists for those who would have their children raised free of the malicious oppression of the Ivory Dynasty.

The prestigious Boxton school has a student body of less than one hundred students with a motley assortment of teachers and guardsmen appointed or self-tasked with maintaining the secrecy and safety of the school and training the youth in what they need for when they return to the outside world.

Training at the school is intense with nothing but the highest effort rewarded. Students after completing a number of years of intensive training usually move on to a variety of places, some returning home now armed with skills in personal defense, some seeking to join rebel groups working to overthrow the cruel Ivory masters. Some turning to adventuring.

Not all students leave the school. Some inevitably die in accidents during the strenuous training exercises. Some fall victim to the hazards of the swamp or Stone Forest. Generally students find the educational experience painful and challenging though necessary.

Though not all the experiences at the school are painful. There is also a handful of servers who assist in maintaining the function of the school. There is an exceptional but ornery cook named Olson who can turn even the most inauspicious raw material such as grubs and rock alligator surprisingly delicious.

The ancient Boxton school grounds in the heart of Seagate were abandoned with the fall of the Ruby Dynasty. The current school has few luxuries with only one permanent structure, a small round stone building of ancient origins serves as both the armory and the cellar for the school.

The rest of the structures of the school are comprised of mottled tents that might have once held rich colors but now were deeply faded and stained. Surrounding the border of the school grounds is a well cultivated hedge of fierce brambles selected for its jagged bite and burning sting.

The hedge, which to outward appearances looks completely untamed, serves to keep away the rare wanderer as well as most predators though last year a giant salamander found a route through the hedge and preyed on a dog and one of the younger students before the danger was eliminated.

Within the perimeter, the school grounds is several hundred strides across, encompassing a stream which feeds a small natural pond for which students are forbidden to swim. Near the center of the school grounds moss grows on a ten foot tall crudely made clay statue of a of a kneeling man with his face in cupped hands. The statue is named the Guardian and is the center of most activities at the school.

The student body at the school is generally amicable though there are two groups which are often competing with each other. One group, known internally as the True Heirs, often called the Reds, fancy themselves decedents of the Ruby dynasty with self-aggrandizing leader Tobias claiming to be the great-great-great grandson of the last Ruby Dynasty emperor.

The rival group with the Reds is the Grays. This group, led by a verbose Pato, in its own way is equally obnoxious in its insistence on furthering fanciful utopian ideas by doing away with the natural order of kings and rulers with crazy novel forms of governance such as electing rulers through popular choice, deciding on the punishment of crimes through public discourse, the eradication of slavery and involuntary servitude, as well as the abolishment of the adventurer tax.

Most students do not lend any allegiance to the Reds or Grays. And in general the teachers and headmaster, Lord Leer, at the school encourages loyalty under the common purpose of training a competent secret alliance capable of rising up and overthrowing the Ivory Empire if the occasion arises.

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Characters can choose to be either students, guards, teachers, or some other figure who could potentially fit into the scene. All players start out level 1. Races of players must be either human or near human or approved after discussion with me. Characters must be conceived in order that they are consistently loyal to the player group. I would prefer not to have players "stealing" or "fighting" with each other.

We'll be going with 5e D&D. Abilities should be generated using a point system. Ability bases start out at 9 with 30 points to distribute. Each point spent raises an ability by 1 until 18. After which it costs 2 points to raise abilities 1 additional point.