Aydinlan Seminary

The Aydinlan Seminary is a university in Yios, Marquet. The seminary offers a variety of courses of study, including on magic. It houses the Omen Archive, a collection dedicated to research on Ruidus, and one of the largest arcane telescopes in Exandria.

Description
The Aydinlan Seminary is the most prominent university in Yios, the capital of Aeshanadoor in Marquet. The seminary offers range of fields of study, including various magical studies, artificing, and automatons, as well as their development. The school's seal is of a blossom growing out of and intertwining with an empty nautilus shell. Banners displaying this symbol are burgundy.

One of three colleges in the city, the seminary is considered the city's "crown jewel of learning" and one of the finest universities in Exandria. It has a rivalry with the Tatrielle Conservatory in the Endeavor Ring, and both the seminary's and the conservatory's top scholars meet multiple times a year to have competitive debates where they present their studies and critique one another's work.

The Omen Archive, which researches Ruidus, is a notable project conducted out of the Aydinlan Seminary. The archive keeps a record of Ruidusborn and studies their increasing birth rate. Its "heavier studies" are investigating origins of Ruidus in the hopes of finding who created it. Other research involves leyline patterns.

Campus
The Aydinlan Seminary has a massive campus composed of four large buildings that are connected to one another by elevated walkways. Each building has its own unique architectural style. The main building in the center is "cloistered" from the others and is surrounded by a series of garden walls; the courtyard surrounding the main building is decorated with free-standing archways and statues of important figures from the school's history. The other three buildings are described as imposing and massive. One is a castle-like "stronghold" with a series of small towers; each tower is a different height but all have a dreary, light blue-gray color. This building contains halls and classrooms. The last two buildings are undescribed beyond their colors: one is dark maroon, the other is faint lavender.

Main building
The central building itself is massive, towering, and magnificent and is surrounded by sandstone pillars with gilded edges. It has large blanched marble stairs that "slowly pinch towards the top" leading up to the main entrance; the stairway has about 50 steps, and the distance from the bottom of the steps to the entryway is greater than 20 to 25 feet.

The main entrance comprises two sets of massive, dark red doors with brass and gold leaf inlay, and it opens into the central hall. These doors are left partially open during the day and are guarded by sentries from the city. It opens to the central hall containing two reception desks and three hallways, at least one of which has a pointed archway. The area has a high ceiling and is built of white marble embossed with beautiful, detailed designs of symbols, mathematical schematics, or unlabeled map details. The space is "bright and comparably colorless". Seven dark iron, free-standing braziers light the area, but theirs do not give off heat; the braziers are sculpted into whirlwind-like curves that give an impression of a "flame tornado of darkness that gives birth to its own crackling, embered flame within".

Leftwood Hall, about 150 feet in, has a spiral staircase on the left leading to a secondary floor. The second floor has a stone walkway connecting the main building with the Brass Structure that houses a number of discussion halls, presentational rooms, and professors' offices, inluding the office of Professor Vitro Isham.

Staff and students
The seminary has students from across Exandria, and the two dozen students seen in the central hall gave a sense of a multicultural student body, though many are local orc, half-orc, and uniya students. Most are in their late teens to mid-20s, but the university also has older students possibly pursuing additional education. The following are known staff and students:


 * Ebenold Kai, professor and astronomer, believed to still be working at the seminary in 843 PD
 * Kadija Sumal, professor studying Ruidus, working at the seminary since about 831 PD
 * Hondir, graduate of the seminary, leyline specialist, worked with Kadija and the Omen Archive
 * Tairan, professor since about 828 PD, graduate from and former professor at Dayal Hall
 * Vitro Isham, professor of artifice and automaton studies.
 * Dinon, professor
 * Carolle, clerk at the front desk
 * Susie, clerk at the front desk
 * Abanon, clerk at the front desk

Astronomer Roe Estani formerly taught at the seminary for a while but retired to the Heartmoor Hamlet some time before the events of Campaign 3, set in 843 PD. Planerider Ryn possibly worked or studied at the seminary at some point, as Estani said that he worked alongside her before his tenure or before his retirement.

Omen Archive
Kadija began a study for the Omen Archive project, aimed at individuals with recurring dreams of a red storm and its relationship to Ruidus. Hondir worked on this study as a researcher, and Liliana Temult volunteered as a subject around 831 PD, twelve years before Campaign 3. This project was published by 843 PD, and one copy of the research was held in the Starpoint Conservatory in Jrusar. However, political interests sought to end the research to control the information being discovered. The seminary closed some of the related departments and withdrew funding. Involved researchers were instructed to abandon their projects.

Balan and Zeyar Lumas intended to be involved in a research project at the Seminary called the Omen Archive and visited Yios at least once before they were murdered. Estani speculated that their interest in the archive was related to their recent membership in the Grim Verity. Estani was briefly a member himself as an underclassman student at an unspecified school, and Hondir was still a member in 843 PD.

Imogen Temult, the daughter of Liliana, sought to learn more of the Omen Archive project and to speak to Kadija to learn more about her own powers and recurring dreams of the red storm. By, set in Sydenstar 843, a "strange, large number" of Ruidusborn were arriving in Yios, possibly at the archive, with inquiries.

Tishtan site
Beginning in around 838 PD, the Aydinlan Seminary was involved in the excavation of a site associated with the Tishtan culture, pre-dating the Age of Arcanum. The site was expected to become the nexus point where ley energies overlapped in the upcoming Apogee Solstice expected on 21 to 23 Fessuran 843 PD. As a result, the Cerberus Assembly forced members of the Grim Verity at the Aydinlan Seminary from their excavation site in Unndilar 843 PD, three months before. The Ruby Vanguard also began building a Malleus Key there. This agreement was reluctantly made with the oversight of the Court of the Lambent Path, the governing power of Aeshanadoor, and was motivated by the Court and the Seminary leadership wanting to avoid angering such a powerful foreign power under growing tensions with the Stratos Throne.

Trivia

 * The Aydinlan Seminary is sometimes referred to as the "Yios Seminary" and, occasionally, the "Yios Sanctuary".
 * In Turkish and some related languages, "aydınlan" is a conjugation of "aydınlanmak", meaning "to illuminate", "to brighten", or "to become enlightened or informed". The word for moon, "ay", is related.