Kirin House

Kirin house is famous for turning out graduates who go on to high position within the politics of the city and the surrounding kingdoms. Many disputes between the Tyrant and his neighbouring rulers have been solved over a glass of port reminiscing about happy days in Kirin house. Its students have a reputation for political drive and activism, as well as being counted among the founders of most of the clubs and societies that spring up around the University. Never start an argument with a Kirin student, unless it's one you're willing to lose. Or at least spend a very long time achieving a hollow victory. Maybe.

The Kirin House Lounge is a large, airy room with a vaulted ceiling (which really shouldn't fit in the annex in which it is apparently located), and adorned with gleaming marble pillars. Or at least, one presumes they gleam - little of their surface can be seen beneath the posters and advertisements with which the students cover them. The centre of the room is slightly sunken, forming a shallow amphitheatre within which groups of students can often be seen indulging in both debates and dramatic rehearsals. Mercifully, if one steps beyond the pillars that encircle this, all sound from within is deadened, allowing quieter discussions or work to be undertaken in the plush alcoves that line the outside of the chamber.

Maybe it's just a trick of perspective, but you could swear that the central enclosure changes size to accommodate as many students as wish to participate in whatever pursuit is currently being undertaken within it.

One night, you returned to the common room after dinner to find the entire chamber in uproar, with a heated shouting match taking place between two small groups of people, with the rest of the occupants, having roughly split between both camps, shouting encouragement and jeers as appropriate. Enquiring with some second-years on the quieter peripheries, you elucidated that one of the groups had, on the morning, “borrowed” some horses from the College stables in order to ride to the city and lead a protest against the oppressive dictatorship of the Tyrant, and indulge in some (relatively good natured) rabble rousing.

Unfortunately, upon their return they found several unimpressed members of the faculty waiting for them, which, you gather, was the work of the other pre-eminent group, among whom you recognise the eldest son of the Tyrant's chancellor. The inevitable confrontation regarding the latter group's underhand snitching had, somehow, spiralled into a swirling political debate regarding the Tyrant's governance and policies, into which nearly the entire house had been drawn. Within a few minutes, you found yourself drawn in on one of the sides, throwing arguments and abuse alike until the early hours.

Professor Andrew Carpenter, formerly known as (variously, and not limited to) “The Shadow”, “The Crimson Flash”,” The Most Illustrious Eternal Duke” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive” Professor Carpenter has lead, to say the least, an interesting life. Prodigiously skilled in illusory magic, and with a thirst for power and adventure, the young Carpenter quickly disappeared after graduating from the College, leaving behind a position in the family business for which he had been groomed. A few years later, tales started to emerge of a dashing highwayman/revolutionary/popular hero operating in the kingdom of Holther, and a few years after that, with events taking their natural course, a beaming Carpenter was borne into the palace of the handily deposed despot upon the arms of a rapturous populace, and proclaimed a new government of freedom and equality. As he proudly states in the history lectures he now runs, it took him five months and thirteen days from that moment to get himself made absolute ruler of the nation, and he managed to last a whole four years before he was finally, in turn, overthrown and cast into the deepest dungeon of his own castle. Naturally, he had installed a secret escape tunnel in said dungeon, and was a fugitive before the new government had even gotten around to working out where the money was kept (primarily in several buried chests whose location was known only to Carpenter, since you ask), and led the new authorities on a merry cycle of re-capture and improbable escape for a few months, before growing bored and running back to his Alma Mater. With the mediation of the college authorities, Carpenter hashed out a deal with the new rulers of Holther: in exchange for being allowed to live out the rest of his days as a professor at the college, he would reveal the location of several caches of coin, and swear a magical oath to never involve himself in the governance of a country ever again. Professor Carpenter has been true to his promise, and now is now a popular and enthusiastic lecturer in both Anthropology and Magical History. He also hosts frequent seminars, and is an accomplished after dinner speaker, whose repertoire ranges from “Artistic Economic Mismanagement: Running a Country on Lies and False Hope” to “Weasel Wording of Magical Oaths: an Utter bastards Guide”. His office in the history department is rumoured to contain one of the best private wine collections in the college, as well as a variety of exciting keepsakes from his time as a dashing highwayman.