Divine Campus Tour
"Well met. I'm Alhandra Heatherson, and I'll be showing you the Divine Campus. You'll notice a mixture of architectural styles in the buildings, from early Greek to Roman classical, to the haunting Abyssal Modern style of the Grazzt Building. Obviously, the school itself is unaligned, but several of the buildings have strong alignment tendencies, even of earlier alignments that aren't officially recognized by 'Core' philsophy.
"I should start with the Auditorium Which Must Not Be Named, named for our beloved Headmistress. You've been here before, of course, during orientation. It contains the largest singular room anywhere on campus, or in Sigil for that matter. The main auditorium can seat the entire student body, which is impressive. The building is Sigil Modern-style, and is fiercely Unaligned. You can actually feel the lack of alignment when you walk in, and I'm not even sure what that means. Dean Shemeska's office is here. In sub-basement J, past the multiple traps and the natural bridge over the bottomless pit, is the Housing Department, where you'll find Dean Roper's office and cave. Both of these Deans are best avoided if possible. Dean Shandrill is pleasant enough, but she's based out of the Bigby Building on the Residential Campus West, and anyway, she has less authority than a freshman communications major. Major events, notably graduation, take place here, but for the most part, it's just taking up a lot of real estate.
"The Mercion School of Unaligned Philosophy is one of the major classroom buildings, noted for its pillar-work and its clever use of stained glass throughout the building, especially the nearly all-glass north face. North, in this case, is the direction of the Auditorium. A lot of basic religious groundwork goes on here, and this is the source for study on Lawful Evil, Chaotic Good, and good old Chaos and Law. The building contains chapels for unspecific (or specific 'old alignment') worship, as well as specific shrines to Corellon, Erathis, Ioun, Kelemvor, Kord, Melora, Oghma, the Raven Queen (*shudder*), Sehanine, Silvanus, and Tempus. For all you religious types who can't commit to anything.
"This imposing edifice is the Grazzt Building of Chaotic Evil. It's a very palpably evil building, where... I guess saying that anything is taught here is sort of optimistic. It's a blasphemous place, and I feel dirty even standing here. Anyway, there's also a chapel for Chaotic Evil worship, and the small vestibules surrounding the place like the dung of a dretch, are individual chapels dedicated to Cyric, Ghaunadaur, Gruumsh, Lolth, Mephistopheles, Tharizdun, and Umberlee. They're kept outside, so the administration is sure there's no human sacrifice going on. I ought to smite the whole lot of them... Grrr...
"Not quite as terrible, but, well, let's face it, terrible, is the Shemeska School of Evil Thought, where other evil philosophy is studied. The building is rather muted, actually, with a Hades-inspired architecture, painted in a dull stone gray. It doesn't really stand out except to give you the shudders as you walk by. Like the other philosophical schools, there are chapels for worship to your evil powers, with specific chapels dedicated to Asmodeus, Bane, Shar, Tiamat, Torog, Vecna, and Zehir.
"We start to get on the right track again with the Gwynharwyf Temple to Good. Possibly not good enough, but who am I to judge? Just a paladin of Heironeous. But that's beside the point. This Temple manages to combine early Roman and Celestial architecture to a very lovely effect, with a gold colored stonework which complements the real gold trimming nicely. Besides Good-inspired classroom work, there's also basic chapels to Good, and specific chapels to Avandra, Corellon (unaligned some places, good in others), Marthammor Duin, Pelor, Selune, and Sune. Hm. That's it, huh? Let's look at the list of Evil deities again, then... you know, never mind. I'll take it up with the school board later.
"And then we have the Raziel School of Lawful Good, where the true philosophies are taught. Six stories of celestial glory, built from polished marble imported directly from Heaven. There are, of course, the standard chapels to Lawful Good in general, with specific chapels to Amaunator, Bahamut, Chauntea, Moradin, and Torm. And not... Heironeous. I've got a complaint registered, but it's still on the backlist of Student Council issues. Because somebody put Maddie Weber in charge of prioritizing issues. Whatever, I'm over it.
"Philosophical studies aside, there's actual work involved in most Divine majors, and the place you learn the basics of the adventuring Cleric is here, at the Eberk School of Clerics. All the basic classroom and labwork for cleric studies, regardless of choice of divinity, is done here. All undead in Turn Undead lab are either mindless or volunteers, for those who worry about the rights of the living dead.
"More importantly, here's the Silver Flame Hall of Paladin Arts. All the basics of Paladin training are done here, from weapons work to the very vital smiting programs. I'm a bit concerned that the program has opened up to all alignments, but I'll get over it eventually, I'm sure. Man, I need a drink.
"Okay, so here's the Corellon Building, where Wisdom-based skills are taught. Not all of it is directly related to the Divine. Perception class, for instance. But a lot of it's taught by the Cleric faculty, so here it is.
"The Infirmary of Pelor is the campus medical center. Most anything you'll need from basic healing to Cure Disease rituals is covered by your medical plan, up to, and including, up to two Raise Deads a semester. The staff is headed by Pammy, the beholder nurse, and is largely made up of student volunteers. There are also labs taught here, for the Heal-based rituals.
"Religion-based rituals are taught in the labs here at the Heironeous Building; at least they had the decency to honor him this much. It's a smaller, brick building with less pretentious architecture than some of the others on this part of the campus, but it's sturdy, much like Heironeous himself.
"Finally, this small building here, with the Egyptian-style front facing, is the Thoth Lab for Holy Symbols, where you can learn to enchant or enhance your holy symbols for more dramatic effects. Remember, basic holy symbols are available at most campus bookstores, but magical symbols are produced here, and can be purchased from student handiwork for reasonable prices.
"Well, that seems to be the campus, so... anybody wants to come with, I'm going to worship a couple of pints at the pub. If you want to tour the Martial Campus, hook up with Regdar over there. Cheers."