Ban Ard Academy

Ban Ard Academy
Information
Type	Magical university
Country	Kaedwen
Region	Ban Ard
Appearance(s)
Books	Time of Contempt (mentioned) Baptism of Fire (mentioned) Season of Storms (mentioned) Crossroads of Ravens (mentioned)
Games	Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni The Witcher (mentioned) The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (mentioned) The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (mentioned) The Witcher Role-Playing Game

	I don't care about your ancestry. This is Ban Ard. Magic rules here, not your father.
- A tutor on the academy's status, Wiedźmin: Gra Wyobraźni

Ban Ard Academy, otherwise called Ban Ard Sorcerer's School or Ban Ard School, is a prestigious university educating male students in magic, as well as one of the two main seats of Brotherhood of Sorcerers since the fall of Mirthe during Falka's rebellion. Located in Kaedwen, just outside the city walls of Ban Ard which the Academy also owns, its facilities are placed in what used to be an Aen Seidhe palace.

Though the school has an exceptional education system, people like Margarita Laux-Antille may consider its female counterpart, Aretuza, to be more highly esteemed due to its students having better results during comparisons.

History

	In Novigrad, they had us, we were here... But who'll save those in Rinde? Ban Ard? Ard Carraigh? Gulet?
- Sigismund Dijkstra, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

Chancellor Gerhart

The first organized school of magic that trained both sorcerers and sorceresses was located at Mirthe, and was followed by a school for girls founded by Klara Larissa de Winter in Aretuza on Thanedd Island. A school for boys was founded some time later in an abandoned elven palace complex near the city of Ban Ard, which was at that point the capital of Kaedwen. In 1130, King Dagread moved the capital to Ard Carraigh, closer to the geographical center of the Kingdom, and granted the whole Ban Ard to the Academy. Following the scorching of Mirthe by Falka's troops, the surviving male staff of Mirthe moved to Ban Ard around the 1150s.

By 1230, the position of the Chancellor of the Academy had been held by the venerable Euclides Croft. In 1267, the Chancellor Gerhart of Aelle died of a heart attack caused by the traumatic events of the Thanedd Coup, and the position of the academy's rector was transferred to Dorregaray of Vole.

Following disastrous blunders of highly positioned mages, the witch hunts ensued between 1272 and 1276. During the first year, Aretuza was outright closed, many novices arrested to be burned at the stake. After helping the sorcerers and sorceresses led by Triss Merigold in Novigrad escape, Sigismund Dijkstra pointed out that those in Ban Ard and other towns still remained endangered.

Description

	The boys of Ban Ard are not confined, much to the disappointment of the townspeople.
- Brandon of Oxenfurt, The Witcher Role-Playing Game

For the sake of prestige and security, the school is situated outside the city walls in an abandoned elven palace complex, surrounded by a forest to the left of the road to Badger Ravine as well as its own walls. The northern tower is quite prominent and reinforced. This location was chosen so that it would be easier to study the ruins of an ancient elven tomb in the forest's depths.

And indeed, the academy boasts a carefully-maintained garden in a wild style that flows seamlessly into the true wilderness. Students are assigned their space in the dormitory, where alcoholic beverages are prohibited but smuggled nonetheless.

Curriculum and research

	We constantly compare the results of the of the Aretuza adepts to those boys from the school in Ban Ard and the comparison falls invariably in favor of the girls. [...] Enough, enough, enough. There is nothing worse than scientifically manufactured chauvinism, shame on you, Rita!
- Margarita Laux-Antille and Sheala de Tancarville the schools' level, Baptism of Fire

The education lasts 12 years. First, the Giambattista and Bekker tests determine magical branches best suited for each adept. The entire entry examination is structured to be a strict selection to winnow out hopeless cases. The subjects taught are many, including meteorological magic, pyrokinesis, tyromancy and necromancy, the last one being distinct as the Brotherhood firmly banned it elsewhere. Indeed, one praised necromantic feat was accomplished by Perignon who, still a 5th grade apprentice, reanimated an entire cemetery and send it to war. Profound studies of necromancy aside, the academy has boundaries. Delving too deep into the forbidden art earns one expulsion as exemplified by the infamous Azar Javed.

Like Rissberg staff, the learned men of Ban Ard dabbled in experiments. In older days, the Academy, aside from tutoring the Sources with potential, experimented on some to explore their unique capabilities. After the Sources became rare, both sorcery universities switched to just schooling and controlling. When lycanthropy was uncovered in Eberhartt of Rivia, a 4th-grader, his masters began using him as a test guinea pig until he fled. The yellow archespore, an offshoot of the vicious plant, is also widely reckoned to have been cultivated here.

School life

Ban Ard student

	Here, future adepts undergo an education similar to that provided at Aretuza, finally becoming full-fledged sorcerers.
- Yennefer of Vengerberg, The World of the Witcher

Boys from all social strata are recruited; both the "leftover" sons of nobility, as well as orphans and foundlings found in city gutters or villages, often sick and weak. The tuition and other fees charged here don't differ from ones charged by Aretuza, where the annual fees cost up to 1,200 Novigrad crowns. The two institutions set the price together. The academy has unlimited credit in the Cianfanelli Bank and accepts tuition payments from Vivaldi Bank accounts.

Once enrolled, the students are to obey elder sorcerers throughout their education, can't leave until obtaining the title of fourth-degree master, and are subjected to a strict order. Arguably though, the order is less strict than that at Aretuza. At any rate, many adepts, especially those gathered off the streets, can't stand it and get kicked out of the academy. Students themselves are still mostly easy going, so much so that the Vice-Chancellor Mardin of Rakverelin suggested more severe rules. One of the rules restricts spell usage beyond classroom. Violating it merits a temporary anti-magic field put on the student.

Occassionally, Ban Ard Academy and Oxenfurt Academy engage in exchange programs.

Expulsion

	They threw me out of Ban Ard the first chance they got. Must've beaten the chancellor one too many times.
- The Incredible Lockhart, thrown out for excess dice gambling, The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

Highborn adepts who, despite having passed the entrance exams, turn out to be too lazy or insufficiently intelligent in the course of their studies, often find a place in armies, navies or police squadrons throughout the Northern Kingdoms. Even the least talented have potential in politics. Lower class members expelled from school are less lucky. For them, often the only alternative to a life of crime or wandering is to find a sorcerer-protector who, in exchange for various favors, can continue their magical education. All sorts of men are also recruited by the Kaedwen secret service, agents of which eagerly await rejects just outside the Academy.

Faculty and staff

Chancellors

• Euclides Croft (unknown time before and after 1230)
• Gerhart of Aelle (? — 1267)
• Dorregaray of Vole (1267 — ?)

Tutors

• Artamon of Asguth, dean (? — 1230)
• Marcellus, dean
• Mardin of Rakverelin, Vice-Chancellor for Student Affairs
• Jochen Brandt, specialist in postconjunctive species

Alumni and rejects

Alumni

• Abelard of Hagge
• Aeramas
• Bronwyn Deadeye
• Detmold
• Istredd
• Perignon
• Vidar Holgersson

Uncertain

• Hoster Wythcliff
• Cammle Torrel the Younger

Removed

• Rience
• Azar Javed
• Lockhart
• Nikodemus Talbot (crash course)
• Igor de Sade (died student)
• Julius ban Gavh'e (left)
• Eberhartt of Rivia (fled)

Notes

• In the English translation of Season of Storms, both Northern magic schools are said to be located on Thanedd Island. However, this was a mistranslation, and the original Polish edition states that the male one is located in Ban Ard, and the female one in Aretuza.
• Both "rector" and "chancellor" are used in the English translation. In polish, the position of the Academy's leader is called "rektor".