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Everything you need in ten minutes — the school, the five houses, and the shape of the world.
What is elf school?
elf school is a fictional elven academy — the setting of the Vizlings character of the same name. Imagine a school built for moonlight: silver-barked towers joined by lantern-lit bridges, classrooms open to the sky, a library lit by a shaft of moonwater, and students who measure their terms by the phases of the moon.
The students are elves and elf-kin of all kinds — high elves, wood elves, moonfolk, half-elves — plus the occasional exchange scholar from the gnome academies and one very famous dwarf runesmith’s apprentice (notable alumni).
The five houses and orders
Every student belongs to one of five houses and orders, chosen at the Sorting Lantern ceremony in their first term:
| house / order | emblem | known for |
|---|---|---|
| house of the silver stag | a stag beneath a crescent | spellweaving and leadership |
| order of the nightingale | a songbird on a branch | music, lore, and the old tongues |
| house of the thorned rose | a rose in a thorn ring | herbcraft and healing |
| order of the frostmoth | a moth with moonlit wings | starlore and divination |
| house of the deep root | roots beneath a tree | beast-tending and warding |
Read the full portraits in houses & orders.
The five disciplines
The core curriculum — every graduate masters the basics of all five:
- runes — the written grammar of magic; carved, not spoken.
- starlore — reading the sky: navigation, calendars, and foresight.
- herbcraft — the living pharmacy of the wood.
- spellweaving — the practical art of shaping moonlight and will.
- beast-tending — care, study, and diplomacy with magical creatures.
Plus the lesser arts: silvercraft, music, the old tongues, and dueling (polite). Details in curriculum, and the rules that govern it all in laws of magic.
A short history
- cycle 812 — the school is founded by Headmistress Serenya Moonwhisper at the crescent moon gate, beneath the falling star of the Year of the Falling Star (school history).
- cycle 900s — the five houses take their modern form; the moonwell library is dug.
- cycle 1055 — the storm school schism: a faction of weather-mages leaves to found the rival academy on the crag (rivals & the outside).
- cycle 1444 — the present cycle, under Headmistress Lirien Moonwhisper, ninth of her line.
The world beyond the gate
The school stands in the Silver Wood, a great moonlit forest ringed by the gnome hills to the east, the dwarf holds under the Grey Peaks to the north, and the wide human kingdoms far to the south — most of whom have only heard of the school in songs. The full geography is in the realm; the creatures in bestiary.
How to use this site
- New to the world? Read the campus and student life next.
- Want the invented canon? school history, laws of magic, calendar & festivals.
- Wondering how the moonmoths find new students? admissions.
- Wondering what’s real? None of it — and that’s the point. See methodology.