The ancient Academy of Rasia was one of the greatest centres of learning in the world, holding libraries of unique works, copied from the most ancient times. It was not a single institution but a vast agglomeration of colleges and institutions dedicated to various arts and disciplines, both practical and esoteric. The various college buildings made up what became the city of Rasia, the intellectual and, for a time, political hub of the north.

At the time of Belikast, the Academy was dominated by three great Schools of thought, academic approaches which each claimed to offer a complete explanation of the universe. In theory the three major Schools were philosophies independent of an institution or college, but in time they came to dominate whole fields of expertise, carving up academic fiefs between themselves and excluding all others.

Schools of Thought

The schools were the the Grammarians, the Holisticians, and the Metamagicians. The academy consisted of many colleges of inter-related disciplines, but the three schools dominated, very roughly, the fields of Behaviour, Bio-ecology and Physics, respectively.

Other Schools of thought existed, including the Signtists, Gnosticians, Numeromancers and numerous folk tradtions. These existed only on the very fringes of Academic life and were regarded either as ridiculous, anachronistic or dangerous quackery, though academicians occasionally called upon their skills or archives.

Grammarians

Most simply put, grammarians believe that everything in the universe is governed by a set of intrinsic rules that explains their behaviour, from the movement of the stars, the imperatives of gravity, to the instincts to hunt or to fall in love.

Grammarians are dedicated to formulating and understanding these rules by reducing them to simple linguistic code: the language of creation. A seed contains a set of imperatives to grow and take on water, to branch and put out leaves, according to calculable algorithms. An ant (or crackleback) has orders to search in 'chaotic' patterns, to find the right kinds of food, to eat and return to the nest. All life, even mankind, is composed of these instruction-sets, which they call sequents , or programs. These programs are both intrinsic, or instinctual, but they can also be created, learned and passed on to others. It is the exclusive gift of Creation to humanity that Man has the ability to learn and to understand his own programming - and even to change it.

The philosophy of Grammarians goes further: that all thought and behaviour are patterns of the words Yes and No. Every thought is the constant sifting of information with a multiplicity of decision trees. The deep philosophy states that the universe was called into existence by a single word, Yes - and the search for the Logos, the one word of creation has been a holy grail of Grammarians for aeons.

The School embraces several disciplines, and the colleges which carry out research and teaching:

• The Programmarians work closest with the Magisters , and their discipline is so important and so generalist that it is considered important in its own right. Their general field is analysis of the instruction-sets of life, including all of the natural world from stars to plants.
• Most programmarians however are Logicians of the Eridai , who study the instruction sets of the Erida elementals imprinted by the Ancients. Magisters create sequents of their own, but the most elaborate are constructed and maintained by the Logician Programmarians. Many Magisters also specialise in this field.

Holisticians

Holisticians view the universe as sets of interrelated and interdependent systems. They regard other perspectives as "reductionist", and believe that only by perceiving the whole can the function and purpose of any parts of that system be truly understood. In practice, holisticians study life, encompassing ecological webs as well as the internal ecology of living beings, including the webs of social interactions in humans which make up families, communities and wider social, political and military networks.

At the crudest level of their field, holisticians are medics, and this is the field for which they are best known. However they not only treat symptoms, but promote health in relation to the well-being of whole living systems: humans, domestics animals and the food they consume, and their balance with the natural environment.

Holisticians also extend their study to include human societies, from the psyche of individuals to whole social and national movements.

According to the principles of the School, all holisiticians must have interdisciplinary expertise and a perspective in other fields. As such the Holisitician colleges are like shifting sands, which the more specialised Grammarians regard with horror as being "masters of none". However, 'specialities' do exist, particularly from the perspective of the rest of the Academy:

• Holistorians - study cycles in social history in comparison with the present day
• Herbalists - experts in botany and plantlife, particularly for healing purposes
• Diagnosticans - physicians

Metamagicians

Where the grammarians seek to explain the living world in the language of behaviour, metamagicians explain the whole universe in terms of numbers, in the language of axioms, heuristics and logic. Metamagicians consider their field to be the highest art, of which all other disciplines are either physical expressions or practical applications. High metamagicians in fact claim that behind the grammar, the Word of creation, is the far greater and more elegant world of numbers which is their world.

Metamagic is an endlessly complex and elegant field, whose patterns can describe everything from the form of a leaf to a thunder storm, from the movement of the heavens to the pattern of a snowflake. The school is insular to a certain degree, but the metamagical arts are vital to many practical fields, including the programmarians as well as the lesser arts of the architects, smiths and bursars.

Lesser Schools

Oughtists

The Oughtists are less an all-embracing school of thought, than a philosophical movement which claims descent from the Godmen of ancient myth. In practice Oughtism is a kind of secular religion, and unlike the other lesser schools it still has a place within the Academy. It teaches "man is the measure of all things", that Man is the superior creation above any godlings or other spirits. It acknowledges the existence of superluminary beings, but declares "for Man to worship is the greatest sin".

Philosophically it promotes the positive human virtues of humility, duty, justice, peace, tolerance, charity and so on. This True Ethic does not come from some external ahuman entity, but from deep in the soul of Man. Sermons in True Ethics are common from Oughtist Remonstrarians , an evangelical group who believe in actively promoting their world view, preaching in public. Some students are drawn to the Remonstrarians but the Academy takes no firm views.

Oughtists are generally seen as a very staid and traditional sect, providing the philosophical and moral backbone of society, without actually having any power.

Even if God exists: an actor does not worship the playwright, though his character is wholly formed and every word in her mouth comes from the writer. We honour our mother and father who created us and raised us, but we do not worship them all our lives. We are created free and responsible to ourselves and others. We are bound not to some arbitrary rule of our creator, but to the higher, common good of all humanity.

Signtists

Signtists are an eccentric school, long ago eclipsed by the others and viewed mostly with derision and contempt. As with the other schools, Signtism covers a wide range of disciplines, carried out under an over-riding philosophy. Singtists, most simply put, are analysers of natural phenomena, searching for the symbolism of underlying truths through observation and experimentation. The greatest dogma of the school is what they call the Method, which says that any problem or object can best be understood by reducing it to its component principles.

Signtists practice such arts as astronomy, dissection and alchemical reduction, but these are not considered true disciplines in the wider academy, or areas worthy of study. Both the grammarians and holisticians dismiss signtry as superstition, an intellectual dead end which may be endlessly fascinating but contribute little or nothing to either the practical arts or the greater understanding of creation. As a famous holistician said: no matter how thin you slice a loaf of bread, you will never be able to perceive the intricate web of socio-enviro-economics.

Gnosticians

Gnosticians are a semi-mystical school who study the gods, their various forms and comparative philosophies. Gnosticians are not devotees of particular gods, though many are believers. Instead they study the nature of gods in themselves: ritual, comparative theology, myth, prophecy, esoteric writings and the fundamental nature and properties of gods high and low.

They are generally despised by the Magisters and Programmarians, who dismiss their study of 'deitals' as at best naive, at worst dangerous. In the past there have been moves to banish gnosticians from Rasia altogether, and all gnostics are officially banned from the archives. Several centuries before the time of Belikast, the Magisters forbade students from dabbling in the field of gnostics.

Mekhanists

This was, like the Signtists, and ancient Reductionist school which viewed the universe as a machine, made up of intricate interlocking parts. Mekhanist philosophy either believed that the universe had no purpose, or was a vast machine created by a Universal Architect in order to calculate the result of an unknowable problem.

The School has long been extinct, superceded by the great schools. Its colleges are some of the oldest in Rasia, but the ancient buildings are now occupied by the Factors, craftsmen who make all the artefacts of wood and metal necessary for academic work. Foremost amongst these are the Injinneers, who craft the elemental injinns used by metamagicians and holisticians in particular, powered by the arts of the programmarians.

Note on Late Rasia

After the 'Fall' of Rasia, when the city was sacked during the Long War, the Academy was closed and the colleges disbanded. Only the Magisters, in bitter isolation. The arts of the metamagicians were maintained only in their grossest forms, by the body that became the Rinesti, the administrative order of the Hexact. The Holisticians were utterly discredited, though their archives and experience went to establish the Senasi, dedicated to the promotion of human health without the deeper philosophical purpose.

Signtrists almost entirely disappeared, their works distributed amongst smiths, engineers and interested amateurs. Belikast was a great friend of the signtists, and many latterly joined the Church of the Nameless, led by his disciples. The Signtist school owned land on the river Lar, east of Rasia. Centuries later it was settled by the Church, in secret, and became their stronghold.

The arts of the grammarians were taken over by the Magisters, and the search for the "deep languages" was forever abandoned.

The Oughtists became increasingly irrelevant after the downfall of Rasia, and under the new regime of the Hexact, they were eclipsed by the new secular orders which in some ways inherited Oughtist authority.