Symbol: Lynx
Season: Winter
Flower: Bluebell
Motto: Knowledge Before Action
Values: Stability, Patience
Colors: Silver & Blue
Academic Focus: Divination, Magical Combat & Defense
The students of Bradford Court dedicate themselves to knowledge, to planning, and to careful consideration. They are seekers of deeper truths, rarely satisfied with simple answers. They believe in strength through tradition and history, and pride themselves on lineage, both genetic and pedagogical. Even the mundane-born students of Bradford Court often map out their own genealogy, embracing their familial histories and origins.
Academically, Bradford Court is known for excelling in divination and magical combat–two distinct fields they often see as intersecting. Both deal with questions of the future, of planning, of anticipation, and with looking for deep truths about the nature of reality. When it comes to combat, Bradford students love resurrecting historical dueling styles, and many focus on classical elemental combat, wielding fire and ice to both shield and attack. Many students of Bradford excel at abstract philosophies and magical theory, spending long hours studying and debating topics most would consider obscure or arcane. Bradford students also often specialize in magical communication, projection, and teleportation.
William Bradford (1590-1657)
“All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage.”
Bradford was a brilliant autodidact and prodigy astromancer who found himself unsatisfied with magical education in Europe. He graduated from the Hermetic School of Natural Philosophy at the age of fourteen, and left Czocha College after only one year, claiming the Professors had “nothing of interest to teach him.” He soon grew dissatisfied with Europe as a whole, and was one of those to strike out for the New World aboard the Mayflower.
Initially, Bradford had little interest in governance. He was more interested in exploring the New World, and seeing what there was to learn. He brought with him a small group of fellow mages, whose children he taught. However, when disaster began to befall the mundane colony at Plymouth, Bradford found himself drafted into Governorship. He attempted several times to resign his post, but each time, upon seeing the mundanes who might replace him, he chose to stay. Bradford’s disdain for mundane life was outweighed by his impatience with incompetence.
Bradford never technically held the title of Chancellor of P2A4, as the position was not formally established until after his time, but he led the school from its founding until 1646. His focus was always on quality of education and quality of teaching. Bradford was known widely as a harsh and exacting teacher, but one who did not care where his students came from. He was willing to teach Unsoiled students, mundane-born students, as well as learners from the local First Nations groups, as long as any of them could keep up with his lessons.
Bradford stepped back from active leadership of the school in 1646, to focus both on governing the colony and on his writings. In his old age, Bradford wrote dozens of texts on magical history and theory, though most have since been replaced by more modern works. Today, Bradford’s writings are seen by most as a historical artifact, save for by his most ardent followers, who hold them as something close to gospel.