The University of Altdorf's walled campus is one of the Empire's most famed wonders.
The University of Altdorf is one of the most important sites in the Old World for the pursuit of mundane knowledge and higher education. Its sprawling campus dominates a whole district of Altdorf, known as Schulergegend, crammed with students and masters.[1d][15a]
History[]
Altdorf is said to be the first centre of learning established in the Empire of Man. Although the University of Nuln is technically an older building, a tradition of sharing knowledge and keeping records is said to have been practiced in Sigmar's ancient capital of Reikdorf.[15a]
In the years before the foundation of the Colleges of Magic, High Elves occasionally taught at the University of Altdorf as visiting professors. Many of these High Elven scholars were agents of Ulthuan tasked with recovering Elven artefacts lost in the Old World. In the two decades after the Colleges of Magic were founded in 2304 IC, High Elven professors were dispatched to Altdorf in greater numbers. Their task was to teach astrology, mathematics, and philosophy to the Human wizards -- necessary prerequisites for advanced magical study.[15e]
Students[]
The University of Altdorf is somewhat less exclusive than its counterpart in Nuln, making it more accessible to middle-class students, and even some lucky and inspired folk from poorer backgrounds. It also accommodates many interested apprentice wizards from the nearby Colleges of Magic who attend for a more rounded education.[1d][10b][15a].
The diversity of the University of Altdorf's student body encourages vibrant intellectual discourse, and the nearby Street of a Hundred Taverns is abuzz with academic debate. Minor gods and their esoteric cults also find favour with the students, such as Borchbach, the god of rhetoric, and Clio, the goddess of history.[15a]
Despite the efforts of the administration, the University of Altdorf is a hotbed of sedition and revolutionary talk -- on the part of both students and professors.[2b]
Young rakes and their sycophantic entourages often make cruel sport of less well-off students. Any who prove to be particularly adept academics are singled out for insult, derided as "inkies" by their supposed betters. To protect themselves and one another, the bullied students have formed a resistance group called the "Inkies' League".[15a]
Many rash students partake in duels. They favor the pistol for such events.[10a]
Administration[]
Eberhardt von Festschrift is the chancellor of the University of Altdorf.
A meister represents the professors of each college, and reports to the chancellor and vice-chancellor. Meisters are concerned with securing as much financing for their faculty as possible from the chancellor's office.[15a]
The Komission of Procuration handles admission, funding, and student discipline. The university employs its own watchmen, called "porters," and enforces night curfews with a variable degree of success. The gates are closed during curfew hours, but adventurous students have found that sections of the wall are easy to climb down from within, although getting back inside can be difficult.[15a]
Colleges[]
The University of Altdorf's five most prestigious constituent colleges are those of law, medicine, military history, alchemy, and bestiara. Nuln is generally considered to have superior faculties of mathematics, science, philosophy, theology, and literature.[15a]
The university's college of theology is the Ulli von Tasseninck School of Religious Studies, recently endowed by the Grand Prince of Ostland in the name of his late nephew. It receives funding from House von Tasseninck and the Knights of Everlasting Light. The students include both cultic initiates and laypeople. Among the professors are some crypto-Brustellites who cultivate revolutionary tendencies in the students.[13d][15b]
The grounds feature a statue depicting Ulli von Tasseninck as a pious man -- very much unlike Ulli von Tasseninck's real character. The statue's head was knocked off and stolen by an unknown vandal, and pranksters from time to time put a pumpkin where the missing head should be.[13d][15b]
Campus[]
The University of Altdorf's campus occupies roughly the central third of the Schulergegend district.[15a]
The University of Altdorf's campus occupies roughly a third of Schulergegend, Altdorf's academic district. West of the university is the Schlafstadt quarter, a shabby neighbourhood of poor students and menial workers. Schlafstadt's many shops sell books, antiques, used furniture, tools, and weapons.[15a]
East of the university complex are private clubs, administrative buildings, and townhouses rented by junior professors and middle-class students. The constant ruckus from the Street of a Hundred Taverns sometimes spills out into the eastern district, especially in the evenings, which makes it a less desirable place to live.[15a]
The walled university complex is one of the Empire's famous wonders. Five gates provide access to a sprawling maze of lecture halls, dormitories, and office buildings. A confusing array of staircases connect the multi-tiered open quads where students hurry between classes. Visitors without guides are bound to become disoriented.[15a]
The Temple of Verena, which is fairly small for a major temple in Altdorf, connects the university to the Great Library. So deeply intertwined are these three institutions, they are often mistakenly considered one and the same. Many professors at the University are in fact devout Verenans.[1d][7a]
Agitators compete for attention at the adjunct temple of Borchbach, and the columned hall of the university's sanctuary to the Classical Goddess Clio houses archaeological finds discovered in and around Altdorf.[10b][15a]
The University Archives contain scholarly correspondences to professors, possibly among other documents.[3c]
Some university vaults are kept under lock and key and only opened to priests of Verena and those High Priest Manfred Archibald approves. In many cases, it's because the vaults contain texts that the Cult of Sigmar would not approve of.[7a]
The University of Altdorf is the venue for meetings of the Guild of Explorers, and the Order of Mysteries is based somewhere in it. A secret society called the Justified Enterprise and Research Kommission also operates here. It is ostensibly a networking organisation for professionals, and has connections to several guilds. Student groups include the League of Karl Franz and the Inkies.[2a][5a][7a][9a]
Concerning Wizards[]
Before the Imperial Colleges of Magic were founded in 2304 IC, the University of Altdorf briefly housed a wizards' college that taught Classical southern arcana. Many of the old grimoires are now proscribed, but wizards from the eight colleges still use the Great Library and teach classes in theoretical magic. Visiting High Elven scholars receive almost religious reverence. According to rumour, a statue of Clio that stands outside the chancellor's office actually depicted an Elf long ago, before erosion rounded its features.[15a]
The University of Altdorf's ancient practices and traditions put the Orders of Magic to shame. In many ways the colleges' structure is modelled on the university, for when the Colleges of Magic were created that was the most familiar establishment of higher learning in the Empire to serve as a model.[1d]
The university looks down its nose at the academic standards of the Colleges of Magic, but reluctantly respects its magical virtues. There is a good amount of contact between an individual college and the university, and their needs are complementary. The university is often in need of magical advice or practical help and is generally the least fearful of magic of all the Empire's mundane institutions. And the knowledge and expertise of the university are frequently called upon by the more inquisitive apprentices and Magisters.[1d]
Notable Members[]
Notable Current Administrators[]
- Eberhardt von Festschrift - Current chancellor of the University of Altdorf.[15d]
Notable Current Professors[]
- Professor Heinrich Grüberhaus - Professor who has translated the Bellona Myrmidia (Reman edition), a sacred book of the followers of the Classical goddess of war.[16a]
- Rangur Star-eye - Navigation teacher.[5a]
- Frederich Weirde - Professor of military history.[15c]
Notable Former Professors[]
- Andreas Cameras - Cameras was a professor of the university who wrote a treatise on the Skaven a few years before 2522 IC. It was widely ridiculed, and he died of Yellow Skull Fever shortly thereafter.[8a]
- Professor Brustellin - Professor and revolutionary. Dismissed.[13c]
- Ehrwig von Dankien - Professor of Arcane History. He was once respected, but his reputation was destroyed when he published The Inconvenient Truths, which details his voyage to Lustria and information he gleaned about the Old Ones. He has been placed on "indefinite sabbatical."[1a][1b][1c]
- Hans Meideck - Professor of history, deceased.[17a]
- Manfred Keyes - Professor of Humanities, now disbarred.[3a]
- Thule - Professor of the Antiquities Department, deceased.[6b]
- Ulli von Tasseninck - Professor, executed ca. 2506.[15b]
Notable Alumni[]
- Felix Jaeger- Expelled for killing Wolfgang Krassner in a duel.[11a]
- Albericht Kruger - A former University student, became a rogue sorcerer after coming into contact with multiple forbidden books in the university's library.[14a]
- Helmut Elsaesser - Studied law, military history, and alchemy, graduated ca. 2508 IC.[12a][13a]
- Wolfgang Krassner - Killed while still a student in duel with Felix Jaeger.[11a]
Sources[]
- 1: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Winds of Magic (RPG)
- 2: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Shades of Empire (RPG)
- 3: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Children of the Horned Rat (RPG)
- 4: Warhammmer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: WFRP Companion (RPG)
- 4a: pg. 111
- 5: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Career Compendium (RPG)
- 5a: pg. 151
- 6: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: The Gathering Storm (RPG)
- 7: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Signs of Faith (RPG)
- 7a: pg. 15
- 8: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
- 8a: pg. 93
- 9: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition: Liber Infectus (RPG)
- 9a: pg. 43
- 10: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Core Rulebook (RPG)
- 11: Hammer & Bolter Issue 25
- 11a: "The Problem of Three-Toll Bridge" by Josh Reynolds
- 12: White Dwarf Magazine Issue 140
- 13: Beasts in Velvet (Novel)
- 14:Gotrek and Felix: Trollslayer (Novel) by William King
- 14a: pg. 116 - 125
- 15: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Altdorf - Crown of the Empire (RPG)
- 16: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition: Up in Arms (RPG)
- 16a: pg. 64
- 17: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition: Sigmar's Heirs (RPG)
- 17a: pg. 11