A chill mist surrounded the unreasonably large castle at the heart of the Valley of Quorn.

This castle was both fortress and palace, yet, in truth, neither. Built over more than 500 years the castle was more like a small city than a castle, and rather than a palace, it was in truth a university.

What did they teach there?

Adventuring, the ancient and honorable profession of mages and kings, bishops and crooks, the princes of the earth and its ambitious peasants.

The school has been founded 250 years ago by the last of the Elven Kings of the Old Alliance, when he finally realized that the doom of Elvenkind was upon his line, for he had no legitimate children and was 700 years old. He turned his winter retreat at the Valley Quorn into the beginning of the academy and named it for it's first Arch-Dean, his half-Human daughter Gillian McGuffin. She served as Arch-Dean for 20 years, before passing the torch to younger hands, and retiring to a small tower built into the northern wall where she lived out the rest of her days doing mystic research and thaumaturgical experiments.

The tide of years rolled on. King Tarimayous died, as all mortals do: even the great Elven Kings. A total of fifty Arch-Deans came and went, none serving more than 20 years, (save the "'Arch-Deen'mon" Haguathis, who was finally defeated in the 25th year of his 'tenure' at the post,) around five years on average, and in one notable case only a single day.

Though the leadership changed often, the school survived, and thrived. Every race was welcome, and the whole mountain atop which the Valley-of-Quorn rested had become part of the school to a degree, with many dwarven students retiring from adventures to work in it's mines and subterranean farms that supplied the school. Mount Helmwar was riddled with passages and galleries, and none knew their full extent. Some areas were used as a training ground for young adventurers. However, it was the castle above that was the core of the school.

Starting down from the rim of Quorn Vally a party would-be heroes beheld the sight before them with mixed emotions. The Gillian McGuffin Academy Of Adventure had a certain reputation: both students and teachers were said to rut in wild abandon after the end of classes each night. So it was said, the underlying city was home not only to dwarves but bastards and half-breeds of every description. The school was said to grow fat on the payments made by former students to pay for the upkeep costs of the wee babies they had begotten with each other before graduation...

Some of these heroes-to-be welcomed the idea of the school's reputation for promiscuity, others were less sure, but all were committed to the course of attending the Academy and emerging ready to make a name for themselves...