Blue Heron Institute

[[Category:{{#switch:|File=Files|Template=Templates|articles}} in need of cleanup]]

The Blue Heron Institute is a school for Practitioners operating in Ontario.<infobox> <title source="name"><default>Blue Heron Institute</default></title>

<image source="image"></image> <header>Basic Information</header> <image source="map"></image> <label>Type</label> <label>Location</label> <label>Inhabitants</label> <label>First Appearance</label> </infobox>

Location

The Institute operates out of a former church. They have a library, dedicated ritual space, and sleeping quarters.

Residents

Alexander Belanger serves as the headmaster and one of the teachers. The other two core teachers are Rad Ray Sunshine and Ms Durocher. Guest teachers also visit from time to time and include Mr. Bristow, Electra Miraz, the Ports, the Crowes, Mr. Musser, Ms. Lair,<ref name=":4">“Raymond has been serving as a guest teacher for a year while pursuing other projects, but is returning this summer and fall, at the very least. We’re glad to have him. On the topic of guest teachers, I would like to extent my gratitude to Mr. Bristow, Electra Miraz, the Ports, the Crowes, Mr. Musser, and Ms. Lair, for agreeing to come this summer, and to anyone and everyone else who decides they can find the time. To others too numerous to name, I would extend thanks for the loaning of books for the student library.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref> and Ms Graubard.<ref name=":1">"Tymon and Talos’s younger sister Jorja joins us, already an adept caller

of a greater Urban spirit.  She should be recognizable or even familiar
to those of you who attended guest lectures with their mother.  Dom, as
anyone familiar with the Driscoll family knows, is a beginner city mage
and historian, and we’re excited to see if he takes after his big 

sister and parents.  I’m also very pleased that a long-time colleague of

mine finally has a child old enough to send to classes here.  Talia 

Graubard is a beginner Dollmaker." Verona could use that to identify Talia, who had brown hair with blonde highlights framing her face, standing beside a doll that was the same height and proportions as her.  She had her hands on the shoulders of an even younger girl, who hugged a stuffed elephant.

[...]

"Brie Callie is a friend of Zed, who many of you know is the fourth apprentice to Raymond Sunshine.  Brie played a pivotal role in handling the Devouring Song, a problem that has plagued our area for some time, and spent the last few weeks here with us, working with Mrs. Durocher, and we’re happy to have her.  Lastly, we have three new practitioners joining us, a trio of wild practitioners, Avery Kelly, Lucy Ellingson, and Verona Hayward.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5 </ref><ref>"Mrs. Graubard will be available throughout the day and evening to discuss enchantment and puppets, and she’s suggested she’s comfortable matching to beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels, as the situation requires.” Learning enchantment from the Dollmaker it was. - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref>

The pupils are largely those who have been reached out to by one of the core teachers or who operate in the area.<ref name=":0">Most of the time, Mr. Belanger, Mrs. Durocher, or Ray will reach out to people with associated interests.  Jorja’s family is really

interested in learning from Mrs. Durocher, who is maybe in the top ten 

in the world when it comes to dealing with powers so big that humans really have no business meddling in them. [...] The other families are ones that have been here for a long time.  They’re here because the Institute is close and it’s a good way to expand their knowledge. - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.4</ref> There are 50-60 pupils total.<ref>Maybe fifty, sixty students were present.  - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.4</ref> The new pupils as of Summer 2020 are the Kennet Trio, Brie Callie, Jorja Leos, Talia Graubard, and Dom Driscoll,<ref name=":1" /> a full list of known BHI pupils is available here.

Curriculum

The full list of classes is given in this Bonus Material.

The pupils are loosely divided into freshmen (first semester, not allowed to attend advanced classes),<ref>Special Topics – These are available only to those who have
completed at least a season at the BHI and obtained permission of all relevant guardians - BHI Information Packet</ref> regular pupils, and seniors (mostly focus on projects with help from the teachers.)<ref>“Where are the seniors going?” Avery asked.  Some of Alexander’s group, Lucy noted.“They come here to collaborate on private projects and take the occasional advanced project, and ask visiting teachers for input.  That’s three groups of five or six students, I think, then Seth, a few others.” Zed included, it seemed. Lucy wondered what those projects included. - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.6 </ref>

History

The Institute was founded by Alexander Belanger, Rad Ray Sunshine, Ms Durocher and some others (Mr. Bristow and Mr. Musser), after they met at the site of a Deus ex Machina and defeated it together. It was named after one of the forms the god-thing projected.<ref>“Years ago, there was something on the horizon that clouded my Sight. It recurred as an image. A teenage boy dressed as a king, sitting in a chair with water running over him, repeating the same nonsense phrases over and over again. If I gutted a bird and pulled out its entrails for a simple fortune telling, I could find papers in the guts, with the phrases on it. It was… obnoxious. I traveled from Toronto to Winnipeg, met with other Practitioners who had run into the same problem, some of your parents, as a matter of fact. A company that managed and experimented with server architecture had rented out three floors of its building to a startup and had unwittingly played host to a group of technomancers trying to get users to engage with rituals they’d programmed. They abandoned their work, killed by Witch Hunters or run off by Others, and their work was deleted. As Raymond Sunshine would be sure to tell you, however, deleted does not mean gone. Just as you can pull something out of your trash bin on your desktop, their work was still there, gradually taking form, reaching out into the rest of the servers in the building until it could become a small god. After that, it started expanding out, until it was interfering with my Sight. [...] It had taken over the building and the running of the company that managed the servers. Within was a world of its own that would take a month to cross. I went to deal with it, and ran into someone else who was doing the same. A young lady who would be best described as being very interested in the most vast and uncontrolled parts of conventional practice,” He indicated Mrs. Durocher. “She had already contacted a colleague of hers from a previous errand, a man who was just then achieving notoriety for his first practitioner-facing website.” He indicated Raymond Sunshine. [...] Together with Mr. Bristow and Mr. Musser, we annihilated the god, shared out its power, and we drank together that night. For Mr. Sunshine, Mrs. Durocher, and myself, it sparked a close friendship that has lasted ever since. One of the things I hold most important about that experience was the epiphany I had, during that night of conversation and light drinks. It wasn’t the power that I was happiest with -and I was as power hungry as they come- but the moments I had been with other practitioners and felt purpose and felt like we were all better for those deals. Better informed, and we all know having the right information makes us strong. Dealing with other practitioners makes us safer, better equipped, stronger, and more capable of covering our weaknesses. That epiphany would eventually lead to us starting the Blue Heron Institute alongside Mr. Bristow, Mr. Musser, and others. We named it after one of the faces the god in the machine had worn.” - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.5</ref> Alexander drew on favours from his family to help set it up.<ref>Alexander had the institute in part because he’d bartered with family, getting the power as a kind of loan to get it started, then bartering again to get the good words, references, and contacts to bring people in.

If Alexander’s distant nephew got in any real trouble here, it disrupted that whole engine. - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z </ref> Bristow was originally the principal.<ref name=":5">A heavyset man who wasn’t much taller than Lucy was entered through the front door.  He began exchanging a whispered conversation with Alexander, a vaguely angry look on his face.  He looked… it was hard to pin down.  Red-faced and blotchy, but in a way that looked permanent.  Like he’d been lightly boiled and had scarred over.  His hair was parted

and shiny with hair product.

“That’s Bristow,” a girl said.

“Who’s Bristow?” Avery asked.

“He came up yesterday, in the introduction speech,” Lucy commented.

“Ex-headmaster,” Jessica murmured.

It looked like he hadn’t give up on the teaching idea altogether.  On

top of being short, wide, blotchy, and looking perpetually angry, 

Bristow was very tweed.  Like a professor.  You didn’t keep dressing that way unless it was integral to your identity.

Lucy could remember what they’d learned from Miss about how Alexander

had taken the school.  Planting a demesne here and tying it to the 

school, so he had more claim to the school.  She imagined that if she were Mr. Bristow, she’d be pretty upset at being ousted, let alone if he

knew that it had happened that way.  - excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.6

</ref>

In 2014, there was an incident where someone thanked the kitchen brownies and served as a lightning-rod for all the karmic debt to them.<ref>She couldn’t express gratitude, or the brownies would turn on her.  With the one-sided arrangement, a karmic debt was accrued, but there were always rules.  The faerie-adjacent brownies might strike a deal, like never ever watching them work.  When a hapless, curious individual finally did, they would be blinded.  The more the debt, the worse the fate.

The last incident with the kitchen brownies had been six years ago.  Just over two thousand days and nights of breakfasts and dinners provided without a disruption of the arrangement.  At this point, the person who crossed the brownies would probably not be allowed to die, as

the karmic debt came to roost. - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z

</ref>

Alexander took over the position of Principal after the summer of 2016, aided by his claiming of a Demesne there and swearing oaths that helped cement his role as a teacher.<ref name=":5" /><ref>“On August ninth, two thousand and sixteen, you received permission to set up a demesnes on school grounds,” Verona said.  “Claiming a place

of power for yourself.  At the start of the ensuing term, you found 

your way to the role of headmaster and chief instructor.”

“Helped,” Lucy added, “by the fact that you made promises and deals, tying your demesnes to the school.  You stated your intent to use your place of power and the associated building to serve, educate the young practitioners of western Ontario.  You were not specific about dues-paying members.” - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.2 </ref>

Ray Sunshine spent a few years prior to 2020 engaging less with the school, serving only as a guest lecturer, but he returned to serving as one of the core staff in the summer of 2020.<ref name=":4" />

References

<references/>