Excelsior Academy was established as a haven for powered youth, but it was a convenient prison without bars, a way to target and contain individuals flagged as potential assets—or alternatively, those whose abilities may present a threat to themselves or others. Espers were tracked down and recruited, the Academy their only real option, a place where they could learn control and eventually reintegrate into society.
At least that’s what they were told.
Excelsior boasts a rigorous curriculum, almost militant in its emphasis on combat readiness in addition to its diverse academic programs. Students may choose to major in any field, but courses in control, combat theory and application, as well as weapons training are also required under the guise of preparedness in a potentially hostile world. Many graduates, however, are funneled into covert military programs, acting as soldiers without guns, their powers honed for lethal action.
Overlooking the town of Gothic, Colorado, Excelsior is a sprawling campus built in the traditional collegiate gothic style. Modern steel and plaster support stone and brick exteriors, but the lower levels are clinically industrial, brutalist concrete that house their private research labs and training facilities. Wide, flagstone walkways traverse the grounds, ample in courtyards, sporting fields and a greenhouse to the north.
Errol Library greets you at the entrance, branching off to administrative wings to the west. Seabrook to the east is home to the Natural, Formal, and Applied Sciences, and Briggs Hall houses the Arts and Humanities department just adjacent. The Social Sciences department sits to the south end in Glassell Hall. The Burrow serves as the refectory for all students with expansive dining halls and provides private dining for the faculty.
The lesser known aspects of Excelsior are its school sanctioned War Games where the academy’s real legacies are written. Students compete against one another in challenges and obstacles as either factions or individually, and the victors are granted not only bragging rights but the privileges of the best dorms, academic leverage, and often more prestigious postgraduate opportunities.
They reinforce faction rivalries, as these privileges and honors are often collective. Factions rise and fall together, but some would call it a rigged system, winners being allotted minute advantages in the challenges that follow.
The sanctioned games are always observed and monitored by faulty through video surveillance. Excessive violence is frowned upon, and the use of lethal force is punishable offense.
Every Man For Himself: The most infamous of the war games is a battle-royal style tournament that only rewards the last man standing. Students must survive the high-altitude Colorado wilderness quartered off with obstacles and engage in combat armed with limited tools. Each participant carries a token, and the removal of said token constitutes elimination. The tournament may span the course of days or upwards of weeks depending on how quickly the numbers fall.
Rumble: While not strictly endorsed by the Academy, underground fights are common occurrences among the student population. Excelsior’s competitive atmosphere and close quarters environment make for a proverbial powderkeg, breeding animosities among rival factions. These fights have become more and more organized, and bets and tier lists are topics of common gossip spread by word of mouth.
Various other challenges include reconnaissance missions, global offensive scenarios, relays, or king-of-the-hill style objectives.
At the beginning of the Excelsior’s inception, young, “true born” metahumans were often hunted down and funneled into government-funded programs involving brainwashing and experimentation, guaranteeing complete loyalty. Others were created in those very labs, their meta-gene induced through genetic alteration.
On the record, these programs never existed.
Off the record, the government was informed that they had been phased out in the late seventies.
In truth, much of the old ways persist, and their remnants make up the current research teams tasked with developing serums to enhance metahuman abilities.
Recruitment efforts are aimed at graduating high-school students through college fairs and the like or are more targeted in extenuating, volatile cases. The academy’s recruitment division tracks and identifies known espers regardless of age, however. In fact, the age ranges at the academy can vary drastically due to the nature of older espers going unnoticed, either by their own volition or the inherent subtlety of their powers.
