In Thalassara, education is both a privilege and a weapon. The world’s sprawling seas and fractured kingdoms have given rise to countless schools and academies, each shaping the future of their people in different ways. Yet for every student who walks the halls of marble lecture rooms or enchanted libraries, thousands more toil in ignorance, left behind by distance, poverty, or deliberate neglect.
The greatest centers of learning are the Grand Academies—vast institutions in major cities such as Caldrath, where the brightest minds gather to study magic, medicine, history, music, and war. To be accepted into such a place is to step into privilege, for graduates often become royal advisors, military commanders, renowned bards, or court magicians. Tuition is high, and entry often requires patronage or noble blood, making these halls a gatekeeper of influence as much as knowledge.
Magic academies cultivate sorcerers and wizards, training them to control powers that could shape kingdoms. Military academies drill discipline and strategy into cadets, producing generals and tacticians whose decisions determine the outcome of wars. Musical academies polish raw talent into artistry, ensuring that bards not only entertain but also sway politics and inspire revolutions with their songs.
In the cities, literacy is a mark of prestige. Merchants learn their letters to manage contracts, nobles flaunt libraries as symbols of power, and scholars debate in forums that shape the future of kingdoms. A learned person can rise above their station, for knowledge is seen as wealth greater than gold.
Yet knowledge is also controlled. The nobility and guilds hoard access, knowing that an educated commoner may question the order of things. The Silent Family, pirates, and even The Veil sometimes employ scribes and scholars in secret, for words and numbers can be as deadly as blades.
Beyond the academies and wealthy cities lies another world. In fishing villages, farming hamlets, and pirate ports, most people cannot read or write. Oral tradition dominates: stories, songs, and superstition carry history in place of books. Children grow into adulthood never knowing letters, surviving instead on skill, muscle, or luck.
For them, the cost of education is unreachable. A single journey to a city academy may take weeks and more coin than a family earns in months. Even if they arrive, the tuition alone could ruin them. As such, knowledge becomes the tool of the privileged, and ignorance the burden of the common.
Still, hope exists. Bards often serve as informal educators, teaching songs that hide lessons in language and history. Retired soldiers sometimes pass on tactics to young warriors in small dojos. Druids and hermits teach their wisdom to those who seek them in forests and caves. These scattered teachers keep sparks of learning alive, though their influence is fragile compared to the grandeur of the academies.
The divide between the educated and the uneducated shapes every corner of Thalassara. In the courts of kings, decisions are made by graduates of elite academies, while in the streets, illiterate peasants struggle to understand decrees they cannot read. This imbalance breeds resentment, envy, and in some places, rebellion. For some, education is the light of progress; for others, it is a symbol of oppression.
In Thalassara, knowledge is not free. It is bought, earned, stolen, and fought over—perhaps the most dangerous treasure of all.