The Shadow Academy Society underwent a welcome fictional revamp two years ago to focus on recovering artifacts of ancient power. Today, we are expanding upon that fictional foundation and updating the rewards significantly. My goal with these updates was to expand the fictional sandbox for a larger variety of characters, as well as to suit and modernize the rewards for those changes – including a major surprise in the rewards section.

Some of these updates are still being rolled out on the site, while others are already live, but I wanted to get the word out to explain what some of you have already noticed. Thanks for your patience as we complete this process!

Fictional Expansion: For Science!

As the Shadow Academy and its society have focused on acquiring knowledge and artifacts, they have also been continuously raided (by enemies and “allies”), set back and bested by others who have been developing technologies and Force abominations while we merely react and defend. While part of the solution to the former will be the new, secret temple teased in the latest Shadows Unveiled Prelude, the Shadow Academy will answer the latter by expanding from its society of surveyors and Dr. Aphra-style archeologists to recruit the talent of scientists from every field in an effort to push the Brotherhood off the defensive and on to the cutting edge as creators, inventors, developers and alchemists.

The Collegium

In order to ensure the “best and brightest” are not deterred by an institution of questionable ethics, the Shadow Academy has quietly established a neutral institution in an effort to secure the broadest access to talent. That institution, which will replace the Shadow Academy Society, is the Aurora Collegium of Sciences.

The Collegium, which has no public connection with the Shadow Academy or the Brotherhood, operates as a network of scientific academies and industry leaders that attracts, trains and employs the brightest minds in science and technology. Its activities, of course, are all closely monitored by the Shadow Academy, and some of its scientists are brought into covert circles where they may work more directly in Brotherhood interests.

Scientific Societies

Graduates of the Collegium’s academies are typically recruited by one of its three scientific societies – which each have a public and a covert face. Members of the public facing societies have distinct research facilities aboard the Collegium’s public headquarters: Horizon Station, while the covert societies each maintain their own, specially-designed Collegium-class X-1 Covert Research Cruiser. While any member may rise to the highest rank of their society and reap its rewards, only carefully vetted members (read: characters with few to no ethical boundaries when it comes to their work) will gain knowledge or access to the covert operations.

Delve into the Aurora Collegium wiki for more detail, but the basic breakdown is as follows:

• Wayfinder Society -- Artifacts, archeological expeditions, navigating ancient star routes. Essentially, this is the former Imperial Reclamation Society … with a new purpose not only to collect and study artifacts, but to use this knowledge to create new items of great power.

• Wellspring Society -- All sciences that pertain to life. Doctors, geneticists, bioengineers, Sith alchemists … you’re all welcome here!

• Stardust Society -- Scientists and engineers who work to apply their knowledge toward technological advancement in areas ranging from weapons, starships and architecture to droids, communications and systems integration.

As you can see, the areas are broad, as it’s my hope that as members find niches that suit their characters, they’ll take part in fleshing out some of the culture, operations and projects taken on by these societies through various competitions that will be run.

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Ranks

With the system, your society rank will represent your character's expertise in their particular field, so I've tried to broaden the naming structure. Feel free, of course, to use more specific titles that suit that level of expertise for your character's particular set of skills. The early ranks retain an academic flare to reflect students undergoing training in one of the Collegium's academies before they actually enter the real world and join one of the three societies.

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Rewards

The new society rewards have undergone an overhaul to include possessions that may prove more useful to our scientists!

There is still some site wizardry to be done to complete this process and get everything to you (thanks for the patience!), but society members of appropriate rank will soon find they have access to new granted and purchasable possessions, including:

• Collegium Scanner
  
• Microsensory Stabilization Gloves
  
• Microdroid Swarm
  
• Collegium Translation Visor
  
• Collegium Research Droid
  

Note that the Sith Sword has been retained as the max-level award and, if you have already earned one of the old rewards that’s been replaced, you will retain it. You'll also still be able to purchase some of the older awards.

And a huge thanks to Anubis for helping bring these and the new society station and ships to life!

Knowledge Bonus

In lieu of a special feat like the other societies, we decided, instead, to allow Collegium society rank to earn bonus Lore and Linguistic topics as Knowledge tiers. With each tier (up to 4), you'll gain one additional topic/language that you can add to your character sheet without needing additional Lore or Linguistic skill points, as below:

This change is live, now, so feel free to check it out! Praise be James for this wizardry.

Please check out the wiki page for a little more information. If you do, you might even be able to pass the new Societies: Aurora Collegium exam. ;)

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