The Founding of Dogwood

Benjamin Regulus Graves was an accomplished man. Aside from leading the Solterran Nullys to freedom and establishing the Massland Colony in AMER, he also built the colony’s first school. Like many institutions founded pre-revolution, the colony and school were eventually relegated to the pages of history. Benjamin’s young pupils however, would go on to create something far more lasting: Dogwood University. 

The Founders Quad

The Underdogs

The Massland Colony regarded its founder as a fair and honest man. Benjamin’s sudden fortune at producing a fire Familiar warmed the colonists to the idea that not all Elementals were evil. As more and more Elementals surfaced, peace between Nully and their Elemental neighbors looked promising. And it was Benjamin’s very own students, who spearheaded this change.

In 1638 however, the founder’s goodwill began to show cracks. First it was the new lesson plans - plans that celebrated the gifts of Elementals and forgot to mention the significant contributions made by many Nully settlers. Then the admissions board increasingly favored Elemental applications over Nully’s. Finally, Benjamin used his control over the school’s policies to impose restrictions, eventually removing all remaining Nullys from the premises. While a majority of the school’s students and Massland colonists were taken aback by the sudden hostility, only six students were brave enough to question it. These six were Benjamin’s brightest pupils and some of the first students admitted to his school. It was an unlikely alliance. Three of the students were powerful Elementals. The other three were Nullys. William Bradford, a Nully and the six friends’ unofficial leader, was the first to voice his concerns over his headmasters’ sudden return to Solterran rule. 

But Benjamin would not hear it. The very next day a law was enacted. Nullys were banned from independent study and any Nully in possession of a book would be heavily fined and if necessary, imprisoned. Benjamin’s reasons were put simply in his announcement to the general public. Nullys were no better than dogs. Simple minded animals whose intelligence would never match that of their masters. This was enough for William and his five friends. It was a water Elemental named Margaret Mason, who convinced the others to abandon the colony. She had spied a letter on Benjamin’s desk the day she visited her old teacher to demand he reverse the Nully student ban. That conversation proved pointless, but the letter offered hope. In that letter, a man named Jonathan Brown wrote of a little town called Hollowmere located at the base of the St. Helena Mountains near the Wandola River. The group left Massland a week later in search of Brown’s paradise, knowing they would never see their home again.

Into the Woods

It was the prospect of Hollowmere that kept the small party in high spirits as they traveled across rugged AMER, and exactly one week from the start of their journey, the six students found it. 

The woods surrounding the town were more beautiful than anything in Massland. The Wandola River teemed with exotic plant life and Animali, and Elementals and Nullys had been living together peacefully for over 18 years. It was the very paradise the six friends had envisioned. There was only one thing missing: a school. William Bradford eagerly proposed the idea to Mr. Brown who just as eagerly accepted. Hollowmere did its best to supply the six students with anything and everything a school might need. Peter, the group’s earth Elemental, and Alice, a Nully, designed and built the sprawling campus. The third Nully, David Cook, helped Andrew, the groups’ fire Elemental, write a fair and balanced curriculum, one that nurtured both Nully learning and Elemental development. Margaret and William designed the school’s charter in an effort to keep future presidents and professors unbiased against any particular group. 

Two years of hard work and planning, and all that remained before the school’s official opening was to agree on a name. It was William who proposed the clever label. Still fuming from the speech Benjamin used to justify Nully expulsion, William proposed the name Dogwood College. “Wood” because the campus was located in a beautiful forest, and “dog” because that was the derogatory name Benjamin had given Nullys two years prior. The other five readily agreed and vowed Dogwood College would far surpass Benjamin’s Colony School. And surpass it, it did. 

A Ruff Turn

Years later, disagreements among the six friends on how to run Dogwood College turned more pronounced. Alice left first and founded Bellehaven University in 1645. Then, in 1646, David established Greystone University. In 1648, Andrew left to establish the University of Ashborn, and Peter, the earth Elemental, left Margaret and William in 1649 to build the Ember College of the Elements. The most heartbreaking departure was Margaret’s, who was particularly close to William. She left in 1650, a decade after Dogwood first opened its doors. Margaret, however, did not travel far from the town she loved. She crossed over the St. Helena Mountains and there, at its southern base, established the Harrow Institute of Technology. After Margaret’s departure, William could not bring himself to change the name of the college he founded with his five closest friends. Instead he modified it, from Dogwood College to Dogwood University. 

Back in the Pack

Seven years passed without any correspondence between the Dogwood founders until Alice McClure broke the silence and invited her five former classmates to Bellehaven. The outreach proved successful. Love was remembered, friendship rekindled, and the six friends established the Trinity League. A league with six schools: Bellehaven University, Greystone University, University of Ashborn, Ember College of the Elements, Harrow Institute of Technology, and Dogwood University. This league promised to visit each other’s campuses every year to compete in athletics, share academic knowledge, and strengthen community bonds. A vow that still holds true, some 365 years later.