The Crosswands Academy for Magically Gifted Fillies is a boarding secondary school in Crosswands, in the Northwest of the Isle of Yore. It was founded in 3402 AE. The school is for females, as the name implies, but it has a counterpart for colts (The Crosswands Academy for Magically Gifted Colts) with unified administration and some shared facilities (e.g. laboratories and gymnasia.)
The school is highly selective and somewhat expensive, though many students from less advantaged economic backgrounds are supported on scholarships. The Crosswands Academies have a relatively high proportion of pupils who are bitypical ponies, a niche that some of their marketing efforts target. They enjoy a good reputation for teaching quality in non-unicorn magic.
The Crosswands Academies have a hoofball team, the Crosswands Cryptids, whose mascot is the Invisible Karkadann. Occasional efforts to replace the Invisible Karkadann with a more marketable, or indeed visible, mascot have met with resistance from long-time faculty and the students.
The founder and first headmistress of the academy was one Black Site Jr, who built its original facilities mostly with her own fortune. She had turned her mother's small pudding factory in Docktown into a vast prepackaged dessert empire, and desired to give back to the community by endowing an educational institution. The Academy has a variety of pudding-themed traditions. The motto of the school, given by the founder, is Ex bellariis, aurum, supposedly intended to mean "From Pudding, Gold," though as the Old Equestrian word involved actually refers to desserts in general, that is not strictly correct. The motto was retained, after the Classics teacher who pointed out the mistake was unable to find an Old Equestrian word for pudding specifically.
CategoryPRPG3