Fell Semester

Fell Semester is a book of stories that bring school—and magic—into session. Students live in dorms designed for survival, study from books that should stay sealed, and learn skills meant for problems the faculty refuses to name. Classes overlap with emergencies. Assignments overlap with investigations. Every term removes a few names from attendance, and the campus adjusts as if that were normal.

Think of dusty libraries crawling with magic moths, dripping with candle wax stains, and reeking of thick leather-bound grimoires. Archives stacked high with crumbly yellow scrolls depicting ancient beasts, the best weapons to slay them with, and step-by-step techniques for how to flourish your scythe.

Dormitories made of waterproof, impossibly light lumber in the tropical rooftops; or of interwoven vines twisting up from the beachside sand; or of animal-skin yurts deep in the woods where the magic is deepest. Wands and woodshop, bestiaries and biology, element-bending dances, economics, and English.

And, of course, the odd monster or villainous alumnus.

At the bottom of the sea or floating in the air, our students will wander dank corridors, program computer systems, and learn how dark academia can get: dark halls, dark nights of studying, dark magic, dark pasts—and a dark future unless they can stop it.
Welcome to class. Now prove you can make it out.

Creative Constraints

Tropes: Wizarding School, Dark Academia, Boarding School of Horrors
World: Create your own unique world and campus.
Target Audience: YA
Story Type: Discovery, occasional fun with a constant undercurrent of grim adventure and dark secrets
Character Roles:

• The Scholarship Student: earned a place here through talent they can't talk about

• The Legacy Admit: their family survived this school before, now it's their turn

• The Archivist’s Assistant: handles restricted texts

• The Practical Caster: treats magic like a tool, keeps getting assigned the dirtiest solutions

• The Disciplinary Favorite: trusted to enforce rules, starts seeing what the rules protect

• The Transfer: arrived after something went wrong

• The Study Group Anchor: holds others together, watches friends change

Hard Rules: One main character, one POV, standalone story only, no saving the world, your character cannot be the most powerful person in the room

How Stories Win: excellent writing style, clear attention to the rules and theme, fast paced, start in the middle of a problem, end as soon as possible
Bonus Points: Unusual and exciting world concept