Eden Academy

Formally titled Eden College, Eden Academy stands in Berlint as Ostania's foremost educational institution, its history reaching back more than five centuries. The school cultivates the country's future social and political leadership, pairing rigorous academics with steep tuition and famously selective admissions. Roughly 2,500 students between the ages of 6 and 19 study across 13 grade levels split into primary, middle, and high school stages, with each year organized into eight halls, such as Cecile, Cline, and Wald, that structure both classes and dormitory life.

Prospective families face a two-phase gauntlet: a written entrance exam followed by a family interview, with staff covertly grading applicants' elegance from the moment they set foot on campus. The grounds themselves rival a small city, encompassing examination halls, libraries, a working farm, Stella Lake, the Tower of Wisdom, and an abandoned old schoolhouse woven into student legend.

Eden's defining mechanism is its evaluation system. Stella Stars reward top exam scores, exceptional talent, or heroic deeds such as life-saving, while Tonitrus Bolts punish poor performance and misconduct; collecting eight Stellas makes a student an Imperial Scholar with exclusive privileges, and eight bolts trigger immediate expulsion. An umbrella-shaped Rain marker serves as a warning stage for minor infractions. Midterms and finals each term feed the system, with the two highest scorers per subject earning Stellas and students reshuffled afterward into classes ranked A through F by performance.

Daily life blends discipline with tradition. Boarders follow dormitory routines under housemasters, dorm mothers, and tutors-in-residence, while the calendar runs from orientation ceremonies and interclass dodgeball to end-of-term hall parties and the twice-yearly Imperial Scholars Mixer in the Tower of Wisdom, an event guarded by the State Security Service. Students trade stories about the Seven Wonders, a set of campus legends covering everything from a pool siren named Lorelei to a devil ritual in the old schoolhouse. The school has also weathered genuine crises: the Red Circus hijacked two field trip buses full of first-years, housemaster Henry Henderson was framed for bribery before his name was cleared, and a long-running admissions corruption scheme led by Murdoch Swan ended in mass arrests of faculty.

The faculty is headed by headmaster Benedict Ivan Goodfellow, with Henry Henderson serving as Cecile Hall housemaster and History teacher, Walter Evans running Malcom Hall, and the feared Donna Schlag policing discipline. Counselor Mr. Green, tutor-in-residence Thomas Austin, and art teacher Rodin round out the staff, while Murdoch Swan and several colleagues were arrested over the admissions scandal.

Cecile Hall's first-year class anchors the series' cast: Anya Forger, Becky Blackbell, Damian Desmond, Emile Elman, Ewen Egeburg, and George Glooman all study there, with Bill Watkins in Wald Hall and Damian's brother Demetrius, an Imperial Scholar, attending Cline Hall's middle school. Distinguished alumni include Donovan Desmond, Henry Henderson, Martha Marriott, Donna Schlag, and Matthew McMahon. The school's name and apple emblem nod to the biblical Garden of Eden, its workings draw on British public schools, and several campus buildings are modeled on Oxford, Cambridge, and Humboldt University.