Teenage Heroes

Clarion Heights Academy and Miller Mountain Corrections

A pair of mysterious and well-funded benefactors established two private schools, right next to each other. One was to be a training ground for young people with powers, where they’d learn everything a responsible hero ought to know. The other was a reform school and penitentiary for juvenile delinquents whose powers made reform a challenge.

Not everyone at hero school is good, and not everyone in corrections is bad. Rivalries, teen crushes, and misunderstandings are all to be expected, both within each school’s students and between the two. Will this experiment yield a better future, or will it just reinforce the hero-villain divide?

History

The schools were founded by a husband-and-wife team. One was a vigilante hero and the other a villain. To this day, they refuse to reveal which was which, and never use their powers in public to maintain the mystery. They’d seen young people struggle with teenage impulses, made harder with powers that often manifested before the age of legal adulthood. Traditional incarceration had a horrifing rate of recidivism - how likely someone was to become a repeat offender or lifelong criminal. Their proposed solution was empathy.

By positioning the schools together, and encouraging interactions between the student bodies, the founders hoped to make both groups appreciate the other. If rivalries and grudges emerged, it was believed, they could be softened, kept from turning into vitriolic hatred.

Educating Demigods

The current staff are selective and enigmatic about their admissions policy. It is sometimes believed that the Clarion kids are kept at about the same numbers as the Miller Mountain juvies, or that Clarion admits kids who will be good countermeasures for the worst of the offenders. There’s no hard evidence to support this or any other belief, and the staff do their best to keep it that way.

At any given moment, there could be between 200 - 250 kids in each school. Most are of age to attend an American high school - 14 to 18 - but there are provisions for younger kids.

The schools are located within a quarter-mile of each other, in an isolated area at least half an hour’s drive from the nearest major city. Safety and privacy are important. Because of this, both institutions are built like fortresses, with perimeter security and thick outer walls. The schools decline to discuss their other security measures. Many students have tested them, and they’ve (almost) always worked, including kids who try to simply fly over the walls.

The facilities are otherwise very comparable in quality, deliberately so. The juvies get the same cafeteria food, the same unisex restrooms, and the same recreational opportunities as the prep-school kids. The difference is that the Clarion kids can leave any time they want, and their parents have to pay for their admission.

The most significant difference between the two schools is the curriculum. The Clarion kids are expected to turn into heroes, and so are taught both the academic and the practical considerations of that role. Miller Mountain, on the other hand, focuses on remedial education, healthy outlets for aggression, supervised group activities, and other efforts to pull them back from becoming full-time villains.

A controversial feature is the idea of the “team”. Both schools allow students to form teams, with a designated leader. The schools give team leaders broad supervisory powers. Even Miller Mountain will let a team leader escort their kids around without a teacher present. The catch is that the team leader takes the punishment for their team’s misbehaviors, and individuals can be blocked from this leadership role after such incidents.

The idea behind teams is twofold. First, to instill a sense of responsibility on both sides of the divide. Second, to keep the Clarion and Miller Mountain kids from seeing the others as a united bloc. If and when rivalries form, ideally they’ll be between individual teams, rather than the schools at large.

Using Clarion Heights & Miller Mountain

The twin schools are for…

Characters and locations often have Pole Stars. These indicate the driving forces - what motivates a character, what uniquely defines a place, and so on. When telling stories about these things, you should push those stories toward the indicated pole stars.

Major Figures

The schools play host to talented teachers, former heroes and villains, ex-military types, and other people with the skills and dedication to manage their charges. Competence and professionalism are expected at all times, of everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’ve saved the world a dozen times; if you cross a line as a teacher, the school will send you packing.

Locations

Both schools come with classrooms, a gymnasium, a cafeteria, and other features of a modern school. They eschew high-tech, preferring analog options like notebooks and pencils (if only to avoid problems with student technopaths or hackers).

The Dorms

Dorms are single- or double-occupancy. Many are custom-made to accommodate a particular student’s powers. The dorms come with small kitchenettes and vending machines for late-night snacking and food prep. The school takes great care to respect students’ identities and preferences. Even a hardened delinquent in Miller Mountain can expect their gender, religion, or dietary preferences to be honored.

Miller Mountain performs roll calls in the morning and at lights out. Nobody sleeps unless everyone is accounted for.

The Green

“The Green” is a shared space found between the two schools, in the form of an enormous field of astroturf. It’s used for sports like football (American or otherwise), track and field events, and general exercise.

Both schools will schedule joint events on the Green. Some rough-housing is tolerated, but teachers will intervene if serious violence seems likely to break out. Teams who come up with their own heraldry or pennants are allowed to exhibit them on the Green.

Pole Stars:

The Caves

A network of natural caves run through the mountainous area. Some students have discovered ways to sneak into these caves from the school grounds. In reality, the teachers and staff know about this, but let it slide as an emotional outlet.

Students come to the caves for a variety of reasons: exploration, trysts, or other forms of personal rebellion. Showing a new student the route to the caves is considered a rite of passage.

Pole Stars: