Welcome to the House of Saul. Saul is a well-respected member of the Wizarding community, and has graciously opened his large estate (magickally protected from prying eyes somewhere in the beautiful woods of North America) to teach eager minds the craft of Sorcery.
((OOC: To start: I define a wizard in a loose sense. It's a personal canon, and I feel a Wizard is something like Gandalf or Harry Potter in the sense that you have to have the Gift to 'do magick'. Witchcraft is a little more mundane - it's learning herbs and brewing remedies, but if you have the Gift you can make charms and spells and potions, so a Witch and Wizard tend to be in the similar vein - it's rare that someone does only Wizarding Magick - Witchcraft is far too common and useful, so the two disciplines tend to marry rather well. Sorcery, on the other hand, is the calling on demons and monsters and spirits and mastering them and making them do your bidding. What's known as Dark Magick is a fine line between Sorcery and Wizardry, where you are not commanding a demon so much as your own Id - the dark side of yourself, your full potential. The problem is, Dark Magick requires a lot of sacrifice as you use yourself as the demon, and sacrifice means just that - sometimes it's loss of sleep as you deprive yourself to raise your spiritual self; sometimes it's a lock of hair or cup of blood to give something a physical foundation; but the most rewarding is when you use your soul, pouring your heart into a spell. When the spell is love and protection, there's not much more powerful - that of a lover, or mother, or heroic sacrifice to protect the innocent. But on the other side, the more common side, is when one seeks vengeance or power - the emotions one pulls out the easiest are anger and sadness, which then mutate into hatred and despair, before unchained wrath and fury, or endless self-loathing and depression. It's very easy to be lost in Dark Magick, and it's not something to venture in lightly.))
Saul is a mysterious wizard who showed up on the American Wizarding scene about thirty years ago, well-learned in Sorcery, dragon magick, and to those who know what to look for, the power of someone who's worked long and hard in Dark Magick. Many a young witch or wizard seeks to join the prestigious apprenticeship this wizard offers, opening his home to no more than a dozen students at a time. Rather than a structured school system with years, semesters and graduations, Saul has a rather intimate, closed doors sort of learning, as the students are taught through life experiences in his lectures, strange work-study arrangements, and meditation. His profound library is open to a student's free perusal, and his extensive grounds leave plenty of room for meditation and open experimentation with whatever kind of magick they prefer. Students have their own rooms, but dine and learn together, making a cohesive family environment that is warm and welcoming. Past students sing Saul's praises as a 'stern and worthy professor' who will challenge you and try you, sharpening iron with iron and preparing you as best he can for the magick you intend to study. He is known to have a number of strange rules and no tolerance for breaking them, but his ways have proven time and again to be those tried and true.
But all of the hooplah and prestigiousness aside? The Professor is rather strict, and will unleash a number of horrors and nightmares on you and work you to the bone, claiming that he has methods to his madness. Few students dare to venture into his locked chamber door, and some say that a two-headed dragon haunts the massive library, which is full of books of magick arcane and unearthly, eldritch and forbidden. They say fae inhabit his woods, and no one is quite sure why he is so withdrawn, but there's no doubt that this is a place of learning, and you will learn much, from your 'occupations', lessons, mistakes, and fellow apprentices.
