Welcome, fellow travelers and adventurers, to the Hall of the Winds! We hope you enjoy your stay as honorary students of Aeolian University, and we hope you find respite in one of our four great Houses.

For centuries, Aeolian University has harbored wanderers of all places, from the mystic east to the grand west, and even those who only wander in their imaginations. The University itself roams, of course, else we’d all yet be on sunny Aeolia in the Mediterranean, and for the last few decades, we have located our great halls of learning in the Upper Midwest of the United States. The winds over the Great Lakes are nothing compared to the gusts of the open sea, but the bitter northern gales and the sweeping prairie breezes are quite a worthy substitute.

Aeolian University, you might be surprised to learn, has no regular students. We are an international magical university, founded on the vagaries of the venti and the wanderings of witches and wizards. Most frequently, students come to us for a year at a time from other schools, lured by the opportunity to learn alongside those from around the world and the chance to tame the tempest-winds at the end of the year – though we’ll come to the dragons a bit later.

Sometimes, though, blown by fate, enticed by adventure and with little more than great tales of the world to tell, visitors arrive. They may stay a night, a month, a year – some have stayed on as faculty to teach other rovers and adventurers – but visit they do and most welcome they are.

In this tradition, dating back to Aeolus’s harboring of Odysseus, Aeolian University has offered the attendees of Terminus the occasion to gather as our students, if only for a weekend. You will each join one of our Houses, though certainly we would never dream of asking you to relinquish any other House to which you may hold allegiance; all are welcome here, including those who bear the colors and traditions of other schools.

During Terminus, you will have prospects worthy of the very winds themselves: presentations, events, games, discussions, celebrations – and not least, a weekend-long version of Aeolian University’s Tempest Cup competition. At the culmination of a regular school year, we untie the knots and release the four tempest-winds; the winners of the Tempest Cup, astride the traditional dragons of their House, ride the winds and fly, unheeded, through storm and succor, until the tempest-winds have blown themselves out. While we will not, of course, release the tempest-winds or the House dragons at the end of Terminus, the victorious House will receive the honorary Tempest Cup.

We hope that you will take this opportunity – as millennia of Aeolian University students have – to meet new people, learn new cultures and celebrate both our differences and our similarities. Play Quidditch for your House, participate in writing and art challenges, learn to duel with the force of the wind, and perhaps take the Tempest Cup home with you. While no particular participation is ever required at Aeolian University, we urge you to untie the knots of your winds and find your wanderer’s spirit.

Welcome, fellow travelers and adventurers, to the Hall of the Winds. May your stay be calm and your departure ride the gales!

Chancellor, Aeolian University