Graduation Speech

Given by Nightshade Darkstar, Cardinal-Chancellor of Darktown University.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Demons, Monsters, Mutants, Mundanes, and Other Things, welcome to this, the first graduating class of Darktown University.

It has taken many years of struggle, starting over again so many times because of minor setbacks like Hellsgate. After all, we had to rebuild the campus after the city was levelled.

Now, we’ve finally managed to keep a class going long enough for the students to still be more or less sufficiently alive to graduate. We’re delighted about this achievement.

The university is once more a place of learning we can all be proud of. The facilities are second to none.

For instance, we’ve dug out the slime pits again, removing the debris and random body parts that were dumped in there to hide the evidence. If anyone wishes to have a wallow later, I invite them to take advantage of the chance. We’ve imported top-quality slime.

The dungeon has been renovated, so we now have modern equipment, such as waterboards and electric generators, as well as the old beloved tools, like racks and thumbscrews. We’ve even been able to get the Iron Lady working again for those who prefer an extra prickle of excitement.

The dormitory in the graveyard has been fitted with anti-solar shielding in case someone stays out too late and wants to go to bed after sunrise.

Finally, the cafeteria has been extended, so it is now next to both the abattoir and the medical waste disposal centre.

The library, of course, has been a sad loss. All those ’forbidden’ books lost forever, alas. I still miss reading the Necronomicon to my children at bedtime.

I’d like, however, to thank all of those who have generously loaned or donated their grimoires, bestiaries, magical grand works, and magnum opuses to revitalise the library. Most notably, I must express my gratitude to His Darkness, Magister Grumble Deathnode, who has lent us the Liber Noctis, which we had all believed to have been destroyed so recently. We will once again be the foremost institution for the Dark Arts and Unknown Sciences in the world. Miskatonic U will have to look to its laurels!

As a side note, I must commend the students for their dedication and hard work. I know it hasn’t been easy. So many of you have had to rebuild your lives, and sometimes your souls and bodies too, in order to be able to attend. I wish to thank Dr Frankenstein’s descendant for the invaluable work he has done in his ‘(Re)build a (Somewhat) Human’ Classes. Without your Preserving Fluid, Doctor, our student body would have fallen apart, some of them quite literally.

I know the work has been hard, and many of you have suffered for your learning. Manipulating a shoggoth as an art form is dangerous to attempt at the best of times, as we all know. So is calling up Beelzebub for a class project, especially when one of you turns out to be a white witch. We all understand magic can be dangerous, and I know some of you have lost limbs or other important body parts in your experiments. But think of what you’ve learned from your and others’ mistakes!

The rites at the beginning of this year to summon Cthulhu were, alas, just as unsuccessful as ever, even after several of you lost your minds in the process. I hear the san has recently stocked up on Nepenthe and the Balm of Gilead again, should you feel the need for them.

Life here hasn’t been without its amusing side, of which I wish to mention but a few highlights.

To the student who stole the Philosopher’s Stone from the Alchemy Lab, I make the following promise: If you return it to us, we won’t punish you. I know its value in changing lead into gold is, of course, inestimable, but we’d like to turn Professor Magristor back into a human being again. Petrifying him, just because his lectures were paralysingly dull, was all well and good as a joke, but this has gone on for long enough! For another thing, several of our visiting professors need its power to create the Elixir of Life. They are, after all, several centuries old and are beginning to feel their age without it. Just put it in the Blackest Museum, or leave it on my desk, and nothing more will be said about it. If you don’t return it, I can promise you the Hellhounds haven’t been fed for months.

We’ve been extremely successful in the sports field. No one would have thought, when we started our football team, we’d have achieved so much in our first year. League Champions, no less! Of course, the commitment of our players has been phenomenal, and their scare tactics are without peer, especially those of ’Monster’ Higgins and the Megawolf Twins.

One little point I’d like to raise, however. Next time we lose a game against MIT, the Magical Institute of Thaumaturgy, please don’t eat the other team’s captain. Although he was able to regenerate himself afterwards, this tradition has to cease. Their Dean complained most severely until I pointed out he’d been the one to insist on playing the game on the night of the full moon!

We were also chosen to host this year’s convention of the Convocation of Covens and the Mages’ Guild. CoMaCon was such a success that a motion has been tabled to make this its permanent home. Much as I appreciate this, I wouldn’t like to deprive other universities of their chance for glory in the future.

Wherever it will take place, please take note of the following. It would appear a large number of the wizards, sorcerers and other male students training here were too profligate in the use of their ’wands’. You know what I’m talking about, boys! Grand Dame Donna Bella, the Mother of the Convocation, wrote me a very stiff letter of rebuke. She was concerned about the number of young witches who were pregnant when they returned from the Con. Some of the progeny were really monstrous! I know you weren’t solely responsible, but I don’t wish to see the name of our institution so besmirched again.

The student who smuggled Holy Water in for a joke has a bleak future ahead of him if he continues such dangerous pranks. It may be a sovereign protection against vampires and demons, but Professor Xrgletrpz assures me its species considers it a fine liqueur, and it personally enjoys the sharp piquancy while tearing the flesh off the offender.

Finally, there was the hilarious incident when the salamanders powering our Hallowe’en fireworks display escaped our control. Apart from reminding a large number of mundanes living outside Darktown of the time Hell came to Earth, it also cost us a great deal of money to send them back to their native plane. I can assure you the students who screwed up their spells will be repeating their training again next year in Gehenna.

Now, on a more serious note, I’d like to talk to you about life after you leave us.

You’ve led sheltered lives here, but now you’ll be going out into the big, bad world. Mundanes don’t appreciate us. In fact, they often hate us. They’ll prate on about ’diversity’ and ’multiculturalism,’ but these are only words. When you meet them for the first time, you’ll realise we are, all of us, too different for them to stomach. So keep your heads down unless you’re ogres, in which case, keep your heads higher than your shoulders. That way, they may not realise who you are. Otherwise, be prepared for pitchforks, crucifixes, and fires in your vicinity.

Above all, enjoy yourselves out there. You’ll all have centuries and millennia in which to appreciate what you’ve learned here. And if you should remember us fondly and raise a glass of gore, ichor, or slime in a toast, then we’ll consider it a job well done.