Octavo (Discworld)
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| Motto | Nunc id Vides, Nunc ne Vides ("Now you see it, Now you don't.") |
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| Type | Public |
| Established | 1 AM (current Ankh-Morpork calendar dates from founding) |
| Archchancellor | Mustrum Ridcully |
| Location | Ankh-Morpork |
| Campus | Urban |
| Colours | Burgundy and midnight blue, with yellow and purple stripes (octarine) |
| Website | Unseen University |
The Unseen University (UU) is a school of wizardry in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series of fantasy novels. Located in the fictional city of Ankh-Morpork, the UU is staffed by a faculty composed of mostly indolent and inept old wizards. The university's name is a pun on the Invisible College. The exploits of the head wizards of the Unseen University are one of the main plot threads in the long-running fantasy series, and have played a central role in 13 novels to date, as well as the four supplementary Science of Discworld novels and the short story, A Collegiate Casting-Out of Devilish Devices.
The official motto of Unseen University is "Nunc Id Vides, Nunc Ne Vides", loosely translated as "Now you see it, now you don't". The unofficial motto is "η β π", or "Eta Beta Pi" ("Eat a Bit of Pie" or "Eat a Better Pie" (according to the Hogfather novel)).
The coat of arms is: Azure, in chief an open book proper bearing the motto "nunc id vides, nunc ne vides" and in base a wizard's hat gules with stars semy Or. For crest is an owl displayed proper.
As usually rendered, the coat of arms resembles the coat of arms of the University of Oxford.
The title wizard is said to be derived from the archaic word "Wys-ars", meaning one who, at bottom, is very wise. In fact, the older wizards tend not to understand how magic actually works at all, instead relying on centuries of lore to achieve their effects. Younger wizards enthusiastically experiment, pushing back the boundaries of knowledge and making new discoveries about the nature of the universe. They don't understand how magic works either, but have much more exciting words to explain why not. These often invoke images of particle physics. The main issue is a generalized worry to where the power actually comes from and what sort of (often eldritch and downright monstrous) entities excessive use can attract.
An eighth son of an eighth son is automatically a wizard. When a wizard nears death – which they know some time in advance – he formally passes on his staff to a newborn wizard. If a wizard happens to have an eighth son, this child will be a "wizard squared" or "Sourcerer", as he generates his own magic and can therefore do just about anything with no effort. This is very dangerous, both because absolute power corrupts absolutely, and because it increases background magic levels considerably. Because of this, wizards generally lack children, due to both rigid celibacy laws and overall non-enabling personality. Besides a mention of Krull (see below) and the prominent Eskarina Smith, all wizards are implicitly male, though this may be a cultural bias of the Unnamed Continent confirmed by narrativium.
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