Setting: The Sword and the Cross

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Ramidel

What I meant by "shockingly secular" is that university students are not known for their piety. They're clergy, but they were known for abusing clerical Legal Immunity to get away with unruly behavior because nobody really tried to control them. Drinking, dueling and all sorts of debauchery. Now add the question of learning magic by virtue of being clerics.

Oh. Yeah, those seem like the last people you want to give access to magic. Particularly if pagan magic seems to be easier/more powerful than Christian magic, as has previously been implied - those seem like the type who would experiment with paganism to enhance their magic and wind up overrunning the university with monsters. So maybe the Church in this setting are a lot more careful with who they let into their universities, and/or are a lot stricter on them.

Then again, a university that has suddenly been overrun by monsters is just begging for the intervention of some intrepid adventurers, so it's a ready-made plothook. For more subtle campaigns, maybe there have been some monster sightings/encounters in town and the investigation leads the party to the university, where a secret cabal has been experimenting with forbidden, pagan magic. There's plenty you could do with this.