Ilvermorny Ideas

Common Rooms

Thunderbird common room:

The compass rose has long been a symbol associated with House Thunderbird. It represents everything Thunderbird stands for. Adventurousness. Searching for oneself. Finding your way home, wherever that may be.

The origin of the compass rose on the floor of the entry hall in the Thunderbird common room is unknown. A 1798 entry in an adventure log mentions that it had appeared over summer break, but no one knows who put it in. However, this compass rose is among the first examples of the symbol in relation to Thunderbird - many think it is the first.

The rose blends seamlessly into the hardwood floor around it, pointing perfectly to true north. It is said that it is enchanted to instill House pride in Thunderbirds, but a handful think that the true magic comes from the inscription of gold around the outside edge of the circle:

Wherever you may choose to roam, There shall be your hearth and home

These words remind those who may feel lost that any dark or dreary place they may be, physical or not, there will always be those who love them - they always have family (their fellow Thunderbirds).

The Thunderbird common room, is split into three floors, plus the cellar and attic. The three main floors have doors to the dorm towers, but the cellar and attic do not. Because of the nature of Thunderbird students, they tend to spend the least amount of time in their common room, so it is the simplest and least lavish of the common rooms, though it clearly tells of the adventurousness of the students.

The ground/main floor is split up into four main rooms: the entry area, a sitting room, the mud room, and the kitchen. The entry area is simple and open, and has the stairs to the second floor. Its wooden floors have a golden compass symbol burned into it. The sitting room, as you might expect, has chairs, sofas, tables, and a couple of desks and bookshelves, and a fireplace. It is where the students like to relax and chat together. The kitchen is not large by any means, and is completely auxillary to the school kitchens made for feasts. It is provided because students often need a midnight snack. The mud room has a host of adventuring materials in the cupboards, such as hiking boots, ropes, and extra cloaks.

The second floor houses the Map Room, the library, as well as a commons area. The Map Room, as implied by the name, is full of maps. Most of them are student-made maps of their homes, the castle, grounds, or specific places they like to go to in any. There are old globes as well, but the most interesting of the maps is the large map of the world taking up an entire wall. There are multi-colored pins stuck in every single place imaginable, and if you ask the map, it will tell you who inserted that pin and any other information they chose to include about whether they visited it or wish to some day. The library is not by any means the most complex library and couldn't hold a candle to the Horned Serpent library, let alone the school's. However, it is useful for all those who find that their type of adventure is through books. It is the largest fiction collection in the school.

The third floor is a mismatch of much smaller rooms that serve very specific purposes. There is a darkroom for developing pictures, an art room, a small study hall filled with only desks, and many other areas created for specific purposes.

The cellar, accessed through the kitchen, is a tiny game room. There are pool, ping-pong, foosball, and card tables, and there's an area meant specifically for dancing. It most often goes unused during school days, but Thunderbirds will occasionally host all-House parties down there, and will let others.   

The attic, on the other hand, is perhaps the most mysterious of all. Many intriguing things are found there, and almost none of them are what you expect. The attic is the only place in the common room where only fellow Thunderbirds are allowed. It is tradition for graduates to leave behind one thing in the attic for future Thunderbirds to discover. The attic has lots of windows, ceiling high. This is the best place to look over the giant forest that Ilvermorny resides in. It's a place where you are able to go, if you want the view of being outside, but don't exactly want to be outside. There's blankets and pillows and gigantic bean bags lining the floor. Also, this room is enchanted, so you know, if it's night, it still works, you can watch the stars, if it's rainy or cloudy, it's still great (some people like the soft trickle of rain or love watching thunderstorms, but if there's someone who hates thunderstorms, it'll become soundproof, so there's no scary rumbling that may frighten a student.) You can also dim the windows as well or open the windows to let in breeze.