in my head i have it that there's a bunch of founding father (or mother) families that have been in ambrose since the beginning and they're all magical families with antiquated ideas about brotherhood and secrecy so they force all their kids to join the arcane academy or something when they turn 16 as some sort of maturity rite that's actually just a bunch of grandparents pulling their grand children out of bed at 3 am to light a candle and recite an oath in the town graveyard. it's a glorified book club at this point but they all do it to appease their family and some of the kids are actually tight friends.