The Institute »
The Institute is an asylum for Shadowhunters, and in some cases Downwolrders and Mundanes under their protection, and a safe house meant to lodge and assist Nephilim from around the world in theirquest to kill Demons. They are found in every major city across the world and are often located in churches or built on holy ground.
Institutes serve as the local power bases of the Nephilim, fuctioning like the embassies of mundane governments. They are authority force of all the Nephilim in the city in which they reside and they oversee all tactical missions.
Institutes also serve as symbols of the power and sanctity of the Nephilim, standing as monuments to the Angel and glorification of their mission. Institutes are Nephilim homes, as much as Idris itself is, though Shadowhunters and members of a certain region's Clave branch have their own homes in the area and rearely stay at the Institute, aside from the heads, its wards and its occasional guests. The corollary to this is that institutes are the responsibility of all Shadowhunters, not just the Shadowhunters who are stationed at a particular Institute or who are part of the Conclave, or Enclave, of that Institute's region.
Orphaned Shadowhunters, or those whose parents have left the Clave, or have no residence in the area, are bought into the care of Institutes to be watches and raised trained as wards, usually trained in small groups, until they are eighteen, when they can decide what they want to do. Once past eighteen, it is tradition to allow these shadowhunters to travel and spend time in residence at an Intitute well away from their home to allow them to learn the great variation in local Shadowhunter cultures, both in philosophy and in specific techniques from a wide range of sources.
