There is an explanation for relics: they are good for boosting both your mages and school.

Relics are divided to few types for different slots in your mages profiles (3 column on screenshot), they are divided by race (red boxes on screenshot; additional relic slots could be for different races e.g. wolfkin relic for human is ok), magic-related (yellow boxes) and "temper" (dunno how to call it correctly, blue squares).
One slot - one relic, one mage has 3 to 5 slots (3 by base, +1 for gifted and +1 for some quests or graduation types). Furthermore, relics are marked with "tags" (green line and bolded on 2nd column of tablt screeenshot), which are added to relic's cap. You cant use relics with similar "tags" (devs never heard of ingame sets with boosts?).


Relics grant 2 buffs: common for the school (if you place it on plinth in archive (it's a room type); column 4) and personal if you equip a mage with it (column 5).
Personla buffs:
- increased limits for magic type + gnozis shards for actions related to this magic
- increased mood for some actions (building, cleaning, etc)
- feasten actions (cooking, hunt, etc)
- battle-related (increase stats (power, speed, mana, HP), one or two types). Speed and power relics are extremely helpful for aoe mages (dark or water))
- other (increased mana regen, health regen in hospital, faster sleep, etc)

Common buffs:
- a chance for additional points for actions (all actions cost some points, for example you have to cast 10 times to build a wall. With lv1 in earth you cast 10 times, with lv2 5 times, lv 5+ - 2 times. Relics of that type can grant additional points for action). Drastically increase efficiency of all related actions, which is extremely helpful for Founder who is not really gifted by base. Try to get them asap. Ps.
- additional luxury for rooms. Very useful too, you now can build smaller rooms. Smaller rooms - faster travels
- God-mode-chance - no "at the death door" state for loser in battle by some change
- Additional gnozis shards for skills lvlups, useful in the early stage
- Increased xp for trials
- Ability to call student of the race by your choice (not a random one)

ATTENTION FOR COMMON RELICS: Only 1 best relic of each type is used, they don't combine :(

Sources of relics:
- crystall in dungeon and after for expel rituals
- mages (appretiancy, graduation, hiring a teacher, retiring)

The bigger lvl - the better relic is. Level is upped when user (mage with relic) obtains exp (by learning, in battle, on quests, etc). You may level up relics with maxed mages though. Or by killing that devilish snail from dungeon (breathstalker, yes).

Max level of the relic could be increased by some quests.

Few words about race-specifil relics. After you place one relic of exact race on plinth, you may use any other relic of that race to summon a new student of that race.

It's easy to understand how to summon students. But if you need better ones (to leave them on community service with beasts or to hire them after graduating), you may want to control species or medallions of summoned student. The next summoned student's species is static, which helps us to mill (by save-load) medallions if we found needed species .

- save before every summon (you made do it during progress, but it could be harder to change medallions - as far as i found in tests, adding new orders and changing current routine changes medallions, but sometimes you still can get same students, like there is limited students pool ti summon generated for one attempt. Be warned, that same name doesnt mean that students have same medallions.
- If your teachers summoned student of species you dont need, you may teach him to get scrolls, bury or just expel. Usually i mill students by summoning 1st tier - they are cheap, they generate adept scrolls which are sometimes harder to obtain than savant scrolls and you lose less resources on makind st tier wands.
- repeat it until you get needed speciman (for example - i'm searching a human to grow a fire mage)
- finally, the next summon grants you needed speciman. Now its a time to curce corean random waste your time in endless save-load cycle until you find needed medallions combo. Or until you become tired enough to count the next one as satisfying choice.
I found two important moments in the actual game version:
1) Medallions are also static - if you don't change anything in summoning progress, you get the same student with same medallions.
2) You may change it by 2 ways - cancelling and restarting the ritual or making new building/construction orders, changing priorities etc. Thats how i found +2 to fire magic medallion after ~50 attempts.

P.S. You should focus power/mana/speed/hp relics for battle mages hence only 2 magic types are used in battle and you may raise them in quests. Bigger power and speed values grant better battle performance, than one additional magic tier.
P.P.S. Relics which grant your mages any happiness boosts are not that good as magic/speed ones - there are many better and stable ways to make them happier in the midgame (good food, rooms, ...), than those rubbish buffs "+5 conviction for 4 hours after cleaning", which are forcing you to up some priorities regardless person's proficiency.

If you are trying to find that misterious creature to complete someone's trial: THIS IS NOT A RANDOM CREATURE WHICH SPAWNS IN COMMON FIGHT. Its a boss, that hides in the Underschool. You can find him right after the door which warns you about 3 fights in a row. You can re-summon this creature after defeating it first time.

1) You may build elevated room above another room
2) You may build towered room under another room

3) You may put roof furniture even if your roof has a ceiling above it (and enough distance between it and your roof point). For example, you may build two kitchens like that (hence fine kitchen couldn't be built with cauldron and its easier to have some chests, containing ingredients for both if you are as lazy as me to micromanage every chest)


4) You may build skewed room with one wall lower, than other, not higher


5) Your mages may pass if there is 3 cell's height passage. To fasten their movement around your school you could build a few such "corridors", which grant you easy elevated tag for rooms above. And there is no creature spawn in them.


6) To protect your outdoor vegetables from croas you may build a simple wall with a door. Warning: Spectral croas pass doors like your staff and students BUT 2 traps are cheaper than 5 traps