The Mages Guild

The sigil of the Mages Guild

The Mages Guild was an ancient order of amalgamated arcane magic practitioners whose latter goal was to maintain balance and order within the realm. While this ideal and the Guild itself was later reiterated and reformed as the Guild passed into various hands of administration, the core philosophy of education and equity remained a common affair within the Guild’s dealings. While it experienced its Golden Age and height of power during Aegis, it steadily loss patronage and its presence waned until eventually dissolving into the various sects of magi seen today.

History

Origin

According to the writings of the Arcane Mage, the Mages Guild was originally established by the will of Mage Roland, or Ram’ir depending on the source, who brought together sects of powerful and wise magi during the age of the four brothers to keep a harmonious evenness between mortals, divine, and nixian. Some speculate that Mage Roland was nothing more than a pseudo name adopted by founders of the first Mages Guild to add romance and fable to the Guild’s origins.

An original structure of the Guild included three overseeing Archmages who made up a High Council and acted as chief administrators of the Guild. Below the High Council was a larger sect of Guild Masters who occupied various Guild Halls throughout the realm of Aegis. These teachers and masters of the arcane apprenticed an array of various adept magi and initiates who worked and lived within the Guild Halls.

Regardless, the Guild must have passed through several dignitaries as many centuries passed until the Guild came under the administration of the Arcane Mage who led the Guild through the war on the Undead.

Aegis

Ca. 1300 - 1349

During the Arcane Mage’s regime the Guild saw much prosperity. In its burgeoning years the Arcane Mage raised an ancient Mage Tower to the North of Winterfell which would serve as the center of the Guild’s power whilst in Aegis. The tower was rumored to contain copious amounts of secret avenues and ploys, some of which the very members of the Guild were not aware of. The Tower was also said to contain an expansive archive which the Arcane Mage took much pride in as well as a teleportation room which allowed members of the Guild to travel to primary locations on the continent at the flick of a wrist.

The ancient and enigmatic Mage Tower of Aegis

Though having only a small pool of Magi within its divisions, the Guild managed to receive patronage from all four descendent races, an unheard of notion in more modern eras. Such names as Cataris, Bell, Ogland, Kilgrim, and Everard were common amongst the occult circles of the day. Archmage Bell and Guild Masters Ogland and Cataris played significant roles in the Undead wars of the North, even having a Guild Hall constructed in Snowy Fields as a sign of solidarity and for runic research.

Unfortunately, many of the old guild members did eventually succumb to the Undead through treachery or murder. Archmage Hwalder, the first betrayer and supposed stalwart associate of the Arcane Mage, was discovered to be Undead spy and swiftly ejected by the High Council. Archmage Everard and Guild Master Cataris were absorbed by the Undead hierarchy when they had passed and rotted. Cataris, having been disbanded from the Guild during an unwarranted heist of an Undead Keep and the releasing of Guild secrets to the public, proceeded to commit suicide. Finally, Archmage Bell was murdered during a visitation with the Undead. According to Bell’s Final Journal this was an attempt at relieving herself from the torcherous hassling of the Undead.

After a brief period of stagnation the Guild eventually passed into the hands of Guild Master Ogland and his apprentice, Ambros, who were granted the title of Archmage by the Arcane Mage. Under their governance the Guild expanded considerably. Though losing patronage from the orcs the two took on numerous apprentices, trained to become a second generation of magi that would lead the Guild in the future.

While the Guild experienced various expansions including new Guild Halls, most of the “new” Guild was centralized around the Laurelin Guild Hall, a gift from the High Prince Native. The mage Guild Master Rilath, a disturbed soul, would eventually lead to the foundation of Shade Magic as a result of Archmage Ambros trapping the dark magi’s faculties within a crystal, the first of the Shade Gems.

Prolonged afflictions from the, now lich, Cataris would result in sundry skirmishes on into the continent of Asulon.

Asulon

1351 - 1424

Upon the Guild’s arrival to the new continent a tower was thusly claimed in the name of the Guild. Said tower was one noted by the Arcane Mage in his Arcane Journal depicting his preemptive journey to the new land. The tower became known as Bellus Turris, standing as a lone spire amidst a barren sea. While, initially, the Guild received patronage from the fractured human kingdoms of Renatus and Salvus and Guild Halls within their respective capitals in addition to a Hall within the Mali’aheral’s capital, Haelun’or, the High Council found that such divergence from a centralized site led to much inactivity amidst the members of the Guild. After the prolonged discord with the twice dead Cataris and various schemes against Archmage Ambros’s regency following a so called “vision” in which Ambros saw a chosen one who would strike down Cataris, the High Council promptly decreed that all Guild Halls were to be disbanded on account of the recent inactivity.

Soon after Archmage Ambros issued the Guild into an era of reform, a period in which many began to question Ambros’s ability to lead along with his sanity as he permeated the Guild through numerous, seemingly frivolous reconstructions including proclaiming himself the sovereign and sole Archmage of the Guild as well as establishing a High Council consisting of thirteen High Mages beneath him.

Ambros’s disconcerting reign came to an end when an unstable Node (perhaps the first discovered of its kind) erupted beneath Bellus Turris, properly destroying it, while Archmage Ambros, High Mage Salamandra, and an apprentice named Saeldur were quarrelling within. Salamandra and Saeldur, who escaped, presumed Ambros was dead following his insistence to name Saeldur the new Archmage of the Guild on the basis that Saeldur had in fact murdered him, verifying the belief that Ambros had indeed gone mad.

Regardless of Ambros’s final wishes, the remaining members of the Guild constructed a new tower within the kingdom of Urguan and later on the island nation of Holm. By popular vote Dante, Salamandra, and Laurina were named the new Archmages of the Guild, rightly returning the Guild to its old hierarchical state of three Archmages.

For a period of time the Guild saw prolonged stability until Ambros appeared, having survived the explosion, and was accordingly given power over the Guild once more. In a final reform Ambros established a new hierarchy consisting of one Archmage, a second in command known as Master Wizard, an archivists known as the Archanix, followed by masters and apprentices.

However, by some untold means the Guild began to lose influence over the distribution of magical knowledge within the realm. There were many “rogue mages” who began learning magic by their own hand, perhaps due to the various esoteric texts found throughout the ancient land of Asulon. Opposing orders of magic came to power such as the Arcane Delvers which the Guild saw as an immediate threat.

Anthos

1424 - 1455

Wyverwyn Hold

The Mages Guild harkened in the continent of Anthos by establishing a college known as Wyverwyn Hold which sat precariously atop a mountain on the fringes of the kingdom of Urguan. No longer would the Guild serve as a preserver of equity, as it had in the past, but a bastion of learning and research. Wyverwyn Hold was praised for its beauty and mystery, which lay beneath.

While other arcane orders began liberal recruitment and teaching of magic, the ever conservative Guild kept a stringent recruitment process which led many to believe the Guild was becoming too elitist for such a magically progressive time.

Following nearly the entire inactivity of the standing Mages Guild administration, the Guild was left inactive for a period except for the distant overseeing of Blundermore in their absence. Ambros, however, abruptly returned to lead a small expedition of mages into ruins beneath the Hold known as the Hollows, an eldritch and nixian plane in which the Void bled into the physical realm causing all manner of chaos. Ambros, perhaps in his inert madness, had been studying the Hollows for some time prior to reappearing. By bringing the small expedition he had hoped the magi would have joined him to somehow gain inhumane powers at the expense of their sanity. Still possessing some clarity, Blundermore rightly opposed such proposals leading to a duel between the two magi. The company of magi escaped the sinister Hollows while Ambros faded into obscurity.

Archmage Blundermore held the Guild briefly before a mage known as Crumena Izalith seized authority and placed his own “foreign” administration into power. The Guild was reorganized to contain, once more, three Archmages which became known as the Triumvirate, followed by the Archanix, Guild Masters, Mages and Apprentices. Various embassies were established in major regions of the realm and novitiate scholars flocked to the Guild, including a large mass of necromancers, shades, and other unsavory sorts which the Guild soon became renowned for harboring.

While there was much opposition from former members towards the new administration, the Guild soon settled with a bolstered population.

(More to be written)

Legacy

The Mages Guild was the first recorded organization pertaining to the arcane arts, however, many more have since risen and fallen since its own creation and debacle. Nearly all of these organizations have taken the Guild’s design and altered it to their own liking, always offering some form of education in the magical arts and more or less serving as academic or research institutions.

Most “modern” forms of arcane teachings have their origins in the Mages Guild including some of the more shadowy arts (ie. Shade Magic).

Purpose

In its final iteration, the Guild's predominate purpose was to act as an institution for the education of mages in the arcane arts as well as research into the more esoteric of magical phenomena.

Command

While the Guild went through several reforms during its existence, the oldest and seemingly most common hierarchy the Guild ran under was a council of three Archmages who shared equal power within the ancient order. Below is the various ranks and titles that were created and forgotten throughout the Guild's extended history.

Positions

High Positions

• Archmage

The highest rank a member of the Guild could achieve, the Archmage or Archmages led the Guild in all administrative matters. While the Guild briefly saw a single Archmage on the continent of Anthos, the Guild was predominantly overseen by a council of three Archmages later known as the Triumvirate.

• Guild Master

An older rank, traditionally the Guild Masters controlled a single Guild Hall which were located within influential cities across the realm of Aegis. The Guild Masters served as both teachers and leaders for their small chapter of magi. However, the rank was disbanded after the High Council decided Guild Halls spread the members of the Guild too thin in the realm of Asulon. The rank was reestablished when Crumena took control of the Guild in Anthos.

• Master Wizard

When Archmage Ambros controlled the Guild the rank of Master Wizard was established to serve as a vice-Archmage since only one Archmage existed in the earlier years of Anthos. The rank was later put into dissuse when Crumena took control of the Guild.

• Archanix

The Archanix's main function was to serve as a secretary and librarian to whoever led the Guild. The rank was first established by Archmage Ambros in the early years of Anthos when only one existed at a time. However, when Crumena took control of the Guild several Archanix's were appointed.

• High Mage

A rank that only existed briefly in the later years of Asulon when the Guild saw several frivolous reforms. Thirteen High Mages existed at the time which ran the Guild.

Low Positions

• Master

Master or teachers were essential to the Guild as these adept magi taught the apprentices the ancient art.

• Mage

The basic unit of the Guild, the mage was one who had completed basic training in the arcane arts and were worthy of the title.

• Apprentice

Students, novices, or apprentices of the Guild were generally put under the mentor-ship of a single master who they trained under until their skills were deemed proficient.

Politics

Religion

Being scholars and thus skeptics by nature, the Mages Guild never partook in rigorous religious ritual or exercise. Members were free to practice whatever ideology they saw fit so long as it did not intervene with the Guild's philosophy, which had always been reason and neutrality.

Granted, on the continent of Anthos the Guild did see an influx of dark magi who may have worshiped more sinister forces.

Headquarters

Traditionally, the Mages Guild's headquarters were always housed in large towers with a myriad of secrets and, of course, an expansive library. Generally, these towers were constructed in isolated locations as to show mystery and neutrality.

Previous

• "The Mage Tower"
• Bellus Turris
• The Holm Tower
• Wyverwyn Hold
• Rasmot's Pooper

History of Magic, The