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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Whizbang Dustyboots" data-source="post: 2177679" data-attributes="member: 11760">All political systems, whatever the flavor, eventually grow fat and comfortable and corrupt. (I think there may even be a saying to this effect!)Now, while the magocracy isn't going to be worrying about political grandstanding for political gain, since they have power firmly under their control, once their concerns move from "how do we kick the butt of the gods and eliminate all threats to our power" to "what's for lunch?" the differences between the wizards will be given time to develop. In a 700 year period, even the most outwardly united group will find plenty of time to develop major schisms, particularly since the apparent lack of outside threats means these petty issues can be given more weight than they'd normally receive.Maybe certain specializations are looked down upon -- could Divination be dangerously close to kissing divine butt? Likewise, planar travel lets young wizards go meet divine beings on their own; surely that's unacceptable.Maybe certain theories of magic are argued so vociferiously between certain mages and their retinues that violence has resulted. This could either mean a change to how scholarly debate occurs -- maybe it's forbidden! -- or it could mean that behind the scenes sniping has replaced turning your enemy to molten glass when you disagree about the intent of a scholarly text from 1,000 years ago. Few battles are as harsh as the bloodless ones fought in the halls of academia.Along those lines, if wizardry is the route to power, what does that make sorcery? It sounds like dangerous uncontrolled and unforseen element. This goes double for psionics, so woe to sorcerers and psychics of all sorts.Maybe they know they've been used by Ogremoch. It has been 700 years, after all. How would elementals be treated? Do the wizards feel used? And if so, what are they going to do about it?After 700 years, the antisocial tendencies a lot of wizards feel will have had ample time to manifest and calcify. I'd expect to see a continent ruled by wizard warlords, all nominally loyal to a central government, but in practice, a patchwork of customs that all boil down to "don't piss off the local ruling wizard."Without resurrection, raise dead and the like, mortality will be a big bugaboo for these wizards. Even elves die (in most worlds) and I'd expect the various flavors of lich to be common and popular.After 700 years, that guy whose quirks once irritated you is the person whose very name fills you with a murderous rage. While the wizards might be united against an outside threat (at least, the outside threats believe it), it wouldn't be hard to see a group of militaristic wizards making plans to kill one another, even if none of them intends to ever fire the first shot. Of course, that just means one of the heroes has to fake that first shot being fired or accidentally do something that could be intepreted that way.</blockquote>

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