Help me hide my mcGuffins

[Jinete]

So in this PF campaign I'm creating magic used to be a lot more powerful, but the gods divided it into nine schools and hid it away from the mortals.

I'm hoping my PC-s will venture to collect a piece of every school (and ultimately use them to save/destroy the world

So far they have obtained a piece of "primal" necromancy (a crystal which is actually condensed necromancy) from a bad guy, but they still have no idea where it came from.

So where would you hide a school of magic, and in what form?

The caveat being that it should only be possible to retrieve small amounts of the stuff.

What I have so far:

Necromancy: to obtain it you must travel to the plane of shadow (think 4e shadowfell) and once there sacrifice a sentient being. Depending on the "power" of the soul sacrificed a certain amount of necromancy is condensed into a crystal on the spot.

Abjuration: a quicksilver like substance, primal abjuration forms a protective field around the world, high in the atmosphere. The PC-s must use some sort of flying device to get to it, but they can only retrieve a small amount since the field actually protects the world from god-knows-how-awful beings from beyond...

Oh, and most denizens of the world know nothing of the whole thing...

 

[Loonook]

First there are eight schools... And then the red-head stepchild kindergarten that is Universal .

Second... Depends on your ideology on how magic works. Do you want Opposition school makeups similar to 2e, or just the happy-crappy-everyone-loves-everybody form of 3e?

Slainte,

-Loonook.

 

[aco175]

I would place the magic in an item that the party could use and if they get stronger with the more they collect then that would be cool as well. Divination magic could be in a wand or rod with abjuration being in armor, or even a sword that allow you to create some sort of shield effect. By collecting more of the 9 schools worth of items they are rewarded with the say, the wand gaining a +1 or a blast effect.

Each item can start as something questworthy in itself, but become more rare/unique/artifact ish along the way. also if some BBEG is collecting these it becomes a race. He could have already have one that allows him to absorb the others and his powers grow. A cool showdown between the party with one each and the BBEG with all the rest except the last that they happen to meet upon at the same time.

 

[Jinete]

First there are eight schools... And then the red-head stepchild kindergarten that is Universal .

Second... Depends on your ideology on how magic works. Do you want Opposition school makeups similar to 2e, or just the happy-crappy-everyone-loves-everybody form of 3e?

Slainte,

-Loonook.

Yeah, I thought about it and decided that Universal should also be "collectable".
Also, I'm going with the happy-crappy 3e version

 

[Coce05]

Conjuration: While summoning a powerful being from another plane, characters need to cast timestop/whatever or perform a ritual that slows the creatures appearance on this plane. While the fumes/gases of conjured creature are slowly forming up, the characters need to collect them using an ancient artifact. (should not succeed the first time, making them fight the creature)

The affected/summoned creature will form up for a few brief seconds and sensing that the characters have stolen a part of its essence, it will swear an oath of destruction of their souls, before dispersing.

Affected creature commits all its future actions to destroying the party.

Creature should be powerful enough to send minions and put up a boss fight in the end.

 

[Jinete]

I would place the magic in an item that the party could use and if they get stronger with the more they collect then that would be cool as well. Divination magic could be in a wand or rod with abjuration being in armor, or even a sword that allow you to create some sort of shield effect. By collecting more of the 9 schools worth of items they are rewarded with the say, the wand gaining a +1 or a blast effect.

Since the party already knows about the existence of the hidden magic and even have a piece of it, it's too late for me to place the entirety of a magic school in an item.
Once they acquire a piece of magic however, they could forge an item out of it.

Each item can start as something questworthy in itself, but become more rare/unique/artifact ish along the way. also if some BBEG is collecting these it becomes a race. He could have already have one that allows him to absorb the others and his powers grow. A cool showdown between the party with one each and the BBEG with all the rest except the last that they happen to meet upon at the same time.

Yeah, that's exactly what's happening actually I know it's kinda cliche, but hey...

 

[Coce05]

For Illlusion you could run an Inception-like game session, where the characters have to form an illusion inside an illusion inside an illusion...

and somwhere there, the real essence of illusion can be find

 

[Jinete]

For Illlusion you could run an Inception-like game session, where the characters have to form an illusion inside an illusion inside an illusion...

and somwhere there, the real essence of illusion can be find

Hehe, nice, I'll try to build on that

 

[Random Axe]

For Illlusion you could run an Inception-like game session, where the characters have to form an illusion inside an illusion inside an illusion...

and somwhere there, the real essence of illusion can be find

Love that idea. Also love the Conjuration example above.

For something like Evocation or Transmutation (either one would work), I would have a supremely powerful monster, (like an ancient Beholder, or some sort of special demon hidden away in the extreme depths of the earth) whose blood is rumoured to contain some of the essence of that magical school. After qusting to find the correct hiding location of the monster, the party would need to defeat it and collect a certain amount of the blood to distill it down to gain that school. Perhaps the monster would need to be still living while the blood is collected. Perhaps there needs to be a minimum amount collected for the ritual distillation to work.

 

[Celebrim]

Divination: Hidden as a a cup of tea which is never emptied. It is immune to all powers of its own school, and so, even the gods have lost it. It's in the possession of a wise but greedy great wyrm gold dragon, who is loathe to part with it and will only willingly allow it to be taken in exchange for an item 'of equal worth'. In this case, he wants absolute immortality and will only be convinced if the cup of tea proves he will never die.

Transmutation: It's the philosopher's stone. Lead into Gold anyone? Just be careful you don't acquire the Midas touch.

Evocation: An intelligent Athame called 'The Opener of the Ways' contains the essense of evocation. Unfortunately, that much raw power has perverted it and its actually got its own agenda. (You know what they say, with power comes corruption, with absolute power comes absolute corruption). It needs the essense of conjuration to open a hole in the sky to let creatures from the dungeon dimensions in.

Conjuration: It's the Sampo from the Kalevala, or rather, it's the substance contained within the Sampo. Like the container of essense of Evocation, the Sampo is actually intelligent (although it is loath to admit it) and is afraid of the Athame.

Enchantment: Basicly, it's the vial of magical liquid that the White Queen had in Narnia, and used to make addictive food. The Queen of Fairies has possession of it and uses it to place mortals in a state of permenent enchantment.

Illusion: I agree with the pocket dream dimension concept.

The only thing I would change from your description is that I like the concept that the essense of all magic emminates from something small, and your abjuration concept makes it really big. I'd prefer that the Abjuration container is actually the seal that holds the sky together, and that if you want to obtain it you have to figure out how to break it without breaking the sky.