If you were designing a mage faire what would you do?

[Sanackranib]

recently I told my players there would be a mage fair in the city of Melaid, capital of Darakeen (scarred Lands setting). I am curious how the other DM's out there would do this and what the players out there would like to see. here is what I have so far:
It's anual so a lot of mages from all over the country are seeking new aprentices. there will be booths set up to sell aprentices wares (mostly potions and scrolls), there will be some sages and mages lecturing about their theories and expirements. and there will be mages or their prefects hireing adventurers to go out and get that "rare or dangerous" animal or component.

does anybody have any other ideas of what they would like to see or what they would use?

 

[Storminator]

Competitions.

1) Who can summon the most dire rats at once (allowing multiple castings)?

2) Illusion contests, judged on artistic merit, volume and number of senses involved.

3) Mage hand juggling.

A spell swap. Either one for one with other wizards, or contribute a unique creation to a common book and learn two.

PS

 

[AngelTears]

I suggest you have a look in Sandman's Stardust for ideas about what a mage fair might be like.

You should start off that everything strange and wonderful is going to be in town. A whole lot of people, and not just mages. Ignore the munchkinist magic item garbage, focus on the fact that this mage fair is meant for mages. You will be having a lot of people trading things that the average adventurer might find as useless.

Here are things that come to mind:

Mrs. Brandule's rare and magical herbs

Mr Quizzid, the world known adventurer and wizard, will be showing his adventurers in the Abyss for 1sp a piece. due to graphical nature of the presentation no children. presentation will be held every second hour.


Madam Maguile. She will tell you your fortune, but dare you hear how you might die?

Have things like friendship rings with which you change faces with your friend, if you are in 5 meters of each other.

Candy that covers all the flavours possible.

Chocolate frogs that become animated.

And candy floss that does not seem to stop.

-Angel Tears

 

[Sanackranib]

mage faire

thanks for the suggestions

 

[dglass]

An exotic stranger cloaked in all black watches everyone at the fair intensely. Clever players might be able to deduce his Outsider nature. His name is Tetratiomin. He is a Thaerestian, also known as an Arcane Angel. (see Monte Cooks' Book of Eldritch Might II) He has come here to find sorcerers worthy to be his students. Tetratiomin prefers to teach those with little experience but much potential (level 1 characters) but will take other apprentices if they interest him. The training will occur on a demiplane where time moves differently. From a point of view on the material plane, only hours or days have passed while years have passed on the plane. Tetratiomin wishes to teach sorcerers how to better use mana. That is the power that makes magic work. His price is simple. The student must swear and oath that they will take an apprentice and teach them the techniques they learned. The apprentice must swear the same oath as the master. Tetratiomin will not explain why he is doing this or to what end he wishes to accomplish. When done, he will depart and never been seen by the characters again.

 

[demon_jr]

if you haven't already done so, take a look in Forgotten Realms, Magic of Faerun. It has everything you need to know about running mage fairs, along with mage duels and what not.

 

[Nightfall]

if you haven't already done so, take a look in Forgotten Realms, Magic of Faerun. It has everything you need to know about running mage fairs, along with mage duels and what not.

True but most mages don't duel in the Scarred Lands. At least not unless it's an actual battle. The Arcane Angel might work for idea.

The competitions might work, but I think it would favor illusions and street preformers more than any particular impressive summonings.

 

[AngelTears]

I think you should go wild with your descriptions.

I came up with a few more encounters:

an old hag is brewing something smelling vagualy strange in a large cauldron, a hand comes out of the and tries to grab hold of the hem of one the players. The woman curses in some unknown tongue snapping the wooden spon on its knuckles. The hand drifting back into the brew.

Glynn Wyrmsbreath, a reknowned illusionist and bard is playing in the Wild boar and geese. Be prepared for an awe inspiring tale in High-Elven of the story of a Elvish Prince and a human girl. Or the story of a man from the far north battling a dragon of the wastes.

A small fairy of about 3 feet tall with ripped wings and a broken silver chain seems to be wandering around the fair lost. She grabs onto the hem of a characters clothing and looks ap at them. Letting out a small meep. An angry man with a large beard and flowing robes etched with crimson is shouting "Lyre, where art thou. Curse you!" The fair tries to hide herself even more into the clothing. Then he spies her and you. And comes marching over.

The majikal stall of nearly new magical objects. An adventurers treasure trove of magical objects that might do what their supposed to do.

Faustus's will demonstrate his magical talents summonng and banishing a pit fiend (anyone with a little of magical knowldge will notice that the Pit Fiend summoned is real. Anyone with a lot of magical knowledge will figure out that he is simple being teleported from the other room).

Madam Glo-fly's Monsters stall. She has just the thing for those wishing to grow their own monster.

Pott's magical brewery. Come and taste the magical vintages that Potts has brewed over the pst couple of centuries. His newest creation is a carbonated black coloured beverage called Fizz-Pop.

 

[Storminator]

The competitions might work, but I think it would favor illusions and street preformers more than any particular impressive summonings.

The thought there is that summon monster has a duration, so a 1st level caster won't be able to have more than one rat at a time, as the first will disappear while the 2nd is summoned. At higer level you can get off more summons, and higher level ones, and the guy with every summon spell will be able to get the most summoning.

I just thought of another variation, where you have a series of competitions, each of which requires a different style of spell to win, and you have to complete all the competitions in a single day, so pick spells (and having the right ones to pick!) becomes the issue. Sort of the decathalon of spell casting.

PS

 

[Tewligan]

Funnel cakes and big-haired women.