Looking for Mages guild ideas.

[MadScientist]

Hey all. I'm going to be starting a new campaign in a couple weeks, I've already done quite a bit of work on the world (link to my campaign site), but I'm sort of stuck on ideas for mages guilds. I was hoping ppl could shoot some ideas at me or talk about mages guilds from their games. I would like guild politics and rivalries to play an imortant part of this campaign.

I know that I would like a secretive guild, that focuses on Divination and seeking knowledge, but can't come up with a cool name for it. I've thought of Lorekeepers, Loremasters, Order of Imaculate Thought... but none quite do it for me.

I also have two others guild ideas that I'm more comfortable with: The Order of the Ebon Hand (the secret Necromancy society) and The Crimson Brotherhood (basically mercenary mages).

Any way if your up for sharing your ideas for mages guilds I would like to hear them.

 

[Carnifex]

I've got a lot of mages guild stuff in my campaign

There's the Flame Guild, mercenary fire-themed battlemages whose organisation is powerful in two neighbouring nations. Their hq is a huge fortress built around a pit called the Pyre of Gilamesh, burning with eternal magical fire, the site where an elder god was defeated in the physical world and banished to the outer realms. THey have an organisation-based PrC, and higher-ranking members (IIRC of the title War Mage and above, which was 3rd level in the 5 level PrC) can tap into the Pyre to swap out spells spontaneously for fire spells.

There's the Drakkath Guild of Arcane Practitioners, a loose and scholarly guild of spellcasters over a large area of several nations called the Drakkath. The guild is very academic in focus.

There's a number of smaller national battlemage guilds within the same area as well, providing military spellcasters for rulers.

There's the Order of Night, a guild of mysterious necromancer/fighters who worship the deity Charon and gather ancient lore.

There's Naseria, a land where members of the ruling classes are *all* sorcerers - the nobility claim descent from the sorcerer god Naskha. Wizards have formed their own Naserian mages guild, but its on the same level as merchant guilds and suchlike - with all the sorcerers around, wizardly magic is kinda second rate, they're in the same bracket of society as other middle-class trades.

Carthagia and some other areas have Manipulator guilds. Manipulators are biothaumaturges, adept in blending genetics and magic to fleshtwist existing creatures and create new ones.

The cold land of Cryosia is ruled by a magocracy of cryomancers - ice wizards. It's kinda a guild and a government rolled into one.

Lots more details I could give but I think I'll stop for now

 

[JoeGKushner]

I tend to be very lazy when it comes to stuff like this. However, there are a ton of great books out there covering this type of material.

Path of Magic (Fantasy Flight Games): Each prestige class has it's own school. This doesn't count the specific shools that give the user different abilities.

Guildcraft (Bastion Press)has a mage guild and several, more general adventurer's guilds.

Guilds & Adventuerers by Mystic Eye Games has some guilds, both general and wizardly.

 

[Voadam]

Order of the ebon hand is a Magic the Gathering group with a lot of neat aspects to them (creating a thrull slave race, channeling dark power, a knightly order, a cleric order, etc.)

Ars magica has a lot of secret wizard society stuff with internal politics aplenty, you can get the game for free from Atlas games in pdf form at www.rpgnow.com it is well worth the download and read through.

 

[Tabarnak Smokeblower]

What you could have is a super secret Diviner's society, of whom only very few mages are a part of, but these mages have started a "false" diviner's society, to protect their own (the false society is semi-secret, but its growing on its own, and while all that concerns the real secret society stays secret from the false, the fast growing of the false society is getting a bit out of hand and the real secret society isn't able to keep a hold on it. With the false secret society harboring a lot of good diviners, the secrecy of the real society is menaced.

Name Suggestions: Keepers of the Codex, the Watch, the Spirit Eye, Crystal Guardians, Harry's Crazy Halibut, etc.

TS

Edit: Lords of Darkness actually has some good ideas for Secret Societies (athought the ones presented in said book are eeevil )

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

In the campaign world I'm currently designing for my game, I'm using colleges of magic in the "wizard guild" role. There are several "universities" each of which has 4-6 colleges associated with it.

Each College has developed its own specialties over time - not in schools of magic, but in areas of interest (travel & exploration, trade and seamanship, information gathering & spying, constructs and technology, etc). Each specializes in certain Item Creation formulas, protecting them against becoming common knowledge (the College that is concerned with Travel & Exploration may have a monopoly on Boots of Speed, for example).

My influences in coming up with this idea are the alternate Oxford of The Golden Compass, as well as a little bit of Hogwart's from Harry Potter. I like the idea of rival magic colleges vying for Wizardly power, with Wizards duelling each other and competing for favor and power. The Colleges police the Wizards, as well as teach them.

 

[ergeheilalt]

I have a couple of mage guilds scattered around my campaign. There are a couple Gnomes and Humans who specialize in building constructs and illusion magic (a bit of cliche). They basically sell cheap construct mercenaries and have explored a lot of the campaign world.

The biggest guild has four sub guilds. The guild is the oldest wizard guild in the current campaign area, having risen up from primitive elemental studies. The earth wizards act as the military guardsmen for the city and build a majority of the magical weapons in the area. Fire wizards keep the area warm as it is very far north and act as the main fire power for the guild. The water wizards act as scouts and diplomats with the far reaching stretch of islands; also keeping the docks a clean affair, in charge of trade and the merchants in the city. Air wizards have risen to recent acclaim rediscover the art of fashioning air ships. Air wizards help the fire wizards with the weather and maintain some of the illusions around the city. As the guild is based on elementalism, once a person joins the guild they gain energy substitution for their relevant focus as a free ability. The Encyclopedia Arcana: Elementalism is a good buy if you want to focus on elemental magic.

There are small enclaves of smaller groups of wizards. The Northern Elven wizards tend to focus on nature and earth related spells, while the drow wizards focus on militant use of magic as a weapon against all free races in Thimtona (my campaign).

I found that when creating a mage guild, make sure to give them one really big strength in addition to something that detracts from the coolness. The elemental wizards of course are unable to use their opposing elements and each have a focus on a particular school. They are weak in the necromancy, enchantment, and divination schools; strong in abjuration (contacting and binding elementals), evocation (fireball), conjuration (summoning), illusion (part of the air wizard dominion), and transmutation (part of the earth wizard dominion).
Combining flavor and mechanics makes the guild not only part of the background, but makes it attractive to players too.

Erge