Guild of Wizards

The Guild of Wizards goes WAY out of its way to maintain the mystique of the all powerful spell caster. The ruling body of this organization is referred to as the Center. The Center is always composed of:

Highest Ranking Air Mage
Highest Ranking Archiving Mage
Highest Ranking Divine Mage
Highest Ranking Earth Mage
Highest Ranking Fire Mage
Highest Ranking Water Mage
The Seventh: A mage elected by the other six whom epitimizes the principles of the guild and who has made the largest contribution to the art of wizardry.

In the event that The Seventh is elected from within ranks (hard to do since it is expressly forbidden to vote for ones self) then The Seventh is allowed to appoint his replacement (which may mean they are not even close to the highest ranking in their field, but The Seventh is trusted to know best in such situations).

Cost

For a sum of ten-thousand silver to join and per annum any person with the demonstrated ability to cast spells may join the Guild of Wizards. The fee to join must be paid either via silver or items. The ability to cast spells is an absolute requirement. This demonstrates that someone is at least willing enough to endure training for as long as it takes to cast a rank 1 spell. You cannot buy your way into the Guild. The annual fee will be waived in exchange for two weeks of service per year in one week time blocks which the guild will schedule in advance.

Benefits

The Tower

Sure, sure... in this modern world magicians living in towers seems a bit old fashioned and trite. However, there's something about a Wizard's Tower that calls up visions of power, mystery and elitism. Exactly the image that the Guild wishes to convey.

The tower was the brainchild of Guillarmo Demonsbane* a wizard of small talent but great aspirations. While he may not have been the most powerful wizard of his time, he was unquestionably the biggest poser, possessing an almost unnatural flair for the dramatic. Most, non-mages, of the day were convinced that Guillarmo could split the planet with half a thought. While other mages might have possessed more actual spell casting ability they were also very jeleous of Guillarmo's fame and wealth. When Guillarmo put forth the idea of building his greatest vision yet, wizards from all over threw their resources behind the project... hoping for fame through association. The Lords of Centralia gave their blessing to the project and construction was started in X and completed Y years later in Z.

* (thankfully today's mages have mostly given up the fanciful names... if only the warriors would take the hint there wouldn't be 5000 guys wandering around calling themselves Mighty Vlad the Kingslayer)

Any member of the Guild may request temporary work or sleep space within the tower. Members of long standing have permanent rooms, workplace and servants assigned to them (even the servents must be spell casters but work off their annual fee by acting as menial servents and test subjects for the masters of the tower).

All members are encouraged to show up for Guild parties and meetings (there is a meeting annually on Obern 1 to handle Guild business).

The Entrance - A relativly small room with an intricately carved wooden front desk similar to a hotel... No non accompanied spell casters allowed, and only one may travel with each mage.

The (Smoking) Lounge - Mostly a place where older mages discuss former glory, although very relaxing with couches and comfortable chairs. Lively conversations do occur and useful knowledge is often passed between adventuring and research mages. While food is served and eating common, sleeping in the room is considered rude unless the person is old.

The Board - a board where items, high level spells and adventuring mages (help wanted/offered) are posted.

Library

One of the primary purposes of the Guild is to acquire, catalog and cross reference knowledge of a magical nature. A long time ago it was decided that no one was yet qualified enough to determine what will or won't be useful to magical research so now they pretty much just accumulate everything. All members are required to maintain journals which are sealed by magical means until 100 years after the mages death. These journals of the mages life, experiences and research are fascinating material and are among the most read volumes in the library.

The Guild is always trying to acquire more books/scrolls/etc...

The first thing you'll notice upon entering the library is that it appears way more vast than should be possible. Indeed several years back the original library ran out of room and an Otherworld portal was setup in the doorway. The Otherworld let to a gigantic rock of a dead world. The mages set to work hollowing it out, constructing shelves and setting up the appropriate protection and archival spells and wards. Once those tasks were completed all library materials were carted through to their new home. With so much extra space the mages went crazy trying to fill the library for a while. Then they got bored and went back to picking up cool material as they happened upon it.

The Guild has a very sophisticated system of catalogging and checkout. They have built entire spell groups around the process of keeping track of where their materials are (both while they are in the library and when they are on loan to Guild members).

In addition to the public section of the library, the Guild has a restricted section the is only available to the Center and mages specifially given the job of archiving the information within it. This library typically hold records that are still sealed, but may also contain information that the Guild feels is too dangerous for the general public.

Observatory

The top section of the tower is reached via a winding staircase and utlimately a ladder (a wizard could just "Arise" of course but tradition dictates that's rude (for unknown reasons).

Within this section, dubbed the Observatory, are a myriad of lensed telescopes and other equipment for studying the night sky and surrounding areas. There is a subsect of Wizards who are strong believers that the celestial bodies guide and fortell our fates.

More mainstream Wizards make star maps and chart the movements of asteroids and other heavenly bodies for more mundane purposes such as pursuit of knowledge and to determine if their movements have any effect (scientific or magical) on Jaern.

A couple of Wizards keep an eye on Bastador to have an early warning in case of another invasion.

Meeting Rooms

The Guild has several meeting rooms. A small number, currently three, are available for public meetings if they are pre-scheduled and are either hosted or sponsored by a guild member. This restriction can be circumvented by paying the booking clerk as he will then put his name in as sponsor.
The guild will also allow for anonymous meetings where the records are restricted and the occupants assigned randomish numbers. Depending on what the host has requested the Guild will arrange for the hosts features to be blurred, or everyone attending the meeting. A good example of when this is used is when an anonymous employer wished to hire a group. He will post a notice and say to go to the CGoW public room #2. The guild will list him as Employer #124654 and blur his features for the duration of the meeting.

Magical Research

The Guild encourges all of its members to expand upon their current branch of knowledge and delve into new areas of magic. To this end, the guild has extensive research facilities on the third floor that allow mages to perform research without paying the standard monetary costs associated with it. The Guild allows all mages to use its research facilities (assuming they are available) on the condition that the Guild receives a copy of all research journals and notes which are placed in the restricted library and will only be reviewed for public release upon the death of the mage or with explict permission from the mage allowing a public release at a certain time.

Guild Market

As an additional method of making money for the guild, the guild has provided a method of selling and buying magic items, spells, and incants. A member simply signs up with the guild as being able to offer a service or item and the guild will take care of the rest include pricing. The guild gets a 10% cut of all transaction performed in this manner, but will reduce the fee to 5% if a party uses guild credit in place of silver. Non-members are charged an additional 20% and cannot use guild credit.

The services offered are: casting spells including spells above rank 12, the creation and selling of magic items, and the purchasing of nomadic incants. The prices change frequently based on the number of people offering a service and the number of people requesting services.

Wizard University

Magic Item Identification

The guild offers magic identification services to any individual for at the following prices depending on the level of identification you wish to receive:

1,000sp gets you a basic identification (the lowest spell on the item and it's trigger, no curse detection)
2,500sp gets you a more advanced identification (all spells on the item, curse detection, and triggers)
5,000sp gets you the previous level of identification (non-standard items (artifacts) can be identified to a certain level, all of the above effects are also revealed. In addition items flaws are also revealed.)

Members receive a 20% discount on all identication costs.

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