Faction Brainstorming Session 05 - the Mages' Guild

[Deeza]

The Mages' Guild does have a presence in BM, but I was thinking maybe we should downplay it a little, and concentrate more on the native Shamanic mages (who I believe are more interesting and may have started their own Guild, you'll have to remind me if that's the case).

Anyway, here's my plan:

Unlike the mainstream Guild in Cyrodiil, the BM branch is a much more specialist and highbrow outfit, concentrating mainly on research. Thus, the Guildhouses would be more like live-in laboratories and libraries than the rather dull ones in vanilla Oblivion. Thus, the player doesn't join the faction as such, but rather runs errands for them and assists their research as a paid helper.

Of course, if the player is already part of the Cyrodiil Mages' Guild, they would be allowed to use the facility as normal. If the player has become Archmage or another suitably high rank, it might be funny to have the researchers constantly beg for extra funding whenever you go to visit them.

My idea is that the Soulrest Guild is more of an alchemical research outfit, trying to discover and learn how to use the untapped magic in the many weird plants and animals of Argonia. The location in the mercenary capital of the province fits naturally with this, as they often hire mercenaries to obtain dangerous specimens for them.

The Gideon Guild is a bit strange, and has the most Argonian members. They research the native magics of the province, and rarely contact the rest of the Guild. Some people wonder if they are more a way of the tribal Shamans spying on the Mages' Guild than the other way round.

Finally the Stormhold Guild is mostly a school, teaching tribal Argonians the ways of Imperial magic so that they can bring prestige to their communities and lift themselves out of poverty. This could be a chance for some fun quests surrounding missing students and odd lessons ("go out and kill a crocodile for our anatomy class").