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  1. #1
    Birthright Developer Raesene Andu's Avatar
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    Atlas submission for discussion/comments.
    Let me claim your Birthright!!

  2. #2
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    I have a few questions before proceeding.

    1. Are the positions of the council determined by school specialty or simply the top 10 best they have?

    A) If so, would the school only produce specialists?

    a) 3rd edition introduced the spell focus feat; can this (or greater spell focus) replace the requirement for being a specialist wizard to join the council?

    B) If not, is there a position for "generalist" mages (and magicians for that matter)?


    2. Does the College have any "secret" agenda?

    A) If so, is it shared by all the members, restricted to the Deans, or even a faction within the College itself?


    3. Have the leylines/sources been defined?

  3. #3
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    Originally posted by The incredible, edible Phil@Feb 6 2005, 05:35 PM
    I have a few questions before proceeding.

    1. Are the positions of the council determined by school specialty or simply the top 10 best they have?

    A) If so, would the school only produce specialists?

    a) 3rd edition introduced the spell focus feat; can this (or greater spell focus) replace the requirement for being a specialist wizard to join the council?

    B) If not, is there a position for "generalist" mages (and magicians for that matter)?


    2. Does the College have any "secret" agenda?

    A) If so, is it shared by all the members, restricted to the Deans, or even a faction within the College itself?


    3. Have the leylines/sources been defined?
    1) It's the 10 best they have for the jobs. There are specialists, but that's due to specialists most often being used in the faculty and therefore have proven their worth, but as can be seen in the council, then it's 6 specialists and 4 wizards currently.

    A) No, the school produce specialists and generalists. Think of it a bit like a real world college. You have specialists who teach the subjects, such as candidates of math teaching math for instance, but that doesn't make the students specialists.

    a) I don't think any feat should be necessary to show a focus in a particular school. The character must just know spells of the school to teach it.

    B) There isn&#39;t any Master of <Insert School here>. They are all equal, although of course some council members will have specialized in schools. There could be 3 invokers at one time, if these invokers prove their worth.

    2) The College doesn&#39;t have any secret agendas. Their primary purpose is to provide an institution to teach spellcasters and make magic more acceptable. Secondly they protect Imperial City. Of course each of the council members may have their own agendas for how the world should be run. But nothing they have as a collective.

    A) See above.

    3) The College draws their power from 10 ancient ley lines to some of the special sources that aren&#39;t noted anywhere. They can be combined to a level 10 source.

  4. #4
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    I also believe they try to keep the ruins of the old college free of looters.


    Some possible plotlines/adventure ideas to consider for the College:

    1) The pursuit of power

    With most of Diemed&#39;s sources untapped, the Duke of Diemed has sent feelers to the Royal College about expanding their holdings into his realm. This debate has the council divided with no clear majority. To further trouble matters is the possibility that the Duke request that his daughter Lasica, an alumni of the College, be granted a position among the Deans.


    2) Wayward Student

    A star pupil of the College has recently disobeyed the mandate of the College that none disturb the ruins of the old university. At first the Council thought the pupil dead but recent events seem to suggest otherwise. Some of the guards posted around the ruins were found dead under mysterious circumstances. Magic was found to be the probable cause. Similarly, one of the vaults within the College was tampered with without the knowledge of the Deans. Finally, the Book of Days was stolen from the Imperial Cairn.

    The Council fears that their wayward student has not only survived, but has been changed by the experience and is responsible for these actions. If this is true, then the College&#39;s reputation would suffer a crippling blow. All attempts at discern the pupil&#39;s location have failed. The stronger voices among the Council wish to find and destroy the pupil before rumours begin to spread. The moderates prefer a less violent resolution.

  5. #5

    Shadowstone

    Have the individuals that are writing up the College of Sorcery read Shadowstone, it gives alot of detail about the college of sorcery, and a little bit about the ruins.... Would love to see this incorporated into the new atlas form of the College.

  6. #6
    Junior Member Patrucio's Avatar
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    I really can't seem to find the document to DL for the College of Sorcery, but I do have some opinions on the college.

    I have always thought that College graduates (and human wizards in general) should all be specialists. On the reverse side of that, elves and elven wizards should all be generalists or sorcerers.

    The thought first struck me when I was reading about how the College of Sorcery and looking at the map of the school. I was thinking to myself- why wouldn't you need to declare a major when you went here? That's what we do, as humans- we usually require our students to declare themselves as specializing in one particular sphere of study. Of course, a wizard majoring in Transmutation would study some in other departments- those schools would be complimentary to the Transmutation theory they were learning and applying. Even so, their studies would be focused in a partiular direction.

    I felt that humans have a natural tendancy to focus and dwell. We aren't immortal, unlike the sidhe, so we necessarily pick and choose what is most important to us. Pushing all humans into the specialist schools represents this tendancy of humans that is consistantly shown across the gamut of fantasy games- the true advantage of humans is to work together and obsess well on learning things. I also liked the idea because it introduced another layer of rivalry. The various schools of magic would have a certain ammount of belief that their particular divison within the school was the most important branch of magic and would create rivalries between the various programs in the College. Likewise, there would be a great rivalry between those who studied the Anuirean approach to magic and those that approach magic through the lense of Khinasi philosophy. (One of my own home-brewed rules is having a similar College of Sorcery in the Khinasi lands in Mairada, not too far from the Temple of Rilni there, and having all human magic coming from one of these two schools, either directly or through an apprenticeship to someone who learned the teachings of one of these two schools.)

    It also made sense to me as far as the setting goes, since Birthright is supposed to be a low-magic setting. Requiring all human wizards to be specialists would limit their access to magic, making the job of a wizard all that more challenging. This, I felt, would also help give human magic (and, more generally, the Birthright setting) a distinct feel when it comes to magic.

    Elven sorcerers (representing the natural call of meibhaigl the sidhe felt) or the generalist wizards (the refinement of the magic that came with the fusion of these nature spirits with the divine essenses) would represent the other approach. Like humans, I feel that the divine blood should create some difference between the "normal" sidhe and those who descend from the heirs to Diesmaar. Because of that, non-blooded sidhe should be limited to the sorcerer class, much as non-blooded humans are limited to the magician class. It would allow for "natural" elven wielders of meibhaigl to still have much greater talent and potential than non-blooded human meddlers in the Ars Magica, but would also make the blooded wizards among them more important.

    The generalist wizard should be an exclusively blooded elven thing. It represents both the greater degree of control a sidhe with the divine essence in him can wield, as well as creating a more flexible and wholistic approach to magic that fits with the elven model more than the human model. It would take time to master the various theories and approaches to harnessing meibhaigl, and it would make sense that only one who had both an innate sense of the stuff and nearly limitless time could fully comprehend and appreciate the contradictions implicit in opposed schools of magic.

    Anyways, that's just what I've always thought on the matter. If anyone's still working on the project, I thought I'd put my two bits foreward on that.
    **************************************
    "My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
    And every tongue brings in a several tale,
    And every tale condemns me for a villain."

    -William Shakespeare, Richard III (Act 5, Scene 3)

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