World Building help

[Cpt_Archer]

ello Fellow GMs!

So this my first post on the forum, so sorry if this is in the wrong place.

It's wordy, and if you would like to get the gist of the problem, scroll down.

Anyway, I am a relatively inexperienced GM (only ran 1 game before for a few months of the old Firefly RPG and didn't do an amazing job. Not horrible but not great). I have played 1 full in person campaign of the Star Wars d20 RPG, and additionally have done some 1-shots and used to be quite active on some of the old play by post games (although a lot did not use dice). In a lot of ways, I am totally unqualified, but my friends have NEVER played in person and I want to get a game going.

Now that the unnecessary introduction is out of the way, I wanted to solicit some help on building my campaign setting. I am planning to run the old Invasion module from Dragon #309/Dungeon #100, concerning a Githyanki invasion into the campaign world.

So far, I've done an odd melding of Inside out and Outside in. I have ideas about the major important countries/empires/military powers, some ideas about the world history and mythology, etc. But two points are sticking for me:

1) The Deities of the world, which is its own separate post.

2) Magic. Age old GM question but here goes. What I am thinking with magic is that it is controlled by 8 continent spanning magic universities, that basically act as a magic guild. They lisence, certify, and train wizards and in turn take a cut/set rates/hire out groups of battle mages. In turn, they also hunt down rogue or evil wizards- but they also hunt down unlicensed wizards because those people are a threat to their power.

Their tuition isn't cheap and neither is a squad of battle mages, so they also in turn have become the continent's banks and banking system.

What this has led me to think is that the criminal underworld has a strong connection to illegal magic. Basically, who else could forge the proper certifications/bribe people at the universities, etc. to create fake credentials for wizards who didn't go to the university. This also explains why a Thieves Guild or what have you could exist- governments would have an incentive to allow an organization which got them below market rate wizards.

Where I run in to trouble is sorcerers. Part of my world's history is that a few thousand years ago, dragons ruled the world (having driven out the former Ithlids who ruled it)- as such, many people can do basic cantrips, or even cast 1, say, up to 3rd level spell once per day.

But sorcerers present a problem. They both challenge the guild structure of the wizards and they are unregistered and therefore uncontrolled (to an extent) magic users. So... logically, the universities would want to kill or neutralize them. Which seems a level of evil I'm not sure I want the world to have, but maybe it could work? (The more I type, the more I think maybe I should make the universities like the Catholic Church under the Borgias- super corrupt, s&@*ty, and decadent. Hell, wizards could be in a place where they are supposed to be celibate so they don't make any sorcerers)

Secondly, the whole war/kingdom question. Wouldn't there be a kingdom that tried to take in sorcerers? Or multiple kingdoms? A squad of sorcerers with fireball is basically an artillery battery! So... how would all that work?

So, that's what I'm trying to figure out. Should I make my world that dark, and how do I deal with the fact that there are some who would protect sorcerers?

There are some magic level questions I also have (Why doesn't every castle have a permanent alarm spell on it? It's 2500 GP. A rich kingdom would have most rooms warded. If so, how can the characters break in if needed?) but this is the main one.

TL;DR- Campaign setting based on the Holy Roman Empire, takes place circa 1480-1520. Running Invasion from Dragon 309. Wizards are trained at universities who have grown rich and powerful by acting as the guild that controls magic. How would they handle sorcerers? Would they just murder them? That seems logical. Would a kingdom or kingdoms protect them to have a group of battle mages on hand?

Should I make these universities like the very corrupt, pre-Reformation Catholic Church? Or is all of this murdering etc. a bit dark?

[Bob Bob Bob]

Well, how can anyone tell the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer? If the sorcerer carries around a book filled with scribbles and spend an hour every morning reading it, how would anyone be able to tell the difference? Maybe have them max bluff, to be safe. Presumably that's another thing the thieves guild does, give sorcerers a place to get paid for their magical abilities. Rent 'em out as wizards. Would also let the sorcerer explain why they have less spells (can't get access to the good stuff) and why they won't share spells (guild secrets).

As for the country that took in sorcerers, wouldn't it just lead to a war with the wizard's guild (and any countries they had enough sway in to force to join in)? Presumably it would instead be a secret war to gather as many sorcerers as they could get their hands on so they didn't have to rely on guild magicians. Much like nuclear weapons in the real world, where each side would be racing to either a high enough level sorcerer or some critical mass of sorcerers so they could reveal them to the world.

As for the magic level, that's up to you. The alarm example though? Terrible idea. Alarm on the vault and the king's bedchamber? Sure. Alarm on anywhere a servant needs to go through? Useless. The password needs to be spoken, so anyone nearby can hear it. Maids, servants, and other staff probably have a fairly high turnover and there's no mechanism to update the password. So there would be retired staff (too old, replaced by their kids, etc.) that would still know all of the passwords. The mental version would only work for the caster, so unless the mage was on staff it wouldn't work, and at best the mage would be on retainer (because the guild wouldn't let the kingdom "own" a wizard like that). Also that would only work until they eventually died, and the new guy wouldn't be connected to the alarms at all.

That might actually be a great use for sorcerers though, having one at the heart of the castle as a magical defense, who also cast all the alarm spells set to mentally ping them if someone passes through. Once they're high enough level to cast permanency you don't even need it though, since the spell would last long enough. Imagine it like a security guard, hooked up to motion detectors they could put literally anywhere they felt like which would trigger a silent alarm only they could hear, and that they could give permission to bypass. And the password could change daily, since it would be a new casting of alarm.

As for how "dark" to go, that's a conversation for you and your players. Some might not like it, some might not care, some might prefer it. The conversation is the Lines and Veils conversation. The short version is, you get everyone together and ask "And what do you absolutely never want to see or have referenced, even in passing, in the game (Lines, from "a line not to cross")" and "And what are you alright with references to, but you don't want to see acted out at the table (Veils, from "it's alright behind a veil")". Your players might be fine with the idea of the wizard's guild hunting down and killing sorcerers. They might only be fine if it's done off-screen. They might not want it at all. (nothing, Veil, and Line, respectively) But unless they're on this messageboard, we can't tell you that.

[Blymurkla]

Hm. I personally dislike the idea of magic colleges monopolizing the use of magic in fantasy games like Pathfinder. It's hard for me to nail down exactly why, but one thing is that a wizards collage/guild is hard to interact with by all players put the one that plays a wizard. But, hey, it's your game and you should do what you like!

Some thoughts though.

The 8 magic universities, are they in competition? Sure, they might have formed a cartel two keep tuition fees up (although, if I was dean of a magic university, high tuition fees might not interest me as much as world domination), but even so these different universities will probably seek to undermine each other. That can severely limit their interest in, for example, cooperate to find unlicensed wizards. What are a few interloping wizards compare to your rival university gaining power in kingdom x?

Secondly, you a bit too evil for the universities to actually hunt down sorcerers. My first thought was - hey, is every university good? You have 8, make them different!

And continuing with sorcerers. Perhaps they are rare. Not necessarily exceedingly so, but the trained wizards might still outnumber them significantly. A very important point in this is that sorcery can't be taught. So while a sorcerer might rival a trained and licensed wizard for a specific gig, that sorcerer doesn’t rival the monopoly on taught magic possessed my the universities.

[Divinitus]

Who said anyone takes in the Sorcerors? Who says they don't form a rebel Sorceror-supremacy cult, much like the Mutant-supremacy groups in X-Men?

It's very easy to imagine, when speaking of such things, that the Sorcerors, after being persecuted for so long, grow into fanatics who view all non-inherent magic as evil and tools of 'lesser beings'.

[Cpt_Archer]

First of all, sorry for it now looking like I posted the same thing twice. I kind of did, but on a different forum, and then just copy pasted the thing over here, and I guess the mods moved the previous question.

Thanks for all the advice, BTW.

Blymurkla: That was actually a component I forgot to mention, but you basically nailed it. I actually imagine there to be an intense rivalry between the universities, to the point where the point of assassination. This actually really helps in an invasion setting. There are no Elminister level wizards around to solve the problem. And you're right- there isn't much reason for the universities to get to worked up about rumors of a first-level sorcerer (unless they are standing in the middle of the town square where the university is, openly defying them). That doesn't mean higher level sorcerers have nothing to worry about, but it does mean that whole sale child and adolescent slaughter may not be going on.