The Sanctum

***"I fear not the mage who has cast one spell a thousand times; I fear the mage who has cast a thousand spells once."***

## The Sanctum

### Founding Date

12th of Desnus, Year 10 DR (Dwarven Rule)

## Synopsis

The Sanctum, or more specifically referred to as the Magician’s Guild, is a conclave of arcane spellcasters of all stripes and all types. It is currently the second smallest of the guilds in member count; beaten in this regard only by the Mystic’s Circle. Despite this, the Sanctum is the most racially diverse of the guilds and harbors a wide variety of species in their ranks.

The Sanctum was formed near the inception of Edyn by the many displaced mages from Highfell and other regions. These mages made their value self evident to the founders of Edyn; providing magic for constructing buildings, food, roads and just about anything that the people would ask for. However, upon forming their own guild, many of these mages became much more prudish with the application of their magic for the common man.

## Function

The primary role of the Sanctum is the expansion of knowledge in general; but primarily focused towards expanding the many fields of the arcane arts. It accepts anyone with a propensity for or a demonstrated willingness and ability to learn these arts; as such, it tends to admit members at much younger ages than the other guilds.

While training new members is an important task for the guild, it is also a laborious task that some in the guild are loath to contribute to. What many consider to be the primary function of the guild, however, is magical research; a high source of competition within the guild.

Lastly, the Sanctum expects its members to contribute to society with their magic in order to improve the public opinion of mages. The Sanctum sells magical services like usages of teleports and the casting of powerful enhancement spells, and it offers simple services like the identification of magical items. It also opens many of its libraries to the public, although not all of them.

## Institutional Culture

Within the Sanctum, one’s value and institution standing are determined by magical skill more than anything else, be it managerial effectiveness, people skills, business sense or even common sense. With such a monofocus present in the guild, competition is very high at almost every quadrant of the guild. Although, while many exceptional mages rise to the top, many have much to learn of simpler things once they get there as many mages find themselves ill suited to the work of leading and working with others.

The Sanctum has no guildmaster. Instead, it has a Council of Esoterics governed by archmages who excel beyond all others in the usage of specific schools and spheres of magic. These archmages are considered of a higher status than other archmages, and must defend their position rigorously against potential challengers.

Below the Council are three Houses to which all other members are organized into; the House of Sparrows to which new members are assigned to, the House of Owls which does the bulk of the managerial and magical research work of the guild, and House of Eagles which embarks on long distance missions and on-site research assignments.

## The Sanctum’s Tower

The guildhall is a massive, hexagonal tower rising high into the sky. However, despite how big the tower appears, it only has six floors. All floors above the sixth exist in a massive demiplane that stretch onwards and upwards in a mess of maze-like hallways that are difficult to traverse. At the tower’s center is an anti-gravity chamber that can take one up or down the tower in nearly an instant. However, the tower is warded against most forms of teleportation magic; attempting such is not advised as several layers of countermeasures exist to thwart attempts to do so, such as teleport tracers and traps.

## The Council of Esoterics

The Sanctum’s internal structure is one of pure magocracy. One’s position, value and relevance within the walls of the guild are almost entirely based on magical talent in disregard of all else. No where else is this leading ideology more clear than at the very top of the guild; the prestigious and mysterious Council of Esoterics.

The Council serves as the highest authority on magic within the city of Edyn and consists of a single archmage of every school and sphere of magic that falls under the purview of the guild. These archmages are considered the absolute best within their field in the entire city and are of a higher rank than the other archmages within the guild. As a result, the archmages of the Council fiercely guard their positions from challengers and are infamous in the guild for using their positions to stifle competition to themselves, making it even more difficult for others to rise in rank without exceptional talent and dedication.

While the Council of Esoterics is the head of the guild, their involvement in guild affairs is often not felt by the everyday members at all, as the members of the Council are primarily focused on expanding their particular expertise and ferociously guarding their position. They technically have absolute authority over the running of the school, but their primary activities involve discussing and deciding upon different research pursuits for the guild as a whole and using their positions to stifle and delay the training of potential rivals who might challenge them. In general, duties of running the mundane portions of the guild are passed onto the House of Owls while the Council focuses on ‘more pressing matters.’

The Council of Esoterics is also well known for its general dislike of sorcerers and other ‘natural’ magic users, seeing their abilities as lesser than those whose magic comes from training and learning. While this opinion is not held by all its members, it is one of the majority and leads to many prejudiced rulings; ironically serving as some of the few publicly visible actions of the Council. Sorcerers of exceptional talent or repute within the guild can expect to be granted the least lucrative research positions by the Council of Esoterics directly, as well as other forms of poor treatment.

## The House of Sparrows

The House of Sparrows is the starting position for all new members to the guild. A Sparrow, as they’re called, is expected to learn and study magic until they reach some level of mastery and are deemed worthy to move on to either the House of Owls or the House of Eagles; depending on their skill sets.

To become an Eagle, a candidate must complete several missions alongside an active Eagle and receive a recommendation from one that the House of Owls accepts as valid. Becoming an Owl is much more difficult, however, as Sparrows must compete for a spot as the apprentice of one of the archmage Owls and, from there, prove their capability during their apprenticeship; a task easier said than done.

## The House of Owls

The House of Owls is the research, development and management wing of the guild. Primarily staffed by archmages of lower rank than those that have seats in the Council and their own personal apprentices, the Owls have the most responsibilities of all the Houses; most would say they have more of a hand to play in running the guild than even the Council.

The bulk of the guild’s archmages reside within this House, and the representative for the Sanctum to the High Council of Edyn tends to be a member of the House of Owls chosen from among themselves, unless the Council of Esoterics deems a matter important enough to override them and elect a representative from amongst themselves to represent the guild; this is a rare occurrence, however.

Owls are responsible for training members of the House of Sparrows, as well as for assigning them either to the House of Owls or the House of Eagles when they are ready to rise in rank. They are also expected to bring promising archmage candidates up to the Council of Esoterics, though often the Council either delays the process, intentionally or simply out of negligence, or simply hands the responsibility back to the House of Owls to dictate what trials a candidate must endure to gain their title.

In addition to this, Owls are also expected to assign missions and research tasks to members of the House of Eagles and House of Sparrows, as well as check in on their progress. Lastly, Owls must perform their own research to broaden their field and maintain records of the various books, scrolls, magical items and artifacts that the guild is in possession of. They also tend to be the most adventurer facing portion of the guild, typically in charge of distributing missions and payment on the guild’s behest.

## The House of Eagles

The House of Eagles is the more proactive wing of the guild. Formed by Rektor Schmitt; the man who’d go on to create the Adventurer’s Society becoming disillusioned with the Sanctum, the House of Eagles is tasked with missions outside of the guild and often outside of the city. Members travel to perform on-site research, collect important items, reagents and artifacts for the guild, and deal with problems like renegade guild members and general threats to mages that pop up around the continent.

Eagles, as they’re called, often lead teams of Sparrows and receive their orders from the archmages of the House of Owls; although the Council occasionally calls on their services to complete especially dangerous tasks. They tend to specialize in combat and reconnaissance magics; the few archmages who are among them being some of the best in Edyn at their trades. Council archmages, as a result, often fear the potential of members of the House of Eagles and seek ways to restrict them or impede their progress. Likewise, members of the House of Eagles tend to be fiercely competitive and seek to dethrone sitting members of the Council through grand deeds and accomplishments.

The most competitive amongst the Eagles are their many sorcerers, who often feel personally slighted by the Council and their throttling of their ilk. When a sorcerer catches the eye of the Council, they often intervene in their normal training and promote them to the House of Eagles prematurely, regardless of their skill or where they are in their studies. This serves to stifle many young sorcerers before they can receive proper training and leads to many performing poorly or failing to keep up with the well trained and more seasoned Eagles. A good number of sorcerers, however, rise to this challenge, and strive to succeed despite the Council’s meddling. A handful have even done well enough to force the Council to begrudgingly recognize them as archmages.

Eagles often find themselves coordinating with adventurers out in the field and tend to rely on them for protection. The most powerful Eagles, however, tend to also be adventurers themselves and occasionally sport competent martial training to complement their magical abilities.

## Notable Characters

* Monica Clearwater
* Ruth Hedger