Help me understand mage organizations

[tindertwiggy]

Hi, I have been away during some key mage-plots in recent years and I am trying to catch up on what my mage character should know and how he should react. I have tried to do so naturally as things come along but there are some significant holes in my knowledge. I hope to rectify that here.

Can someone explain or link me to how the trust/orders/AMM/Magisterium/houses works now? I know the trust was dismantled and houses were put in, and there is an AMM that historically was for lectures/academics, but how does it all fit together now? Or, specifically, what is the material difference my character would see between old and new visimontium?

What would be the reason behind this change that my character would hear discussed and debated on the visi taverns and circles? On the ground, how are the houses materially different from the orders?

Did a lot of mages die in some world plot or didn't they? Should I be roleplaying like Visimontium has suffered a terrible blow to it's magical talent pool? Were any specialty magics or magical lines lost? If a mageling comes and asks "how do I become a [insert mage/ams flavor here]"/, what should I say? Should I be mourning the loss of friends or aquaintances?

Can someone explain it to me like you would to a golden retriever who has just come back from a walk and found his house remodelled and likely some family members missing or added?

[SaraEF]

There's an FAQ post here which may help answer some of this.

Can someone explain or link me to how the trust/orders/AMM/Magisterium/houses works now?

The Academy of Mortal Magic is the organisation you join to get access to AMS.

Houses are sub-divisions of the AMM, which are mostly (but not necessarily) divided along the same lines as old Orders. You don't have to join one anymore, where you did in the Trust.

The Magisterium is a separate entity from the AMM, and could be considered the "mage guild" of the current era, if you wanted to be reductionist about it. You can read more about the Magisterium here.

There's an additional layer of confusion upon this because for about a year, the Magisterium was considered to be the ruling/directing council of the AMM. This was subject to an explicit Event DM team retcon, which you can read about here. There may still be some places referring to the Magisterium under the old terms.

Or, specifically, what is the material difference my character would see between old and new visimontium?

Some districts have changed names - the District of the Trust is now the Mortal Magic District, and so on. Some towers there are used by some Houses, and others aren't. The Academy building itself has been renovated and expanded, and the nearby apartment block has been replaced by the Academy's central library.

A lot more activity in Visimontium is focused around the Academy District, rather than the (previously named) District of the Trust.

What would be the reason behind this change that my character would hear discussed and debated on the visi taverns and circles?

Andrinor left during the Year of the Red Star, and his mantles passed to Andria. Andria has different ideas about how to administer magic, notably that it should be more open and available. She mandated that access to advanced techniques (ie, AMS) should no longer be gated by membership of an Order.

On the ground, how are the houses materially different from the orders?

To be a member of the Trust, you had to join an Order. This is not true of the Academy, where joining a House is entirely optional. Generally it's much easier to join the Academy that it ever was to join an Order.

Besides the lack of a captive audience, any differences between Houses and Orders are up to the House in question. Red Manor Magi is pretty much exactly like the old Red Order, as far as I know.

Did a lot of mages die in some world plot or didn't they? Should I be roleplaying like Visimontium has suffered a terrible blow to it's magical talent pool? Were any specialty magics or magical lines lost?

A plot led to a particular IC conclusion on this, then a subsequent statement was made which specified a different conclusion. The events described occured during the Year of the Red Star. You can read the official final version of the fallout of this here.

If a mageling comes and asks "how do I become a [insert mage/ams flavor here]"/, what should I say?

Join the Academy of Mortal Magic. There's an open event for that purpose the first Sunday of every month.

[Hamlet]

Adding to SaraEF's comments:

Can someone explain or link me to how the trust/orders/AMM/Magisterium/houses works now?

For a very short answer, the Avlis Wiki has been recently updated.

https://wiki.avlis.org/Mortal_Magic#Aca ... rtal_Magic
https://wiki.avlis.org/Category:AMM_Houses
https://wiki.avlis.org/Guild:Magisterium

Did a lot of mages die in some world plot or didn't they?

The events described occurred during the Year of the Red Star. You can read the official final version of the fallout of this here.

& more on this topic (statements, opinions, stories):
Avlis Taverns > City of Visimontium > Statement on the Monolith
Character Journals > The Monolith : Those that were Lost

[tindertwiggy]

So the red star killed 98% of Negaria, then was undone by time travel, and people remember both timelines? If my PCs did not participate directly in this plot would they remember their death as the star fell then being alive again? Or would they just remember that the red star was defeated?

Sorry, stepping outside of unidirectional causality makes my head hurt. Clarification is appreciated.

[Ronan]

So the red star killed 98% of Negaria, then was undone by time travel, and people remember both timelines? If my PCs did not participate directly in this plot would they remember their death as the star fell then being alive again? Or would they just remember that the red star was defeated?

Sorry, stepping outside of unidirectional causality makes my head hurt. Clarification is appreciated.

https://www.avlis.org/viewtopic.php?p=1470504#p1470504

[tindertwiggy]

Thanks! So my PC who was not present for either event would remember a lost day in which he died/the world ended? Or would he just remember the overiding timeline? The post you link is helpful, but aimed at people who took part in one or both events. I am wis 8 and need it explicitly spelled out for people who did not make either event.

If I ask Joana or Joe NPC on the street, would they remember dying?

[tindertwiggy]

Also, are several thousand or tens of thousands of mages still dead in the prevailing timeline?

It looks like 50,000 trust mages are still dead based on the monolith thread. Thanks.

My guess is that this has a significant and material effect on Visimontium? How many mages were there to begin with? I am looking on the Wiki and can't seem to find a population number. Are 4 in 5 mages now dead? 1 in 5?

[tindertwiggy]

Ok, I looked up populations on the Wiki and the population of Negaria is about 230 million. Can we assume 1 in 1000 negarians was a trust mage? In that case 50,000 deaths would be about 22% of trust mages. Does this work?

[Ambrosia]

unless something changed recently, exact percentages were not made a hard and fast thing to avoid associated headaches, but yes, there was a significant reduction in Alive NPCs Who Used to Be Mages. There were significant changes made so that players can more easily unlock advanced magic and other cool things, and there were changes made to reduce the bloat of paperwork IC to reflect a smaller player base ooc.

Also, unless something changed recently, you can elect to have your PCs remember/not remember whatever you feel is appropriate for your character. For example, my dragon hatchling was napping and missed all of it and is just fine now that there's been no harm to her hoard. Another PC of mine remembers both timelines vividly. Weird Things Happened so whatever you feel comfortable with for your characters is just fine.

[tindertwiggy]

Thanks, I don't really need the ooc reason. This is more an attempt to understand how I should respond IC.

Can we nail down a rough official ratio of missing. If it is 1 in 100 obviously it's not really noticeable. 1 in 5 is a very different story. At what point is there a significant effect on the AMS pool? Even if the death effect distributed randomly, at 1 in 5 mages dead there is a chance that an AMS line was wiped out entirely or very nearly entirely. For example, the white order bore a particularly heavy burden. Is Chyjri now the last white necromancer?

This is a very real issue my PC would consider bringing up as a member of the Magisterium to prevent the loss of magical knowledge. It is also an excellent RP hook. If the numbers support an initial "oh shit" observation.

[tindertwiggy]

It is a fascinating thing to think about from a lot of angles. How does the market for artificed and magical goods look now, with potentially a huge blow to it's production capacity? Are prices skyrocketing? How is politics panning out? Did Visi lose 25% of ots military mages, making it a potentially juicy target?tl If so my PC should be scrambling to ensure there are allies (such as recently saved dragons) who will agree to help protect the city. Are two kurathene fiefs with an unsteady truce where one side's martial might was balanced by the other's magical might now about to go to war? Just the death of a few key high ranking mages might tip something like that off, let alone a very large number of mage soldiers.

Like I said it is fascinating and a great prompt for IC actions. My PC sits on the Magisterium, tasked with regulating mortal magic, and I want to be proactive about some of these things but I can't judge how much he thinks he should be worried without some numbers to grasp.

[Sephira]

Ok, I looked up populations on the Wiki and the population of Negaria is about 230 million. Can we assume 1 in 1000 negarians was a trust mage? In that case 50,000 deaths would be about 22% of trust mages. Does this work?

unless something changed recently, exact percentages were not made a hard and fast thing to avoid associated headaches, but yes, there was a significant reduction in Alive NPCs Who Used to Be Mages. There were significant changes made so that players can more easily unlock advanced magic and other cool things, and there were changes made to reduce the bloat of paperwork IC to reflect a smaller player base ooc.

I have been treating it as one massive death saving throw and the probability of rolling a 1 on a d20, putting it at roughly 1 in 20 mages, or 5%. Significant but not world-breaking in scope. To your later point about brain drain, I would recommend speaking to the Magisterium about it or peruse their archives, as this very point did not go unnoticed during their investigation.

One part of the problem of nailing down specific numbers is that we would have to define not just how many Trust mages there were, but then that number would inform how many mages there are as a proportion of Negaria's population. Which would mean defining how often people are born with magical talent, how many end up in the Trust, how many end up in the Web, and how many strike out on their own. This wouldn't be an insurmountable problem to solve, except that one of the things we've been struggling with post-EE is a lot of very old lore and statistics that haven't been updated since they were first written. Meanwhile a lot of history and world events have happened in the meantime that would have had massive effects on the world like you describe. I am hopeful the Team will be able to revise and realign this lore into consistency. (Shout-out to Lycanthropy and eternal_time!) I hope this provides some context and goes some way to explain the reasoning behind the ambiguity.

You're welcome to use my estimate IC but in terms of an Official Team Stance it will need to remain ambiguous in case the math ends up being off.