From the Mageholm Catalogue, 36th
edition (Amanda Riddleweaver editor):

One Wizard's life is filled with labor and
loneliness, yet many wizards? lives may be
blessed with comfort and companionship.
So thought the founders of our Mages?
Guild long centuries past, and so think we
who gather at Mageholm today. But this
Guild has grown since its origins in Glen
Morris, and this guide is one of the results
? a brief summary of our governance and
history, that the Mages? Guilds members
and friends may better appreciate the
benefits the Guild brings to our lives.

Let it first be said that this Guild is not a
political body -- at least, no more than it
must be. True, our delegate sits on the
Masterguild which shares the rule of
Menwyn with the Lord Margrave. True,
too, that the standards by which our Circle
of Examiners measures magical skill
are now recognized, if not always honored,
across the Five Kingdoms. Our
founders foresaw none of this, wishing
only a quiet gathering place for study,
conversation, and good ale. In this area we
differ from many guilds. Grimclave?s Free
Arcanium has had much to say about the
governing of Genwold since the overthrow
of Genwold?s ruling house and the establishment
of the Enclave; two of the Free
Arcanium?s senior members now sit on
that council. And the Countess Barbaraap-
Rowland, Trenwych?s delegate to the
Council of the Five Kingdoms, attained her
seat after rising to leadership of the Mages
of Barglass, her home guild.

Yet from purely social beginnings, this
Guild has blossomed into a many-faceted
institution. More than 600 annual volumes
of The Quill Arcane have been published
to date, adding immeasurably to our
understanding of magic. Novices and
veteran mages alike learn specific
spellcraft techniques in Guild seminars.
City-bound members now have access to
spell materials found only in remote and
dangerous parts of the Five Kingdoms.
Our bastion of Mageholm itself, built when
the Guild moved from Glen Morris to
Menwyn, offers study and research facilities
made less costly through Guild sponsorship.
And on the rare occasions when
the membership has combined its powers
against a common danger, the power of
that joining has answered the need.

These activities, however, are neither
carried on nor organized by chance. It has
required careful organization and leadership
to reach the eminent position we
hold, which is how the five Circles now
active within the Mages? Guild came to
exist. Though we do not require all Guild
members to become part of a Circle ? nor
prevent them from joining more than one
? the majority of our members do choose
to take on the responsibilities of Circle
affiliation. As a result, rarely has the Guild
needed a formal selection process to fill
the five general Circles, though each Circle
does elect an administrative council from
within its ranks. A sixth Circle, that of the
Circle of Seven (named for the number of
its members), governs the affairs of the
Guild as a whole. A brief description of
each of these Circles, with further information
on our Guild, follows.

The Five Circles
The Circle of Examiners
Mages applying for Guild membership
and unaffiliated spell-casters seeking professional
credentials are the province of
the Circle of Examiners. On the request of
the applicant, a board of 3 Examiners
convenes to review his or her training,
knowledge, and experience in order to
determine the level of mastery at which
the mage is professionally competent to
practice. The examination normally takes
three to four hours and involves both oral
questioning and actual demonstration,
though written tests are sometimes used
as well. Prospective members pay for the
testing only if they are eventually rejected;
outside subjects are charged 500 gp for
the service. Exceptions to this policy are
made for tests requested by city officials
as part of a legal inquiry or dispute; these
are charged to the government at a 20%
discount -- but the authorities frequently
turn around and collect the full 500 gp
from the party that loses the case.

Following the examination, the Examiners
review the subject's performance
and issue a certificate of proficiency. City
law considers these "licenses" valid for
2 years from the date of issue, though
Mages are not required to possess them in
order to practice their arts. For its part,
the Guild regards the results as permanent
until updated, and once tested, mages may
request reexaminations as often as every
6 months at a reduced fee. Members pay
200 gp for retesting; nonmembers are
assessed 300 gp. It should be noted that
Examiners receive 150 gp for administering
initial reviews and 50 gp each for
subsequent tests. Surplus revenues go to
the Guild treasury.

Certification offers a practicing mage
three principle advantages. Under Menwyn
?s law (and that of many other jurisdictions),
certification protects the mage from
legal reprisals involving services within his
documented ability to perform. While he
is not immune to legal action, certification
places additional burdens of proof on the
complaining party and limits the mage?s
liability should he lose the case. At the
same time, a certified mage can quite
legitimately ask a higher price for his
services than one who lacks Guild documentation,
and many who deal with spellcasters
routinely ask to see their
Examiners? scrolls before entering into
business arrangements. Finally, the certificate
is often of value as a means of professional
introduction for a traveling mage,
particularly one seeking access to research
materials -- though mere certification
does not carry the same weight as full
membership, in this regard.

Besides conducting boards of review, the
Circle of Examiners also has charge of
membership screening and of assessing
the relative power and difficulty of newly
researched spells. The former area, while
not insignificant, is not especially demanding;
only about one in eight applicants for
membership is rejected, and in most cases
the decision is quite clearly based on bad
character. The latter duty is far less frequently
invoked but of great importance,
as care must be taken to accurately measure
the potency of what is often highly
unfamiliar magic.

The nature of its responsibilities makes
the Circle of Examiners the most time-consuming
of the five where its members
are concerned. Most Examiners are fulltime
residents of Menwyn, and the majority
are of at least 9th-level proficiency,
though mages of as little as 4th-level proficiency
are often accredited to perform
low-level and apprentice examinations. A
Guild member must have been affiliated
with the Guild for at least a year before
joining the Circle and must pass a special
examination before being authorized to
participate on boards of review. Examiner
status, however, carries sufficient prestige
that there is no shortage of candidates --
which is fortunate, as the demand for the
Circle?s services is high.

The Circle of Scholars
The Circle of Scholars is the educational
arm of the Guild, functioning in many
ways like a small college of magic -- which
in fact it closely resembles. The Scholars?
purview includes teaching and tutoring
(sometimes on an individual level, but
frequently in group seminars as well),
advanced magical research, and publication
of The Quill Arcane, the Guild?s academic
journal. Two full levels of Mageholm
itself are assigned to the Circle?s use, one
consisting of classrooms and office space,
and one containing the Guild?s groupdirected
research facilities. Both areas
receive almost constant use, as young
mages learn basic repertoires and more
skilled spell-casters begin to select and
train in specialized fields of magic. Too, it
is rare for the Circle of Scholars not to
have some unusual artifact or branch of
dweomercraft under study. Currently,
their investigations of the theories which
govern magical scrying promises breakthroughs
in the fashioning of crystal balls
and in the development of new scrying
tools. A past study of monsters with
vision-related attack capabilities enabled
the creation of devices to thwart such
gaze weapons. And the Circle now eagerly
awaits the return of an expedition which
may have found a highly unusual rod from
the trove of the eccentric mage, Quardian.
Some of its members hope that study of
the rod will confirm obscure tales of Quardian
's discoveries in the field of antimagical
manipulation.

Admission to Guild-sponsored classes is a
privilege of membership, but many of the
teaching mages also admit tuition-paying
outsiders and most also assess fees to
cover materials. Private lessons held in
Mageholm between individual Guild members
are another matter, with all monetary
arrangements handled between teacher
and student. The Guild does charge a fee
in these cases for use of its classrooms --
typically 40 gp per hour for a private
chamber, though larger rooms may be had
by advance reservation for as much as 150
gp per hour. The student almost always
pays this fee; students in a group may
divide the cost among themselves.

A semidemocratic process usually determines
the direction of the Scholars' group
research, with Circle members submitting
proposed projects to a panel of reviewers
which offers the most promising to a vote
of the full Circle. Not all studies are so well
anticipated, though. Circumstances sometimes
divert the interest of special ?task
forces? into unexpected areas, the case of
Quardian?s rod being an example. The
Circle has also occasionally accepted commissions
from outside clients to undertake
large-scale research or unravel complex
magical puzzles. Chief of these clients is
Menwyn's Lord Margrave, though no less
than three of the Five Kingdoms have
asked for the Guild's aid over the centuries.
(Reports of a powerful ?ripple? in the
fabric of magic have recently arrived from
widely separated areas of the Five Kingdoms,
and it is yet unclear whether the
Circle of Scholars will investigate the
matter on its own behalf or accept an
offer from Osdain's royal house to underwrite
the study.)

Like Examiners, most Scholars are veteran
Mages residing here in the city, and
many of them derive considerable wealth
from private and Guild-sponsored teaching.
But money is hardly their only motivation,
as proven by the expense poured into
the annual publication of The Quid
Arcane. The Guild?s journal of magical
scholarship draws manuscripts and monographs
from across the colonized lands,
brought by private couriers, merchant
caravans, message birds, and even teleportation.
Perhaps strangest of all was the
arrival some years past of an article carried
by a stone golem sent all the way
from eastern Trenwych. (The golem
remained in Mageholm's library until an
acceptance letter was placed in its hands.)
All submissions are reviewed by a board
of readers, which selects those to be published
and sometimes corresponds with
authors in order to authenticate technical
points. Each annual issue must then be
hand-copied for distribution to over a
thousand subscribers throughout the Five
Kingdoms, not to mention local Guild
membership. The quantity of material
submitted often startles lay readers, who
expect mages to guard their secrets jealously,
but the prestige associated with
publication has overcome many scruples.
It is true, though, that as many wizards
decline to contribute as those who elect to
share their wisdom.

Map by David C. Sutherland III

The Circle of Archivists
Once The Quill Arcane has been published,
it and all other books and scrolls
coming into the Guild's possession pass
into the hands of the Circle of Archivists,
which maintains the Guild's extensive
library of both magical and mundane
literature. In truth, the Archivists also
assist the Scholars in the production of
their journal once its contents have been
determined, since it is they who train and
supervise the small army of scribes and
copyists comprising the bulk of the Guild?s
permanent staff.

Though the Archivists are in large part
librarians, they must be somewhat more
in order to fully-serve the Guild. Since
enchanted tomes form a large part of the
Guild?s collection, the Archivists must be
intimately familiar with the many forms of
mystic runes and symbols ? and the
means of preventing them from exploding
in a researcher?s face. They must know all
manner of peculiar and ancient alphabets,
and the various languages of magic both
living and dead (including the script of
illusionists, who operate a rival guild
across the square from Mageholm). And
they must know not only the contents of
the Guild?s library, but those of Menwyn?s
other major archives and of collections
spanning the Five Kingdoms, in order to
direct students to what may often be the
single source of some especially obscure
document or bit of knowledge

The demands of knowledge placed on
members of the Circle of Archivists may
explain why it is the smallest of the five
within the Guild, and these demands are
precisely the reasons why its leaders,
alone of all the Circles, draw full salaries.
While this might seem to give the Chief
Archivists certain undue advantages or
conflicts of interest in Guild governance,
in practice their time is too fully occupied
with archival matters for political complications
to arise. (Only once, in fact, has a
Chief Archivist simultaneously held the
title of Archmage, and that was during the
transfer of the Guild library following the
completion of Mageholm in C.Y. 169.)

This does not mean, however, that there
is no need for the junior members of the
Circle ? far from it. The staff of lay
scribes is talented but cannot, of course,
copy magical documents, and the two
senior archivists cannot staff the library
by themselves. Indeed, mages who join the
Archivists? Circle often learn enough in
their periodic terms as cataloging aides to
upgrade their proficiency certificates
before the Circle of Examiners afterward.
There have also been cases where junior
archivists have discovered previously
overlooked clues in little-used volumes,
and followed them into dangerous adventures
to recover powerful magical items or
important scholarly books. And it is
scarcely coincidence that, though they
may be less frequently used, the spell
books of Archivists are the most complete
of any in the Guild.

The Circle of Enchantment
Of all the work that goes on in Mageholm,
none is more central to a mage's life
than that of the Circle of Enchantment.
Members of this Circle are responsible for
a variety of services, including the acquisition
and stockpiling of spell components,
maintenance of a basic stock of potions
and other practical magical equipment,
and preparation of needed magical items
and other supplies to the order of the
Guild or its members. They also act as
custodians of the Guild?s open laboratories,
where any Guild member may conduct
personal research or craft magical objects
on payment of lab fees (presently 200 gp/
week, excluding special materials and
expert hirelings).

The majority of Enchantment's members,
unlike affiliates of other Circles, tend
not to reside permanently in Menwyn.
Rather, they are travelers and adventuring
mages who periodically pass through
Menwyn to turn over stocks of unusual
spell components and raw materials to the
Guild. Specific arrangements occasionally
differ, but in most cases the affiliate
receives 15% of the component?s value and
may retain a small quantity for personal
use. The remainder is placed in the Circle?s
stocks for sale to other mages (usually at
80% to 90% of retail), a system that provides
much of the capital needed to operate
other Guild activities. Where more
generous terms are offered, it is typically
because the affiliate has been sent to collect
a particular substance at the request
of a Circle or senior Guildmember.

The making of potions, dweomered
scrolls, and the simpler sorts of wands and
rings serves a slightly different but related
purpose, being as much a training exercise
as a profit-making endeavor. Two other
factors also figure into the equation. Those
who manufacture such items for Guild
stocks are often given time and materials
to pursue their own projects, and they
have -- particularly in the case of more
complex and powerful objects ? kept the
knowledge of the techniques of their
crafting from deteriorating into obscurity.
Although Enchantment members are not
above refining and improving these principles,
their approach to their work differs
greatly from that of the Scholars and
reflects a different set of priorities.

Even the locally based members of the
Circle of Enchantment do not confine their
work to Mageholm exclusively. They must
often venture into the city beyond its walls
to meet with and commission alchemists,
potters, and other artisans to carry on the
more mundane aspects of maintaining the
Guild's laboratories, and they are often
called to advise the Guild on financial
matters due to their familiarity with
Menwyn's marketplaces and economy.
Despite the often mundane nature of its
work, the Circle of Enchantment rarely
lacks for members and is the largest of the
five most of the time. The mobility of its
membership, however, compensates for its
numbers, and it wields no more influence
than any other Circle in Guild affairs.

The Circle of Mageholm
Last of the 5 Circles, but certainly not
least important to many members, is the
Circle of Mageholm, whose chief function
is the operation of the Guild?s club facilities
? bluntly, to act as innkeepers and
taverners. In fact, a small permanent staff
actually operates the bar and kitchen
areas on Mageholm?s ground floor, but
management and provisioning of the
Guild?s private club are entrusted to the
care of a full Circle. Other duties of the
Circle of Mageholm include formal management
of the Guild?s finances, maintaining
its membership rolls, and serving as its
public liaison for most general purposes.

It might be thought that this Circle,
being so completely a bureaucratic body,
would find it difficult to attract members
sufficient to carry on its business. Such
has not generally been the case. The quiet
routine of Mageholm's offices has proven
attractive to a former adventurer-Wizards
now retired from that life. Younger mages
have found themselves drawn to the leadership
opportunities created by our members
-- demands for the finest foods and
beverages. Several times each year, buyers
must be sent on extensive trips to acquire
new stocks of ale, wine and the like, which
must be brought back to Menwyn via
caravan. Still others have taken on diplomatic
posts of a sort, acting as Guild
spokesmen and negotiators in dealings
with other Guilds and governments across
the continent. In all these matters, a member
's purely magical ability is less important
than other skills, while many
assignments provide opportunities for
education and advancement.

The Circle of Seven
While the five general Circles conduct
the day-to-day affairs of the Guild, they
are much too preoccupied with their own
affairs to see to the governance of the
Guild as a whole. Such overall leadership
is the responsibility of the Circle of Seven,
which sets Guild policies, coordinates the
operations of the individual Circles, and is
the final arbiter of any disagreements or
disputes that arise within Mageholm.

The Circle of Seven is composed of one
delegate from the administrative council
of each Circle, plus two delegates elected
at large by the general membership (or as
much of it as can be polled within the twoweek
period allotted for such a balloting).
Circle delegates typically serve for twoyear
terms, while the at-large delegates
are elected to four-year terms staggered so
that one such delegate is up for election
every two years. There is no limit to the
number of terms an individual may hold
on the Circle of Seven, but few delegates
in Guild history have served for more than
eight years without interruption.

From within its ranks, the Circle of
Seven chooses one of its members to serve
as Archmage -- a term separate from that
of the common name for a wizard who
has reached the 18th level (Arch-Mage).
The Archmage is the chief officer of the
Circle of Seven and master of the Guild. A
second member is chosen to be the Legate,
who represents the Guild on Menwyn?s
Masterguild and thus plays a major role in
the city?s governance. Historically, Archmages
have tended to come from individual
Circle leadership, while Legates have
more often been elected at large. The
pattern doubtless stems in parts from the
Legate?s need to spend much time on non-
Guild business, while an Archmage can
more easily balance commitments to a
specific Circle with his duties as guildmaster.
(It should be noted in discussing the
Circle of 7 that all of its members are
required to be of at least the 9th level of
mastery, and that the average level of
mastery is usually closer to eleventh.)

The work of the Circle of Seven is far
from dramatic, being almost exclusively
administrative in character, and requires
its members to remain in Menwyn almost
constantly during their tenures. Indeed,
apartments in Mageholm are provided to
the Archmage and the Legate as much out
of necessity as out of respect for the offices.
Yet with the exception of the Legate,
members of the Circle rarely exercise
great political power. Rather, Archmages
guide the Guild in the directions of their
special magical interests, then only with
the agreement of the Circle of 7. In
this respect, the Guild has remained committed
to the spirit of its founding, valuing
its comforts rather than serving as a
means to power.

Guild membership
Mages desiring to become members of
the Guild have several options before
them. Individuals merely visiting Menwyn
may, with proof of membership in a
Mages' Guild elsewhere, pay a fee of 250
gp for a one-year visiting membership
which carries the privileges of admittance
to Mageholm and the use of Guild facilities
at member's rates. This fee can be prorated
to apply to a shorter period of time,
but is not normally extended for less than
a three-month period. It is also not renewable
for more than three years in any fiveyear
period and does not confer the right
to hold office in the Guild. Visiting members
rarely affiliate with a Circle. If they
do, they may join only the Circles of
Scholars or Archivists. Identified by a
silver badge, these members are usually
interested chiefly in the Guilds research
facilities and library, or in establishing a
"base of operations" while they are in
Menwyn.

Associate membership is available to
mages whose visits to Menwyn are more
regular or of longer duration -- and,
again, who are members of other guilds.
The fee for associate membership is 500
gp per year (prorated in a few cases for
six-month periods) and confers all the
privileges of visiting membership plus full
rights to Circle affiliation and subscription
to The Quill Arcane. Associate members,
however, still may not hold Guild office,
and their status is subject to review at
three-year intervals. At such time, they
may either be readmitted with associate
standings or be asked to become full members
(which may or may not affect their
status with their home guilds). Associates
wear electrum badges and are divided
among scholars who spend part of each
year in the city, political officials whose
business finds them frequently in
Menwyn, and adventuring mages who find
it necessary to retain Guild status in multiple
locations. (On rare occasions, associate
membership has been extended to such
adventurers without requiring guild status
elsewhere, but this is quite unusual and
requires the approval of both the Circle of
Mageholm and the Circle of Seven.) Unlike
visiting members, associate member candidates
much be tested by the Circle of
Examiners before being admitted.

Full membership in the Guild, which
carries all the privileges described in this
publication, carries a one-time initiation
fee of 1,000 gp and annual dues of 1,000
gp thereafter. Magical items or other valuables
may be accepted in lieu of the initiation
fee. The fee is sometimes waived in
return for service to the Guild; dues are
also waived for the Archmage while that
officer serves, and those of the Legate are
paid by the city government. Testing by
the Examiners is, of course, required, and
younger applicants often present letters of
recommendation from Guild members or
other respected mages. These letters,
though not required, are often most help
ful to prospective members and can be of
assistance to the Circle of Mageholm,
which is responsible for final decisions on
acceptance for all members. The badges of
full members are gold and are often
marked to show Circle affiliation and
rank. The sole exceptions are the members
of the Circle of Seven, who wear
platinum badges; the Legate's and Archmage
's badges are also set with gems.

It should be noted that the Guilds
badges are more than simple symbols of
membership. Members are expected to
wear badges at all times when they are
within Mageholm's walls and must present
them on request elsewhere, as being without
the badge may be grounds for denial
of membership privileges. All membership
badges have been dweomered as a safeguard
against forgery and thus possess a
distinctive aura which can be read by
certain Guild devices and by mages with
Guild training in magic detection. In addition,
it is possible for the Guild to use the
badges as focus points for certain forms of
magical scrying and location, though this
is done only in dire circumstances since it
involves invasion of members? privacy.

The Guild combined
The Guilds membership badges are also
the key to its rarely-used power to intervene
in crisis situations beyond the ability
of any single mage to control. In this, the
Guild is indebted to the research of Gareth
Miran, one of our founders, and to the
mysterious seer known only as the
Visioner. Their joint efforts, shortly after
the Guild?s formation, led to the channeling
spell, also applied to each membership
badge. Though similar in some ways to the
known clerical spell combine, channeling
is both far greater and somewhat more
versatile in scope. The spell?s specific
formula has been kept highly secret since
its creation and is only accessible to an
Archmage with the unanimous concurrence
of the Circle of Seven. Its last use is
now over 400 years past, when Guild
intervention prevented the conquest of the
hobbit-held Freehold of Rivermarch. At
least fifteen-score member mages are
known to have lent their strength to the
wall of wind which drove the invaders?
army back into the deserts east of the
Rivermarch region.

It should be emphasized that such
demands on Guild members are extremely
rare, and that for the most part members
are free to enjoy the facilities and privileges
made available by their participation
in the Guild. Nowhere else in the Five
Kingdoms is the ale darker, the company
more hospitable, or the library better
organized than in our tower of Mageholm,
and little of magical importance occurs
anywhere on the continent that is not
eventually brought to our attention. More
than anything else, Mageholm is a place
where wizards meet, for purposes ranging
from social to scholarly, in a Guild
designed first and foremost with their
comfort in mind.

Gaming notes
The Mageholm Catalogue manuscript
provides one model for DMs
wishing to create a guild of magic-users
for the benefit of player characters. Most
details needed to set up and operate a
similar guild are provided; some, notably
regarding the guild's fee schedule, have
been translated into statistics compatible
with AD&D® games. Additional points are
discussed in the notes which follow.

The cataloger writes of other possible
guild models, specifically noting guilds
with significant political interests. Another
potential guild type is that devoted chiefly
to supplying members with spell components
and materials.

Political guilds will differ from the guild
described in this article in three principal
ways. Membership requirements will be
more stringent, and candidates could be
asked to obtain formal sponsorship from
active guild members. Their academic
facilities will usually be smaller (evidence
suggests this may not be true of the Free
Arcanium described by the cataloger), and
fees for research will normally be higher.
Finally, they will have a well-defined relationship
with the local or national government,
but this relationship can vary
widely. Some, like the Free Arcanium, will
be closely connected with those in power,
while others may be actively opposed to
current political leaders, either openly or
in secret.

Clearinghouse guilds will be far less
formally organized and will offer few if
any other services to members, who will
be minimally screened at best and who
will pay perhaps 500 gp annually for
active status. Beyond this, the guild will be
organized much as the cataloger's Circle of
Enchantment, being less a guild than a
restricted-access supply shop. Leaders of
these guilds will be very rich and could be
affiliated with a thieves' guild as well,
using the latter to obtain items not easily
duplicated.

Most guilds (except the clearinghouse
variety) would offer training and examination
for mages seeking to attain higher
levels, with fees varying according to the
size and location of the guild. The cataloger
's Mages? Guild is housed in Menwyn,
a large free city which hosts a standing
international council of delegates from
several nearby kingdoms. Guilds located in
smaller cities might not have the benefit of
a bustling trade economy and would
charge higher service fees to offset the
handicap. Some education may also be
available to tuition-paying outsiders as
noted by the cataloger; an average charge
would be 50 gp per hour of group instruction,
plus 100 gp per spell level for spells
copied into a student?s books. This does
not count materials fees, which both members
and non-members must pay, and it
assumes that a normal intelligence check
(Players Handbook, page 10) permits the
character to learn the spells being taught.
(In most cases, a student must pay tuition
before learning that a spell is beyond his
ability to learn due to the intelligence
factor.)

When a scholarly journal such as The
Quill Arcane is available, research on
questions within the journal?s field may be
conducted much as if one was consulting a
sage. For every 50 volumes of the journal
available, there is a 10% chance of finding
useful information if one hour is spent
perusing each volume. (No guild can produce
more than one volume of such a
journal per year.) If an index exists or an
archivist offers aid, only half the time is
required -- but an archivist must usually
be paid for his services.

The cataloger notes that mages and
illusionists maintain separate guilds, yet
implies Guild knowledge of the script used
by illusionists. Without more detailed
records, only a human dual-classed
illusionist/magic-user can explain access to
both sorts of spells. Such characters are
likely to be rare in the extreme and are
certainly one cause of the strong rivalry
implied between the two guilds.

With regard to the availability and cost
of purchasing spell components from the
guild, reference can be made to Michael
Dobson?s "Living in a material world,"
published in DRAGON® issue #81 and
reprinted in the Best of DRAGON Magazine
Anthology, volume IV DMs may elect
to use Dobson's tables for determining the
availability of specific items; it is advised,
however, that there be no better than an
80% chance of any rare or very rare component
being in stock. (Applying the table
to the Guild as described gives better than
100% chances for the rarest ninth-level
spell components to be in stock.) Prices for
potions and other basic magical items sold
will also be 80% to 90% of actual goldpiece
value, but those crafted to order will
cost the full value quoted in the DMG or
Unearthed Arcana. The cost of spell
research and expert hirelings conforms to
DMG rates, with lab fees applied against
the total.

Guilds with different primary aims may
have fewer (or more) classes of membership
than those described, with fee scales
to match. Annual dues, however, will
rarely be lower than those quoted by the
cataloger and could be much higher in
areas where magical supplies and knowledge
are relatively rare.

Guilds with different primary aims may
have fewer (or more) classes of membership
than those described, with fee scales
to match. Annual dues, however, will
rarely be lower than those quoted by the
cataloger and could be much higher in
areas where magical supplies and knowledge
are relatively rare.

No details of the channeling spell are
given in the catalog and none are provided
here, in order to dissuade PCs from making
use of this effect. The catalog does
state that invoking the (ninth-level) spell is
the exclusive right of the Archmage but
can only occur with full cooperation from
the entire Circle of Seven. Mages tied into
the effect through their badges must consciously
focus their wills in order to augment
the casting?s power but have no
control over the type of effect produced.

The scrying potential mentioned by the
cataloger is described in greater detail and
may be invoked by any member of the
Circle of Seven. The link formed by the
badge is similar to that of the component
of a succor spell or of a "base ball" (see
AC4 The Book of Marvelous Magic), but
does not confer teleporting ability. By use
of an enchanted mirror or specially
dweomered map in the Circle?s spell room,
the location of a subject badge may be
plotted. The catalog, however, does not
indicate the effect?s range and is vague as
to whether specific badges or merely
classes of badges can be identified. Clearly,
though, the technique is not used to bail
mages out of all dangerous situations.
 

NOVEMBER 1988