For those of you who haven't read "The Infernal City" it is a CANON novel set in the ES universe. What happens between Oblivion and Skyrim is that the Mages guild no longer exists/ exists as two separate entities. There are now the Synod and the College of Whispers.

We can infer from the names that :
Synod (Meaning council) Will be more like the old Mages guild, tradition, old magics, ban on Necro, ban on Dark arts etc
College of Whispers (most likely the reason for the schism) is a growing group of mages who want to be able to experiment (not necessarily for evil intentions) with all] types of magic.

My question to you is: Which would you join (based on this limited information available of course )

This is relevant to my intrests.

It will all depend on how they interact with my young rash Dunmer mage, but because he's a bit of an anarchist at heart he will most likely join the College of Whispers. Less rules for the win!

Eh, the Mages Guild split, because it was so deep into the empire's bureaucracy, that when the empire fell, it too fell. From the ashes, two mage guild formed. What they entail, no one is sure, but I can say with complete certainty that the MG's collapse was NOT because one group wanted to be reckless with magic and the other conservative about it.

Also, there are still "Mages Guild" members around, but they're completely defunct, and a bunch of old guys trying to hold onto scraps.

It's questionable if those guilds will even be available in Skyrim. Like the Mage's Guild that preceded them, as I understand it, the Synod and the CoW are Imperial institutions; and right now, the Empire extends only to the borders of Cyrodiil.

What Mirander said too.

Fair point. But for arguments sake, what is to stop new chapters opening up, traveling to new lands (like the dark brotherhood chapters)
Perhaps teh CoW weren't the reason for the split, but i think they're motives (what i have posted) would be pretty true to what I inferred from the names.

Well, the Dark Brotherhood doesn't need governments to function, just as long as one person wants another person dead. Plus, they've already established themselves all over Tamriel anyway, usually hidden from the eyes of anyone. Your comparison really doesn't hold water.

Also, I just felt like arguing and clarifying some points here. I'd likely join the CoW in order to advance the powers of my Chaos cultists.

The mages guild was inherently power hungry, and each chapter was separated by enough distance that they were largely autonomous. They're the ones with all the magic users, so they very well could hang onto their power structure because they're the only option in most areas. Also, as we recall from Daggerfall and Morrowind, the mages guild would send members to assassinate members who stepped out of line. I don't think that would decrease with less imperial oversight.

I just mean they could have pockets of control, there's a lot of leeway available.

I still want to see how that all pans out in Skyrim. It's possible magic is frowned upon alltogether, regardless of alignment. I did find it interesting however that there is what appears to be a mage at the center of the mural from the Skyrim trailer.

First off, I'm really glad they did away with the title "Mage's Guild". It really found that to be way to plain and not feel like a lore element as much as a gameplay element.

So anyways, I voted College of Whispers. I don't like to have the restrictions on magic, it just takes away from the fun of the game.

Isn't the OP also assuming that Skyrim will take place after the Infernal City? If it takes place before, then the Mage Guild could still be intact.

Well I hope they include Synod and CoW in Skyrim, not the mages guild, or some arbitrary magic body for Skyrim.

But there WILL be some degree of magic faction this much is known, because of Winterhold College and Ysmari Library - Its meant to be bigger and better than the Arcane University ^_^

College of Whisperers.

It could be something similar to what was had in Morrowind with the Mage Guild and the Telvanni. You have your outside Imperial based mage group and your own home-grown one. What the latter one would be in Skyrim, I couldn't say, though.

I did like the Mage's Guild in the sense that not just anyone off the street was practicing magic, your title had to be earned through experience. I still hope a system of some kind is in place requiring players to train through a qualified instructor, and not a situation where "Oh, if I do this enough times I'll just magically learn new spells and become a master"

I think that's kind of the point.

Personally, I think it would be interesting to see the Mage's Guild as a fringe organisation. They're effectively defunct, but they still hang around. I imagine part of the plot of Skyrim has to do with the empire trying to regain control over the region, so it'd be interesting to be asked to ally with either the Synod or College, in order to extend the influence of one of these new guilds. There'd no doubt be resistance from the old Mage's Guild (being that they resent these new know-it-all whippersnappers), and whatever guild you didn't ally with would probably pose a problem too.

If it takes place before the book there would have been some mention of it in the book because Oblivion wouldn't have been the last potentially world ending event. Assuming Skyrim takes place before Infernal city, I think is a little bit silly.

On topic I'd join CoW though I'd imagine it to be something lame and unable to join like the Necromancer's Guild in Oblivion.

Assuming the information in the OP about both guilds to be correct, I would be more inclined to join the College of Whispers - the more experimental of the two. However, it depends entirely on what character I end up forging - whether I create a character that would be more conservative or one that would be interested in experimenting with all kinds of magic. I really hope they make it a choice between the two - a nice non-linear guild quest branch-line would be very interesting indeed.

College of Whispers

I don't really care about the Necromancers, only reason I do the Mages Guld questline is to get free teleportation in an Oblivion mod that reintroduces Morrowind's travel system.

It also reminds me of the Telvanni, my favourite Great House in Morrowind.

I would say both, well could you imagine the tension between the two, and the wonderful quests it could spawn.