What the [censored] are you talking about Willis??? :banghead:

I kind of like that the mages guild has dissolved into two rival organizations. It's a bit of a throwback to Morrowind - in MW, you had the Mages Guild and the Telvanni Wizards, you had the thieves guild and the morag tong, you had the Temple and the Tribunal. And you had the 3 Great Houses (ok, technically 5 Great Houses, 2 of the Houses were, in Lore, not present on Vvardenfell - only on the mainland, which you never really visit (except for the capital city in the 'Tribunal' expansion pack).

It gave you some choice - I thought it kind of stank, from an RP perspective, that in Oblivion, the mages' guild had a pseudo-monopoly on magic - you could get *some* spells (mostly restoration and conjuration) from the Temple priests, but unless you bought the Frostcrag Spire add-on, you couldn't make spells or enchantments without joining the mages guild, and you pretty much had to buy most spell types from the mages guild.

The problem with that, for me, is that I played through a few times, and one a couple of the characters, it made sense that they'd join up with the mages guild. But, I wanted to play an arcane assassin type character - basically, stealth, archery, short blade, light armor, alchemy for poisons and heals, and I allowed myself one school of magic - Illusion, to sort of 'complete' the character concept.

The problem was, the rigidity of how things were setup in Oblivion meant that my thieves guild/dark brotherhood chaotic evil character had to be part of the goody-goody mages guild to get access to illusion spells, and the altars.

Now, for such a character, it should be *harder*, more expensive, etc to get access to those services without the mages guild (since they are sort of the officially sanctioned 'guardians of magic' for the Empire) - but good game world design would allow such characters a challenging, but alternate path to get such services.

Anyhow, if TES V: Skyrim goes back to more of a Morrowind direction, where you have more choices about organizations you join, I think that would be pretty awesome.

According to the lore of the game, the Mages guild broke up shortly after the Oblivion Crisis (End of 3rd Era/ Start of 4th Era) and its 200 years after the Oblivion Crisis 4E200 (Oblivion Crisis was 3E433), so there is a possibility that the Mages Guild has reformed. There is no lore against it, or for it.

Seeing as the Mages Guild had an Imperial Charter - with the break in the line of the Septims I thought it made sense that the Guild would dissolve - it was full of dissension during Oblivion

However who do I go buy my spells from now? I'm unsure what sort of temples will be in Skyrim, they are likely to only sell defensive ones like restoration or banish undead

I'm looking forward to the change I just so want the psiijic order to show up somewhere - they would have great spells

Psiijics are on the wrong side of the continent, also, they're not much of the selling spells to the public type. I think we'll be buying our spells from the College of Whispers or the Synod.

I think this is a good idea. The Mages Guild weren't anything special. Let's be honest. You just wandered around following the quest marker in one quest to another. And that's why BGS made a difference, to inhance the gameplay and show what they're really made of... Talent. The people in BGS are talented and it shows, they are also creative for changing stuff such as the Mages Guild making it better.

The College of Whispers is a kind of lodge for mages to practice and train in the arcane arts. The Synod is an organization dedicated to finding every secret behind magic. I know I read it somewhere and this is just a paraphrasing. Sounds interesting

I'm guessing that's a fan guesstimate.

My argonian necromancer might just make his return to Skyrim after all, if that necromancy stuff is right.

C'mon now,every quest in Oblivion was based on "wandering around following the quest marker in one quest to another" .Fighter's Guild was the same,Dark Brotherhood was the same,Daedric Shrines were the same,the main Quest was the same.

I'm not against the removal of the guild for it gives the feeling 200 years gap more,but if Beth goes and says "we removed it because it was useless" than I'm gonna swear.It's getting very old -_-;

Most interesting!

in other threads i saw people asking for different factions instead of guilds... this would be a great opportunity to be able to either join one side or the other

Hm... I guess a mix of the Synod, CoW and Independants will provide the new Mage supplies for you now... May get quite interesting.

Ahahaha, I just hope you'd already seen the film I've noticed other people start putting film spoilers in their sig too... I'm claiming to have started this.

you said it.

also im sure there will be atleast 1 magic-oriented faction in skryim. i dont really care what its called as long as the quests are good

Well, perhaps they learned something from their last game. Didn't they introduce spell tomes as loot items in one of the DLCs or expansion? I seem to recall that mages had little in the way of loot in the game, since all their spells could be bought or made. Perhaps the elimination of the Mages Guild will give them reason to go adventuring for their spells.

what a twist!

Fascinating, interesting. Hmm... I'm just gonna go bash my head into a wall until i pass out now. Kthxbai

Conflicting mages' guilds? Awesome

By far, the thing that stuck out most to me in the book. Should be interesting to see what direction it's taken. Whether a reunification has occurred by the time of Skyrim or whether the two guilds are at large. Or something else entirely. Can't wait.

No Mages Guild smells a little much like "retcon" to me... Or am I the only one thinking this ? That organisation was integral to... Everything. And had been around as long as the empire.

Maybe I am too pessimistic. It just seems a bit like: "Civil war, we need everything to be thrown into a dualistic framework, oops, two mages guilds now"

Agreed!

It's not a retcon because it didn't change anything that happened before. Everything that the guild did in the past remains completely untouched. Things just change as they move forward.. it's natural progression.


Been around as long as the empire, because it was part of the empire. They were chartered by the empire, and had a sanctioned monolopy on teaching magic. Since the collapse of the empire, it makes total sense for the guild to collapse, too. Not that it was handling itself very well even before the collapse (Traven effectively kicked out half the Council of Mages, and numerous students, because of his grudge against necromancy).

We've had dualism: Order of the Black Worm and Mages Guild. This conflict promises to be more nuanced, as they've broken from the same Mages Guild.

Just think though, half the Council of Mages resigned following Traven's changes to the Guild. If such a significant percentage did so on the Council then I imagine, it must have been similar on a wider scale. So, you've already got a number of Mages who have shied away from the Guild and I don't imagine all of them wound up as Mannimarco's groupies. Fast forward, Traven's dead, the new Arch Mage doesn't appear to have had much of an effect. Though probably would have carried on the former AM's ruling. You've got a bunch of Mages outside of the Guild and Dibella knows what problems internally so there is a vehicle for change.

I understand this is heavy speculation and extrapolation but just my $.02