According to uesp.net , after oblivion crysis, magues guild dissapear, but two mages organizations born, Synod and the College of Whispers.
Maybe one is a necromancer organisation, and the other one is a anti-necromancer? Perhaps, in Skyrim we will be able to join to one of the two.

http://uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Mages_Guild

That's fascinating and very exciting. I know very little about the lore but I wonder if these two groups are on different sides in the civil war. It would be great if we had to choice between one or the other.

There will certainly be a joinable faction for Mages. Two joinable factions would be even better.

Sounds very interesting... and cool for necromancer RPers, if this is the case.

Damn you! That is like the 5th time I have clicked on your damn sig, thinking it was part of your post. And damn Bruce Willis to!

And I am also sure there will be some kind of mages guild.

Sounds interesting to have two groups. I'm hoping the difference isn't their stance on Necromancy though, since we already had Necromancy as the focus of the Mages Guild in Oblivion. There must be something else in the past few centuries that wizards could disagree over.

The Mages Guild always seemed a little too basic, in terms of organisation, activities and presentation in general, for my liking. If either or both of these two splinter factions replace the Mages Guild in Skyrim, I'll consider it an improvement.

I don't believe either meant to be a Necromancy Guild as such, although tolerance of Necromancy (or not) may have been part of the reason for the dissolution of the Mages Guild.

Hopefully, the two factions will be present in Skyrim, and it would be cool if you had a choice to join one of them in order to bring down the other. It will be so lame if they simply exist as two Guilds that you can simultaneously join.

Yes the elder scrolls novel (that revealed these changes) definately shook up the lore, I am interested to see what the 2nd book does and adds to the Lore before the games release.

If there is no mages guild I'd suspect Beth would have us rebuild it because they would be silly not to have a mages guild in skyrim.

Unfortunately, probably not TOO much more.

The destruction of Morrowind, collapse of the Empire (it got better...), fracturing/dissolution of the Mages Guild, removal of the Blades from the Empire (quite obvious, since they apparently only have ever served the Septim emperors as they were Dragonborn (Reman dynasty was too, but they were the guys who established the organization that later became the Blades, the Akaviri Dragonguard)), re-emergence of the Aldmeri Dominion, the Argonians apparently taking a few levels in awesome.

Then again, indications are that we'll see the Dunmer on Solstheim, the fate of Umbriel and the Imperial City, the resolution of the Sul/Vuhon conflict, and a lot, lot more.

There could be mage quests without the mages guild - although I admit it would be quite cool if the recreation of the mages guild was your overarching goal.

Here's what we know:
1. Neither the Synod or the College of Whispers has completely reclaimed the Mages guild's infrastructure. There are guild halls which have fallen under the control of the remaining mages that were stationed there.

2. The name Synod implies a religious connotation, but college of Whispers strikes me as being more secular.

3. The College of Whispers operates in the Imperial City, and may have reclaimed the Arcane University.

It sounds interesting, compared to the approach they've taken the last couple games. If handled correctly, it could be some very interesting content.

There will be atleast one magic-oriented guild but I do hope that they take on a more origianl name, not just the "Mage's Guild 'cause we do like, magic stuff!"

To fit Skyrim I think Mages Guilds should feature things about shamans, and such, you know to fit the environment.

I just don't want to have to go through a bunch of boring quests for the ability to create custom spells.

No mages guild.
If just one Telvanni survived :twirl: :twirl:

Ah, House Telvanni. Makes the DB look like a bunch of girl scouts at a Halloween sleep-over.

I'm not sure if the Mages Guild will be in Skyrim. 200 yrs is a long time and something could've happened. I wouldn't mind if they're in the game though

I didn't see that coming...

This could be actually interesting,but it could be disappointing as well.We'll really wait and see in this matter it seems...

Still,I'm uneasy with the book.
How much an "external source" should've been allowed to change the lore? Since it's out,it's a part of the lore but if I took my pen and wrote a book too,telling Bethesda they'd get 75% of the income,than what would happen?

Bethesda would tell you that if you publish it without their permission, you'll be sued for infrigement on their copyright. Bethesda commissioned the writing of The Infernal City, and would not have allowed publishing of the book if they weren't happy with it.

Official book is official.
i.e. Keyes is not just fabricating whatever he wishes. He's got Kurt Kuhlmann at a minimum checking things for consistency, and all is working to some Bethesda-approved resolution with all desired implications.

Of course I mean with permission.I'm aware of things like that.

What I wanted to express was that I don't think Bethesda did a Lore Exam on the author...And I think they would not say no to a financially good-sounding project just because it is not lore correct.

To many people,it'd be pretty much Elder Scrolls as long as it has swords and place names in it,no?

Game developers have a heavy hand in what goes into their books. Whatever Greg Keyes added to the lore, the additions were given to him by Bethesda.

It's all good. MK said something similar to "His [Keyes's] work is the right kind of crazy," and IIRC Tedders gave some kind of nod to Keyes as well. It's collaboration with what's already in motion, not complete revision.