Wizard organization set up as a pyramid scheme for collecting mystical energy, discuss:
Wizard organization set up as a pyramid scheme for collecting mystical energy, discuss:
Wizard organization set up as a pyramid scheme for collecting mystical energy, discuss:
So the Tremere in Urban Shadows. I can dig it!
I was thinking more a cross between the mafia and Amway or those knife salesmen but… oh, wait, it’s about the same thing.
Or any coterie in Ars Magica…
Not sure I agree there though the Tremere House was like that “back then.”
So each wizard must give higher wizards a share of their magical energy ‘take’?
Yeah, I’m thinking of something like “quintessence” from Mage where people try to control mystic sites recruit new mages and kick some percentage up the ladder. But a percentage of your superior’s “earnings” also get kicked up the ladder, ad nauseum. Maybe debts and money could be part of it too somehow but for real advancement you want to recruit and find mystical sites. Obviously this is centered on an individual or possibly a small cabal doing dark rituals, right?
Magical items made in wizard sweatshops.
Necromancers ripping out souls of homeless/druggie population.
Groups tapping into/defending/siphoning off of leylines/nodes/sites of power in a city and surrounding countryside.
Reason to do this is to strengthen the wall between worlds, the mystic battle for magical supremacy between continents/hemispheres, or to transcend into a new set of ‘gods’ (maybe tarot card representation?) for this age.
I love that last idea.
Very “Unknown Armies”-esque.
When I think of ‘wizard sweatshops,’ I’m reminded of a plot element from a video game I won’t name here for fear of spoilers. But it’s revealed that the main baddie has taken over the back room of a legitimate business and is using it to mix up black market potions with slave labor. He’s got all of your various mystical ingredients labeled with letter codes for ease of formulas and to make it harder for the slaves to let slip exactly what they’re working with.
Love this idea, it could actually create a feudal society. What does a lower wizard get for his tribute? Protection? Prestige? What if a lower wizard jumps loyalties and starts paying tribute to another? The plots write themselves.