The Rise of the Wizard Families
From RPGwiki
Around four to five hundred years ago Coruvain was considered a barbaric land, divided not into countries as we would understand them, but into areas of influence for several city-states that had developed from colonies of the ancient Draken Empire. These city-states would claim control of large areas of land surrounding the cities themselves, but mostly in name only. They would demand tribute from the settlements in the lands they claimed, but they would allow them to be mostly autonomous. The reason for this is usually cited as the sheer prevalence of monstrous creatures in the wilderness, but in the popular imagination (and especially in modern cinema) it is also commonly blamed on the large number of uncontrolled sorcerers raising armies of undead, consorting with demons and plotting in dark towers in the wild places.
Many of the city-states felt that the only defence against the threat of uncontrolled magic wielders was to have sorcerers of their own. Therefore in the centuries preceding the Resurgence most city-states adopted the idea of the court magist, a sorcerer loyal to the city’s ruler either through payment, power or coercion. In some cities the magists would mould their children to be their replacements when they died and the beginnings of the Wizarding Families can be seen in these magists. The distrust caused by the evil sorcerers by this time gave the less vindictive sorcerers another reason to seek patronage, protection from the fearful populace. By the time of the Resurgence, sorcerers who were not tied to the rich and powerful, whether rulers or merchants, were few and far between.
It was at this point that the southern continent went through what historians now call the Resurgence, a sudden growth in culture and knowledge that brought the area out of barbarism. It was around the same time that the area saw the rise of the Wizard Families, and many historians have linked the two events. It was in the kingdom of Kelhaven that what would be recognised now as a true Wizard Family first emerged. The magist, Dacen Ghostwing, had been using magic to extend his life and had by this time been court magist for nearly a century. As a result of this his sons and daughters, of whom he had many by this point, were unable to succeed him and were hiring themselves out to the various merchant barons who held the true power in many of the city-states. While ostensibly loyal to the merchants they nonetheless kept their father (and in some cases, grandfather) informed of every important fact they heard.
Intrigue between the merchant barons who traded along the Laertian Sea had led to civil disturbance, assassinations and the threat of full-scale war between Kelhaven and its neighbours and client towns. The King had been absent for several decades and the royal family he had left behind had lost much of its prestige and was unable to halt the troubles. When the royal family failed to bring an end to the troubles Dacen Ghostwing and his extended family chose to act. Without any of the merchant families being aware of it the magist made sure his family became vital to the merchants. They helped them with their plots, gathered information on rival families and uncovered spies within the merchant’s hirelings. Finally when the magist was ready they all suddenly withdrew their support. By this time the merchants had become so dependant upon their magical advantage in their plotting that the cycle of vendettas came to a sudden halt. The other magical families in the kingdom were ‘persuaded’ by the magist’s family to also keep out of the merchant’s affairs. The sorcerers brought peace to the kingdom.
There were calls for Ghostwing to take charge, to form a new magical royal family, but the magist chose not to do so, perhaps fearing that the people might swing back to their hatred and fear of sorcerers. Instead he helped institute some of the first laws against the unlimited practice of magic in an attempt to prevent the widespread abuse of magic by the merchant families that had led to the crisis. The first law became one of the most common, now universal on the southern continent (though not in some other lands); that a magician cannot assume any position of authority in a government. They can advise, but cannot lead.
In addition it was Ghostwing who first adopted the idea, recently arrived from Firenze, of teaching his magical lore to his descendants, codifying what had previously been guided by instinct. Rather than merely showing how he made a fireball and then letting his pupils experiment until they could reproduce it, which was the extent of magical training before him, Ghostwing started teaching the exact method of producing each effect he knew, right down to hand gestures and exact pronunciation. While prescriptive in many ways and limiting a pupil’s experimentation the Firenze method allowed a pupil to advance quickly in certain areas at the expense of a broader range of knowledge. It would signal the arrival of wizarding to Coruvain. The advantage this gave Ghostwing’s family temporarily gave Kelhaven a thaumaturgical advantage, the only effect of which was to see the Firenze method being swiftly adopted by the other sorcerer families of Coruvain.
As a result of this the Wizard Families became a powerful faction in Coruvain politics, advising but not leading, yet still able to veto a stupid decision by the withdrawal of their support. Each kingdom held several families and for a long time they jealously held on to control of their training methods. Eventually some kingdoms were able to bring in outside wizards and create their own magical training courses at universities, but by this time the Wizarding Families had secured themselves as the premier source of magic. Even those universities with the finest Thaumaturgical Departments like South Vorstok or Kelhaven U are considered, in the public mind at any rate, as below the level of training of a Wizard Family. The families can also trade off their reputation for a certain style of magic. The Ghostwings are renowned for their divinations and the Redclaws for their explosive mastery of fire. Whether these are genetic aptitudes for certain kind of magic or merely a focus in the way they are trained is unproven, either way.
Beyond the magic the Wizard Families will also have other interests. The Ghostwings have built up a large media empire, the Blackstorms are one of the biggest names in aeronautics and astronautics, and the Redclaws have become a big name in the arms trade.
