Which Magical Society is Right for You?
So you have finally graduated magical high school, or have been sent out into the world by your witches coven, or the local hermit has told you the next step in your training is elsewhere… whatever the reason, you’re now asking yourself:
“Which magical society is right for me?”
Rest easy! With this simple guide, we shall find the right group of socially inept recluses perfect for you!
Do you enjoy screaming off the side of a mountain?
Believe in pacifism, except when it’s convenient for you?
Sitting in a cell for years on end, contemplating nature on the top of a barren mountain?
Then we have good news for you, you are basically already a Greybeard! The Greybeards are an organization that specializes in crippling isolation and inaction in the face of peril. If you would describe yourself as more of a “thinker” over a “doer”, this may just be the right place for you. While the Greybeards are the masters of some of the most powerful magic available in the land, they sure aren’t putting it to any sort of practical use, and anyone who envisions a life beyond a cold mountaintop is going to have a hard time getting anything useful out of there time here.
The Psijic Order/Order of PSJJJJ
Do you enjoy acting in mysterious, vaguely beneficial ways?
Take delight in telling people “I told you so”?
Fleeing reality at the first sign of trouble?
Then your new home is waiting for you with the Psijic Order on the Isles of Artaeum, when they aren’t leaving a note on the door that reads “out for lunch, will be back after the crisis”. The organization is mainly made up of the Altmer that make up their home islands, although they have been willing to recruit outside of this demographic in the past. However, the bar for getting in can be extremely high, with actual gods being counted as colleagues. Think you have what it takes? Just wait around, they will probably find you if you are right for them. Maybe. It’s not really very clear how they recruit. Or the true goals of the organization. Or really anything substantial about the Order.
They have also enjoy breeding pigs, so reading up on that before joining them may be a good idea. It’s definitely going to come up.
Are you bizarrely reasonable?
Prefer clear instruction with practical safety measures in place?
Would like to know that your roommate has gone through professional examination to ensure they are mentally sound and in control of their powers?
Would like an organization to understand your cultist roots, and openly encourage you to explore those options after graduation if you would like?
Well you are in luck, because somehow this place has managed to find enough REASONABLE and PRACTICAL mages to begin teaching young magisters a different path. However, reason doesn’t come cheap, and you may have to take out a loan to pay to attend sessions taught by someone who isn’t just planning on harvesting your souls to activate some ancient device to take over the world. Additional fees may occur if you decide to enroll in multiple classes (availability depending on scheduling and class sizes), or have to take makeup classes.
The College of Winterhold
planning on starting a cult?
Enjoy independence from petty politics?
Then your new college might just be the College of Winterhold! Unlike Shad Astula, the College of Winterhold prefers a “hands off” approach to teaching, to the point where you might ask what exactly you even learned here at all! The school also provides an unmatched degree of privacy, especially after the City of Winterhold was rezoned from being a “city” to an “ocean”. This action depopulated one of the oldest homes for humanity in Tamriel! And now you get a chance to learn side by side with the organization that was probably responsible!
Planning on starting a cult? You can’t do much better than here. Between the lax security and the devil-may-care attitude of the staff towards students, you can rob this institution blind to begin your delve into powers you will not be able to control! No one will even mention you casually getting half a dozen of your fellows killed during a risky expedition! Truly a fantastic place for the person valuing their privacy.
Want to enjoy the best tenure in Tamriel?
Already a member of the College of Sapiarchs?
Then congratulations on your membership in the College of Sapiarchs! Of all of the magical societies in Tamriel, this really is the one where you have to know a guy to get a foot in the door. We’re really only including them out of formality. While they reportedly have recruited “based on potential” in the past, and keep a small group of “acolytes” on hand under the notion they might one day get to be a full member of the College, it is really clear how the process truly works. Officially their day job is advising royalty, unofficially it is very easy to keep your organization in power when you force the government to make a decade long indoctrination process a standard part of the coronation process.
Do you have a loose grip on any form of ethics?
Enjoy things being exactly the way you like them, and are willing to commit any number of atrocities if you don’t get your way?
Then your new house should be none other than House Telvanni! An ancient Dunmer society, some of the most talented magisters in history have been counted among their ranks. Not that they will be helping you if you join them. Telvanni society has two clear discernible traits
There is to be no constraint on ambition or the activity of its members, beyond an individuals ability to constrain them at their own desire.
Mushrooms are amazing homes.
And really, that’s fine, if you can cut it in this society. Everyone who gets in their way can enjoy being treated as a resource at best, and we aren’t able to describe the worst fates of association with this organization. While there is formal central organization for the society, it mostly exists to enforce the notion of total social freedom for its members, and the extreme exploitation of everyone else.
The Order of the Black Worm/The Worm Cult/The Fellowship of Anchorites/The Necromancers
Do you have a good relationship with your business card printer for whenever this organization inevitably changes its name again?
Have an incredibly strong gag reflex?
If your interests lead you in this direction, there’s little we’re going to do to discourage it! While there is real power available for the leadership of this group, but that’s probably not going to be you! You are more likely to end up being used as an experiment to gain information that has definitely been clearly and fully documented by this point over learning anything.
I don’t know how to spell this out anymore clearly, you’re more likely to end up as part of an “art project” over learning anything useful with groups like this. Even if you are lucky enough to be the one in a thousand disciples who get real training, your skills will still be considered subpar by basically every other mage in the world. Not that you’ll know that, and you’ll most likely end up threatening some individual with your “true power” or something idiotic like that, ignoring that they just caved in the heads of a hundred of your students over the course of a lazy afternoon, and they literally have not broken their stride once during that time.
But again, you already signed up, didn’t you?
Willing to find some enclave that just didn’t care when funding stopped coming in?
An optimist willing to hold out hope that they are reorganized?
I’m sorry, I can’t do it. It’s gone. It’s never coming back. We are bad people. We don’t deserve to be happy. Rest in peace, good friend.
(DISCLAIMER: The College of Whispers and Synod have deliberately been excluded from this list. There has to be at least some degree of merit to your organization, no matter how small, to be included here. Our committee has yet to note any at time of writing.)
