This thought hopped into my brain today as I was contemplating the affect of my basement flood on my various posessions.

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After the Masters of the Five Magics split, the newly christened "Scions of the Eternal Night" took with them the aspect of darkness and evil from within the Orb of Magic. The Warlocks were able to draw some energy from the dying Orb and into their golden grimoire, but that did not last long. The Orb of Magic appeared to have been destroyed, but in reality was simply pulled into the Astral Plane where it would wait for years.

One day, while travelling the Astral Plane, a certain Draconic god of Thera (I leave his/her identity open, but s/he must not be evil, preferably good) happened upon the unusual sphere. The Dragon reached out to probe the object with his magic, searching his memories for clues as to what the object might be. With the aid of magic, the Dragon was able to recall the information revealed above.

Aware that the Orb of Magic was an important artifact, and that the magic of Thera was threatened by evil's influence, the immortal wyrm took the object back to his lair. Years passed before the dragon god finally finished. He had a reforged, undamaged orb of magic. Ancient Draconian knowledge had done what the magic of Humanoids never could! Elation quickly faded, however, when he realized that for the Orb to work properly, he needed to entrust it to mortal guardians. Only within an altar. similar to the one that used to hold it, could the newly-forged orb act as a conduit for Theran magic.

Others, the Dragon God knew, would seek to steal the Orb and dampen its power. Thus, he searched far and wide for a location to house his beloved Orb. Finally he found a location in a valley between two great mountains. By his divine decree, the earth and mountains moved, forming an enormous tower. When this was done, he scoured Thera for men and women of great magical skill. Those whose hearts were free of shadow (Good and Neutral) came to live in the tower and call it home.

One last thing did the Dragon God ask of the new protectors, for he had grown most weary. Work to find the purity in magic, but never forget who returned the Orb to Thera. Revere the Dragons of Thera, save those with evil in their hearts, and strive to master their craft so that the Orb might always be protected.
-=-

OOC Thoughts

-Good and Neutral mage types only.
-Needs a Dragon god to watch over it.
-Maybe a couple of old Master or Warlock powers, plus Dragon influenced powers
-Different powers for each class?
-Power vs evil dragons
-Maybe Conjies could get a baby dragon familiar
-Maybe shifters could choose to add the "Half-Dragon" template to one of their forms.

There are some serious holes in the idea, but its not a bad start so to speak. However if I remember correctly twist gave his "spirit" to the orb and much of that faded after the tower was shattered. And one would have to have a purpose beside being a cabal. Just watching over an orb would not be enough.
And mastery of spells would be well a bit little. Hence why I think they took out the masters, I may be wrong though.

But lets say you gave them a protectorate like the warlocks had in sorts. To protect the innocent from dark spellcasters whom soly wanted power for themselfs. And did not care for the consoquences.
And let try find new spells and/or re-discover old ones.

There was a lot of good ideas in both warlocks and masters. Though a combination of powers... *shiver* Even as I loved the powers the masters and warlocks have had. Atleast the master powers would prove quite unbalanced.

But different powers for each class would suit the new system that seems more and more apparent. Let the mages in the tower have different roles.

Say some are schoolars/teachers.
Warlocks/war mage
Defender/protector

And so on. Each of the them would have different powers. At induction you must choose one or the other and as you prove your worth you will gain a rank. From said schoolar to teacher. Where you would gain new powers.

Just my few cents.

Love the story though...
LH

Another protectorate cabal, or another purge-this-guy cabal, is not what we need. Something with a little more flavor. I like the idea of having a knowledge-based cabal. Here's my vague idea.

The Lyceum is re-done. *cough* The vast stores of resources are protected by Heralds. A mage soon discovers information on how to recover the orb, or to create a new one or something similar. (Remember the episodes with the spheres a month or two ago? hmmm?) He does so. Voila, he has an orb. He teaches other people how to make them. He now has a following of mages with these orbs, their own little individual sources of power. They lose them, they lose whatever power they have chosen to instill into this orb. They can create a new one, but only if the original source of power is in their possession.
This original orb draws its powers from every plane, even the negative ones. The smaller orbs can only draw specific powers from specific plans, and only a limited number of each kind of small orb can be made, so that there is a balance in the amount of power is flowing into the Prime Material Plane (thera) from other planes. This forms the foundation of their beliefs. They wish to keep the planes in check, it's in their own best interests if they want to keep their powers, as well as the world's.

So because of this, this is how they'd stack up other factions/etcetera;
-Scions threaten the planar balance, with their dealings with the negative planes and wishes to destroy the world and whatnot.
-Conjurers are loved for their skillful interactions with other planes
-Shifters and Transmuters are admired for their manipulation of matter in this plane
-Ragers are hated because of their ignorance of magic's role in Existance's construction, as well as their interference with their work.
-Heralds provide a balance. Yay Heralds.
-Tribunal provides an orderly Thera, allowing them to have a semi-cleaner petri dish for their experiments, as well as a potential ally against Scions, and others who seek to destroy the balance between the planes.
-Fortress is just kind of there. Potentially useful ally, due to their noble cause.
-Outlander can be seen as up to personal discretion, since they do in a sense attempt to balance out the order the Tribunals provide.

The Cabal would be a tower of sorts. At the very peak of the tower would be where their cabal item would be held, sort of like an antenna for energy from the other planes. This energy would be channeled down into an underground forge, where the mages could forge their new orbs. On other levels there would be libraries and laboratories, creatures to experiment on, armories, and there might even be some sort of planar gate, to allow passage to key points in the Prime Material plane where other planes come close to it. For example, since the item is the prime focal point of all the other planes, you could use it to tap into any plane. These planes also touch Thera in other places as well, some more strongly than others. So you would be able to travel through those planes back to Thera, sort of like a wormhole, or teleporting.

Okay that turned out to be a little less than vague... but there you have it. Hope some of it makes sense.