Philosophy of The Assembly
The Assembly is a guild for enchanters. We are strong supporters of the Crown and as such participate in many undertakings and communications with other guilds. Yet, we remain secretive, in the sense that we guard ancient knowledge and mysteries that we deem too dangerous for the general public (and other, more reckless, guilds for that matter) to be aware of.

Our long-term objective is to reclaim and apply the knowledge contained in the Seven Tomes of Arcana, and ultimately perhaps to build a new Assembly Academy of Magic to replace the destroyed Great College. To this end many of our members search for lost and ancient scrolls and magical artefacts.

The History of the Assembly
The Assembly has existed as a formally recognised Guild since the early days of the Kingdom of Bereny, having been granted a Royal charter in the year 132 by King Brian I in return for an undertaking to protect Bereny in times of trouble. This makes it the Kingdom’s oldest formally recognised magical guild (the IGW and Black Tower being relative newcomers).

Tradition has it that King Brian approached the Assembly for assistance in dealing with a powerful entity of evil. A great battle was fought and that it took the combined power of the Guild's Arch Magi to finally defeat and banish their nemesis after a terrible struggle. The King was very grateful and granted the Guild the power to act as his arm for the good of the Kingdom in all matters of a sorcerous nature. To this day, ancient laws still say that no citizen of Bereny may refuse a request from the Guild if it is acting under the King's Banner and for the good of the Realm (although no archmage has sought to invoke this law for many years).

However the origin of the Assembly go back further still, for the organisation already existed before its acquisition of official status. Its mysteries are based around seven mystical tomes of arcane knowledge said to predate the Time of Thunder.

Sadly, in the ensuing centuries the Assembly fell into ignorance, and although the seven tomes were protected and preserved, their meaning was lost and the mages of the Assembly became little more than guardians of a knowledge they did not themselves comprehend.

This changed during the reign of King Mark III. After the destruction of the Great College of Magic in 461 a new and questioning generation of mages joined the Assembly and forced the old guard to grant them access to the seven tomes. When Golgoleth of Horadrim became Archmage in 498 he instigated a program of investigation into the seven tomes to unlock their secrets and make these available to the membership. He is also credited with reforming the Guild’s admission policies, making membership much more widely available to adventuring mages, and ending the perception of the Assembly as being a near hereditary secret society. The knowledge revealed in the seven tomes has revitalised the Assembly and made it once more the Kingdom's premier arcane guild.

Our commitment to protect Bereny remain strong however and Assembly mages played in prominent role in the recent Goblin War.

The Seven Tomes of Arcana
Foremost among the arcane works to survive from the Time of Thunder are the Seven Tomes of Arcana. It is said that anyone who can master all seven tomes will attain the power wielded by the Assembly Arch-mages of old. This remains one of the goals of the Guild.

However although the knowledge gleaned from the first six tomes has been considerable, the final tome has resisted all attempts to date to master it. Some investigators have even suggested that the tomes held by the Assembly are not complete, and that we need some sort of external key or primer to make sense of them.  

Although the Assembly is a guild of equals, and all members are brothers and sisters together in the arcane arts, a largely honorary ranking system exists based on mastery of the tomes. These are the therefore seven circles of the Guild, although to date none have advanced beyond the sixth circle.

In recognition of the importance of the Seven Tomes of Arcana, the official title of the guildmaster of the Assembly is the ‘Keeper of the Tomes of Arcana’. Following the mysterious disappearance of the last Keeper, Mancuso, the present Keeper is Sylvester.

- Circles within Circles - an insight into the Assembly
- How to join the Assembly
- Guild Information
- About this site