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The War of the Item Guilds
Page history
last edited
by Tim 16 years, 5 months ago
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The War of the Item Guilds
-30,425 to -28,872
Introduction
As Men, Elves, Dwarves, and a myriad of other lesser-known peoples began to populate Battal, they almost immediately turned their attention to magic and the fashioning of "cool stuff" from the very essences of the world they inhabited. It was only natural that their two loves would combine, though it is uncertain at what point in history that it happened (much like the meeting of Peanut Butter and Chocolate).
As is the case with nearly any group of tradesmen/craftsmen, the multitudes of Item Makers across Battal would form powerful Guilds that wielded not only great wealth and influence, but a great wealth of destructive magical items. As the Item Guilds began to clash with one another over exclusive sales territory and intellectual property rights, it was inevitable that at some point violence would ensue.
One of the first of the many world-shaping wars of Battal, The War of Items Guilds would not soon be forgotten. In fact, it seemed almost impossible for anyone to forget it, because of how darned Epic and full of Epicness the whole thing was. That and the fact that the Lawmakers were always reminding people.
One of the more positive aspects was the unification of the Dwarven peoples by the Brothers of the Magic Forge.
Timeline Events
- -30,410 : Most all of the alliances between Guilds break, resulting in an all out "free-for-all" between Guilds. Battles begin to spring up all over Battal. Most people give up buying magical items altogether, since it is likely to enrage some sort of competing item making guild and get you in trouble.
- -29,901 : The Ringlings are utterly defeated by the Dwarven Brothers of the Magic Forge. Mostly it was because their rings weren't nearly as powerful as they'd expected, and also because they were shamelessly craven cowards. Also, their battle tactics, which consisted largely of hurling their heaviest rings at the Dwarve's eyes, were deemed unlikely to succeed at best.
- -29,852 : The Ringlings attempt to release the power of That One Ring, but are unable to get it to do anything. Their ranks are decimated, and the few that are left retreat into the G'nth'l Mines, convinced that next time they ought to make sure they can figure out what the ring can do before they place all their hopes, wishes, and dreams upon it.
- -29,693 : The Garmentmancers secretly distribute enchanted Vintage Shirts of Strangling throughout the land. Despite the name, they are heavily sought after by the Independent Rock Mages, who buy them eagerly. The survivors of this event declare the dead to have been "total sell-outs." The Garmentmancers gain an upper hand in the war for a brief time, but nobody wanted to buy their items now. They eventually dissolved, and a few of the members reformed as Clothesmancers.
- -29,575 : The Shrubbers make a rather nice arrangement in front of the Magic Wood Carvers Society Hall. There were two shrubberies with a nice little path in between, and they looked rather lovely next to the fountain. Unfortunately, since this had absolutely nothing to do with warfare or tactics, they were decimated by the Wood Carvers
- -29,385 : The Aromatic Alchemists concoct a perfume that lulls their enemies to sleep. They use all of it on the Wang Pounders and slay all but a handful of them. Sadly, the magic perfume makers were also complete sissies, and this Handful of Wang Pounders would nearly destroy their entire Guild over the next few decades. This had the effect of taking both sides out of the War for a while, though.
- -29,420 : The Mystic Tea Baggers Union ships a huge selction of deadly enchanted teas to the Morlond's Field. Unfortunately, instead of eating it, the Enchanted Lunchladies Guild distributes it for profit to the local populace (in spite of the fact that it was labelled "Not for Resale"). The resultant plague of magical illnesses drives the people of Morlond's Field completely insane for tens of thousands of years.
- -29,320 : The Grottoling Tinkerers Guild nearly wipes itself out when trying to "break into the Magic Items racket," creating a devastating array of defective weapons that malfunction and raze its Guild Hall to the ground.
- -29,042 : Rogues from the Easteren Guild of Items of Magick assassinate a prominent officer of the Westron Guild. The Westron Side declares that no Easteren Guild Members, "waethere theye bee smalls or biggie'ns," are marked for death.
Major Item Guilds
Outcomes
The end of the War of the Item Guilds resulted in the forming of a council of Lawmakers in order to settle disputes over items. Guilds were immediately outlawed, and relegated to the domain of secret societies and organized crime. The Lawmakers immediately drafted the first of what came to be known as Item Laws, meeting regularly in the centrally-located Arkenvale, and later in Middleclang (see Item Laws A - Z).
This council of Lawmakers grew in size and eventually became distributed throughout the lands of Battal, which caused quite a bit of confusion. It was only later, when the rise of Elemenstation accellerated the already high production rate of magical items, that the system of Lawmakers was revisited and reorganized at the urging of Lord Ghor Gon Zolma tens of thousands of years later. All agreed that by then, it was about time to take something that was functional yet inefficient, and turn it into a highly convoluted bureaucracy.
Source Material
This period of The Landyworld is portrayed in The Item Guild Wars, a book in the The ElemenstorLance Series. Particular attention is paid to the intrigue surrounding the Enchanted Lunchladies Guild and the death of Hygrad the Mighty that will motivate his former Bandmates to bring an end to the War, as well as those characters that will go on to become the first of the Lawmakers.
Comments
asura |
Though there's a lot of info here, it's still basically a stub. The information I have is from what few copies of ELotH:TES Magazine I've been able to scare up. If you find any more info on Guilds, Events, or have anything else to add, please do! |
tim |
Seems as though mention should be made of Lavatoria, since that was most of western battal at the time, and Atlantistantinople, since that was most of eastern battal. |
asura |
I'd assume that those were the main bases of operation for the "Westron" and "Easterenn" Guilds, but I don't have the source material to back it up... hopefully someone else can fill in some of those blanks. |
The War of the Item Guilds
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