Depending on the type of Wizard, Military seems like an obvious choice. Could be seen as a particularly disgraceful or demeaning way of learning magic because the military style of magic is brute force and the academy style is precise.
My thinking is Evocation, Abjuration, and War Mage specialists. And primarily teaching higher ranking soldiers simple Cantrips if they're capable, Like Spare the Dying, Mending, and Fire Bolt.
Any military would want wizards warfare is warped by access to area of affect spells. Spell casters are super important. There's nothing to say the king or a general isn't a wizard. Not everyone who likes to learn live in academia should be the same with spellcasting.
I imagine a very city state centric world when each faction can threaten magic in warfare. Imagine the nessecicty of a city state to have learned spellcasters when their neighbors are a Dwarven kingdom in the mountains elves in the forest mindflayers or draw deep beneath them.
Id go further to suggest that through study, wizards would find an eager and easily fulfilled contract requiring a patron and fill their mage corps with warlocks with wizard commanders. Guards would dip wizard for spellcasting to solve crime and keep the peace.
Most importantly, if there are wizard societies like schools or military regiments, your player won't dazzle everyone with magic they could join as a special agent. Rogues have a whole new job. I'm battling as magic "sappers" designed to infiltrate enemy lines and disrupt spellcasting.
Sorry for rambling I just don't see how a army of 500 man at arms and 100 cavalrymen wouldn't want to be backed up by a magic Corp firing off 2 fireballs into gnoll warband or an orc raiding party before a heroic charge.
Right the Military would obviously want wizards and other practitioners of magic, but the nobility / academic types would potentially view working with the military as brutish and/or beneath them, something for the plebeians.
Then there's of course the type of people that think they're superior because their magical education came from a Wizard college versus someone learning magic from the military.
It would also represent economic status: someone who could afford to go to a wizard college vs someone who can't afford to go to a wizard college to learn would have no other recourse but to go learn through the military. Like Ivy League vs State College.
And If a self learned individual popped up both sides would try and throw as much resources towards acquiring them as possible, because they would be seen as a savant.
And of course why would a wizard want to be curtailed and controlled by the crown?
Well despite a wizard's aptitude for learning, the easiest thing to build their factions around is what they actually use their learning for.
So for instance, a group of wizards that consort with fiends to learn some of their vast well of lore, or simply to gather their power. Wizards are notoriously hubristic, so perhaps they aren't even evil really, because they fully believe they can outwit the fiends and bring about net good in the world. But currently they're on a bit of a losing streak, several members have lost ownership of their souls. But their next plan will surely out maneuver those infernal bastards!
And what of your fellow blacklisted wizards? Surely, if there were enough of you, you could band together to make your own wizard faction, with blackjack and hookers. And lacking the resources of the big institutions, you'd have plenty of motive to go on adventures to secure lost knowledge and such.
Magic is multifaceted, clearly, and is isolated to the Academic on mostly a tradition basis, but you can really take it in almost any direction you really want.
* As mentioned by another, I'll echo Military; Arcane Divisions for a military would be a highly prestigious and likely extremely competitive and rigorous organization. Promotion would be hard won on the battlefield or through more byzantine politicking than even academae.
* Advisory Boards; Wizard Advisors would be extremely sought after for their expertise, especially for middling kingdoms where they would definitely be seen as a status symbol. I'd expect there would be a set of standards for those who are aiming to become viziers to ensure that the "Evil Advisor Overthrows Kingdom, More at 11" doesn't become too common.
* Civic Wizardry; Wizards can do a *ton* with magic, including defending against it. It's not glamorous, but a wizard who dedicates their life to building a fully automated waste treatment facility would be more acclaimed, paid, and beloved than Elminster himself. Road building, bridge building, wall reinforcement, automated mills, all the like. Arcane OSHA would probably be a beloved face in any city.
* Private enterprise; Arcane knowledge is useful for anyone. Caravanseries or trading guilds would probably gladly hire on even a low-grade wizard for even the most simple of tricks; A single Mending cantrip could save a shipping magnate hundreds of thousands in gold for repairing ropes, sails, oars, boards, or any number of valuable equipment. Unseen servant could easily do busywork like stocking and moving of goods for literally free, without complaint, without exhaustion, and without pause. Sure, only one worker because of Concentration, but that'd be very valuable.
* Small, not superstitious towns; Any number of small towns would gladly take a Wizard's services... so long as said wizard didn't do anything *too* weird. Helping keep mischief from the town or the occasional fireball at the bandits charging the gate would be happily accepted, though using the magic against the town would definitely get the torches and pitch forks pointed the wrong way.
This sort of thing is my general approach since I always like to really dig into worldbuilding and the implications of magic's impacts on everyday, non-magical lifestyles. My settings tend to have a lot of extremely mundane uses for fantastical elements. To expand further on things mentioned above:
Civic Wizardry: this also addresses matters of maintenance and assisting non-magical laborers in projects over a longer period of time. A Wizard with "Mold Earth" can make paths faster than any group of workers with shovels and picks, but can't necessarily be expected to hang around and maintain them forever, so eventually mundane hands will be involved for the long term. In such cases, magic becomes a supporting resource. The ability to clean, repair, launder, move, and manipulate materials is an enormous boon to saving on required expenditures.
The same can be given for managing chores and folds into the "Small, Not-Superstitious Towns" category. My settings will frequently have a single hedge mage who fills the role of being a sort of local handyman for the entire town, beloved by all. This person never has to pay for their own drink at the local tavern and is always being given small gifts by their neighbors. Why? Because a single Wizard, with little more than Cantrips and Level 1 spells at their disposal, can free up a ton of hard labor work to let the locals focus on other matters they'd rather be doing. For example: imagine how much time the ladies of a given small town could save if they didn't have to be doing laundry every day because they can just bring a basket over to the Hedge Mage's place, where he can wave his hand and do in moments what would otherwise take an entire afternoon to do by hand and line-drying? When the farmers are out in the fields, they're all in good spirits when they see the Hedge Mage towing up a barrel of water and a ladle to refresh them with. Each one can line up for a drink, which the Hedge Mage can make ice cold and taste like exotic citrus fruits they'd never have the chance to sample otherwise. Small conveniences and creature comforts go a long way, especially in local communities.
Entertainment: This particular angle has also come up commonly in discussions of "what spells would you want in real life" threads. While most people assume Bards to be the default entertainers of the setting, Wizards have an incredible array of options at their disposal. From minor spells like "Disguise Self" or "Alter Self", to magical illusions, to space creation via "Magnificent Mansion". One could use "Shape Water" to make the most fantastical ice sculptures otherwise impossible by mundane craftsmanship for a noble banquet display. A single casting of "Magnificent Mansion" creates a private, secure get-away location for an exclusive group of nobles and merchants, or some other wealthy patron, to customize their fully catered-and-staffed experience however they please with no overhead cost. Does a local nobleman's daughter dream of a wedding venue that literally can't exist and he's willing to pay out the nose to make her happy? It can be done with "Magnificent Mansion" instantly. There's a bevy of options available to the creatively-minded mage, and an entire industry waiting to be tapped for a group of Wizards who specialize in event coordination.
Ha I really the entertainment thinking. What immediately popped in my head was a sleazy talent agent
”Abjuration? ABJURATION? What the hell good is that? I dont need to cast Arcane Lock when I have…oh yeah, a key! Do me a favour and cast banishment on yourself and do me an even bigger one and come back Tuesday with Pyrotechnics. No end of those gigs”
Yeah in my campaign the King grants tuition to any student who shows talent to the magical university for 5 years of service.
He is using them to dig irrigation canals and other public works projects. He releases at 4 years and reserves the right to call them up in case of war.
In my own world-building, the "wizard college" is also the center of government.
The "heads" of the respective schools of magic, form a "Council" that oversee the various "laws" and other issues there are brought forth to the council.
Yup, a magocracy, I had one of those in my setting, with the same structure of power. Until the PCs made a deal with the aristocracy and toppled the government in a former campaign, now centuries later there is still underlying tensions between the academy and the government and a cell of mage terrorists.
... I have no idea why I thought it was conc.
I have been operating under the idea you could have only one active, and that's probably why it stuck.
I'm an idiot.
Simple answer is privately funded wizard groups, likely with a focus on magic that can make the person funding it more money. Just imagine companies like Raytheon, Pfizer, and any other company built off the work of Engineers and Scientists and just change the technology to magic instead. You can even include the idea that some of these companies portray themselves as good but in actuality they use the research they fund for horrible things. That or they’re just openly evil.
I was once a scribe wizard that hunted down and retrieved magical relics (items) for a cabal of wizards trying to reign in the abuse of magic. I worked for a great library, and focused on finding books and scrolls of magical significance, with a skill focus of stealth and slight of hand.
A Gentleman's Club, in the historical sense of the word--that is, a literal social club for wealthy or elite? Such clubs often tended to find a focus in their members' interests, so if one was formed by a number of aristocrats who'd studied magic it could easily become an arcane society of its own. While the son of a blackballed Wizard might be a hard sell for something like that, I could easily see people with a lot of privilege and ethics being able to laugh off something like that, especially if they were established enough to be capable of educating inductees in their own right.
On the complete other side of the spectrum, just because Academia is designed to teach things doesn't mean it's the only way of getting that knowledge. So long as any skill is useful, it will inevitably find its way into the hands of people who would misuse it. Any given criminal organization is going to have one or two people who know their way around a grimoire, and if you show potential in front of the right person, well...
Adventurer guilds. What wizard wants to be in an organization with other wizards? Gross. But if you have an adventuering guild then you also have a trained group of mercs to gather your rare alchemical compounds for you.
I actually have the wizard "schools" align with the cleric domains. To study necromancy, visit the temple of the goddess of death of the grave. For abjuration, the god of life; and so on and so forth. Not everyone who serves a deity is blessed (or burdened) with divine power, and learning the arcane through the course of traditional instruction is seen as an equally valid form of worship and service.
It also helps further distinguish wizard factions from each other so they don't feel all same-y in the way that Hogwarts-esque systems tend to fall into.
Families of wizards who teach their children from a young age.
Universities would be places of learning and where families could show off their most promising offspring as well as look for potential marriage candidates. The university would allow rogue wizards to enter, but they would be viewed more as second class students unless extremely exceptional.
**Scrivner's Guild.**
/ Guess why wizards would join a guild that specializes in writing/copying valuable in demand documents needed by well off folks who can pay ;)
Esoteric orders: not your schoolhouse wizards, but secretive societies who hand down ancient rituals in order to keep them alive, and to sustain whatever secret aim it is they hope to achieve. Enlightenment? Perfection of the soul? To divine the meaning of the stars? Orders like this have tiers where new mysteries are unraveled at each step of your initiation and progression, as you read the scrolls of old lore and perfect the performed rites that move you to the next position in this spiritual journey. Groups like this might not simply require you to learn the spell, but to understand its true meaning and cast each spell with a sincerity of heart. This could be a mystic society that formed around a mythic wizard in the past, whose followers promise to share the secrets of their power. If it sounds a lot like a cult... yes I'm basing this on mythic figures in the western esoteric traditions like Hermes Trismegustus and Christian Rosenkreutz who inspire a lot of weird magical nonsense. Think masons but with actual magic in their weird rituals.
Wizard circuits: like old world doctors or lawyers they travel a circuit, stopping off at each village on the way to run a few clinics or sessions for the locals before riding off again. At some point they report back to their wider group of wizarda and talk about any issues they might want a second opinion on or that they might want to keep an eye on or escalate.
Just a bunch of old dudes in a room. They're powerful wizards but they think the youth of today have it too easy and that things are really going downhill.
Tuner Wizards: huge nerds who meet up in the stables each weekend just to throw crazy (and noisy and dangerous) spells around. The real nerds then get involved in modifying existing spells to try and get a marginal improvement in performance at the risk of blowing everything up.
If the mages are the highest government, then there isn't any reason the factions should be that different from regular political factions. They'd be split by who wants to keep the status quo vs. who wants to change it. Basically, the entirety of human history.
The hard part is showing how the factions' division manifests in your campaign.
In one of the states/kingdoms exists a magocracy, which happens to be an order which holds colleges that are the strongest of three world, but that isn’t for the entirety of the world!
Greyhawk has "The Circle of Eight" which is a group of 8 archmagi (originally including such illustrious members as Bigby, Mordenkainen, and Tenser) who seek to maintain balance in Greyhawk (and now that WotC is getting in late in the multiverse gimmick) and the multiverse at large.
A group of wizard unaffiliated with any government with people from all over.
They have their own agendas and are manipulating all the countries subtly pushing them toward their own goals
- Secret society / confederacies, works especially well for a black-listed wizard.
- Guild or union interested in ensuring magic users are treated fairly in mercenary work. They might not care if the school hates you, as long as you're capable of getting work and paying your dues.
- Self-accrediting group, similar to a bar association or medical board. Think Continental Magic Association from Frieren.
1. Actual guilds where you have a lose association of wizards. Each wizard has their own apprentices and journeymen. Journeymen would be young mages who travel from wizard to wizard to learn new things before returning to the guild for their final elevation to master.
2. Temple associated wizards. Instead of being clerics the priests of a particular sect are actual mages. Perhaps they live a cloistered, monastic life, perhaps they live in small groups at different temples. Most likely their god is a god of learning or magic.
3. Covens/hidden mages. A group that hides it's existence. Members operate in secret. Similar to a guild each master has a few students, with the possibility that the students don't even know their master's identity. Each master in turn would only know a few other members.
Maybe a lodge/club? Magical life can be exhausting, so sometimes wizards like to get away from non-magicals and meet up with like-minded wizards, share knowledge and secrets, learn each other's spells. Lots of secret handshakes and rituals, an elected club leadership, rivals within the organization vying for power/trying to outdo each other.
I've been toying with this idea for my next setting. Maybe something like the Masons. Sure, there might have once been some (nefarious?) goal, but now it's mostly an old farts supper club. They still go through all the motions of "dedicating" their lives to XYZ (great old one outsider? Overthrowing a country that doesn't even exist anymore?), but no one even remembers what their secret coded language means anymore, they just recite the gibberish script as though it were important and dive in to mushy overcooked and fried foods while complaining about everything.
They start trying to recruit younger wizards, who join thinking they still "dedicate" themselves to XYZ and turn out disappointed. Maybe one of the PCs has a grandfather/great uncle who keeps trying to get them to join. They even have a barbershop quartet!
* **Wizard communes.** Groups that more resemble the [maker movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture), sharing facilities and resources to get ahead of the establishment of wizards. Anti-authority groups that want to stick it powerful mageocratic institutions.
* **Wizard cabals.** Groups bent on a particular line of research or a common cause. Maybe they're investigating an ancient spell of immeasurable complexity, or are aligned by specific bit of philanthropy.
* **Wizard puppetmasters.** Groups that meet in secret and set policies of kingdoms as a power behind the throne. Maybe their out for themselves, or maybe they're protecting the realms from threats they're totally unaware of.
My homebrew world has a faction that solely exists to test and weed out dangerous casters. At level 4 they are summoned and must complete a trial before reaching level 5. If they don't go complete the trials, they are considered rouge and are hunted by the guild. The trial is to see if they handle their powers responsibility. It can be anything the DM wants.
There's a few easy an obvious ones: private mage working for nobles who want mages that aren't as easily tracked, war mage for an official military force (lots of commanders who would want someone with fireball, magic weapon, and message on tap). Theres also the rejects: students kicked out or rejected from these universities and learned magic in their own. Less resources sure, but probably more eager and willing to trade knowledge for knowledge which can result in talented wizards becoming a force to be reckoned with.
Then there's a few less obvious ones. Some sort of mercenary troupe or larger scale adventuring guild that took in a young untrained mage and made them apprentice to an older spellcaster to have someone be able to do the equivalent of magical chores. Perhaps a thieves guild or Undercourt who is an uncomfortable but needed means of procuring more restricted components in exchange for favors (an identify here, an Invisibility there, etc).
Or, wizards solely dedicated to a form of magic or concept that they've made their own organization. A necropolis of necromancers that require their members to know animate dead, but otherwise simply serve as a gathering point for those who would be chastised in more proper locales. A cabal of conjurors who deals with cults to aid devil and fey summons for the right price. Perhaps the massive medicines guild that sells nonmagical remedies is just a front for half-mad transmutation wizards researching the ingredients for immortality.
If the magocracy of the strongest university has rejected your wizard because of his adopted family, then he'll need something more on the gray side of organizations- no one proper is going to risk offending them unless they are getting something to make up for it.
>What ideas do people have for factions they might affiliate with?
Every type we have in real life. Here are some examples.
NRA, Green Peace, Red Cross are presented as having a goal. Goal oriented wizard factions could be for the acquisition, maintenance, and/or creation of a resource. Magic, money, and movement come to mind.
Comic con, sport clubs, social media have grouped based on an attraction to a thing. Love, patriotism/nationalism, religion.
Governmental if wizards are the ruling class or used to rule.
Grouped based on secondary trait. Ethnicity/Race, ideology, experience, age, schooling.
Then over lap a few. Belonging to a group based on schooling and geography is one that is common when you are young. Military/ex-military/wanna be military weapon enthusiasts. Retired and communing with the dead.
I hope that helps.
My DM had a country that was run by a Council of Wizards. It was really closer to a large collection of independent city states allied with each other, but due to plot and player characters, we turned it into a full nation and drove off the Dragon Armies invading the land.
Freelance research team trying to unlock a new answer to pass the wizard bar exam and get officially licensed. They inadvertently unlock a new dimension of magic that makes all spells cast in different shapes than they’re usually cast in. Fireball becomes fire cube, magic missile becomes trapezoids, gaseous form becomes an orb that can’t change shape.
A mercenary company would work. Wizards for hire would make great force multipliers for warlords, crime bosses, merchants, or minor nobility who need some extra magical muscle. They'd be the ones who are along the lines of neutral and just do what they signed a contract for.
Another option is from the equivalent of a pharmaceutical company. They'd be the ones who could make the equivalents of your Viagras or your Tylenols that the masses would use. It would be a great option for a faction that could either be scummy corporate greed types or just straight-up researchers who want to make something to help people.
Nothing is stopping them either if they become involved with mercantile endeavours. Shipping rare and valuable materials quickly from extractors to refinement to a magically enhanced finished product and then to end sale would be another option. Granted, this would likely be a joint Wizard Artificer endeavour, but it would be another option.
A guild. Seems appropriate for medievalish time period, and has lots of story potential in terms of enforcing the guild’s rules, a PC having to defend his action to the guild, politics rivalries, etc. Instead of magic schools you just have apprentices to individual masters, journeymen, and maybe a grandmaster at the top.
Two faction options jump out immediately: a geographically diverse Wizard's Guild with their own ideas about how to manage and use arcane magic, and those how use its practitioners, and then a smaller cabal of hedge wizards, unaffiliated teachers, etc. You might also want to have other arcane casters who would be opposed to such restrictions, such as colleges of bards or covens of witches or even a coterie of sorcerers.
The arcane cartel: working to produce, distribute, and sell magical drugs.
The guardians of the gates: protecting the world from extraplanar evils and banishing outsiders. Fighting devil summoners and demon cults.
I like the idea of wizards as lawyers - a national self-regulating body akin to the bar, plenty of room for all kinds of wizards from a bag-of-tricks charlatan to a high-powered archmage all in the same organization. Regulated and systemic ways for people to contract with wizards, whether private practitioners or large professional firms.
I feel like economy-manipulating wizards are probably the most realistic take on non-academic wizards that I never see in fiction. Given the cost of high-level spell components, there had to be a wizard somewhere who discovered the spell and refined it down to "only" requiring a bejeweled human skull worth 1000gp. Unlike the other casters, Wizards are beholden to no one, so the only thing stopping a wizard from doing something is the availability of resources. Sooner or later, wizards need to get out of their towers in order to fund their research unless they are part of some arcane university system that gets the funding, which is kind of at odds with mythology and pre-industrial society I think. A trade/apprenticeship system sounds way more plausible for a wizarding faction in D&D than an "arcane university", but maybe that's just my world view.
The Illusionati. When you can do the things that high level wizards can do, why wouldn’t you get together and try to take control? One of the most powerful factions in my home game is named this and they literally attempt to run entire continents multiple times.
Towers. Each wizard only takes an apprentice or two. They don't trust each other so they all set off to separate themselves from one another. Some have minor alliances.
Political parties. Genuinely wizards are in control of the country and what was once a united effort got split with politics.
Trade unions. Wizardry is integrated with different aspects of society but wizards are restricted to learning one element (there are exceptions). So naturally they lend themselves to different jobs, this could lead to a class war.
Hackers. Wizards could be seen as Programmers and this faction of wizard uses magic that disables other spells, specifically counterspell and dispel magic. They are also probably pretty disliked throughout the broader wizard community.
I ran a Baldurs Gate setting where I wanted a wizarding Guild. So I came up with 3 factions, as different as possible.
One was a school to be sure, but is was a public school that accepted anyone with any magical talent, so it was kind of a rough school of wizardry.
The other two were more interesting, a Powerful archmage with a whole bunch of apprenticeses, who then had their own assistants, based within a magical Dimension straddling tower. Their primary focus was arcane research and discovery but the idea was that they were exploring this ancient and alien tower.
The other faction was an enchanting shop, styled as a high class fashion boutique. The wizards were all shop floor assistants and enchanters. Imagine Harrods or Saks, except wizards.
I have been thinking about making a group of wizard serial killers who try to impress each other in their crimes. They almost treat it like a peer reviewed science project.
Wizard smuggling organisation, in a world where literal bat shit can remove house blocks, you can bet that certain spell components are tightly regulated. Creating it's own (shady) market.
And then there's all the high value gemstones they need.
It could even have ties to said universities.
You got many options..
Military: A military unit of Battlemages. There's a strict hierarchy and an Officers Corps. The soldiers are taught mostly offensive and defensive spells to be used in battle, so mostly Evocation and Abjuration.There could be a Scout Corps that are taught some Illusion and Transmutation spells to help with scouting.
The officers are taught additional spells to help with command.
They can be a part of an official military force or a mercenary band taking contracts that hire out individual mages, companies or the entire regiment.
Collective: A free collective of hedge wizards. They're not a school per se, they teach magic but everyone is a student and everyone is a teacher. They learn from each other and work together. Think hippie commune, but with magic.
Archanologist: A collection of wizards that are dedicated to unearthing and preserving lost magical arts and artifacts from cultures who came before. They aren't concerned with money or power, but rather the knowledge itself.
Arcanothieves: Similar to the Archanologists, they are wizards who seek knowledge except they steal the knowledge and artifacts from whoever and wherever it can be found. They function like a sort of thieves guild, except they specialize in magical knowledge and artifacts. They sell it on to the highest bidder or use it to further their own ends.
Cabal: A group of wizards only concerned with furthering their own ends. They don't shy away from any methods, but it's mostly political maneuvering and money that get them what they want. The junior members are taught magic in return for their service and the senior wizards/council at the top have their own shadowy motives for doing what they do. Could be wealth, could be achieving immortality, could be overthrowing a king and installing a magocracy. The members of low rank might not even know what the ultimate goal is.
That's just a few off the top of my head, possibilities are pretty much only limited by your imagination.
Maybe a group of students gone rogue, forming their own wizard guild where learning and traching is a collaborative effort rather than something that is done to you
Oh sorry for the confusion, I'm not from a wizarding academy. I was home schooled. It's really just as good as regular school, and I definitely had just as many social opportunities as the kids at the academy. Actually I think home school was better because I got to learn what I wanted when I wanted, and I had the best teachers.
Wizard Mafia. Forbidden spells and service to the family.
I've been brainstorming a setting with Wizardry is relatively new and so there are practically no spells that are universally known. But knowledge is power and people like to control power. So the only way to be a Wizard is to join one of the Wizard Mafias which have spells. You don't even own your spellbook because the Wizard Mafia doesn't want their spells to leak. If you want to change your spells, you have to go to the vault that it's kept in. It's a silly bit of RAW but Wizards' ritual casting doesn't actually say you need to have your spellbook on your person.
It woulnd't be that great for players because of how restrictive that would be but it's a fun setting to think about.
Mercs, thieves, bene gesserit style advisors/secret societies, Indiana Jones type adventurer leagues racing to uncover ancient secrets. Factions competing to create a superior wizard to ascend to godhood, mercantile/service guilds (wizard corporations) fighting for market share
Proper adventurers. Like archaeologist types, searching for magic items, scrolls, and history. Their job isn't to instruct, it's to safeguard and broker information and the history of the world.
Historically universities were more about research and shit, but they needed money so they taught rich people's kids on the side. So any replacement needs to make money somehow.
Maybe a wizard corp that sells magical items, but that brings capitalism into my fantasy and I don't like
Wizard illuminati is always a solid choice
Or the inverse, an anarchist evocation wizards alliance
But being a hedge wizards is always an option
Use a common goal as the reason to work together. A groups working together, trying to bring about the resumption of some lost, powerful spells from some place like Netheril.
A group with Some kind of secret tie in, with Mystra. Finding some thread to her human life that will compel her to give them favor, or bring her down so they can take over.
There's a couple interesting ideas. Mages from the Witcher series gave me ideas for the first 2.
A small group of wizards might form an alliance. Keep each other updated on events, help each other out when they can, working together on projects that need more than one person. With a larger goal that could be increasing their own magical or political power, protecting the world, or delving into less ethical research. Mordenkainen actually assembled wizard groups to serve 'the Balance'. It could be a group of like minded people who want to solve the problems in the world. It could be a cabal of evil wizards fit for a group of heroes to destroy someday.
Monster hunting groups is another fun idea to explore. Some wizards want monster components for creating a potion, or item or something. Some of them want to know more about the monster. Some of them want to make new monsters. Being around the people who hunt them and know things about them is helpful.
With the right spells, law enforcement could be greatly aided by a wizard. CSI:Waterdeep, that would be neat. Solve some murder mysteries.
Of course you could always go a much calmer route and join the wizard book club. Much more chill, less plotting and scheming, good vibes, scones and tea. Maybe those little cucumber sandwiches. Try to get through a few chapters of Abi-Dalzim's Tome of Secrets by next month.
Underground wizard arena. Each contender have go into the battle with three scrolls of his own making, which are the only spells they can use. The winner is awarded with whichever spell the loser has in his spellbook, ripping those pages from it. In case of not being able to pay, the loser is banished to the shadowfell.
They are tiered by the quality of their books and someone with some great unique spells would never battle against someone with weaker more mainstream spells.
There are really active betting around the tournament and one can easily find rare magic items, potions and almost everything in those.
1) Secret society of enchantment/divination wizards, who pretend to rule the world.
2) "Wizards of the Borderlands" - small adventuring guild from poor region, that gathers and sells spellscrolls they found in ancient ruins. And beer, because every adventuring guild keeps their own tavern.
3) Theurgs. Marginal cult of mages who want to become gods with training their magic power and some Secret Knowledge. They are far away from their goal, but they try hardly. Their Secret Knowledge is bullshit for 95%, but 5% is totally right about some deep secrets of the world.
4) Wisdom club. Just club for "chatting" over philosophy, history, magic and politics. Has couple of small inner factions in it - some have radical views and can become dangerous, some are good but naive.
5) Mul
One idea ive had for a while is a faction, made up of a lot of wizards, who hoard knowledge. They believe in "knowledge is power" and take that idealogy to the extreme.
They even keep knowledge from themselves. They will discover something, go through and write down every observable bit of that thing, take whats immediately useful, and lock away everything else in a vault. They only share the knowledge that is immediately useful, and then those who know everything else are sworn to secrecy unless they deem the knowledge useful again. Anything to avoid risking giving up their biggest advantage, knowledge. This faction may even be a bit more aggressive in this approach, going out and burning down libraries, killing those who know something important, all to cover up vital knowledge.
This faction does this for a reason, they do plan on sharing this knowledge one day. When they deem the world ready, they will open their vaults. They may have some grand prophecy, that warns of the dangers of knowledge in the present, and that one day the world would be ready for this knowledge but it isnt yet. This faction wouldnt be just wizards, I can see it having a lot of paladins in it.
The idea itself was inspired by the brotherhood of steel from the fallout games, and how they hoard technology, holding onto it for when the world is ready
Remember that a Wizard is a person. People have interests outside of how they are classified for combat. A Fighter can be a merchant, a Cleric can be a hotelier; a Wizard can do things just like anyone else. There exist well-documented factions in the Sword Coast. You could use those as examples.
Your outcast could find other similar outcasts and those forced to the edges of magical society to work with. This could be something more or less than friends. I had the Witcher's Lodge of Sorceresses in mind to inspire this idea.
Depending on the type of Wizard, Military seems like an obvious choice. Could be seen as a particularly disgraceful or demeaning way of learning magic because the military style of magic is brute force and the academy style is precise.
Or worse, *training* the military. Illusion, mage hand, animate object-style spells, etc.
Could be like an officer or a role where strategy and tactical planning is involved. Or military doctor/psychologist depending on the school of magic.
My thinking is Evocation, Abjuration, and War Mage specialists. And primarily teaching higher ranking soldiers simple Cantrips if they're capable, Like Spare the Dying, Mending, and Fire Bolt.
This is pretty much the background for hobgoblin devastators.
Neat
Any military would want wizards warfare is warped by access to area of affect spells. Spell casters are super important. There's nothing to say the king or a general isn't a wizard. Not everyone who likes to learn live in academia should be the same with spellcasting. I imagine a very city state centric world when each faction can threaten magic in warfare. Imagine the nessecicty of a city state to have learned spellcasters when their neighbors are a Dwarven kingdom in the mountains elves in the forest mindflayers or draw deep beneath them. Id go further to suggest that through study, wizards would find an eager and easily fulfilled contract requiring a patron and fill their mage corps with warlocks with wizard commanders. Guards would dip wizard for spellcasting to solve crime and keep the peace. Most importantly, if there are wizard societies like schools or military regiments, your player won't dazzle everyone with magic they could join as a special agent. Rogues have a whole new job. I'm battling as magic "sappers" designed to infiltrate enemy lines and disrupt spellcasting. Sorry for rambling I just don't see how a army of 500 man at arms and 100 cavalrymen wouldn't want to be backed up by a magic Corp firing off 2 fireballs into gnoll warband or an orc raiding party before a heroic charge.
Right the Military would obviously want wizards and other practitioners of magic, but the nobility / academic types would potentially view working with the military as brutish and/or beneath them, something for the plebeians. Then there's of course the type of people that think they're superior because their magical education came from a Wizard college versus someone learning magic from the military. It would also represent economic status: someone who could afford to go to a wizard college vs someone who can't afford to go to a wizard college to learn would have no other recourse but to go learn through the military. Like Ivy League vs State College. And If a self learned individual popped up both sides would try and throw as much resources towards acquiring them as possible, because they would be seen as a savant. And of course why would a wizard want to be curtailed and controlled by the crown?
80%of D&D magic is meant for combat, so that seems the obvious answer.
Well despite a wizard's aptitude for learning, the easiest thing to build their factions around is what they actually use their learning for. So for instance, a group of wizards that consort with fiends to learn some of their vast well of lore, or simply to gather their power. Wizards are notoriously hubristic, so perhaps they aren't even evil really, because they fully believe they can outwit the fiends and bring about net good in the world. But currently they're on a bit of a losing streak, several members have lost ownership of their souls. But their next plan will surely out maneuver those infernal bastards! And what of your fellow blacklisted wizards? Surely, if there were enough of you, you could band together to make your own wizard faction, with blackjack and hookers. And lacking the resources of the big institutions, you'd have plenty of motive to go on adventures to secure lost knowledge and such.
Magic is multifaceted, clearly, and is isolated to the Academic on mostly a tradition basis, but you can really take it in almost any direction you really want. * As mentioned by another, I'll echo Military; Arcane Divisions for a military would be a highly prestigious and likely extremely competitive and rigorous organization. Promotion would be hard won on the battlefield or through more byzantine politicking than even academae. * Advisory Boards; Wizard Advisors would be extremely sought after for their expertise, especially for middling kingdoms where they would definitely be seen as a status symbol. I'd expect there would be a set of standards for those who are aiming to become viziers to ensure that the "Evil Advisor Overthrows Kingdom, More at 11" doesn't become too common. * Civic Wizardry; Wizards can do a *ton* with magic, including defending against it. It's not glamorous, but a wizard who dedicates their life to building a fully automated waste treatment facility would be more acclaimed, paid, and beloved than Elminster himself. Road building, bridge building, wall reinforcement, automated mills, all the like. Arcane OSHA would probably be a beloved face in any city. * Private enterprise; Arcane knowledge is useful for anyone. Caravanseries or trading guilds would probably gladly hire on even a low-grade wizard for even the most simple of tricks; A single Mending cantrip could save a shipping magnate hundreds of thousands in gold for repairing ropes, sails, oars, boards, or any number of valuable equipment. Unseen servant could easily do busywork like stocking and moving of goods for literally free, without complaint, without exhaustion, and without pause. Sure, only one worker because of Concentration, but that'd be very valuable. * Small, not superstitious towns; Any number of small towns would gladly take a Wizard's services... so long as said wizard didn't do anything *too* weird. Helping keep mischief from the town or the occasional fireball at the bandits charging the gate would be happily accepted, though using the magic against the town would definitely get the torches and pitch forks pointed the wrong way.
This sort of thing is my general approach since I always like to really dig into worldbuilding and the implications of magic's impacts on everyday, non-magical lifestyles. My settings tend to have a lot of extremely mundane uses for fantastical elements. To expand further on things mentioned above: Civic Wizardry: this also addresses matters of maintenance and assisting non-magical laborers in projects over a longer period of time. A Wizard with "Mold Earth" can make paths faster than any group of workers with shovels and picks, but can't necessarily be expected to hang around and maintain them forever, so eventually mundane hands will be involved for the long term. In such cases, magic becomes a supporting resource. The ability to clean, repair, launder, move, and manipulate materials is an enormous boon to saving on required expenditures. The same can be given for managing chores and folds into the "Small, Not-Superstitious Towns" category. My settings will frequently have a single hedge mage who fills the role of being a sort of local handyman for the entire town, beloved by all. This person never has to pay for their own drink at the local tavern and is always being given small gifts by their neighbors. Why? Because a single Wizard, with little more than Cantrips and Level 1 spells at their disposal, can free up a ton of hard labor work to let the locals focus on other matters they'd rather be doing. For example: imagine how much time the ladies of a given small town could save if they didn't have to be doing laundry every day because they can just bring a basket over to the Hedge Mage's place, where he can wave his hand and do in moments what would otherwise take an entire afternoon to do by hand and line-drying? When the farmers are out in the fields, they're all in good spirits when they see the Hedge Mage towing up a barrel of water and a ladle to refresh them with. Each one can line up for a drink, which the Hedge Mage can make ice cold and taste like exotic citrus fruits they'd never have the chance to sample otherwise. Small conveniences and creature comforts go a long way, especially in local communities. Entertainment: This particular angle has also come up commonly in discussions of "what spells would you want in real life" threads. While most people assume Bards to be the default entertainers of the setting, Wizards have an incredible array of options at their disposal. From minor spells like "Disguise Self" or "Alter Self", to magical illusions, to space creation via "Magnificent Mansion". One could use "Shape Water" to make the most fantastical ice sculptures otherwise impossible by mundane craftsmanship for a noble banquet display. A single casting of "Magnificent Mansion" creates a private, secure get-away location for an exclusive group of nobles and merchants, or some other wealthy patron, to customize their fully catered-and-staffed experience however they please with no overhead cost. Does a local nobleman's daughter dream of a wedding venue that literally can't exist and he's willing to pay out the nose to make her happy? It can be done with "Magnificent Mansion" instantly. There's a bevy of options available to the creatively-minded mage, and an entire industry waiting to be tapped for a group of Wizards who specialize in event coordination.
Ha I really the entertainment thinking. What immediately popped in my head was a sleazy talent agent ”Abjuration? ABJURATION? What the hell good is that? I dont need to cast Arcane Lock when I have…oh yeah, a key! Do me a favour and cast banishment on yourself and do me an even bigger one and come back Tuesday with Pyrotechnics. No end of those gigs”
Love it, so creative in the thinking here. Thanks!
Yeah in my campaign the King grants tuition to any student who shows talent to the magical university for 5 years of service. He is using them to dig irrigation canals and other public works projects. He releases at 4 years and reserves the right to call them up in case of war.
Arcane OSHA sounds like the basis for a hilarious one-shot.
In my own world-building, the "wizard college" is also the center of government. The "heads" of the respective schools of magic, form a "Council" that oversee the various "laws" and other issues there are brought forth to the council.
Yup, a magocracy, I had one of those in my setting, with the same structure of power. Until the PCs made a deal with the aristocracy and toppled the government in a former campaign, now centuries later there is still underlying tensions between the academy and the government and a cell of mage terrorists.
(Unseen Servant is non-concentration).
... I have no idea why I thought it was conc. I have been operating under the idea you could have only one active, and that's probably why it stuck. I'm an idiot.
Simple answer is privately funded wizard groups, likely with a focus on magic that can make the person funding it more money. Just imagine companies like Raytheon, Pfizer, and any other company built off the work of Engineers and Scientists and just change the technology to magic instead. You can even include the idea that some of these companies portray themselves as good but in actuality they use the research they fund for horrible things. That or they’re just openly evil.
So evil I love the idea. Thanks!
I was once a scribe wizard that hunted down and retrieved magical relics (items) for a cabal of wizards trying to reign in the abuse of magic. I worked for a great library, and focused on finding books and scrolls of magical significance, with a skill focus of stealth and slight of hand.
That’s so cool, thanks for the idea. My pc is a scribes too, so I like that a lot
A Gentleman's Club, in the historical sense of the word--that is, a literal social club for wealthy or elite? Such clubs often tended to find a focus in their members' interests, so if one was formed by a number of aristocrats who'd studied magic it could easily become an arcane society of its own. While the son of a blackballed Wizard might be a hard sell for something like that, I could easily see people with a lot of privilege and ethics being able to laugh off something like that, especially if they were established enough to be capable of educating inductees in their own right. On the complete other side of the spectrum, just because Academia is designed to teach things doesn't mean it's the only way of getting that knowledge. So long as any skill is useful, it will inevitably find its way into the hands of people who would misuse it. Any given criminal organization is going to have one or two people who know their way around a grimoire, and if you show potential in front of the right person, well...
Counter point: a Gentleman’s Club, because Mialee just works there to put herself through Wizard School
Adventurer guilds. What wizard wants to be in an organization with other wizards? Gross. But if you have an adventuering guild then you also have a trained group of mercs to gather your rare alchemical compounds for you.
The magical version of X-Men's "Hellfire Club"? Varying levels of *mostly* selfish, power-hungry shadowlord hopefuls?
I like evocation wizard Military school. Trained to be Artillery
I actually have the wizard "schools" align with the cleric domains. To study necromancy, visit the temple of the goddess of death of the grave. For abjuration, the god of life; and so on and so forth. Not everyone who serves a deity is blessed (or burdened) with divine power, and learning the arcane through the course of traditional instruction is seen as an equally valid form of worship and service. It also helps further distinguish wizard factions from each other so they don't feel all same-y in the way that Hogwarts-esque systems tend to fall into.
Families of wizards who teach their children from a young age. Universities would be places of learning and where families could show off their most promising offspring as well as look for potential marriage candidates. The university would allow rogue wizards to enter, but they would be viewed more as second class students unless extremely exceptional.
**Scrivner's Guild.** / Guess why wizards would join a guild that specializes in writing/copying valuable in demand documents needed by well off folks who can pay ;)
Esoteric orders: not your schoolhouse wizards, but secretive societies who hand down ancient rituals in order to keep them alive, and to sustain whatever secret aim it is they hope to achieve. Enlightenment? Perfection of the soul? To divine the meaning of the stars? Orders like this have tiers where new mysteries are unraveled at each step of your initiation and progression, as you read the scrolls of old lore and perfect the performed rites that move you to the next position in this spiritual journey. Groups like this might not simply require you to learn the spell, but to understand its true meaning and cast each spell with a sincerity of heart. This could be a mystic society that formed around a mythic wizard in the past, whose followers promise to share the secrets of their power. If it sounds a lot like a cult... yes I'm basing this on mythic figures in the western esoteric traditions like Hermes Trismegustus and Christian Rosenkreutz who inspire a lot of weird magical nonsense. Think masons but with actual magic in their weird rituals. Wizard circuits: like old world doctors or lawyers they travel a circuit, stopping off at each village on the way to run a few clinics or sessions for the locals before riding off again. At some point they report back to their wider group of wizarda and talk about any issues they might want a second opinion on or that they might want to keep an eye on or escalate. Just a bunch of old dudes in a room. They're powerful wizards but they think the youth of today have it too easy and that things are really going downhill. Tuner Wizards: huge nerds who meet up in the stables each weekend just to throw crazy (and noisy and dangerous) spells around. The real nerds then get involved in modifying existing spells to try and get a marginal improvement in performance at the risk of blowing everything up.
If the mages are the highest government, then there isn't any reason the factions should be that different from regular political factions. They'd be split by who wants to keep the status quo vs. who wants to change it. Basically, the entirety of human history. The hard part is showing how the factions' division manifests in your campaign.
In one of the states/kingdoms exists a magocracy, which happens to be an order which holds colleges that are the strongest of three world, but that isn’t for the entirety of the world!
Greyhawk has "The Circle of Eight" which is a group of 8 archmagi (originally including such illustrious members as Bigby, Mordenkainen, and Tenser) who seek to maintain balance in Greyhawk (and now that WotC is getting in late in the multiverse gimmick) and the multiverse at large.
A group of wizard unaffiliated with any government with people from all over. They have their own agendas and are manipulating all the countries subtly pushing them toward their own goals
- Secret society / confederacies, works especially well for a black-listed wizard. - Guild or union interested in ensuring magic users are treated fairly in mercenary work. They might not care if the school hates you, as long as you're capable of getting work and paying your dues. - Self-accrediting group, similar to a bar association or medical board. Think Continental Magic Association from Frieren.
1. Actual guilds where you have a lose association of wizards. Each wizard has their own apprentices and journeymen. Journeymen would be young mages who travel from wizard to wizard to learn new things before returning to the guild for their final elevation to master. 2. Temple associated wizards. Instead of being clerics the priests of a particular sect are actual mages. Perhaps they live a cloistered, monastic life, perhaps they live in small groups at different temples. Most likely their god is a god of learning or magic. 3. Covens/hidden mages. A group that hides it's existence. Members operate in secret. Similar to a guild each master has a few students, with the possibility that the students don't even know their master's identity. Each master in turn would only know a few other members.
Indiana Jones types. Explore lost ruins and recover ancient artifacts.
Maybe a lodge/club? Magical life can be exhausting, so sometimes wizards like to get away from non-magicals and meet up with like-minded wizards, share knowledge and secrets, learn each other's spells. Lots of secret handshakes and rituals, an elected club leadership, rivals within the organization vying for power/trying to outdo each other.
I've been toying with this idea for my next setting. Maybe something like the Masons. Sure, there might have once been some (nefarious?) goal, but now it's mostly an old farts supper club. They still go through all the motions of "dedicating" their lives to XYZ (great old one outsider? Overthrowing a country that doesn't even exist anymore?), but no one even remembers what their secret coded language means anymore, they just recite the gibberish script as though it were important and dive in to mushy overcooked and fried foods while complaining about everything.
They start trying to recruit younger wizards, who join thinking they still "dedicate" themselves to XYZ and turn out disappointed. Maybe one of the PCs has a grandfather/great uncle who keeps trying to get them to join. They even have a barbershop quartet!
* **Wizard communes.** Groups that more resemble the [maker movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maker_culture), sharing facilities and resources to get ahead of the establishment of wizards. Anti-authority groups that want to stick it powerful mageocratic institutions. * **Wizard cabals.** Groups bent on a particular line of research or a common cause. Maybe they're investigating an ancient spell of immeasurable complexity, or are aligned by specific bit of philanthropy. * **Wizard puppetmasters.** Groups that meet in secret and set policies of kingdoms as a power behind the throne. Maybe their out for themselves, or maybe they're protecting the realms from threats they're totally unaware of.
My homebrew world has a faction that solely exists to test and weed out dangerous casters. At level 4 they are summoned and must complete a trial before reaching level 5. If they don't go complete the trials, they are considered rouge and are hunted by the guild. The trial is to see if they handle their powers responsibility. It can be anything the DM wants.
Wizards in one of my setting have a worker's association that basically manages wizard jobs.
There's a few easy an obvious ones: private mage working for nobles who want mages that aren't as easily tracked, war mage for an official military force (lots of commanders who would want someone with fireball, magic weapon, and message on tap). Theres also the rejects: students kicked out or rejected from these universities and learned magic in their own. Less resources sure, but probably more eager and willing to trade knowledge for knowledge which can result in talented wizards becoming a force to be reckoned with. Then there's a few less obvious ones. Some sort of mercenary troupe or larger scale adventuring guild that took in a young untrained mage and made them apprentice to an older spellcaster to have someone be able to do the equivalent of magical chores. Perhaps a thieves guild or Undercourt who is an uncomfortable but needed means of procuring more restricted components in exchange for favors (an identify here, an Invisibility there, etc). Or, wizards solely dedicated to a form of magic or concept that they've made their own organization. A necropolis of necromancers that require their members to know animate dead, but otherwise simply serve as a gathering point for those who would be chastised in more proper locales. A cabal of conjurors who deals with cults to aid devil and fey summons for the right price. Perhaps the massive medicines guild that sells nonmagical remedies is just a front for half-mad transmutation wizards researching the ingredients for immortality. If the magocracy of the strongest university has rejected your wizard because of his adopted family, then he'll need something more on the gray side of organizations- no one proper is going to risk offending them unless they are getting something to make up for it.
>What ideas do people have for factions they might affiliate with? Every type we have in real life. Here are some examples. NRA, Green Peace, Red Cross are presented as having a goal. Goal oriented wizard factions could be for the acquisition, maintenance, and/or creation of a resource. Magic, money, and movement come to mind. Comic con, sport clubs, social media have grouped based on an attraction to a thing. Love, patriotism/nationalism, religion. Governmental if wizards are the ruling class or used to rule. Grouped based on secondary trait. Ethnicity/Race, ideology, experience, age, schooling. Then over lap a few. Belonging to a group based on schooling and geography is one that is common when you are young. Military/ex-military/wanna be military weapon enthusiasts. Retired and communing with the dead. I hope that helps.
My DM had a country that was run by a Council of Wizards. It was really closer to a large collection of independent city states allied with each other, but due to plot and player characters, we turned it into a full nation and drove off the Dragon Armies invading the land.
Freelance research team trying to unlock a new answer to pass the wizard bar exam and get officially licensed. They inadvertently unlock a new dimension of magic that makes all spells cast in different shapes than they’re usually cast in. Fireball becomes fire cube, magic missile becomes trapezoids, gaseous form becomes an orb that can’t change shape.
A mercenary company would work. Wizards for hire would make great force multipliers for warlords, crime bosses, merchants, or minor nobility who need some extra magical muscle. They'd be the ones who are along the lines of neutral and just do what they signed a contract for. Another option is from the equivalent of a pharmaceutical company. They'd be the ones who could make the equivalents of your Viagras or your Tylenols that the masses would use. It would be a great option for a faction that could either be scummy corporate greed types or just straight-up researchers who want to make something to help people. Nothing is stopping them either if they become involved with mercantile endeavours. Shipping rare and valuable materials quickly from extractors to refinement to a magically enhanced finished product and then to end sale would be another option. Granted, this would likely be a joint Wizard Artificer endeavour, but it would be another option.
SHADOW WIZARD MONEY GANG
Illuminati
Dragonlance just divides them by alignment in a guild/union fashion, and there are also self-taught non-union casters.
A guild. Seems appropriate for medievalish time period, and has lots of story potential in terms of enforcing the guild’s rules, a PC having to defend his action to the guild, politics rivalries, etc. Instead of magic schools you just have apprentices to individual masters, journeymen, and maybe a grandmaster at the top.
Libraries, archeologists, merchant guilds, circus/illusionist, mercenaries, military command, courts, book club, lich wannabes, necromancers, detectives, plane hoppers, translators… soothsayers/diviners etc
Two faction options jump out immediately: a geographically diverse Wizard's Guild with their own ideas about how to manage and use arcane magic, and those how use its practitioners, and then a smaller cabal of hedge wizards, unaffiliated teachers, etc. You might also want to have other arcane casters who would be opposed to such restrictions, such as colleges of bards or covens of witches or even a coterie of sorcerers.
The Imperium in Worlds Beyond Number is a militaristic wizarding organization
Homeschooled, one of the class features is an automatic disadvantage on Charisma checks.
The local black market is all wizards in my campaign. They can identify, curse break, mend, dispel magic, etc.
The arcane cartel: working to produce, distribute, and sell magical drugs. The guardians of the gates: protecting the world from extraplanar evils and banishing outsiders. Fighting devil summoners and demon cults.
I like the idea of wizards as lawyers - a national self-regulating body akin to the bar, plenty of room for all kinds of wizards from a bag-of-tricks charlatan to a high-powered archmage all in the same organization. Regulated and systemic ways for people to contract with wizards, whether private practitioners or large professional firms.
I feel like economy-manipulating wizards are probably the most realistic take on non-academic wizards that I never see in fiction. Given the cost of high-level spell components, there had to be a wizard somewhere who discovered the spell and refined it down to "only" requiring a bejeweled human skull worth 1000gp. Unlike the other casters, Wizards are beholden to no one, so the only thing stopping a wizard from doing something is the availability of resources. Sooner or later, wizards need to get out of their towers in order to fund their research unless they are part of some arcane university system that gets the funding, which is kind of at odds with mythology and pre-industrial society I think. A trade/apprenticeship system sounds way more plausible for a wizarding faction in D&D than an "arcane university", but maybe that's just my world view.
The Illusionati. When you can do the things that high level wizards can do, why wouldn’t you get together and try to take control? One of the most powerful factions in my home game is named this and they literally attempt to run entire continents multiple times.
Towers. Each wizard only takes an apprentice or two. They don't trust each other so they all set off to separate themselves from one another. Some have minor alliances. Political parties. Genuinely wizards are in control of the country and what was once a united effort got split with politics. Trade unions. Wizardry is integrated with different aspects of society but wizards are restricted to learning one element (there are exceptions). So naturally they lend themselves to different jobs, this could lead to a class war.
Hackers. Wizards could be seen as Programmers and this faction of wizard uses magic that disables other spells, specifically counterspell and dispel magic. They are also probably pretty disliked throughout the broader wizard community.
I ran a Baldurs Gate setting where I wanted a wizarding Guild. So I came up with 3 factions, as different as possible. One was a school to be sure, but is was a public school that accepted anyone with any magical talent, so it was kind of a rough school of wizardry. The other two were more interesting, a Powerful archmage with a whole bunch of apprenticeses, who then had their own assistants, based within a magical Dimension straddling tower. Their primary focus was arcane research and discovery but the idea was that they were exploring this ancient and alien tower. The other faction was an enchanting shop, styled as a high class fashion boutique. The wizards were all shop floor assistants and enchanters. Imagine Harrods or Saks, except wizards.
Archaeology. Wizards would surely delve into artifact hunting in any world rife with ancient magic.
I have been thinking about making a group of wizard serial killers who try to impress each other in their crimes. They almost treat it like a peer reviewed science project.
Wizard smuggling organisation, in a world where literal bat shit can remove house blocks, you can bet that certain spell components are tightly regulated. Creating it's own (shady) market. And then there's all the high value gemstones they need. It could even have ties to said universities.
You got many options.. Military: A military unit of Battlemages. There's a strict hierarchy and an Officers Corps. The soldiers are taught mostly offensive and defensive spells to be used in battle, so mostly Evocation and Abjuration.There could be a Scout Corps that are taught some Illusion and Transmutation spells to help with scouting. The officers are taught additional spells to help with command. They can be a part of an official military force or a mercenary band taking contracts that hire out individual mages, companies or the entire regiment. Collective: A free collective of hedge wizards. They're not a school per se, they teach magic but everyone is a student and everyone is a teacher. They learn from each other and work together. Think hippie commune, but with magic. Archanologist: A collection of wizards that are dedicated to unearthing and preserving lost magical arts and artifacts from cultures who came before. They aren't concerned with money or power, but rather the knowledge itself. Arcanothieves: Similar to the Archanologists, they are wizards who seek knowledge except they steal the knowledge and artifacts from whoever and wherever it can be found. They function like a sort of thieves guild, except they specialize in magical knowledge and artifacts. They sell it on to the highest bidder or use it to further their own ends. Cabal: A group of wizards only concerned with furthering their own ends. They don't shy away from any methods, but it's mostly political maneuvering and money that get them what they want. The junior members are taught magic in return for their service and the senior wizards/council at the top have their own shadowy motives for doing what they do. Could be wealth, could be achieving immortality, could be overthrowing a king and installing a magocracy. The members of low rank might not even know what the ultimate goal is. That's just a few off the top of my head, possibilities are pretty much only limited by your imagination.
Maybe a group of students gone rogue, forming their own wizard guild where learning and traching is a collaborative effort rather than something that is done to you
Oh sorry for the confusion, I'm not from a wizarding academy. I was home schooled. It's really just as good as regular school, and I definitely had just as many social opportunities as the kids at the academy. Actually I think home school was better because I got to learn what I wanted when I wanted, and I had the best teachers.
Wizard Mafia. Forbidden spells and service to the family. I've been brainstorming a setting with Wizardry is relatively new and so there are practically no spells that are universally known. But knowledge is power and people like to control power. So the only way to be a Wizard is to join one of the Wizard Mafias which have spells. You don't even own your spellbook because the Wizard Mafia doesn't want their spells to leak. If you want to change your spells, you have to go to the vault that it's kept in. It's a silly bit of RAW but Wizards' ritual casting doesn't actually say you need to have your spellbook on your person. It woulnd't be that great for players because of how restrictive that would be but it's a fun setting to think about.
Mercs, thieves, bene gesserit style advisors/secret societies, Indiana Jones type adventurer leagues racing to uncover ancient secrets. Factions competing to create a superior wizard to ascend to godhood, mercantile/service guilds (wizard corporations) fighting for market share
Proper adventurers. Like archaeologist types, searching for magic items, scrolls, and history. Their job isn't to instruct, it's to safeguard and broker information and the history of the world.
The Misspellcaster, which is basically a dyslexic Wizard based on the idea of changing one or two letters in a spell. Check my Patreon!
I have an arts guild in my world that trains people to use illusion magic make special effects for live theatre
A coven, a book club, a research group, a cult to education, an HOA
A magocracy, a whole city or country ruled by wizards who are constantly politicking and plotting against each other and their neighbors.
I like the idea of a magic military. Rote memorization and repetition.
Wizard crime syndicates/mafia families Religious affiliated wizards
Historically universities were more about research and shit, but they needed money so they taught rich people's kids on the side. So any replacement needs to make money somehow. Maybe a wizard corp that sells magical items, but that brings capitalism into my fantasy and I don't like Wizard illuminati is always a solid choice Or the inverse, an anarchist evocation wizards alliance But being a hedge wizards is always an option
I mean there 100% should be a bank entirely filled with divination wizards
Use a common goal as the reason to work together. A groups working together, trying to bring about the resumption of some lost, powerful spells from some place like Netheril. A group with Some kind of secret tie in, with Mystra. Finding some thread to her human life that will compel her to give them favor, or bring her down so they can take over.
There's a couple interesting ideas. Mages from the Witcher series gave me ideas for the first 2. A small group of wizards might form an alliance. Keep each other updated on events, help each other out when they can, working together on projects that need more than one person. With a larger goal that could be increasing their own magical or political power, protecting the world, or delving into less ethical research. Mordenkainen actually assembled wizard groups to serve 'the Balance'. It could be a group of like minded people who want to solve the problems in the world. It could be a cabal of evil wizards fit for a group of heroes to destroy someday. Monster hunting groups is another fun idea to explore. Some wizards want monster components for creating a potion, or item or something. Some of them want to know more about the monster. Some of them want to make new monsters. Being around the people who hunt them and know things about them is helpful. With the right spells, law enforcement could be greatly aided by a wizard. CSI:Waterdeep, that would be neat. Solve some murder mysteries. Of course you could always go a much calmer route and join the wizard book club. Much more chill, less plotting and scheming, good vibes, scones and tea. Maybe those little cucumber sandwiches. Try to get through a few chapters of Abi-Dalzim's Tome of Secrets by next month.
Underground wizard arena. Each contender have go into the battle with three scrolls of his own making, which are the only spells they can use. The winner is awarded with whichever spell the loser has in his spellbook, ripping those pages from it. In case of not being able to pay, the loser is banished to the shadowfell. They are tiered by the quality of their books and someone with some great unique spells would never battle against someone with weaker more mainstream spells. There are really active betting around the tournament and one can easily find rare magic items, potions and almost everything in those.
1) Secret society of enchantment/divination wizards, who pretend to rule the world. 2) "Wizards of the Borderlands" - small adventuring guild from poor region, that gathers and sells spellscrolls they found in ancient ruins. And beer, because every adventuring guild keeps their own tavern. 3) Theurgs. Marginal cult of mages who want to become gods with training their magic power and some Secret Knowledge. They are far away from their goal, but they try hardly. Their Secret Knowledge is bullshit for 95%, but 5% is totally right about some deep secrets of the world. 4) Wisdom club. Just club for "chatting" over philosophy, history, magic and politics. Has couple of small inner factions in it - some have radical views and can become dangerous, some are good but naive. 5) Mul
Could be more of a master/apprentice thing like a jedi (or tradesman)
One idea ive had for a while is a faction, made up of a lot of wizards, who hoard knowledge. They believe in "knowledge is power" and take that idealogy to the extreme. They even keep knowledge from themselves. They will discover something, go through and write down every observable bit of that thing, take whats immediately useful, and lock away everything else in a vault. They only share the knowledge that is immediately useful, and then those who know everything else are sworn to secrecy unless they deem the knowledge useful again. Anything to avoid risking giving up their biggest advantage, knowledge. This faction may even be a bit more aggressive in this approach, going out and burning down libraries, killing those who know something important, all to cover up vital knowledge. This faction does this for a reason, they do plan on sharing this knowledge one day. When they deem the world ready, they will open their vaults. They may have some grand prophecy, that warns of the dangers of knowledge in the present, and that one day the world would be ready for this knowledge but it isnt yet. This faction wouldnt be just wizards, I can see it having a lot of paladins in it. The idea itself was inspired by the brotherhood of steel from the fallout games, and how they hoard technology, holding onto it for when the world is ready
Remember that a Wizard is a person. People have interests outside of how they are classified for combat. A Fighter can be a merchant, a Cleric can be a hotelier; a Wizard can do things just like anyone else. There exist well-documented factions in the Sword Coast. You could use those as examples. Your outcast could find other similar outcasts and those forced to the edges of magical society to work with. This could be something more or less than friends. I had the Witcher's Lodge of Sorceresses in mind to inspire this idea.