Mage School: School of the Red Orb

Home: None known

Enrollment: unknown; the largest known tower has ~50 members

Motto: "Embrace Hell"

The School of the Red Orb is an arcane school that focus on the ways of using Abyssal power. They are a home for the Corruption Arcane Tradition, sorcerers of similar origins, and even several warlocks of Abyssal (or similar) patrons.

Membership

Membership in the school is difficult to come by, as they seek to keep a low profile compared to the other Mage Schools; in fact, they have had to relocate their tower several times as locals discover them.

Tendencies

Red Orb towers tend to be chaotic, disorganized affairs, often built around a cult of personality of its strongest leader, who is often also the founder of the tower. As apprentices gain in power, they will often challenge the founder/leader in various ways, sometimes even including outright attempts at murder.

Connections

The Red Orb school, being an unofficial mage school that seeks to keep its activities hidden from the secular and divine authorities, has no official connections to any other mage school or organization. Individual towers of the Red Orb may have relationships of opportunity to other organizations if it is beneficial in some way; for example, some Red Orb towers have formed close relationships with rogues guilds, trading magic for shelter in pursuit of mutal profit. Some Red Orb towers have even associated with the Wyrmcult, though these relationships tend to be temporary and only so long as they are roughly of equal strength or power--dragons never choose to bend the knee willingly to the Abyss (Tiamat being the only acceptable exception to that rule), and fiends refuse to acknowledge the primacy of dragons (again, Tiamat being the only exception).

There are rumors that the Dread Emperor has surreptitiously embraced a tower of the Red Orb, providing support to their activities in exchange for their actions on his behalf, but nothing has ever been proven.

Restricted Spells

Restricted spells are never accessible to non-members, and ownership of one of these spells by a non-member is cause for immediate attempts at execution by Red Orb members.