Guild Wars (Lorica)

Guild Wars
The course of the past thousand years of the history of the continents of Ethaya saw the collapse and formation of innumerable sects. Some guilds collapsed, their roles taken by others; other guilds joined the Concord after proving themselves sects capable of holding their own. The overall structure of the Concord remained as the instrument binding together the vast majority of all spellshapers throughout Ethaya (and Detariya, where the guilds had expanded their influence into).

Despite the attitude of free sharing of information that characterized the sects of the War of the Seventeen, in the centuries that followed the guilds became ever more guarded with their secrets. The Order of the Concord evolved also, forming organizations to oversee justice between the sects.

This period of mostly peace among spellshapers was interrupted at numerous points by wars between the guilds, when the Order of the Concord was unable to reach a successful arbitration. These generally came about as a result of accusations of the stealing of guild secrets, and the accused guild not being eager to surrender themselves to the mercy of the other guilds. Named the guild wars, a string of dozens of wars spread over nearly a thousand years, these conflicts eventually led to the destruction of almost all the guilds, with the remaining guilds growing stronger and gaining the secrets of the destroyed guilds. By the time of the founding of Altariya University, the twenty-nine original guilds had been reduced to just six, each of which had powerful paramilitary organizations in their own right in addition to that of the Concord, which had by now become the United Guilds.