--Bona al la encycla lorica.
Sect Wars[]
Sects in the guilded states rarely survive long, but if a sect in a powerful nonguilded state has the right connections to those in power, they may receive support - protection, funding, patronage, etc - from those states when their leaders see the potential for what the sect's magic has to offer. When the sect finally is noticed by the guilds, they may send in Holders and Keepers to try to subdue the sect, but may find that the state would have none of it; the state may arrest any guild mages entering their territories or even send troops to engage the guild mages in battle.
The general response from the guilds when a sect demonstrates it has the allegiance of a state is an all-out alarm. The United Guilds rallies the Alliance to send soldiers, and dispatches many of its own Keepers and Wielders to attack the nonguilded state. The nonguilded state for its part may also bring in other allied states to form its own coalition, resulting in a war over the continued existence of a single sect, or a Sect War. The nonguilded state will generally have pitiful magical support as provided by their sponsored sect plus maybe a few scattered rogue spellshapers; they won’t hold a candle to the power that even a single team of guild Wielders can bring to bear. These sect wars have always resulted in the defeat of the nonguilded coalition and the annihilation of the sect, and often the terms of peace include the dissolution of the offending state into several smaller states each of which become subsumed into the Alliance. This has primarily been the way that the guilds’ sphere of influence had grown.