International Magicians' Consortium

I.M’. C. (Interdimensional Magicians’ Consortium)-I totally want to find a way to make this a thing here. It by necessity won’t be huge or major or anything in this first story, since part of the whole point is that I want him (dare I say it) Forest-Gumping around, kind of in the background of important events and such (which would then give me leave to discuss said important events later if I so desired). However, this is just too golden to pass up. So there can be the standard “wizarding school” everyone always wants to write about. We can even have a bunch, for different cultures and whatnot like Rowling. However, once you “graduate” there are a whole bunch of other parts past just the standard classroom education, because that’s something all the fantasists can agree on, just not on what format it will take. And these different positions/levels are all going to play off of some of the classic wizards/wise guys of fantasy. So I don’t know what all of the different levels will be yet or their names (I like the idea of playing off higher education degrees though: Associate, Bachelor, Master, Doctor, etc.). Based on 4 main wizarding paradigms I have created a series of roles that they graduate between. The paradigms are: Gandalf, Merlin, Harry Potter, and the general Mythos. The order of ascension goes:
1. Solo Artist (Harry, Kvothe, early-Ged): Bachelor

a. This role should be fairly obvious and self-explanatory. Basically after graduation they get sent out into the world fairly solo. Usually given a general task to achieve but nothing especially strenuous and they are left to mostly fend for themselves for a long while and go off and do questy things

2. Tutor (Morgenes/Merlin/Ogion): Master

a. After their time solo they get assigned to a noble household or castle (usually one that also has an advisor in residence) and act as tutor for the prince/princess/bastard/prophesized one. While doing so they are under the guidance of the advisor in residence and get a sort of apprenticeship in both backstage political wrangling and manipulation and guidance in furthering their own studies. This is when they can get the most obviously weird, as usually they have developed an eclectic set of interests to pursue research in following their time solo.

3. Watcher-on-the-Borders/Solo-in-the-Tower(Gandalf/Mythos/Saruman): Master

a. Here there are two similar options, both acting as solo artists again. They might either choose/get assigned to patrolling some area of magical disturbance, looking for arising issues or trying to learn about some new phenomenon, or they might closet themselves in an isolated tower to act as a more stationary sentinel/guard and to proceed on research more relating to theoretical than practical research. Between this role and the previous they will end up with a specialty as a result of their experiences and studies, which will prepare them for their next role.

4. Teacher (Dumbledore, Elodin, etc.): Doctor

a. It is only at this point, when suitably seasoned with both extensive practical and academic knowledge that one might be invited back to teach in a given discipline. The rest should be pretty obvious.

5. Advisor/Quest-Leader(Aes Saedi, Merlin/Brom, Allanon, Gandalf)-Whatever they feel like being called

a. At this point they have gone from basically autonomous to actually so and seek out appropriate areas of disturbance or convergence to manage. This can take any number of forms, just look at the names above to get an idea on those. This is the first time at which they are officially empowered to use their experience to set policy so to say, acting as advisors to kings and setting up and leading their own quests of people (now that they probably know plenty to form those) and actually lead them, unlike previously when they went solo.

6. International Worrywort/Appointee to the Council

a. Someone needs to exist to manage all of this which I have just discussed, and I suppose it’ll have to be this last rank here. Don’t really know what else to do about/with them yet other than that. They just kind of became necessary as a result of the things I have just established on the previous page.

(Where two roles are delineated by a slash [/] it signals that there are two options there and a wizard may choose one or the other, and each role requires roughly the same skill and knowledge)
I don’t know if all of those will stay (the most likely to leave is the last, because that is frankly just too singular to Gandalf) but that is the general outline of our ranking system following “graduation”. The last real question that needs to be answered for this Consortium is what exactly its goal is, and whether or not it will have a mirror organization or dedicated evil magician rivals or any of that. Those two questions are pretty well interwoven and I don’t have anything definite on either, so I think I might wait on them for now. The relevance for this particular story is going to be that on the people on boat number one is going to be a tutor level dude (so a master) Stefano Gorbalienko.  He will (obviously) be the tutor for the royal pair (or whoever they end up being), and he might also be more than partly responsible for their flight.

Structure

This is slightly detailed above, but basically imagine a cross between The White Tower from The Wheel of Time and a modern university and you're fairly spot on.

Public Agenda

The prevention of the total planar dissolution of this version of existence known as The Funhouse. So long as your cool with that, you get in the door.

Assets

Basically every center of education that teaches people older than 8 is connected to them in one way or another, and many places that start younger than that. They also have ridiculous amounts of intellectual property, and at least part ownership in the vast majority of libraries and such. I don't know if this counts as an assest necessarily, but most of the important rulers/people of authority have one of them as an adviser and it is usually an inherited position (Aes Sadei style) and not necessarily linked to the specific advisor.

Type

Education, Magic

Alternative Names

I. M'. C.

Demonym

Bachelor, Master, Doctor

Notable Members

• Stefano Gorbalienko