Circle of Magi

The Circles of Magi were an organization and series of buildings responsible for the training and housing of mages. Established and run by the Chantry, their primary concern was safety. Magic is incredibly useful but also inherently dangerous due to its connection with the Fade, which is where demons live. And the fact that you can blow things up with it. As such, many non-magic folk are uneasy around mages at the best of times, and that unease often escalates into violence. So, the Circles were a combination of school, library, fortress and prison designed to foster learning while protecting the students and their teachers from dangers both inside and out. They were guarded and run by the Templar Order, as their abilities to negate magic made them the perfect soldiers for the job. There were Circles scattered across Thedas, usually separated from population centers for, again, safety reasons. The Circle hierarchy was comprised of a series of administrators called Enchanters. Each Circle was run by a First Enchanter, who was advised by several Senior Enchanters, while Enchanters taught and advised mages and apprentices. Above them all and with a direct line to the Divine was the Grand Enchanter, who the First Enchanters elected from their ranks. Also present were the Tranquil, mages who had been stripped of their powers (and emotions) for various disciplinary reasons.

Though each Circle was different depending on its residents, the prison-like atmosphere often irked mages and caused tension between them and their Templar jailers, quite understandably. There were also many more specific problems with the way they were run. The Harrowing, for example, was an important ritual that determined whether it was safe for an apprentice to continue their training. By deliberately sending them into the Fade to encounter a demon to show they could resist possession. If they couldn’t, or simply didn’t perform to the satisfaction of those in attendance, they were made Tranquil or outright killed. You can see how this process might rub some mages the wrong way. Eventually, and for various reasons too complicated to go into here, the tensions erupted into violence and the Mage-Templar War began. It ended when the remaining rebel mages were absorbed into the Inquisition and the Templars were transformed into the monstrous Red Templars by Corypheus. After the darkspawn magister was slain, Divine Victoria, formerly known as my spymaster Leliana, ascended to the head of the Chantry and began a series of sweeping changes. One of which was the official dissolution of the Circles. They have been replaced by a new College of Enchanters, run by Grand Enchanter Fiona, which is separate from Chantry oversight. Whether or not the Circles will be resurrected in some form remains to be seen, but this elf mage hopes they are a thing of the past and the new way proves effective enough to assuage the fears of the people. I mean, I learned how to use magic barefoot in the woods and I turned out alright, I think.