In the days of the Old Empire, hundreds upon hundreds of philosophies, schools, circles, factions and sects ran rampant. They all thought their way of magic was better than their rivals and conflicts were rather commonplace. Some were orthodox, others not so much and there were the occasional death cults.
The Circle of the Argenti Bestia was just one among many different factions, but they were rather...infamous.
As the art of making majimonsters, called dragoncrafting in their time, was spreading, countless factions began to develop their own methods and ideas on how to go about it. Some went straightforward and just pumped animals with aether to see what would happen. others used mundane objects as subjects, while others made use of complex formulas and formations to augment subjects before creating monsters. However, not all of these pursuits were benign.
A disturbingly high amount of factions wondered if it was possible to turn mundane humans, even other maji, into majimonsters. The Circle of the Argenti Bestia was one such faction.
As typical of most druids, the Circle of the Argenti Bestia performed rituals and spells pertaining to nature. Unlike most druids however, they actively sought and used silver in their practices. Due to their cultivation method, the Circle could make use of silver to enhance spells, augment them and even as weapons. In essence, a heretical druid Circle.
The Circle of the Argenti Bestia were one of several circles of druids who believed that the best way to create dragons, was to combine the savagery of beasts with the intellect of humanity with magic serving as the thread holding the two sides together.
As such, the Circle developed special artifacts that were infused with bestial essence and enhanced with various elemental runes. When a compatible human host wore these artifacts, they would slowly turn into a powerful majimonster.
Of course, the Circle was leveled at some point before the Collapse and their teachings were burned to the ground. There's absolutely no way for them to cause a problem beyond the grave... right?