The Four Kinds of Magicians
In Aysle, magic users are graded on their body of knowledge
and classified as one of four types of magician; amateur, professional, Mage
and Tower Mage. Additional titles and honorifics may also be used but are
based more on social or political position (or even self-promotion) than on
magical talent.
Amateur
An amateur magician is someone with a minimal
amount of talent or magical knowledge. Everyone native to Aysle is at least
of the amateur rank due to their birth magic (transformed characters are
not since they do not acquire a birth magic when they transform.)
An amateur is anyone with a single magic skill of fewer
than three skill adds or anyone who only knows one arcane knowledge regardless
of the number of skill adds they may have in their magic skills. Also, anyone
who does not practice magic as their primary trade is usually called an amateur
regardless of their actual ability.
Some amateurs may rely on knowledge stones and other
magic items to expand their repertoire beyond their own meager talents and
attempt to practice magic as their primary trade. These people are sometimes
called "hedge magicians" to distinguish them from the professional-grade
magicians who also make their living by practicing magic.
Professional
A professional magician is, simply enough, someone
with more talent and knowledge than an amateur but who has not yet been
bestowed the title of Mage from the Mage Isles. They're known as professionals
because most know enough magic to practice it as their primary trade rather
than using it to assist them in another trade. A fisherman who uses magic
to help him catch fish, for example, is generally not thought of as a professional
magician regardless of how many skill adds or arcane knowledges he possesses
because his trade is fishing, not magic.
Some magicians classified as professional may actually
possess the required amount of knowledge to receive the title of Mage, but
for one reason or another have not made the trip to the Mage Isles to petition
for the right to use the title. The magicians amongst Aysle's vikings and
barbarians, for example, generally learn magic from their own kind and have
their own system of honorifics and titles, and do not need or desire the approval
and titles of the Mage Isles.
But that doesn't mean there aren't viking magicians as
skilled or as powerful as the Mages and Tower Mages produced by the Mage Isles,
a common prejudice many Ayslish make when facing a magician from outside Aysle's
mainstream cultures.
Many professional magicians will use Magician as a title,
as in Belder the Magician, though magicians who have acquired the title of
Mage oppose this practice since the 'uneducated masses' may mistakenly believe
that a Magician and a Mage are the same thing. They favor professional-grade
magicians using more descriptive titles that represent their particular trade
or speciality, such as Belder the Conjurer for someone who specializes in
conjuration magic or Belder the Weatherman for someone who specializes
in spells that relate to the weather.
Most Ayslish player-character magicians will fall into
the professional category. (This does not mean that they should charge their
fellow PCs for their services!)
Mage
The title of Mage is only given to magicians who meet
the requirements at the Mage Isles in the Aysle cosm. To qualify for the
title of Mage, a magician must have twelve adds of arcane knowledges, at
least two of which must be within a specific academy that the magician
has designated as his major field of study while at the Mage Isles.
The academies recognized by the Mage Isles are Being,
State, Bridge and Pure which correspond to the arcane knowledge groups of
of Kindred, Element, Mixed Forces and Principles. A fifth academy corresponding
to the Essences, Pinnacle, is considered more of a legend than reality. The
title of Mage follows the magician's personal name, as in Belder the Mage.
The magic academy in Oxford practices a less stringent
method of magical education and at present does not require its students
to declare an affiliation with a particular academy. Until it does, the academy's
elders has elected not to confer the title of Mage on any student regardless
of their body of knowledge. The legal title of Mage is still only granted
at the Mage Isles.
Note that the Curious Mage template in the Worldbook
would more correctly be called the Curious Magician template since it
is unlikely a starting player-character will meet the necessary requirements
to hold the title of Mage, at least not without sacrificing most of their
points during character generation acquiring the necessary twelve arcane knowledge
adds.
Tower Mage
To qualify as a Tower Mage, a magician must have
a very large body of specialized magical knowledge and ability. The magician
must have twenty adds amongst the four magic skills, ten adds in any two
arcane knowledges of his academy and at least one add in every other knowledge
of his academy.
The title of Tower Mage, like that of Mage, can only
conferred on an individual at the Mage Isles in the Aysle cosm. The title
the magician receives depends on his academy. Each academy is made up of
a different number of towers with each tower corresponding to one of the
arcane knowledges covered by that academy. The title a Tower Mage receives
is based on the number of towers, and thus the number of arcane knowledges,
in his academy.
The academy of Being is made up of the Seven Towers of
Kindred Knowledge, so a Tower Mage of that academy is titled "of the Seven
Towers", as in Beldar of the Seven Towers. The academy of State is made up
of the Six Towers of Element Knowledge, the Bridge academy is made up of the
Two Towers of Mixed Forces and the Pure academy is made up of the Three Towers
of Principles Knowledge. If the academy of Pinnacle truly exists, it would
have the Four Towers of Essence Knowledge.
A common misconception is that the number of towers in
a mage's title somehow equates to a ranking system against other mages, that
having Three Towers means a mage is more powerful than another who only has
Two Towers. Sometimes the reverse is assumed, that the fewer towers in a title
the fewer magicians there are of that power level, that somewhere there exists
a singular mage "of the One Tower" who is most powerful mage in Aysle. Neither
of these are true.
Other Titles
Archmage is a title given to the mage who oversees
each of the academies in the Mage Isles, as in Archmage Beldar of the Seven
Towers. Mages who hold other high-ranking positions in the academies are
given the title Magister, as in Magister Beldar of the Seven Towers.
The title of Magister is used at the magic academy in Oxford but because
of the more general nature of the Oxford academy there is no one with the
title of Archmage there.
Magicians who teach magic, whether it be a Mage at the
Mage Isles or the Oxford academy, or a professional magician with an apprentice,
are addressed with the honorifics of Master or Mistress at
the very beginning of their name, as in Master Magister Beldar of the Seven
Towers if his full name and titles are to be used, or just as Master Beldar
in less formal situations.
Wizard is a term used interchangably with "magician",
though its use is more common among the transformed and untransformed Core
Earthers in the Aysle realm than it is among native Ayslish in the realm or
the cosm. Witch and warlock are also sometimes used by the Core
Earthers in the realm, but these are foreign terms to the native Ayslish and
they do not use them.
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page created 6/13/2000