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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bendris Noulg" data-source="post: 721635" data-attributes="member: 6398">It's not that the series is low magic, but that the world in which the series takes place is.Consider: In the Jewel Cities, most priests were just hacks.  Entrail readings, astrology, and other "scientific" methods were used.  Until Soulcatcher arived to hire the Company, the Company themselves likely were as beafy as the region got.In the Empire, magic wasn't studied openly.  There was a "secret college" within the university that nobles sent their children, which implies that only those with the fundings could possibly obtain the required knowledge, and even then getting noticed and accepted weren't a given.Take also into consideration that very few "light weights" ever make an appearance.  Granted, One-Eye, Silent and Goblin are considered light weights compared to The Taken and the Shadowmasters, but when push came to shove, all three had some potency to them.  Only Raven was known for "little tricks", having studied in the secret school within the Empire but not having pursued beyond this.  In addition, One-Eye was around 200 years old by the time he expired of old age, so remaining a "light weight" says a lot about the rarity and potency of magic (i.e., very rare but very powerful).Also throughout the series, the term "talent" is mentioned, implying some form of blood-gift or genetic trait is associated to magic beyond minimum Ability Scores.  Murgen is an example of one character that had talent but was never formally trained until One-Eye identified his Astral Project-like dream-walking in Bleak Seasons.  Murgen's wife was about as potent as her people got in regards to magic, and she did little more than prophecy the future and read tea leaves.  By the opposite, Murgen's son is undeniably potent with the bam-bam at a young age, having mastered everything that One-Eye and Lady could teach him as well as picking up on things of his own (like mastering the shadows) at a very young age (and only his parents had any form of "leash" on him because they and they alone knew his True Name).So, no, the series itself wasn't low magic, but the world was undeniably short on magic in and of itself.There's a similar atmosphere found in The Belgariad, where few people have the talent necessary to wield magic.  The series seems high magic because the story itself centers on a family of Sorcerers, but that the three of them (and their 3 or 4 Sorcerer friends) are around half of the total count of truly powerful spell-wielders in the world, and the majority of other spellcasters are the wanna-be's that make up Torak's priesthood.  So, while magic is prevelant in the series, again the world itself is low magic.Now, my take on BC magic would be focused on three forms: Random Oddities (like Murgen's Dream Walking), Minor Magics (like Raven had, being Cantrips at best), and High Magic (being based on Spell Seeds).  All would be kept rare in some regard, with Minor Magics being difficult to obtain and High Magics the hardest to master.Then there's always attrition.  Someone that proves capable of handling Minor Magics catchs the attention of those capable of High Magics then recieve the "serve me or die" ultimatum.  Random Oddities would only be dealt with if perceived as a threat or the individual showed promise towards becoming more.Of course, that's just how I'd do it.<img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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