How common are mages in your world?

[Viking Bastard]

500-600 maybe, in the whole world. Pretty rare.

Then there are Sorcerors, which are much more common,
especially with the non-human races. But most never get
past the 3rd/4th level.

 

[Aelryinth]

Hmmm.

Wizards are more common in the public eye then sorcerors IMC.

Wizards tend to be lawful, organized, considered with acquisition of knowledge...and thats best done under the same kind of conditions that lead to large universities.

Wizards are the 'engineers' of the world. They are also easier to control then sorcerors, because you can control the power of a wizard by guiding his Tradition or the knowledge he has access to. It's understood that anyone with magical potential can, with hard work and training, learn wizardry...its a trade requiring a specific aptitude.

Sorcerors are not people with just magical aptitude...it's with RAW magical aptitude, on the level of a genetic mutation. Technically, any sorceoror could become a wizard, but the reverse is not true. Where they got this potential is usually by exposure to raw powers sufficent to twist the very essence of what a person is...or by a bloodlline that leaves them something that isn't quite human.

Thus, sorcerors tend to be mistrusted, simply because they aren't as 'human' as normal people..they can 'acquire' magical abilities by northing more then force of will. This tends to twist them into chaotic, driven individuals who tend to do Bad Things, tho overly intelligent wizards who get their supremacy over normal folks often fall into the same uppity notions.

Same solution...send in the Sources to clean house.

==Aelryinth

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

In Urbis, wizards tend to be pretty common - they are essentially seen as a type of skilled craftsmen, and generally highly regarded, if not completely trusted (you tend to be wary around people who can turn you into a frog with a simple spell...). The cities of Urbis require magic to keep running - and lots of it - so there's always work for a skilled wizard. And anyone with the neccessary intelligence and a good teacher can become one, so there are quite a few of them running around.

Sorcerers, on the other hand, need an innate talent that is quite rare - and which often remains undiscovered, since the Nexus Towers, the source of most magical energies in a city, often drain Charisma from all who live nearby. And sorcerers, true or not, tend to be seen as less disciplined than wizards - after all, they never went through some form of formal study. Still, the movers and shakers in a city-state rarely let useful talent go to waste, and so skilled sorcerers can find good employment opportunities, if not quite as many as wizards...

 

[Norfleet]

In my campaigns, mages are extremely uncommon. With only d4 hitdice, the odds of one surviving his formative stages is slim to none, and as a result, high-level magi are revered as the magical item factories they are, because as of 3.5E, it's not their awesome spells that they're revered for, that's for sure.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

Ah. How low-tech is "low-tech"?

Yeah, mages don't generally group themselves together, except as part of a holy order(I'm switching to the Arcana Unearthed magic rules when it comes out, so all magic is the same); most "real" mages are very jealous of their secrets, most of them have at least a handful of spells that only they know(which is why mages are loath to kill each other wantonly, at least without learning the secrets of each others spells, because who knows when or if anyone'll ever discover the secrets of those spells again?)

"Low-tech" is very low tech. This doesn't necessarily mean unsophisiticated, check out some articles on Inuit micro tools sometime, but it does mean that the height of technology is the occasional copper sheathed tool.

No wheels. No concrete. No tall ships. No steel. No horses. Most people hunt and gather.

Nearly everything comes from plants, animals, water, earth, fire, sun light, and easily gathered minerals and stones.

Really high alchemical, agricultural, land management, and ceramic technology in a few areas, however, for a variety of reasons. They also have a very great knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, meteorology, thermodynamics, and hydrodynamics.

The percentage of people with heroic classes is very high. I am assuming that in most communities it varies between 20 and 80%, most of these will have or consider gaining a level in a magic using class. And most magic users will also consider gaining a class of warrior. Multi-classing is the rule, and every class has the ability to craft some magical equipment.

Heroes of high potency mostly tend to compete with the environment rather than each other. This is probably the biggest reason they congregate more than Mages in other worlds, the other is that they need each other to pull off the most important rituals and gain the benefits and prestige associated with them.

The occasional mad lone hero will develop, but even they will quickly develop a surrounding community as few people will waste the opportunity to gain the protection of a powerful hero, even if he does require you to participate in some odd stuff.

 

[s/LaSH]

Hm. Well, let's just say that after travelling from one end of Europe to the other and back, my PCs have counted five arcane spellcasters that seem to use book learnin'. One's in the party. One's her mentor. One beat the crap out of them because she was a vampire, and one has them locked in his basement with Something Unpleasant at this point in the chronicle (linked below for your viewing pleasure). The fifth one hasn't been drawn yet, but the PCs know him.

This doesn't mean that wizards are super-rare, just that they haven't been met all that often. Sorcerers are even rarer, actually - people have a tendency not to breed with things that set things on fire with their mind and such, so no real sorcerer genes in the population. On the whole, though, I'd suspect that wizards of high level come about three to the major city, with two of them working in secret or the deep wilderness. There wouldn't be more than fifty in all of Italy, and most of the public ones would be in universities or working under powerful patrons. (This number doesn't include apprentices. If they can stay alive, wizards should multiply; they've recently become institutionalised after the Dark Ages (in Roman times they were just as beloved as orators).

So yeah, not too many wizards at this point, in this part of the world, and even fewer that anyone knows about.

 

[Deadguy]

For my Shattered World campaign, mages - specifically Wizards - are actually fairly common in towns and cities. The idea is that a fairly large percentage of craftsmen take the time to study those specific schools of magic designed to help them enhance their crafting ability. Very very few of them will ever rise above 3rd level as a Wizard, since it distracts too much from being an Expert artisan, but it means that plenty of people aren't nervous about magic.

I actually extended this into the Clerical realm (though that term doesn't really fit the Shattered World - there are no gods, only people with a Passion for philosophical ideals). So there are also artisans that follow the path of The White Company, an organisation dedicated to the recovery and refinement of artisanal skills. There is a gentle argument between those who practise 'clerical' magic, and those who practise arcane magic, so there aren't many who are Expert/Wizard/Cleric multiclasses fortunately!

The net effect of these ideas isn't to change the game radically, but it does integrate the role of magic into civilisation beyond it being the tool of choice for adventurers and rulers.