Mage

Of the three principal types of magic users, none are as rare or as respected as a mage. Idiari, in particular, is known for producing world-class mages, but only an average of 36 new mages enter the "workforce" per year in a nation of over twenty-four million. Mages' interactions with magic is highly regimented and mathematical. A mage spends her adolescence (and, more rarely, her childhood) studying complex mathematical principles until she is able to easily perform them in her head. Mages must learn both to channel magical radiation from their own bodies and how to direct it, with each spell demanding a different set of mathematical functions. Most students enter the academy around age eleven. Classes for students eleven through eighteen are separated by age. Girls who have shown an aptitude for magic from an age younger than eleven are all instructed together, and while students are expected to graduate by age eighteen, they are permitted to stay at the academy until age twenty-one under certain circumstances if they have not yet met the academy's standards for graduation (usually, this leniency is granted to students who started later than usual). Once a mage has graduated, she is indebted to the state of Idiari for a contract usually lasting ten to twelve years, serving in a variety of roles which demand her highly-trained craft, for which she is well compensated. After this, she is paid a generous pension for the remainder of her life; it's said that one could rise from a farmer on a dead field to an estate in the river basin with two talented daughters.

Career

Qualifications

All mages in Idiari have received some degree of instruction from the Idiari Girls' Academy for the Art and Science of Spellcraft, usually referred to simply as the academy, on the outskirts of the River Delta. Most students are expected to pay hefty tuition fees for at least the first few years of their instruction, unless or until the instructors determine their enrollment to be a worthwhile investment. More promising students have these fees waived. These are referred to as "on tuition" and "on scholarship," respectively. Only one in twelve students who enrolls graduates as a mage, while one in four graduates as a scrivener. The rest fail out and may become engineers or clerks.

Perception

Purpose

In every society where they exist, mages fill a small number of important niches. Many key pieces of technology, such as cannuli, require mages to build, repair, and maintain. Idiari in particular is noteworthy for its war mages. Others work as researchers of the relic texts, learning to comprehend the ancient language on top of the intricacies of spellcraft necessary to understand them, in order to make discoveries which potentially lead to new technological breakthroughs.

Social Status

Mages are well-esteemed everywhere in the world, but perhaps nowhere moreso than in Idiari. Mage credentials entitle the bearer to special treatment by almost any governmental service and many private ones, from accessing classified materials to cutting the line at border crossings to free meals at fancy restaurants. People will make room in their homes to accommodate a visiting mage. While mages are not required to wear uniforms after graduation, outside of a few state events, many wear them regardless just for the special treatment it confers.

Demographics

The number of mages in the world is infinitesimally small. In a nation of over 23 million, only 24 people (on average) become mages in Idiari each year; as the population of Idiari has steadily increased over decades past, this number has not grown to match. It is only in the last three years that the academy has slightly increased the size of its student body to allow

"Throw a ball against the wall and catch it. Then do it again, and again. It's instinctive, isn't it? Once you've done it a couple times, you may even be able to do it with your eyes closed. The mind implicitly understands the time it takes for the ball to reach the wall, the arc it will follow, the effect of gravity, the angle at which it will return, all without conscious thought and in no more time than the brief moment it takes for the ball to leave your hand and return to you. "Now suppose you were to lose that instinct. You threw the ball, but you had no natural feel for the force you used to throw it, and you must still be able to figure out through proper, conscious thought where the ball will return. Now, you must calculate the ball's trajectory. Understand its velocity, its angle, its arc, the force of gravity, not though the natural mechanisms of your animal mind but through your mathematical reasoning, and you must do it all in the exact same length of time. "When and only when you are able to do so with the same ease with which you can catch a bounced ball will you be a truly proficient mage." --Theory of Spellcraft foreword, excerpt

Type

Arcane

Related Locations