Magic, and how people feel about it

Pact magic

Maveren culture is strongly opposed to warlock-style magic—anything that smacks of making a pact with a magical or otherworldly entity. To the Maveren, true magic is knowledge put to use by the will of the individual; allowing another being’s power to act through you is a sort of giving up your will, and thus your identity, turning yourself into a mere conduit. You can no longer be trusted to be fully yourself. Necromancy falls into this category as well. In fact, some Maveren are dubious about priests, clerics, etc. as vessels of someone else’s power.
For a Maver to practice warlockry (apparently it's a word!) is a high crime, punished by at least expulsion and usually death. The Maveren would love to ensure there are no warlocks in Malfa at all, but this would mean policing magic use at a level that couldn’t really work; there would be constant magical tussles in the street. Anyway that kind of centralised autocratic control goes against Malfa political culture. Instead, individual Maveren are very likely to find magic-users whom they suspect of pact magic to be guilty of other crimes using their magic, and have them punished harshly. Maveren magic-users will almost always be wizards.

The Hewellen and other peoples of the Forges, and along the Tennerill River, don't generally have the same attitude towards pact magic, though it's still very rare.

Mind magic

For related reasons around violating the wholeness of a person’s identity, magic that alters the mind is illegal in Malfa and in many places inland. Love potions, a geas, straight-up mind control etc. will get you in serious trouble. This attitude has been largely adopted by Malfa as a whole; even people who think the Maveren have a weird bug up their ass about warlocks, and would never rat one out, agree that mind magic is bad.

Sorcery and priests’ magic

There are a number of sorcerers in Malfa, mostly from the hills upriver and thus often dwarves, gnomes, or orcs. Human sorcerers are all from overseas, or descended from overseas ancestors. Priests from the hills are often druids, in game terms; the worship of natural elements, or beings that represent them, is common. Clerics, in the sense of battle-priests, are very rare. See Religion in the Sealands for more.
Rumour has it that there are pockets of fey influence here and there in the hills, that gives rise to sorcerous powers from birth. This is a sort of a grey area in terms of pact magic, for some Maveren, but most don’t bother having an opinion about it.

Homespun magic

Anybody can learn cantrips, though if you don’t have the proper training it’s difficult and dangerous to your mental health, so most people don’t bother. However, any town has at least a few people around who know a charm or two, mostly daily-use things like mending or purifying water.