Talents make up the bulk of everyone who uses magic in the world. They don't have the flexibility of mages and their spells but they make up with a specialization that can exceed. Also, talents are not limited to a single effect or spell; have a suite of related powers, such as the Kyōti clans or the mage-knights of Kormar.
Talents were inspired by the HERO game system. When I started writing Fedran, I was using that game to “frame” some of my powers and to show the progression over chapters. Now, things are a bit more flexible, but I still think of characters mostly in HERO terms. In that case, most talents are fixed powers and effects, they are also cheap.