#Lore24 - Day 11 - Mages

One in a hundred of the people in Fedran that have magical powers are capable of casting spells, increasing the flexibility and adaptability over those with talents. Mages, as they are known, use frameworks to shape magic and cast spells that describe the effects they want.

However, like talents, even mages can only cast spells that are related to each other. However, “related” is looser for a magic and the limitation may be “any fire magic” or "all spells of the Crystal Sphere Techniques".

I'd like to say mages aren't based on D&D wizards but there is no way I could play the game for decades and not have it influence my writing. Likewise, one of my favorite series, Hawk and Fisher by Simon R. Green has colored my writing and I say that proudly. In my world, they don't learn spells and forget them, nor do they have spells slots. Instead, they learn spells (memorize or read instructions) and use that to shape their magic; a mage without a spell has very little control over their power.

The difference between talents and mages can also be seen in another influence of mine, Qabalah, and The Witches Tarot by Ellen Cannon Reed. Talents are limited and structured, driving more by influences of Binah, while mages are powerful but unfocused (Chokhmah). (It's been decades since I read the book and I'm sure the spelling are wrong). This difference of control verses power also shows up in Flight of the Scions when you look as Maris and Ruben's powers work.