Magic is just as capable a tool as swords or pens.
This post discusses the effect that the presence of magic can have on a high fantasy world, suggesting changes to the typical medieval mould often used by many storytellers and campaign settings for describing the general pictures of their worlds. Much of the information found here is relevant only to GURPS.
Magic
Disassociates Reality from Fiction
I would not want to live in a world without magic, for that is a world without mystery, and that is a world without faith. — R.A. Salvatore
One thing that magic does incredibly well is that it can make many things possible that are typically impossible to happen at a given time. From the point of view of a story or an RPG, this also allows the occurrence of many plots that are also not usually possible and allows explanations players would not normally rationalize. This creates mystery and can procure a certain sense of mystique.
However, I find that many Dungeon Masters (DMs) also fail to realize that it also affects daily life, especially considering the typically low-technology (low TL) worlds that magic is found in. This investigation of this matter is greatly inspired by a friend of mine who does not fall into this trap when he DMs and really makes it clear how magic can change the status quo.
Is Lucrative
Another point I want to make in this article is that magic is incredibly lucrative. If we consider the proportion of all individuals in a high fantasy world that are capable of casting significantly powerful magic, we are looking at a range of somewhere between 1 to 10 percent, roughly. This, of course, depends on the sheer quantity of magic in the world.
Abstracting Longterm Magical Performance
Due to the way I have structured my high fantasy magic system, assessing longterm use of magic for the purposes of a job or related task is trivial. Merely roll against the related school or sphere skill with appropriate modifiers as indicated by Task Difficulty on B345 or whatever seems right.
Schools
As a Way to Categorize Uses of Magic
In order to ease the burden of knowledge present here, a number of important aspects of daily life in a high fantasy world will be separated into very large scope categorizes. Consider the following as major categories of daily life, important collections of concepts that help move the world from day to day.
- Warfare and Combat: The exercise of physical combat for the purposes of protection or gain. Includes large-scale combat, such as in regional incursions, and smaller-scale combat, such as in roadside ambushes.
- Travel: The movement of individuals across large areas of terrain, particularly over land.
- Seafaring: The exploration of and passage across the waters of the world.
- Politics and Law: The maintenance and changing of bodies of sovereignty or the analysis, composition, and maintenance of social rules.
- Communication: The long-distance (or simply difficult, such as because of language barriers) passage of information which is not typically possible by speech alone.
- Knowledge and Lore: The storage and passing on of information and history.
- Economics: The transfer and circulation of currency.
Based on Categories of Daily Life
If we look at all of the magic schools found in the variant magic rules, we can now begin to see uses of each school for the benefit of the above categories. Loose connections are not considered in the below diagram.
For example, the forecasting of weather or the creation of storms and vile patches of stretch can be used in order to control the battlefield. Similarly, any ship that sails out of a harbour can make very good use of a mage specialized in the casting of Air spells for obvious reasons. The manipulation of air would be an extremely valuable commodity on the rough seas of TL 2-4. In this regard, we can see a connection made between the Evocation school and Warfare and Combat and Seafaring.
The paradigms of magic in a fantasy world.
Bottom line? If you want to get a job as a mage, specialize in Conjuration or Divination. Furthermore, the Universalist school helps all schools to perform their tasks better. These seem to be the most relevant school to a number of different categories of daily life.
With these relationships in mind, one could determine what a task would fall under in terms of one of the above categories, and then infer what school is most suited for the task. A mage of that speciality may be present among those hired for the task.