More notes on Tourmaline and her world
Feb. 19th, 2012 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mm_fuzzyGeneral timeline of Mage development
mageling 8 to age 16-18, journeymanship 16-19, Journeyman education 3 years starting ages 17-20 / 5 years if into direct apprenticeship, Accredited Mage tests age 20-25 (can recieve either medallion or tattoo to prove accredation), MASTERY a big hairy ordeal to become one of the higher ranked mages general proof of this is in the form of a familiar.
Mage Mastery: A ranking usually undertaken by mages for a single particular element which they excel in. Familiars are elementals that the mage approaching mastery must battle, convince, trick or impress into working with them. They provide a sort of extra boost to future spells and workings. Sometimes after Mastery mages are so improved in their powers that they could be compared to being 'small specialist wizards'. Some mages collect masteries, though the most in recorded history for the mages is someone having 4 familiars. One does have to take care of the familiar and make sure they are a part of the 'group/pack/partnering'. Most mages only have one and devote their lives to living with that one.
Blood Working: A whole other thing than mages whose elemental tendencies are aligned with blood. A blood mage is someone who at a touch or a look can do a diagnosis of someone's health, nutritional level, and state of well being in general with training. Blood working is where fresh blood is the primary or only component of a working. There are a scant handful of blood workings that are not inherently harmful to either practitioner or donor and these are done with explicit consent from all parties involved. The rest are viewed with the same level of disgust and disdain by civilized mages the world over as pedophilia and for the main reason of lack of consent from the donor party. They're dangerous and unfortunately for mages one of the ways a non-mage can get a rise to power enough to chain or do something truly horrible.
The untrained blood workings are generally done with no research except too many viewings of supernatural horror movies and possibly one of those books on 'satanism' floating around. One reason why this terrifies mages is because taking the power of someone's life can give someone magical power, it's like seeing a small child wave around high explosives and a flamethrower. A small angry, bitter child who wants to see someone suffer even worse than their first victim. There's another reason why their viewed as horrible, and that's because done improperly they can become addictive. The interconnectiveness of blood also applies because that liquid is literally a small part of yourself. Please think on the magical consequences of that. You may grow that part back, but you're still going to end up connected at strong magic level to whatever you put the blood into without protection.
Even mages who have elemental leanings in dealing with death find blood magic repulsive and horrible. Though for them it's more along the lines of 'having seen someone smear feces on the Mona Lisa'.
Elemental creatures: Extremely strange and harder to find as they can 'cloak' themselves in their element. The older breeds are harder to find, and elemental magic being what it is, each element is always finding new forms of life to work itself into. Usually elemental creatures are intelligent and at the very least capable of understanding human speech. Mostly they don't care much for humans, which is understandable given how much that species has fucked them up in recent centuries.
Elemental creatures will ofcourse, stick close to areas where their element is strongest. Fire general sticks to volcanos, forest fires, or the insides of electrical power plants, you get the idea. Some elementals crossbreed, resulting in interesting hybrids such as air/fire, or fire/earth. Most commonly the hybrid you're likely to find is earth/water in swamps. Their appearances vary so widely that is difficult if not impossible to find two that look enough alike. Mages think that their appearances and bodies have little to do with genetic breeding.
Before the industrial revolution, elemental familiars had a rough lifespan ranging from 150-600 years depending on their size. Some of the bigger ones do still exist! In recent centuries though that number has been halved, due to pollution and in many cases habitat loss. Conservation efforts for them are difficult seeing as they cloak themselves in their own element so effectively that it takes a certain chemical cocktail for a bone-standard human to even realize that they're there.
Mage Schooling: When you've got a person who could when they get upset or distracted accidentally turn the couch into a bonfire, it is a good idea to see if they can learn how to STOP DOING THAT. Or even better start using that fire in a more productive manner. And for that you need schooling, which can be at a highly specialized school or in a more generalized and well rounded larger school. Schools of magelings can vary from groups of two or three students learning and living with a single instructor to larger dormitory schools with 91(maximum) students and thirteen mages with a few dormitory overseers. Sutdents are expected to live in the dormitories and keep them clean, but also to help with the chores around the school. Meals are eaten communally and depending on the culture of the school, bathing can also be done as such, though there is chaperoneing and split baths for boys and girls. Students also live in these schools very nearly year round with quarterly breaks of 2 weeks to come home to family.
One thing has been changing in recent years, much to some older mages disappointment.
In many older schools the principles of mage crafting were taught to every student. This provided them with a practical and confidence building aspect in the learning process. Whatever objects a mageling student created, it was infact theirs to keep or sell/trade at magic market festival days, generally held at the equinoxes and solstices. While their tuition is generally paid by their own contribution towards keeping the school running and clean in chores and the tuition fees paid by their parents in these larger schools, the mageling's own mad money often came from what they could help create for market. A young fire mage might be taught how to seal some of the heat from his fires into spices for cooking or oils for bathing. An earth inclined mages could create things for the garden, seedlings enchanted for sturdiness and growth or planting containers, or wooden charms for home protection. The base age for being able to go trading is age 13 for some obvious reasons. Students younger than this would find their works marked and recieve the compensation in either cash or bonus goods brought back to the school to keep it running.
Council-registered mage schools are defined under US law as a religious group and are tax exempt. Schools unregistered with the school have to either be independantly wealthy/talented, or exploiting loopholes to survive. Unregistered schools are also a mixed bag and while not abusive in any way (The council wouldn't deem them fit to survive in they did and you don't want the near-wizards getting it into their head that you have DONE BAD BAD THINGS AND NEED TO BE STRIPPED OF ALL POWER NOW)
Mage Councils: There is no international mage council, though communications between the national ones are quite common. The highest ranked mages for honor and ability are on the mage council for the Americas as it's a requirement to have a Mage Mastery to even think of joining the group. This is the body that governs which schools get finanical funding and accreddation from their coffers as well as scholarships for younger mages, or those not born into mage families. (Note: these scholarships only apply to registered schools.) And when we say governs, it does also bring all of the political bullshit along with it. Mages found of crimes according to magekind are generally dealt with immediately by other mages or council mages. This ranges from Stripping of Powers to geas and curses with specific learning clauses...and it's done as quickly as possible before the offending mage in question is found by the government.
The Mage Council is currently made up mostly of mages who survived/escaped the McArthy inquisition era. They have long memories and do not want their culture coming back into the spotlight again anytime soon.
mageling 8 to age 16-18, journeymanship 16-19, Journeyman education 3 years starting ages 17-20 / 5 years if into direct apprenticeship, Accredited Mage tests age 20-25 (can recieve either medallion or tattoo to prove accredation), MASTERY a big hairy ordeal to become one of the higher ranked mages general proof of this is in the form of a familiar.
Mage Mastery: A ranking usually undertaken by mages for a single particular element which they excel in. Familiars are elementals that the mage approaching mastery must battle, convince, trick or impress into working with them. They provide a sort of extra boost to future spells and workings. Sometimes after Mastery mages are so improved in their powers that they could be compared to being 'small specialist wizards'. Some mages collect masteries, though the most in recorded history for the mages is someone having 4 familiars. One does have to take care of the familiar and make sure they are a part of the 'group/pack/partnering'. Most mages only have one and devote their lives to living with that one.
Blood Working: A whole other thing than mages whose elemental tendencies are aligned with blood. A blood mage is someone who at a touch or a look can do a diagnosis of someone's health, nutritional level, and state of well being in general with training. Blood working is where fresh blood is the primary or only component of a working. There are a scant handful of blood workings that are not inherently harmful to either practitioner or donor and these are done with explicit consent from all parties involved. The rest are viewed with the same level of disgust and disdain by civilized mages the world over as pedophilia and for the main reason of lack of consent from the donor party. They're dangerous and unfortunately for mages one of the ways a non-mage can get a rise to power enough to chain or do something truly horrible.
The untrained blood workings are generally done with no research except too many viewings of supernatural horror movies and possibly one of those books on 'satanism' floating around. One reason why this terrifies mages is because taking the power of someone's life can give someone magical power, it's like seeing a small child wave around high explosives and a flamethrower. A small angry, bitter child who wants to see someone suffer even worse than their first victim. There's another reason why their viewed as horrible, and that's because done improperly they can become addictive. The interconnectiveness of blood also applies because that liquid is literally a small part of yourself. Please think on the magical consequences of that. You may grow that part back, but you're still going to end up connected at strong magic level to whatever you put the blood into without protection.
Even mages who have elemental leanings in dealing with death find blood magic repulsive and horrible. Though for them it's more along the lines of 'having seen someone smear feces on the Mona Lisa'.
Elemental creatures: Extremely strange and harder to find as they can 'cloak' themselves in their element. The older breeds are harder to find, and elemental magic being what it is, each element is always finding new forms of life to work itself into. Usually elemental creatures are intelligent and at the very least capable of understanding human speech. Mostly they don't care much for humans, which is understandable given how much that species has fucked them up in recent centuries.
Elemental creatures will ofcourse, stick close to areas where their element is strongest. Fire general sticks to volcanos, forest fires, or the insides of electrical power plants, you get the idea. Some elementals crossbreed, resulting in interesting hybrids such as air/fire, or fire/earth. Most commonly the hybrid you're likely to find is earth/water in swamps. Their appearances vary so widely that is difficult if not impossible to find two that look enough alike. Mages think that their appearances and bodies have little to do with genetic breeding.
Before the industrial revolution, elemental familiars had a rough lifespan ranging from 150-600 years depending on their size. Some of the bigger ones do still exist! In recent centuries though that number has been halved, due to pollution and in many cases habitat loss. Conservation efforts for them are difficult seeing as they cloak themselves in their own element so effectively that it takes a certain chemical cocktail for a bone-standard human to even realize that they're there.
Mage Schooling: When you've got a person who could when they get upset or distracted accidentally turn the couch into a bonfire, it is a good idea to see if they can learn how to STOP DOING THAT. Or even better start using that fire in a more productive manner. And for that you need schooling, which can be at a highly specialized school or in a more generalized and well rounded larger school. Schools of magelings can vary from groups of two or three students learning and living with a single instructor to larger dormitory schools with 91(maximum) students and thirteen mages with a few dormitory overseers. Sutdents are expected to live in the dormitories and keep them clean, but also to help with the chores around the school. Meals are eaten communally and depending on the culture of the school, bathing can also be done as such, though there is chaperoneing and split baths for boys and girls. Students also live in these schools very nearly year round with quarterly breaks of 2 weeks to come home to family.
One thing has been changing in recent years, much to some older mages disappointment.
In many older schools the principles of mage crafting were taught to every student. This provided them with a practical and confidence building aspect in the learning process. Whatever objects a mageling student created, it was infact theirs to keep or sell/trade at magic market festival days, generally held at the equinoxes and solstices. While their tuition is generally paid by their own contribution towards keeping the school running and clean in chores and the tuition fees paid by their parents in these larger schools, the mageling's own mad money often came from what they could help create for market. A young fire mage might be taught how to seal some of the heat from his fires into spices for cooking or oils for bathing. An earth inclined mages could create things for the garden, seedlings enchanted for sturdiness and growth or planting containers, or wooden charms for home protection. The base age for being able to go trading is age 13 for some obvious reasons. Students younger than this would find their works marked and recieve the compensation in either cash or bonus goods brought back to the school to keep it running.
Council-registered mage schools are defined under US law as a religious group and are tax exempt. Schools unregistered with the school have to either be independantly wealthy/talented, or exploiting loopholes to survive. Unregistered schools are also a mixed bag and while not abusive in any way (The council wouldn't deem them fit to survive in they did and you don't want the near-wizards getting it into their head that you have DONE BAD BAD THINGS AND NEED TO BE STRIPPED OF ALL POWER NOW)
Mage Councils: There is no international mage council, though communications between the national ones are quite common. The highest ranked mages for honor and ability are on the mage council for the Americas as it's a requirement to have a Mage Mastery to even think of joining the group. This is the body that governs which schools get finanical funding and accreddation from their coffers as well as scholarships for younger mages, or those not born into mage families. (Note: these scholarships only apply to registered schools.) And when we say governs, it does also bring all of the political bullshit along with it. Mages found of crimes according to magekind are generally dealt with immediately by other mages or council mages. This ranges from Stripping of Powers to geas and curses with specific learning clauses...and it's done as quickly as possible before the offending mage in question is found by the government.
The Mage Council is currently made up mostly of mages who survived/escaped the McArthy inquisition era. They have long memories and do not want their culture coming back into the spotlight again anytime soon.
