Note on Blog; On the Powers of mages

I'd like to start by thanking everyone who's read my blog for doing so. I may not say it often but I value your input and your willingness to put up with my often long winded, rambling, and generally unpublishable grammar/spelling.



I do these sorts of side notes quite often, in case you haven't noticed. It's because I always loved the appendices. Think of this as the background information that most of the characters know, and I'm just putting out there for you to know.







Petra is the most powerful Mage to date; but what is it that defines that power?

Simply put, a mage's power is defined by their capacity to wield magic. Experience and natural affinity are the ruling factors therein.

Natural affinity is the most important factor for most mages. This affinity decides how well a magic user can grasp certain fields of magic. As an example, Alicea has a particular affinity for the air and lightning. Shecan still wield other sorts of magic, but she will always be most effective when she attacks with a bolt of electricity or a gale force wind. Not in damage, fire kills just as easily for her as it would for anyone else, but in energy use. It costs her less to use lightning than to use fire.
But natural affinity also defines how much total energy a magic user would have. This is usually set to a scale. The default scale is the 'T' Scale. A T0 would be a non-user, with a T11 like Petra being unthinkably powerful, and an above-average mage like Alicea being a T7. Immortals are held on an 'I' scale, which indicates experience more than affinity; that's an issue for another day though.
Average depends on the race; Nielda are not more powerful at max, but rather simply more powerful on average(few T1-T2 and more T3-T4 than humans). Ga-Vok average at about a T2, with a moderate total population. Jaguans average at a T5, but have a total magic using population of less than a percent. Gravagans average at T2, with a total magical population of 95%. In essence, average power rises as total pop lowers.

Experience is next most important. A mage's capacity to wield magic improves as they use it. If you do something a hundred times it comes more naturally than if you've only done it once. This is one of the reasons Immortals are epiclly more powerful than mortals; they've been doing this for so long they can drop a hail of pure unadulterated destruction over a square mile radius without even thinking about it, which is made all the easier by it's not really costing them anything. This is how Petra could stop armies in their tracks and command millions of undead. Magic costs an Immortal next to nothing; even for a new immortal, the cost of over exerting your power is gone. You just have to sleep it off when you're done. But even for a mortal mage, experience is critical to success in magic. Practice makes perfect.