by Cai
It tends to present itself with several natural strong points or talents, which the Gift bearer is usually encouraged to cultivate. A fairly common talent is the art of healing, which runs strongly through a large portion of the Gifted population, but less frequently in mages of notable strength (mages of, say, Duke Baird's skill and power). Other aspects that are known to be common/easy to learn are charming objects to some extent (to hold magic for a later time, most often), firestarting (though this ranges from having to verbally cast a spell or sign runes to just thinking it), and lightbringing. The aforementioned are, usually, commonly known to any mage of moderate talent.
This power-scale is designed to work in two ways: to determine the overall amount of raw power your mage has, and how it's utilized. The scale runs from 0 (being Giftless) to 100 (Numair Salmalín). This only has a bearing on your character's ability insofar as placing a limit on their raw magical strength. What they may or may not be able to do varies depending on what training they've received and what their Gift naturally lends itself to; for example, Numair Salmalín rates a natural one hundred on this scale, being able to shift large physical masses, work illusions on a grand scale, and shapeshift, amongst other things. Some things he cannot do are small workings (eg. dousing candles) unless he's intensely drained (we're also told that it depends on the type of working). He cannot heal and has little to no aptitude for war-magic, whereas Nealan of Queenscove is a talented healer, most likely rating in the low thirties, who can heal as well as perform basic charms (in Lady Knight Duke Baird and Neal have a discussion that mentions them being able to perform the Sorceror's Dance spell, but nowhere near the same magnitude as Numair can).
When writing a mage the very first thing you need to do is examine the reasons why you want a mage. Playing a mage just to play a mage because you don't have one is a poor reason; they're tricky to play, and if you feel like you might end up using magic as a playing crutch, it's ill-advised (this will be covered in a later tutorial). When you've decided that your reasoning is sound, first determine what their amount of raw power is going to be (by picking a number between 1 and 100--bear in mind that anything over 50 must be approved by a Roleplay Head), and make sure that you balance skills.
For instance, a mage specializing in destructive war-magic might know how to make passable wards, but probably wouldn't be able to heal or help the growth of biological life. On the flip side, a talented healer wouldn't be able to go around blowing things up, but would be able to cast charms, especially those designed to deal with health improvement. While there's no such thing as specialized magic in Tortall, the Gift tends to lend itself naturally to certain talents. We have mages who specialise in fire spells, plant spells, and healing, amongst other things. Bear in mind the Rule of Three: mages are typically strong in three areas, mediocre in one or two, and there are often several things they cannot do at all. Gift colour often has very little to do with the strength of the Gift (however, healers have proven to lean towards having cooler coloured Gifts), though it is implied that the stronger the magic, the more intense the colour. Metallic colours are not allowed as they have shown to be the colours of immortals' magic. White is also not permitted, as it is the colour of the magic of the gods, which humans may not possess unless they are the vessel of a god. Which is just incredibly rare.
An ideal magic section should be between 100 and 400 words. If you don't put the effort into your magic section, you probably shouldn't bother playing a mage, as having the Gift in any quantity is a largely significant part of a character that's with them their entire lives. As an example, this is the Magic section, taken from a sample profile:
"Magic: Yes! Lucas has a relatively small Gift, rating 13 on the mage scale, of a reddish shade of orange in colour. His main talent is being able to light and then sustain fires that either burn hotter than usual or consume less conventional fuel. The fires he can create and support are generally smallish ones, such as candles, though he can create larger ones for significantly shorter periods of time. However, sustaining them via supernatural means is exceedingly exhausting for him, so he rarely attempts to.He has occasionally called on his Gift for self-defence, setting objects or the clothing of his attackers on fire. He has tried his hand at calling light without heat before and succeeded a few times, but he finds it especially difficult to manage, and the quality of the light is always patchy and fades rapidly after he detatches his Gift from the spell. He can't heal at all, which he used to find a little disappointing, but has since gotten over it."
So basically, what the above describes is a very average mage who specialises in fire, covers what he does best and how it affects him physically, what he can manage, and what he can't do at all. Ideally, these are the things that your magic section should cover; if you want, you can also touch briefly on how your mage feels about magic and other mages in general, but if it goes over a sentence it should be moved into his/her personality section.
A common assumption, and a false one, is that the Gift is something of a rarity, when it's actually fairly prevalent. However, prevalence doesn't automatically mean that you've got mages of great strength running around; most common are mages who are firestarters, weak healers who augment a talent with herbs with a touch of Gift, and lightbringers, all of which are scattered throughout the populace in relatively generous helpings (mages such as this wouldn't rate higher than a twenty at any given time). Throughout a population, you're likely to find that the Gift comes to many people in small quanities, amounts of ten, twenty. Fewer people hit between twenty and thirty, and as the level of power goes up, the number of mages who fall in that bracket decrease. So, less common would be mages who surpass the common hedgewitch in strength, and these are commonly mages who can make a decent living off their Gift. Anything over a thirty would provide a comfortable platform for sole employment as a mage, and the higher you go, the more likely it is that a mage will have ease finding work.