ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

One of the big unanswered questions of Mage is exactly how rare the wielders of true magick actually are. We have the 1/100,000 ratio for vampires, and it is not too difficult to deduce werewolf demographics based on the existing supplements, but there is little to no real data given on how common true mages are. Of course, the simple answer is that there are as many as you need, but being an avowed number cruncher this is unsatisfying. There are three broad possibilities.

True Mages are incredibly rare: Mages have great power, and many people have argued that they should be correspondingly rare. Estimates of about 1 per million are common enough. This would mean that there are a mere 5,000 or so mages total on the planet. Perhaps 1,500 of them are Technomancers, 3,000 Tradition and the remainder Orphans, Nephandi and Marauders. Traditions will consist of a few hundred mages. It is quite possible for an individual mage to know most of the members of his Tradition. The masters of each Tradition almost certainly do, as well as most of the important mages of other Traditions. Subgroups, if they exist, will consist of a few Cabals.

Anyone with magick is probably a True Mage: At the opposite extreme, one can equate magick with true magick. Anyone that displays magickal prowess is some sort of mage. True Mages are probably 1 per 10,000 people, or more common. Traditions are huge, with tens of thousands of members. None but the most powerful mage can hope to know even the most important mages of his own Tradition. In fact, most weaker mages will likely know little about their Tradition, and will not be very different from hedge mages (perhaps even taking their place). Subgroups will be common and significant. Nearly every flavor of earthly magick will have at least a few true mages practicing it.

Mages are about as common as other supernatural creatures: My choice, though the other options are equally viable. This makes mages number roughly 1 per 100,000 people. Traditions will consist of a few thousand members. Lesser mages will know comparatively few members of their Tradition, but the Masters in a Tradition will know most of their peers (except those that deliberately hide themselves from other mages). Many earthly types of magick will be practiced by true mages, but not all.

There are a few other considerations one needs to make about magely demographics. Mages tend to be very well traveled. With the Sphere of Correspondence a mage can be across the planet in a heart beat. Mages have advanced sources of information that draw them to many strange places. Chantries have Nodes all over the place and links to several different cities. The Technocracy is wide spread as well. It may be difficult, if not impossible, to determine if a mage lives in one particular city or another. Thus, comparatively few mages can "fill up" the world, because they can go everywhere.

Not all mages will be members of a Chantry. Orphans and mages like the Syndicate and the Dreamspeakers are often independent, and most Traditions have a fair number of members who go this route. Such mages are more likely to be homebodies, linked to a specific location, and might make up half the mage population. Though they are not members of a Chantry, such mages need not be loners. They often band together in small groups. They may have a loose association with a nearby Chantry, to get access to its Nodes, or they may share a small nearby Node amongst themselves.

Chantries, on the other hand, tend to have larger concerns. True Chantries are likely to have between a dozen or a hundred members, with 30 or 40 being average. This would make it so there are only several hundred Chantries world wide if one uses the "moderate" estimates of mage population (and fewer or more if other estimates are used). Perhaps a third of these Chantries are single Tradition, another third consist of only two or three Traditions and the rest being mixed Traditions. In the past, Chantries were more numerous and homogeneous but as the Horizon War grinds on, more Chantries fall and mages are forced to band together and share their resources.

Many Chantries tend to pick one major area and stake it out as their "turf". Few cities will have more than one Chantry located within it. This is not to say that other Chantries will not have an interest in a city. Larger cities may have the spies and embassies of several Chantries. This also says nothing of independent mages, and temporary incursions of larger groups.

The "power spread" of mages is important as well. An apprenticeship seems to take relatively little time (a few years at most), so the bulk of mages will be Disciples. Adepts will be somewhat rarer, perhaps one out of three mages. Masters will be rarer still, maybe one out of ten. Thus, given 10 random mages, 1 or 2 will be apprentices, 3 will be Adepts, 1 will be a Master and the remaining 4 or 5 will be Disciples. If mages are more common, the power curve should be steeper, with Adepts being only 1 per 10 mages, and Master 1 per 100.

The apprentices will likely be under the tutelage of an Adept or Master, while maybe 25% to 50% of Disciples are still mentored by a mage of greater power. Most Masters and many Adepts will have some sort of student. A few Masters and Adepts will specialize in teaching and mentoring, but rarely with more than a handful of lesser mages under their charge. Disciples will rarely take on students, unless they are the only mage of a particular Tradition that is available.

It is important not to overlook the importance of hedge mages when considering the demographics of mage society. Whatever "holes" are left by true mages are likely filled by hedge mages. Unless true mages are common, there will be barely enough of them to maintain any sort of continuity of Tradition. The timely destruction of one or two Chantries can completely end a magickal line. This is where hedge mages become important.

There are hedge magic counterparts to nearly every mage Tradition. In fact, there are even more hedge magic groups, with a more specific focus than the Traditions. The Traditions are umbrella organizations that include mages with some similarities in philosophy, but often varying widely in the details. The Order of Hermes, for example, includes Rosicrucians, Cabalists, members of the Golden Dawn, alchemists and so on. Most of the forward impetus and history of these minor groups are in fact carried on by hedge mages, or even Sleepers with an interest in magick. There are not enough true mages in the world to carry on the magickal tradition of (for example) Voodoo. It is hedge mages that take up the slack.

In fact, hedge mages can sometimes hold the secrets even of the greater Traditions during times of darkness. Hedge mages occasionally capture and record the secrets of true magick and pass them down through the ages. Though they do not have the necessary power to perform this greater magick, they study it nonetheless, repeating the Rotes blindly without full comprehension. Over time the knowledge is corrupted, but little gems are hidden within hedge magick lore, waiting for the fully Awakened eye to bring them into the light.

The relationship between hedge and true mages is a rocky one. True mages dismiss hedge mages as dabblers, albeit sometimes powerful ones. Hedge mages know little of true mages. From the point of view of a hedge mage, a true mage is a being of power, rarely seen or understood, barely human and more akin to spirits. Hedge mages know almost nothing of the Ascension War. They know just enough to keep their noses clean, to avoid attracting the attention of greater powers.

It seems possible that hedge mages would be a great recruiting ground for true mages, but this is not the case. Perhaps once someone is "partly" Awakened and knowledgeable enough to use hedge magic, it limits their perceptions and makes it difficult for them to make the jump to true magick. On the other hand, true mages scour the world for those with the potential to fully Awaken, and do their best to snatch them up young. A person with an Avatar strong enough to become a true mage is rarely allowed to study hedge magic for long. Not a few hedge mages have had promising students taken away in the night by strange and powerful beings.

Note that the scientific community in many ways fills the role of hedge mages for Technomancers. Sleeper scientists in fact do much of the ground work for scientific advances and carry the Technocratic paradigm forward while the Technocracy itself is busy with other things. The Technomancers also prefer to "recruit them young", because a scientist that spends too long working in the mundane world will be blinded to the greater possibilities of Technomagick.

Just because hedge mages (and scientists) are denigrated by true mages does not mean they have no importance. Genius and magick do not always go hand in hand. Many advances, scientific, magickal and philosophical, come up from the ranks, theorized first by mundanes and then picked up and worked on by true mages. It is possible, in fact, that many of the theories, lifestyles and technologies supported by mages would have become a part of the world without their aid, though perhaps not as quickly or as thoroughly.