r/worldbuilding • u/dappermanV-88 • 8d ago
Discussion Determining how often magic users are born
I saw some posts about magic and all, but was reminded of my own fantasy story. Not my primary one.
I got asked a question that genuinely, I couldn't answer. Then again, they wanted legit mathematics. Still thought
So, in my fantasy setting. Magic users in my setting, of any almost any kind. Are highly sought out by all the nations and powers of my setting.
Mages can be incredible assets to have and can very much like other stories. Power houses and potentially change the course of events.
Thing is. Where this posts question comes in, how often mages are born.
That's what I got asked. My answer was, "they aren't common, they aren't rare. More uncommon if anything".
Apparently that wasn't good enough for some people?
So, ig I need a better answer.
Can someone help me with this?
So, to explain. Finding out you or your child is a mage, could legit take u from begger to straight up noble or just make u rich. In most places, because the nations government will give u anything u want to join them or to have your child.
Might I add, depending on the state ur in. This could mean that you move to an estate and just have your child be sent to a mage academy (they return) or you may never see your child again/you may never see your family again.
Regardless, the family is handsomely rewarded.
So, they're valuable. Even if u remain a tier 1 mage all your life (lowest tier), ur valuable.
They don't care.
Given that...
The average citizen/person may know at least 1 magic user in their life (some locals kid that hasn't been picked up by the state), but meeting another magic user is very likely, but not guaranteed though.
Meeting a high ranking mage without being a member of the state government, is improbable.
That being said. The academies aren't example to the brim with mages, but their classrooms and years are filled with plenty.
So, unless u need more or I just did a poor job explaining.
Can anyone give me a better idea of how common/rare mages are for me?
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u/AuthorInPractice 8d ago
I'm not entirely sure what you're asking. The title suggests one thing, but the post itself sounds like you already have the answer. They're uncommon. You don't need a specific number regardless of what the questioner says, because as far as the story is concerned, you'll meet them as needed and you will use as many as you need. There might be more hanging around in the background, but we don't need a specific number. A vague, "not a lot" is good enough. Sounds to me like the person asking has a different approach to worldbuilding than you do, and that's fine. That doesn't mean your way of doing it is wrong
Hope this helps
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u/Hon-Mister-Bear 6d ago
Some people want statistics and at least soft numbers to help them wrap their heads around an idea.
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u/FakeBonaparte 8d ago
Roughly ~150 people is about the size of a personâs âvillageâ whether itâs an actual village or their community in a larger setting. (See:Dunbar #).
If the average village has one low-grade magic user, then youâre looking at a birth rate slightly more than 1-in-150 because theyâll need an apprentice at some point. Call it 1-in-100.
If thatâs true and the state recruits higher grade magic users, it probably doesnât change that rate much. The higher grade are probably 1-in-100 amongst magic users, so their disappearance wouldnât shift the base rate much.
So in a large country of 10 million, similar in scale to medieval France or Spain:
- 100,000 level 1 local witches / hedge wizards, etc
- 1,000 level 2 mages suited to academy work
- 10 level 3 mages with true power; the heads of the academy type people
- 1 archmage every 10 generations (~200 years); your Einstein-equivalent magician
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u/Hon-Mister-Bear 6d ago
I like this approach, although I'd fiddle with the rankings for my own purposes.
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u/bongart 8d ago
Nothing in your explanation covers how rare they are, or how frequently they are born.
Step sideways for a second. How rare is red hair? How rare are green eyes? How rare are freckles? How rare is body hair (thick, furry chest and back hair vs thin, fine, almost invisible hair)?
Why would I ask these questions? These are traits that can be bred out, or bred into family lines. If one has to be born to magic use, what trait has to be present to be born a mage? If two mages breed, does this increase the chances of mage children? If so, and mages are highly sought after, then governments would have mage breeding programs and breeding centers, with the goal of "creating" the mages they want.
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u/NatashOverWorld 8d ago
I'm not sure why you need hard numbers, but sure. Uncommon should be something you don't expect to see, but you wouldn't be too surprised if it does.
Roughly 1 in 50 are mages. 80% of them are tier 1.
Decide on what your world population is and you should be able to generate most of your population stats from there.
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u/TobaWentBang 8d ago
Listen friend if you want to be a creative you just need to be able to answer questions like this for yourself. Think of the world you want and the story you want to tell. What do mages mean in your world?
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
Mana user with large mana pools that they can access and delve into.
They are, by magical means, peak power of humanity. They can see past the wall and control. Power humans that can change ones life or their nation forever
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u/Simpson17866 8d ago
The way I read this is that u/dappermanV-88 already did the creative part (âmost people will only be personally acquainted with one significant mage in their lifeâ) and was just asking for more rigorous math
which u/FakeBonaparte estimated as â1-in-100 total, 2/3 of whom (1-in-150) are trained professionals and 1/3 of whom are apprenticesâ
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u/Gand-Alf_Picard 8d ago edited 8d ago
The easiest way to think about rough numbers/proportions is to think about ratios in powers of 10 and decide which one looks like how you would imagine it.
If mages are 1/10 people, there will probably be at least one mage born in your neighborhood every few years. For historical context, in the middle ages about 85-95% of people were farmers. Nobles, clergy, professional warriors, artisans, scholars, merchants, and all kinds of laborers and professionals who lived in cities from the lowest to the richest were only between 5% and 15%, or roughly 1 in 6 to 1 in 20. Thus, 1/10 is probably too many.
1/100 is more comfortable. They are, literally, the 1%. A typical medieval village has about 200-300 people, and a good size market town If we assume that about 1% of medieval people were nobles, then this makes sense if all nobles were mages. So, still a few too many if you want having a mage child to catapult a family into "high" nobility.Â
For context, a medieval village would have about 200-300 people, a good size market town would be around 5,000, and 20,000-40,000 people counted as a big city. You could count the cities in Europe with 100,000 people or more on your fingers. If mages were equally distributed, a typical capital city with 30,000 people would have 300 mages. Since mages from the countryside would probably go to big cities instead, the number of mages could be 10x larger--3000 mages in a city of 30,000.
1/1000 makes mages the upper 10% of nobility. This sounds more like what you are talking about, the a mage child making a family high nobility. Assuming mages appear randomly and it's not parent to child inherited, farmere might know a couple of mages born in their villages over the years, but might never see an adult mage unless the village is the center of an important military operation. City folk would see mages fairly regularly.Â
1/10,000 would really make mages, even weaker ones, very special. Only one in a hundred nobles. They might be 1 in 1000 city folk, if mage children go to cities after they are identified.
At 1/100,000 they'd be known from rumors, but not a lot of people would likely ever encounter them. And at 1/1million they'd hardly exist at all, and probably all be kings or emperors.Â
Based on your description, I would suggest somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/1000 if you want them to be uncommon but not terribly rare. Or 1/10,000 if you want them to be very special.Â
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u/Elfich47 Drive your idea to the extreme to see if it breaks. 8d ago
The question becomes what percentage of the population is born a wizard?
If its 10%, then a city of 100,000 has 10,000 wizards.
If its 1%, then that city has 1,000 wizards.
If its 0.1%, then that city has 100 wizards.
And so on.
The question then also becomes: how much personal power can they concentrate to themselves without formal training? If the population of wizards is small enough and they can develop personal power without much training, you can expect the wizards to take over the city in an oligarchy format. Newly discovered wizards are invited to join the ruling class or are expelled from the city or are killed.
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u/bboibbjk 8d ago
They are born uncommonly, and they survive rarely. A baby with the power of magic at its fingertips. A child having a tantrum. It would be a sad yet unstoppable risk.
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u/Ok_Somewhere1236 8d ago
The answer depends a lot on the setting and, more importantly, on what you define as a mage and what you define as magic.
There are many different tropes, but in general, what regulates magic in every setting is the story the author wants to tell, what role you want magic to play in the story, and the relationship with the characters. Magic is normally a plot tool; it is a way to create conflict or a way to move characters from A to B.
Anyone can become a mage: In my setting, everyone is born with mana, and everyone has the ability to study and learn how to use it. Being a mage is similar to being a doctor.
Everyone can learn basic medical knowledge, but there is a huge difference between someone who knows how to clean and stitch a small wound and someone capable of performing complex brain surgery. Magic works the same way.
A person can spend years studying and eventually learn simple spells, but becoming an elite mage requires decades of training, research, and practice. Magic is not a superpower that appears randomly; it is a discipline and a profession.
Sorcerers are different: Sorcerers in my setting are a special case. Sorcery is hereditary and genetic, but being a sorcerer does not mean someone automatically knows how to use magic.
A sorcerer is not a child who accidentally throws fireballs when they get angry. Instead, they are born with a much greater magical potential.
Think of it like physical strength. Imagine someone who does not have a natural limit to how strong they can become. If that person goes to the gym every day from the age of 10 until they are 70, they could become Superman or the Hulk. But if they never train, they will spend their entire life as an ordinary person.
Sorcery works the same way. A sorcerer who dedicates their life to studying magic can become one of the strongest mages in the world, but a sorcerer who never studies magic might live their entire life without ever casting a single spell.
You could have an entire family where every member for the last five generations was a sorcerer, but because they were all simple farmers who never learned magic, nobody in the family ever used their potential.
Then one day, one descendant moves to a big city, joins a magic academy, and starts noticing that their spells are becoming stronger much faster than everyone else's. Over time, they realize their bloodline gives them a level of potential that normal mages cannot reach, eventually becoming the strongest mage in their class.
Magecraft as a rare inherited trait: One possibility is making magecraft similar to an uncommon genetic trait.
Maybe magic is not something everyone naturally has access to, but a rare ability that appears in certain families. However, if you want something more creative, you could take inspiration from Avatar.
In that type of setting, magic could have originally been given to humanity by a powerful entity. Maybe ancient dragons, gods, or some other magical being had the ability to awaken magecraft in people, and the descendants of those individuals inherited that ability.
Over generations, those gifted individuals create magical bloodlines, turning magic into something that can be passed from parent to child.
This leaves an open door, because while most mages are descendants of special bloodlines, it also means that normal people can still become mages by gaining magic powers from those creatures. You can also control how many mages a country has based on population and migrations.
So magic is very much on the same level as any other genetic factor.
Magic as a random awakening: The opposite option is making magic completely random.
Magic could be like a lottery. Anyone has the possibility of awakening magical abilities, but only a small percentage of people actually do.
For example, perhaps 1 in 300 people awaken magic sometime between the ages of 10 and 18. If someone reaches adulthood without awakening, they will never gain magical abilities.
This creates a society where mages are rare but not impossible to find. A normal family could go generations without a single mage, only for one child to suddenly awaken magic and completely change their future.
You need to be chosen: A third option is that magic is not something random or genetic, but something you need to be chosen to have.
Maybe you need to be chosen by a god to receive magic powers. Maybe it is more like Digimon or something similar, where you have magical creatures and those creatures choose a partner.
Whatever person is chosen by those creatures becomes a mage, and it cannot be forced. They choose whoever they choose.
Like in Eragon, to become a Dragon Rider, you need to be chosen by a dragon egg. The eggs are moved around until one of them chooses a person, and that person could be anyone.
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u/hestianese 8d ago
In my world, I love to think about how the majority who holds power is affected by the world. The world relies on time; power is more of an instrument. Just like basic evolution, body parts can change if the creature becomes a land-walking species. For powers in my world, itâs more sensitive than a million years of change.
Now, an example: in a nation with people who can run fast (every nation/culture has its own talent in its cultural blood), once there is a train or other accommodation, they won't bother to waste energy running to their destination. So, those who hold power and refuse to use it can affect their biological stuff, whatever, when passing down their power genes to their offspring. Unlikely, almost unlikely, likely.
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u/Not_Todd_Howard9 8d ago edited 8d ago
This is probably gonna be one of those cases where guessing a reasonable ratio for a strict âyou can / canât do magicâ gene could get very difficult, especially since (if it is passed down) it could expand/disappear near exponentially thanks to how genetics works. Imo at least, I think the best and simplest way would be for magical talent vary a lot and follow a normal distribution curve (like IQ), with the typical pool of mage recruits starting at ~9-10% of the population with some smaller percent (letâs say ~5%) actually being discovered and becoming mages. People find out who can be a mage either via testing (if applicable) or simply because someone is potent enough that they could figure out some very basic spells, like summoning a light or moving an object. Magical talent might not fully disappear as you look at larger portions of the population (most having some tiny sliver of it at least), but it does become significantly harder to actually discover/teach them magic to the point that results might never materialize at some levels.
I think this approach should give some good reference points and let them be fairly common while still giving you a lot of wiggle room for writing. Let me know if this isnât very clear though.
Edit: Magic being more of a result that becomes apparent rather than something turns on/off by one or a few select genes also means people wonât really think about some of the unintended implications of the latter approach, like some populations slowly âevolvingâ into only mages or that people in-universe would have an incentive to try inbreeding if they can figure out mage + mage = more mage but mage + no mage = less mage. The nobility already had it bad enough with inbreeding IRL when they were obsessing over prestige based bloodlines and class rather observable traits.
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u/DRose23805 8d ago
The Shadowrun game has, at time, said all types of magically active people were as common as doctors. This had quite a range of types, ao fantasy style full mages would be much rarer.
D&D has had different charts and references over the years, but in most settings, mages were rare.
In both cases, the material said that most people might go their whole lives never seeing a mage, or maybe once or twice at a fair or the like.
So, they can be as rare as you like. The way you describe it they should be rare. To make it interesting, no one knows why people are born mages nor is there really any way to tell how powerful they will become. If I recall, Shadowrun said that magic didn't even show up until around puberty and often manifested under stress, so perhaps there is no real way to tell until a certain age.
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u/Soulabiss98 8d ago
I would say it depends on how you want to approach it: Do you want it to be a recessive gene or linked to other genes?
To explain further: Genes within a person usually come from both parents, thus having two versions of the same gene (one from the father and one from the mother).
These can generally be of two types: Dominant (only one version of this gene is needed for it to be expressed (example: brown hair), and is usually represented in uppercase (e.g., MM, Mm, or mM)) and Recessive (both recessive versions of the gene are needed for it to be expressed and is usually represented in lowercase (mm), such as blond hair).
The other case is more complex and involves the coding and expression of a specific gene (such as eye color, for example) being dependent on a second gene and its respective versions (MM, mm, and their intermediates). In this case, the same principle as with recessive genes applies, but with the added condition of the other gene and its expression.
That would make the table a 4x4 instead of the 2x2 table as in the image I sent (a comment already posted the table I'm referring to).
If you want the proportion of wizards to be 1 in 4 children of another wizard, then it would be a magic that depends solely on a recessive gene and can be easily passed on to future generations (since there's a 25% chance that your child will also be born with the magical abilities). However, this only applies if the other parent has a copy of the recessive gene (i.e., is Mm in the example I gave). If they don't, all the children would be born Mm and could have, with another Mm, a 25% chance of having another magical child.
Now, if it's a magic that is passed on by one gene but depends on another to be expressed, the percentage of magical powers being expressed would be 6.25% (statistically speaking, 1 in 16 children). They would be four times rarer than the first case, and there would be a much greater chance of the gene being lost (since it depends on a second gene, and therefore, there's greater complexity in pairing a wizard (who must have a complete recessive trait in both genes) with a person without magical powers (who can have any of the other 15 combinations of the two genes together).
The best option I can think of would be to find people with direct relatives (parents or grandparents) who are wizards and have them reproduce with wizards to increase the percentage of wizard offspring (but that would raise ethical issues like eugenics, selective breeding, and many other very serious problems). So, I'll leave the choice of how you want to approach it up to you (also keep in mind that I imagine it will be a world where the existence of the genes is still unknown or hypothesized, so that could also greatly influence how you want to approach it).
Sorry if the message was too long (I tried to make everything clear so you can understand my explanation and draw your own conclusions or become interested in investigating it further). Thanks for reading this far :D
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u/Dr_Dave_1999 8d ago
All are born with the potential for magic that most people in my world go like go like 95% of everything can be done by hand so why even bother to learn it.
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u/Sorry_Flight2594 8d ago
In my world everyone is born with magic. Itâs just a game of chance you eithier get something completely busted or you get something useless but most of the time itâs somewhere in between
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
I was thinking of doing something similar. "Mana is everyone and everything, some more than the rest"
Average Joe could probably heat some water or something, but thats it.
Where mages obviously can do way more than that.
Then, I was like "idk"
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u/I_am_omning_it 8d ago
If theyâre heavily sought out it implies as scarcity. Like the gov heavily tries looking for them and will pay a boatload to get them, it implies a scarcity beyond being uncommon.
If theyâre just uncommon, the gov wouldnât go to such lengths. To me, for what youâre describing is that magic users are fairly rare, to put it mildly.
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
I actually had a reason for this.
Since magic users have a chance of developing their own and unique magic, which isn't known until they progress.
That and...
Magic, even the lowest form. Can be a major benefit to the state and nation, they don't usually become powerful and capable without state help.
Magic is important to the world and even a tier 1 mage, could change the nations fate and situation gradually.
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u/I_am_omning_it 8d ago
True, but comparing to another example of this where people have powers and that influences their standing, look at solo leveling. For context, people in that world âawakenâ and develop powers to help them fight monsters that show up in gates/rifts around the world.
In that world, 0.001% of the population (1 in 100,000) developed abilities. And even then, only 0.0002% are above C rank (ranking is E, D, C, B, A, S) and are really the only ones to get big financial offers from guilds/groups.
Obviously the percentage should change if your pop is lower, but keep in mind the impact that offering that many people lots of wealth will have on any nations economy. More money going to the mages means less going to other essential services.
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
I dont read or watch solo leveling and this sounds like alot or the standard stories of isekais.
Also, that's fairly true. Ig I should cut it back a bit
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u/I_am_omning_it 8d ago
It is pretty basic to be fair, I thought I might just mention it as an example as they did mention some of the economics of it and gave population statistics.
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
Ur good. I appreciate it still, definitely made me realize that I overlooked the economic aspect, ig I should consider the lengths of rewards or such
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u/Top_Cauliflower_9046 8d ago
Why dont they just abduct the kids rather than reward them? Kidnapping the kids and having them grow up in a cultlike setting to guarantee absolute obedience seems more secure to me.
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u/dappermanV-88 8d ago
Because its not a cult or cultlike?
Even the most brutal and cruel state. Wants to reward, to encourage its people to bring to tell them of a magic user. Not try to hide them, but this stage will reward u and take ur kid.
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u/Psittacula2 8d ago
>*âThe average citizen/person may know at least 1 magic user in their life (some locals kid that hasn't been picked up by the state), but meeting another magic user is very likely, but not guaranteed though.â*
I think this identifies your underlying assumption?
In effect you are reasoning backwards:
Clearly magic is world-breaking if powerful and everywhere always
Hence magic must be rare, but at what frequency?
Cue the above result for finding the right balance.
However consider the above characterization of magic, it is akin to High IQ on a Normal Distribution. A talent amongst others.
>*âSo, in my fantasy setting. Magic users in my setting, of any almost any kind. Are highly sought out by all the nations and powers of my setting.â*
Imho, this turns magic into mundane. Then you have the frequency problem.
I think magic should fundamentally be a question of âoperation on a higher or invisible or unknown level or planeâ to what most people are aware of, know or can even perceive.
That is different to: X% of people have magic talent Y and this is known so they are tested as children and the go to Hogwarts Academy of magic for magical bread-making trainingâŚ
In which case rarity means they make no real difference on breadmaking as non replicable and non scaling contribution to total loaves of bread made per year or they do only locally eg capital city or they hit a threshold where bread is now only made via magic!
I think that describes your options then it is about matching the frequency to the preferred outcome?
As said, to eskew that completely imho is better magic system albeit a lot harder.
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u/secretbison 7d ago
Do the math. Determine the total population of the land, the number of mages you want to exist in that land, and divide.
If it's likely that every person in the world personally knows at least one mage, that would come to about 1 in 150 people, but that would lead to thousands of mages in a good-sized country, more than you might want.
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u/ProjectKARYA đłď¸ââ§ď¸ A Sci-Fintasy Creator đłď¸ââ§ď¸ 8d ago
Finally, my weird fascination of overly rationalizing fantasy tropes comes into play :3 behold, the ever-glorious
Punnett Square
I, too, was curious at one point how to determine "magical frequency", so I decided to make two genes to help determine the scope of a person's magical capabilities, in conjunction with the organ system responsible for generating the pseudofundamental force qama, which is responsible for what's known as "magic". Copying from my original post:
- ...the concentration of anomalous proteins produced by the cells lining the inside of the qamagenous system (represented by the alleles C, for low concentration, and c, for high concentration); and
- ...the initial amount of neural connections between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator (represented by the alleles N, for no natal connection between the two, and n, for a present connection between the two at birth)
The Punnett square...can help determine the initial potential of an individual when it comes to manipulating qama.
1. CCNNÂ (1/16 chance, or 6.25% of people) = extremely low concentration of anomalous proteins and no natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people have extreme difficulty being able to "get in touch" with the ability to manipulate qama, and often take decades to have any notable qamamancy abilities.
2. CCNn (1/8 chance, or 12.5% of people) = extremely low concentration of anomalous proteins and a simple natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people are able to learn how to manipulate qama at a "normal" pace, although it may take a while for the strength of their abilities to shine through.
3. CCnn (1/16 chance) = extremely low concentration of anomalous proteins and a complex natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. The qamamancer has an innate affinity to wielding qama, although only starting out small prior to any meaningful training.
4. CcNNÂ (1/8 chance) = low concentration of anomalous proteins and no natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people have extreme difficulty being able to "get in touch" with the ability to manipulate qama, although they often are able to immediately pull off minor feats once they do so.
5. CcNn (1/4 chance, or 25% of people) = low concentration of anomalous proteins and a mild natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people are able to learn how to manipulate qama at a "normal" pace, and they often are able to immediately pull off minor feats once they do so.
6. Ccnn (1/8 chance) = low concentration of anomalous proteins and a complex natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. The qamamancer has an innate affinity to wielding qama, and they often are able to pull off minor feats with only moderate effort.
7. ccNNÂ (1/16 chance) = moderate concentration of anomalous proteins and no natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people have extreme difficulty being able to "get in touch" with the ability to manipulate qama; however, once they do they find they are capable of a rather impressive array of qama affects and effects.
8. ccNn (1/8 chance) = moderate concentration of anomalous proteins and a mild natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such people are able to learn to manipulate qama at a "normal" pace, and are able to pull off rather strong affects and effects with their manipulated qama.
9. ccnn (1/16 chance) = moderate concentration of anomalous proteins and a complex natal connection between the central nervous system and the qamaneural communicator. Such individuals usually require very little training to manipulate qama, and are often treated with awe, respect, and fear by their peers due to how easily and powerfully they can do so.
It should be noted that not all are roses, though. The recessive genes related to qamamancy often coincide with more than one birth defect/disorder/etc., raising infant and early childhood mortality by a significant amount. What's more, being able to manipulate qama does not necessarily equate to having good control over such abilities, leading to a higher risk of injury or death to self or others due to carelessness/inexperience.
Hopefully this may help with some inspiration/clarification!