Thaumatology - The "theoretical" aspect of magick. This skill represents a mage's training in the universal ways of magic. This skill allows a "cookbook mage" to use Power Words s/he has never studied. "Spell list mages" use this skill when researching new spells.
Spell-throwing - While a mage doesn't literally "throw" a spell, certain applications do require the mage to direct magickal energies at a specific target. Use of this skill ensures the mage's spell finds the proper target.
Spell-powers - These are the actual manipulations for which mages are famous. The skills listed here may be Cast X College Spells, Cast X Rank Spells, or specific individual Power Words - each are detailed on following pages.
Spell-casting takes two distinct approaches - the Spell-list approach and the Magical Cookbook approach. In the "Spell-list" arena, certain magical effects are understood and rigidly defined with little room for variance. The "Magical Cookbook" arena, however, allows a mage more room to "tailor" a magical casting to suit the needs of the situation.
The "spell list" approach has two separate directions in which it can go - "Colleges" such as is used in GURPS or "Levels" as is used in A/D&D. Following a "College" approach groups similar spells together under one skill-heading (eg: "Plant Spells," "Knowledge Spells") and can lead to highly-specialized mages. A "Level" approach tends to develop mages that have a much broader range of magical skills, less limited to spells of any one particular type. Neither approach is necessarily better, but merely represent different mindsets on the part of users of magickal energies.
Mages learn "Power Words" that are placed under "Magery" like skills, consisting of Action and Subject words. By combining an Action Word with one or more Subject Words, the mage can effect a much wider range of spell results than can be achieved by the more limiting "spell list" approach above.
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