Magic on Talavai

Rarity of Spellcasting

About a half of casters are "initiate casters" who can cast cantrips and maybe some 1st level spells. They can use spells like cure wounds, comprehend languages, and disguise self in service of their goals and their communities. Just under 30% are "journeycasters" who are capable of casting 2nd level spells and who may deploy spells like invisibility, animal messenger, zone of truth, and detect thoughts to give themselves significant advantages in life; while they are not exactly rare, these kinds of spells make them highly sought after and a journeycaster will virtually never have a hard time making a living. Just under 20% are "expert casters" who can cast 3rd and maybe even 4th levels spells like fly, plant growth, sending, revivify, arcane eye, and stone shape to make themselves indispensable to those in positions of power, if they don't occupy those positions of power themselves, which many do. "Savant casters" who can cast 5th and possibly 6th level spells are just 2% of the caster population; spells like raise dead, awaken and teleportation circle allow them to transcend the limits of death, sentience, and space respectively. They are extremely formidable combatants but often as not their powers are more useful off of the battlefield: bringing the dead back to life, connecting cities, constructing buildings, and contacting dieties as well as other higher beings. Finally, roughly 1 in 500 casters are considered Legendary and can cast world-changing 7th and - in very, very rare cases - 8th level spells like plane shift, ressurection, similacrum, demiplane, and clone. 9th level spells are the stuff of legend, with few if any confirmed reports of their use.
Given that there is one spellcasters per aproximately 500 people on Elia, this makes the relative frequency of initiate, journey, expert, savant, and legendary casters roughly 1:1,000, 1:1,700, 1:2,500, 1:25,000, and 1:250,000
Sorcerers, warlocks, and ascendant monks** are too rare and secretive for there to be reliable numbers for them. At least in the case of sorcerers and warlocks, they are assumed to have a higher average max spell level than other classes.
Spellcasting classes in order of frequency/commonness on Elia:

1. Wizards* (3000)
2. (Tie for 2nd) Artificers (1250)
3. (Tie for 2nd) Clerics (1250)
4. (Tie for 4th) Bards (1000)
5. (Tie for 4th) Paladins (1000)
6. (Tie for 4th) Arcane Tricksters*, Bloodrager Barbarians**, & Eldritch Knights* (1000)
7. Rangers (750)
8. Witches (500)
9. Druids (250)

* "Arcane Trickster" and "Eldritch Knight" are separated out here because they are mechanically treated as separate classes in D&D 5e; however, in Talavai they are generally viewed as wizards who happen to know how to sneak/fight and are not truly considered separate (their magic comes from the same source and is learned/grown the same way) **"Path of the Bloodrager" and "Way of the Ascendant" are home-brew 1/3 casting subclasses for the barbarian and monk respectively

Impact of Spellcasting on Society

A consideration to keep in mind is that in this campaign settings, spellcasting for NPCs - in particular the learning of spells - does not necessarily work identically to the mechanics laid out in the PHB. Namely, learning spells takes effort and does not come automatically upon "levelling up" since levelling-up has no narrative meaning for NPCs. Different casters learn their spells in different ways, but the point to keep in mind is that just because a caster can cast spells up to level X does not mean that they just as easily learn any spell on their classes's spell list of level X or lower. An example from the campaign is Sangha Nahib who has stated that while he can cast the 3rd level spell sending, he is able to cast few other 3rd level spells and has indeed never mastered certain lower-level spells such as find familiar. Part of this is attributable to effort: most classes need to expend effort to learn spells, meaning that they are unlikly to learn all spells of a level for which they can cast and they are more likely to spend their time learning the ones they care about. However, effort is not everything: some spells may be naturally more difficult to learn than others, and there are "individual-by-spell interactions" whereby particular spells may be more difficult for a person to learn relative to other spells and relative to other casters of their class for any number of reasons.
While I do not intend to illustrate the relative difficulty of each spell, some examples include:

• find familiar is usually harder to learn than grease
• dispel magic is usually harder to learn than fireball
• dream is usually harder to learn than hold monster

Notable Spells:

The lower the level of a spell the larger the impact on the world, all else being equal. For instance, the message cantrip likely has more impact than the wish spell, since message is widely known and drastically changes communication on a daily basis whereas wish might only be cast once in a century. Spells in bold are particularly significant.

• Cantrip
  • Druidcraft
  • Encode Thoughts (IT, Spy)
  • Friends(MC)
  • Guidance (CE)
  • Mage Hand (C&L)
  • Message (IT)
  • Minor Illusion (Decp)
  • Prestidigitation (Food, C&L)
  • Spare the Dying (M&H)
  • Thaumaturgy
• 1st Level
  • Alarm (Ward)
  • Beast Bond
  • Ceremony
  • Charm Person (MC)
  • Comprehend Languages (IG)
  • Create or Destroy Water (Food)
  • Cure Wounds/Healing Word (M&H)
  • Detect Evil and Good (IG)
  • Detect Magic (IG)
  • Detect Poison and Disease (M&H)
  • Disguise Self (Spy)
  • Feather Fall (Travel)
  • Find Familiar
  • Goodberry (M&H, Food)
  • Hunter's Mark
  • Protection from Evil and Good (Ward)
  • Purify Food and Drink (M&H, Food)
  • Snare (Ward)
  • Speak with Animals (IG)
  • Tenser's Floating Disk (C&L)
  • Unseen Servant (C&L)
• 2nd Level
  • Alter Self
  • Animal Messenger (IT)
  • Arcane Lock (Ward)
  • Augury (IG)
  • Beast Sense (Spy)
  • Borrowed Knowledge
  • Calm Emotions (MC)
  • Detect Thoughts (IG)
  • Enhance Ability (CE)
  • Enthrall (MC)
  • Find Steed (Travel)
  • Find Traps (Wards)
  • Fortune's Favour (CE)
  • Gentle Repose (L&D)
  • Immovable Object
  • Invisibility (Spy)
  • Knock
  • Lesser Restoration (M&H)
  • Levitate
  • Locate Animals or Plants (IG)
  • Locate Object (IG)
  • Magic Mouth (IT)
  • Nystul's Magic Aura (Spy)
  • Rope Trick (Shelt)
  • See Invisibility (Spy)
  • Skywrite (IT)
  • Spider Climb (CE, Travel)
  • Spike Growth
  • Suggestion (MC)
  • Warding Bond (Ward)
  • Wristpocket
  • Zone of Truth (IG)
• 3rd Level
  • Animate Dead (C&L)
  • Clairyvoyance (IG)
  • Create Food and Water (Food)
  • Dispel Magic
  • Feign Death (Decp)
  • Fly (Travel)
  • Gaseous Form (Spy, Travel)
  • Geas (MC)
  • Glyph of Warding (Ward)
  • Intellect Fortress (Ward)
  • Leomund's Tiny Hut (Shelt)
  • Magic Circle (Ward)
  • Meld into Stone
  • Nondetection (Ward)
  • Phantom Steed (Travel)
  • Plant Growth (Food)
  • Remove Curse (M&H)
  • Revivify (L&D)
  • Sending (IT)
  • Speak with Dead (IG)
  • Speak with Plants (IG)
  • Tiny Servant (C&L)
  • Water Breathing (Travel, CE)
  • Water Walk (Travel, CE)
• 4th Level
  • Arcane Eye (Spy)
  • Banishment
  • Control Water (Travel)
  • Death Ward (M&H)
  • Dimension Door (Travel)
  • Divination (IG)
  • Fabricate (Food, C&L)
  • Find Greater Steed (Travel)
  • Galder's Speedy Courier (IT, Travel)
  • Hallucinatory Terrain (Decp)
  • Leomund's Secret Chest
  • Locate Creature (IG)
  • Mordenkainen's Private Sanctum (Shelt)
  • Stone Shape (C&L)
• 5th Level
  • Awaken
  • Commune (IG)
  • Commune with Nature (IG)
  • Contact Other Plane
  • Creation (C&L)
  • Dream (IT)
  • Greater Restoration (M&H)
  • Hallow (Ward)
  • Legend Lore (IG)
  • Modify Memory (MC)
  • Passwall
  • Planar Binding
  • Raise Dead (L&D)
  • Reincarnation (L&D)
  • Scrying (Spy)
  • Teleportation Circle (Travel)
• 6th Level
  • Create Homunculus (C&L)
  • Create Undead (L&D, C&L)
  • Druid Grove (Shelt)
  • Forbiddance (Ward)
  • Guards and Wards (Ward)
  • Magic Jar (SC&P)
  • Move Earth (C&L)
  • Soul Cage (SC&P)
  • Transport Via Plants (Travel)
  • Word of Recall (Travel)
• 7th Level
  • Plane Shift (Travel)
  • Regenerate (M&H)
  • Resurection (L&D)
  • Simulacrum (SC&P, C&L)
  • Teleport (Travel)
  • Temple of the Gods (C&L)
• 8th Level
  • Antipathy/Sympathy (Wards)
  • Clone (SC&P)
  • Control Weather (Food)
  • Demiplane (Shelt)
  • Feeblemind
  • Glibness
  • Mind Blank (Wards)
• 9th Level
  • True Polymorph
  • True Ressurection (L&D)
  • Wish

Categories of Impacts

Medicine & Health (M&H)

Spell: spare the dying, cure wounds/healing word, detect poison and disease, goodberry, purify food and drink, lesser restoration, remove curse, death ward, greater restoration, regenerate

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In This Setting: When the mechanics of a spell are only to restore HP (cure wounds/healing word), their narrative impact is limited to the following:

• Analgesia (pain-killing)
• Anti-inflamation
• Anti-bacterial
• Creation of blood (replicated from existing blood; does not work if no blood is present and if existing blood is diseased/cursed, so is the new blood)
• Knitting of tissues where there has been no serious tissue loss and the two sides are still connected (e.g., re-joining skin, muscle, and sometimes bone when cut; cannot re-attach tissue that has been severed from the body and cannot restore the function of specialized tissue such as organs)

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Low-level healing (spare the dying, cure wounds/healing word, goodberry) does not drastically change role of medicine in the setting other than to provide helpful tools. Since non-magical drugs that can reduce pain and inflammation with any potency are rare and blood transfers are impossible, these spells do serve an important role and save the lives and ease the suffering of a great many people who quick access to casters with these spells. However, the other effects do not revolutionize medical practice since competent surgeons can non-magically stitch up flesh with a decent success rate and anti-bacterial substances are widely known and used. Moreover, while arteficers, bards, clerics, druids, paladins, rangers, and witches are not terribly uncommon, many people will still have an easier time accessing a non-caster with some medical training than they will have seeking out a magical healer and convincing them to part with their limited spell slots. Some more rural communities are organized around druid and witch circles/covens wherein the spellcasters combine mundane and magical means of healing and a large part of their role in the community is understood to be tending to the health of its members, but in more urban areas the situation is quite different, and clerics do not grow on trees.
While the situations discussed above mostly focused on the treatment of injury, detect poison and disease, purify food and drink, and lessor restoration can have an impact on disease, which is a far more common killer and debilitator than accident or violence. Detect in particular helps to stop the spread of infectious disease by enabling a ritual caster to scan a staggering number of people in a single day and identify the infected for isolation, and the usefulness of purify in preventing diseases before they start cannot be overstated. Lesser restoration is 2nd level and thus rarer, but can be effective in the treatment of the symptoms of diseases that cause blindness, deafness, and paralysis, but it should be noted that it tends to be less effective at addressing the route cause of these symptoms, and unless repeated constistently the symptoms are likely to eventually come back unless the patient undergoes mundane medical treatment.
The greater version of restoration is more effective, but as a 5th level spell it is extremely rare. Likewise, regenerate acomplishes limb re-attachment at a success rate that non-magical healers could only dream of, but as a 7th level spell it is more common in legends than in real life.

Food

Spells: prestidigitation, create or destroy water, goodberry, purify food and drink, create food and water, plant growth, fabricate, control weather

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In This Setting: Each berry produced by the spell goodberry only provides 10% of the calories required daily for the average adult kin (so one casting of the spell produces enough food for one person for one day), and while it does simulate a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fats, it does not contain any micronutrients that were not already present in the berry prior to the casting of the spell. As such, a diet of goodberries would over time lead to a host of nutritional deficits and diseases.
Since goodberries restore HP, they have similar effects to cure wounds/healing word (see above).

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Create or destroy water: since the average adult human requires roughly 3 litres of water in a day (ref: https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/how-much-water-should-you-drink), the spell produces 10 gallons, and 10 gallons ~= 38L, one casting of the spell provides aproximately enough water for 13 people for one day.
Goodberry: one casting provides 100% of the calories and macronutrients required by one adult kin per day.
Create food and water: the spell says it produces enough food and water for 15 humanoids for one day. However, it does specify that 30 gallons of water are produced (and unlike the food, the water does not spoil), which from our calculations above should translate into roughly enough water for 40 people for one day.
Plant growth: this is one of the most reality-breaking spells in 5th edition. The text states that the long-term use (the one that is important for our consideration here) takes 8 hours - meaning that it can probably be cast twice a day - and has a radius of half a mile, which translates into ~0.8km, which translates into a circle of area ~2km², which is an area of ~250 acres. Within this area crop production is doubled; it is crucial here to note that doubling will not drastically increase the productivity of fairly infertile land and will instead have the largest impact on land that was already fertile. Depending on source, the number of acres of farmland required to sustain a single human being's diet year-round ranges between 3-20, meaning that the area that can be affected by two castings of this spell (the limit for one day, 500 acres) translates to supporting anywhere from 25 to 165 people. Since the crop yield is being doubled, that means that an additional 25 to 165 people are being supported per year, just from a druid/ranger spending a day on casting this spell. No costly material components are required either. From the text, it seems like a single 5th level druid could, by travelling through a region and ocassionally casting plant growth, allow that region to support twice the population. However, there are several drawbacks to consider:

• This math assumes that circles of affected area are non-overlapping which would require travel between casting and makes it hard to actually get double production out of any full area
• The spell states that affected plants, "yield twice the normal amount of food when harvested" but does not specify whether or not this takes additional labour. If two fields are the same area but one produces twice the yield, one might think that it would take longer to harvest that field (if not twice as long). In my mind, the spell leaves this ambiguous.
• This spell is castable by Bards,

From the text of the spells (and my homeruling of goodberry) it seems as though water is a much easier requirement to satisfy with magic than food is. This has a number of effects on the world. The first is that the placement of settlements is less dependent on the presence of aquifers, springs, heavy rainfall, and other sources of clean water; note that I say less because agriculture still depends on massive amounts of water, meaning that the need for soil that is properly irrigated/irrigatable is not substantially lessened.

Life & Death (L&D)

Spells: gentle repose, raise dead, revivify, reincarnation, create undead, resurection, true resurection

Information Transfer (IT)

Spells: encode thoughts, message, animal messenger, skywrite, sending, galder's speedy courier, dream

Information Gathering (IG)

Travel

Warding (Ward)

(counter-)Spying (Spy)

Mind Control (MC)

Construction & Labour (C&L)

Souls, Cloning, & Possession (SC&P)

Capability Enhancement (CE)

Shelter (Shelt)

Warfare

Note that most spells that are effective in combat are liable to be deployed in warfare; this section is intended to highlight the non-obvious ways that spells change the conduct of the warfare, not just the ways that spellcasters can hurt, heal, protect, and debilitate.

Deception

Magic has seriously affected society and the lives of humanoids. Spells like Sending allow instantaneous communication between far-away cities and armies, making spellcasters invaluble for leaders and generals. Teleportation circles do exist but only in the world's largest cities and require considerable magical energy to use, making them impractical for transporting armies. Healing magics are fairly common but aren't broadly effective enough against the ailments that people experience day-to-day to replace non-magical healers, herbalists, and witches. Ressurection is costly, time-consuming, and comes with caveats and the risk of horrible unintended effects; it is typically gatekept by organized religions such as The Church of Sola.
Magic has a sizable effect on the conduct of warfare, with almost any army above a certain size embedding multiple spellcasters among their battallions. Non-magical troops are often trained in anti-mage and anti-monster tactics, and are still needed as spellcasters are vulnerable without soldiers surrounding them. Spells such as Invisibility and Scrying allow for extremely effective reconaisance and espionage, and as a result anti-surveillance tactics such as negating divination and illusion magic with magical wards is employed ubiquetously.