Arcane Enmity
The Downward Spiral
Those that cannot wield the art of the arcane - commoners and nobles alike - have historically feared it. This is, perhaps, understandable for them to do so as the power that a mage or sorcerer might conjure seems incredible. It makes a wielder of the arcane seem as if they come from a different species and people have always feared that which is different. Given magic's roots at the dawn of history and its first uses - to summon foul creatures from hell and then to smite the gates of a city under siege - one can see why those with a simpler model of reality find it more convenient when it does not intrude upon their lives.
As the intervening centuries stretched into millenia, tales of arcane disasters outweighed the stories of the noble wizard, risking life and limb to save the common man. Indeed, these sort of tales always starred the brave knight or intrepid woodsmen who often battled against the evil witch or dark sorcerer. Despite the placid language used by all when interacting with society - that magic was merely a tool and its wielder determined its inherent goodness or lack thereof - the seeds of hatred were sown deeply.
The founding of the School of Pure and Applied Thaumaturgy in Karradone began to accelerate the acquisition of magical knowledge. Within a few short decades of its founding , the catalogue of arcane knowledge had increased exponentially. The gulf between the artless mundane and the powerful that posed its secretes had widened like a crack in Tarien's surface, filled with bubbling lava beneath.
Despite the efforts - or perhaps because of them - an alliance of great wizards, the magical atrocities that struck Tarien over the next century grew. They punctuated the Great War from the use of deadly hit and run tactics to the importation of weapons and soldiers from foreign worlds . The nature of war had changed and common soldier had no part to play in it except as fodder. In the end, they finally shook the ground itself .
While the fear of magical power certainly contributed to the fall of the arcane, it was not enough to shake its people into action. While fear motivates it also paralyzes. Some agent was needed to ignite the spark of rebellion. That spike came in the form of a academic arrogance in the Treatise of Gifted and Mundane in 593 AC . By declaring that the artless were separate than those gifted with it, Karin confirmed what the commoners had always believed - that the magi were different. And different was dangerous.
It is not surprising, then, that after an otherwise unassuming graduate of the school refused to take his oath of fealty on the basis of Karin's manifesto that the populace finally rose up. They had been pushed past the point of danger. Past the point of fear. It was battle for their very survival. The Mage Wars were, historically speaking, brutal and brief. Thousands died, even those without a spark of magic. But by its end, the face Tarien had been scoured of the art of the arcane.
- by Lexicar the Loremaster, from the introduction to "Into the Darkness: The Loss of Magic and the End of an Age", 741 AC.
A Mage Burning in Synthea
The Landscape Today
The Mage Wars had a lasting effect Tarien's perception of magic. While different nationstates have different rues and different perceptions of the art, there are some generalities that can be drawn. First, most Human nations have laws prohibiting the practice of magic. They tend to be more or less restrictive based upon a number of historical factors, including how the country faired in the Mage Wars and their general outlook on outsiders. Nations with strong religious influence tend to be the most oppressive.
Non-human lands typically do not ban magic. Not all embrace it, however. Khadra and Wemic have always been somewhat suspicious of the arcane and the workings of the outside world has not changed those perceptions. Only in the extremes of the continent - the Nerrid Alliance and the Elanthai Council can one find cultures that truly embrace magic. Fortunately, these are places no god-fearing human would want to visit.
Divine Miracles
While few cultures would legislate against the miracles granted to priests by a god, the average person often cannot tell the difference between divine blessings and the arcane arts. This is especially true in less
cosmopolitan areas where powerful miracles are rarely seen or experienced. A rural Prydithen farmer might accept a simple crop blessing from a Chetrian priest or a minor healing from one of Arimathica's clerics, but anything much more powerful or out of the ordinary could very well be ascribed to the arcane. There have certainly been more than one priest stoned or burned as a result of this sort of misunderstanding.
In areas where enmity of the arcane is particularly high, however, worship of one or more particular gods is often more fervent. In these areas, it is typical that only divine magic associated with the dominant god is accepted. In Drakkar, for example acts of light would easily be accepted as miracles of faith but magic that created or manipulated shadows would be suspected as arcane and thought of as evil, regardless of the source.
Categorizing Public Sentiment
The following categories are useful in understanding how a particular nation-state or culture feels about magic.Public Sentiment by Nation-state
Different nation-states have different feelings about how dangerous magi might be. These sentiments tend to be more tolerant in demi-human societies and less tolerant in Human ones, but it is not always the case.
Individual Feelings
Importantly, the sentiments of a culture do not always represent the sentiments of an individual. While an individual might be influenced by his or her culture, it is not the sum of their beliefs. Most commonly, an individual will be one or two steps in either direction from that of their culture. A Grenniger, therefore, might be more liberal than the Principality as whole and be suspicious or even tolerant. Similarly, they may have Mennithite tendencies and lean more toward Illegal or even Feared. Outliers, of course, also exist. These outliers often have experiences in their past that have caused them to rethink their culture's views on the arcane and in some cases actively seek to change the perceptions of others so that they ight come to the same understanding.