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Does it come from an intense emotional catharsis?
Concentration and training?
Is it natural and in everyone, or only in a select few?

Perhaps I'm relying too much on game mechanics but my view of magic in the TES world has always been that it does come easier to some but with enough work anyone could do magic. Though I see the practice that's required as being substantial. You don't see many farmers running around throwing fireballs.

I'd say the same as P.
However, of course, some races are more magically proficient than others, but I would assume 'practice makes prefect'. Though perhaps one could go to a Mage's Guild and ask them if they could probe you.. or something..

Yes, I havent seen any Orcs performing magic.
My guess is that some dont have any magical abilities, some notice a slight something at a young age and, if nurtured, can become fairly skilled and others that are just naturals and can build up to become very powerful mages, probably more likely in the Breton and High Elf races.

Well some people just cannot do magic, as seen through a random encounter in Skyrim. Otherwise, someone just has to teach the pupil enough to the point that they can cast a spell. It's something that most can do but don't want to do.

Aarah wrote:Yes, I havent seen any Orcs performing magic.

Actually there's an Orc in the Balmora Mages Guild in Morrowind.

Aarah wrote:Yes, I havent seen any Orcs performing magic.

Very rare, but there are some.

Skyrim has at least three of them.

Br3admax wrote:Skyrim has at least three of them.

Urag gro-Shub (The College Librarian) is one of my favorite characters in all the Elder Scrolls. He can remember every book in the Library, threatens to summon Atronachs and/or rip people's arms off and could possibly be hundreds of years old.

Ok, so maybe there are some Orc mages.
Ive still not seen them though! Except Urag, but I thought he was like a muggle member of the College.

Well in terms of gameplay mechanics, I see magical abilities available to any and all races. Just requires more "practice" I guess you could say if trying for a more roleplayed character.
But if I was to look at the series as a separate idea of life, existence, universe, and EVERYTHING, then I would go with the idea of only a select number of beings could learn how to use magic. I think it's really part of the whole roleplay aspect of the series. It's up to you as the player.

AbsentLunchbox wrote:Well in terms of gameplay mechanics, I see magical abilities available to any and all races. Just requires more "practice" I guess you could say if trying for a more roleplayed character.
But if I was to look at the series as a separate idea of life, existence, universe, and EVERYTHING, then I would go with the idea of only a select number of beings could learn how to use magic. I think it's really part of the whole roleplay aspect of the series. It's up to you as the player.

I'm pretty sure it's just study, practice and natural talent. The whole reason Vanus Galerion left the Psijic order and founded the Mages Guild is because he disagreed with the idea that magic should be limited to a chosen few. The Mystery of Talara book II features a nursemaid who can cast an effective healing spell.

Spoiler:

Ramke took Gyna's soaking rags and covered her with a blanket as she sat at the fire. As the numbness of the chill water began to leave her, it cruelly abandoned her to the intense agony of her leg. Until then, she had not dared to look at it. When she did, she felt vomit rise at the sight of the deep gash, fish-white dead flesh, plump and swollen. Thick arterial blood bubbled up, splashing on the floor in streams.
"Oh dear," said the old woman, returning to the fire. "That must rather sting. You're lucky that I still remember a little of the old healing spells."
Ramke seated herself on the floor and pressed her hands on either side of the wound. Gyna felt a flare of pain, and then a cool soft pinching and prickle. When she looked down, Ramke was slowly sliding her wrinkled hands towards one another. At their approach, the lesion began to mend before her eyes, flesh binding and bruises fading.
"Sweet Kynareth," Gyna gasped. "You've saved my life."
"Not only that, you won't have an ugly scar on your pretty leg," Ramke chuckled. "I had to use that spell so many times when Lady Jyllia was little. You know, I was her nursemaid."
"I know," Gyna smiled. "But that was a long time ago, and you still remember the spell."
"Oh, when you're learning anything, even the School of Restoration, there's always a lot of study and mistakes, but once you're as old as I am, there's no longer any need to remember things.

Aarah wrote:Ok, so maybe there are some Orc mages.
Ive still not seen them though! Except Urag, but I thought he was like a muggle member of the College.

Each Orc stronghold has a shaman capable of magic

Hmm. Magic seems easy enough(from a PC perspective), it does make you wonder why it's not more common in TES(or, rather, why everyone doesn't do it). Reminds me of a discussion I heard on a podcast over how one becomes the leader of a country:

"Well, there's a form you fill out at the post office. But it's like, a couple pages, and then you have to buy stamps and you have to post it. Most people don't bother".

They tell you in game why? Magic is scary, magic is hard, and magic caused the Oblivion Crisis.

I see magic in TES as like pole vaulting
Everyone who is in good physical condition could do it and you can tell someone who's never done it before to try; they might be able to guess how to do it, but it's likely that without practice they're going to hit the ground

See for example what happened to the missing College of Winterhold apprentices.

Several reasons why not everyone wants to do magic - first of all, it's more or less useless if you don't practise. And I think most people in Tamriel have more important things to do than chasing squirrels they could use to improve their skill at casting fireballs. Second of all - I think that many people in Skyrim, and other provinces too, don't trust magic and are afraid of it, so they don't even try. And finally, many of those spells, while cool in a fight, would be absolutely useless in the life of an average farmer or hunter, especially the low-level spells. How does shooting sparks out of your fingers help with growing potatoes? What good is the ability to make people flee for a miner (unless that's a very grumpy antisocial miner, I suppose)?

As far as the discovery goes - I don't think this is something that needs to be discovered. Looking at the game mechanics I'd say that anyone can do magic if they try and want to. Some are better at it, some are worse, but everyone can manage something if they bother to learn. I imagine it's something like real-world skills - pretty much anyone can learn to speak Japanese, bake an apple pie, or recite the entire periodic table backwards, but most people don't make the effort.

there are plenty of spells that would benifit the average citizen. for example miners could use Transmute to make money off of the common iron mines, Hunters could make great use of Muffle and Invisibility for hunting deer and elk. Flame cloak could keep a family warm on a cold Skyrim night.

not to mention the benefits of being able to roast any bandit who tries to rob your village

First of all - I ignore the existence of Transmute. That spell is ridiculously unbalanced and if turning iron into gold was that easy, everyone would try to do this and gold would be worthless in Tamriel. It's a stupid spell.

Second of all - Muffle, Invisibility and Flame cloak are not low-level spells. You need to put some serious effort into practising your magic before you can cast ant of them, except Muffle, which becomes available earlier, but still not right away.

And as for defense, I imagine that every village has a person or two who can help out this way, but it definitely woudn't be everyone.

Transmute isn't an average spell either, and if you can turn people into cows, you can change iron into gold. Alteration magic is implied to be very powerful.

Muffle is available to buy right from the start of the game in both Oblivion and Skyrim. It might even be possible to have it as a starting spell in the former, I'd have to check. Also it's an apprentice level spell, which altmer start at the requisite level for the relevant half cost perk level for. Hardly intensive or high level...

Invisibility is a bit different, in Oblivion it was apprentice to expert is base game spells varying with duration, in Skyrim it's an expert spell only, and flame cloak's are adept, which is the average destruction mage skill level.

Transmute is an adept level spell, if available right from the start of the game.


As Bread says, Alteration magic is about manipulating the fabric of reality, turning materials into something else.

Yes, but with the single exception of Transmute all changes made by Alteration spells are temporary, as a way to balance all that power. Otherwise it would be a ridiculously overcharged branch of magic. But the Transmuted gold doesn't revert back to iron after several hours. And while it may be an adept level spell, the base cost is only 100, which means that a level 1 character (or NPC) can cast it.

All other spells I used as examples in the last post have higher base cost (much higher in some cases), which means that only a person who invested serious time and effort into magical training would be able to cast them. To me that means that those spells wouldn't be available to most people, because they are busy with their lives and don't have time to get to the point where magic becomes a real benefit. Realistically (if I can use this word to talk about Tamriel) only spells with base cost no greater than 100 would be potentially useful for regular folk.

So where does it leave us? I'm looking at Skyrim magic only here - two light spells from Alteration (which could be useful, I suppose), Flaming Familiar and Bound Sword, which are mostly useless for a fisherman or a barmaid, you could also start a fight with Fury, or find a missing key with Clairvoyance. And Healing, which is one branch I admit is very useful to everyone and I imagine that many people know the basic Healing spells, just in case someone chops their own leg instead of firewood or falls off the ladder in the barn (not everyone would learn though, just as not every person in real world can stitch up a cut, even though it's not rocket science and doesn't require insanely expensive equipment). That's it.

Well yeah, that's all the magic an average citizen would need. Bound sword could be more useful than you've made out though.

Spell durations and magicka costs are gameplay devices really - the spell would be as permanent as the caster would want it to be, and magicka costs are in a numerical way as that's fairer for a game.

dzio wrote: Flaming Familiar and Bound Sword, which are mostly useless for a fisherman or a barmaid, you could also start a fight with Fury, or find a missing key with Clairvoyance. And Healing, which is one branch I admit is very useful to everyone and I imagine that many people know the basic Healing spells, just in case someone chops their own leg instead of firewood or falls off the ladder in the barn (not everyone would learn though, just as not every person in real world can stitch up a cut, even though it's not rocket science and doesn't require insanely expensive equipment). That's it.

but these are highly useful magic for anyone - no barmaid, hermit, farmer or fisherman is defenseless with an instant sword , familiar and healing at their disposal

could explain how people in Tamreil can endure such dangerous lands