I’ve been hinting at my new series for a while now. It is called Many Kinds of Magic, and it is set in a Regency era that is somewhat like the one in our universe. As in our history, Great Britain is at war with Napoleon – but Great Britain is England, Scotland, and a rebellious, reluctant Wales. Ireland, with its powerful mages, is an independent confederation of kingdoms under a High King.
In the first book of the new series, the king of England goes mad. In my fictional world, he is struck down by a curse. His heir, his nephew Prince Arthur, is declared Prince Regent.
His nephew, I say, for the king has no children. One of the foundational decisions I made when I started world building affects the history, the culture, and the hierarchy of my world. That decision was that the use of magic makes the person who uses the magic infertile, and that all magical creatures are also infertile.
In England and Scotland, if not in other countries, having magic power means being given a title, an estate, and responsibilities. The greater the gift, the higher the title. Title holders, being magic users, cannot have children, and titles cannot be passed to someone who does not have a gift. As a consequence, titles are passed to nephews, nieces, cousins, or still more distant relatives. If there is no one in the family with a magical gift sufficient for the title, it is either given to someone outside of the family or retired pending a suitable recipient.
Since a female is as likely as a male to be born with a strong magical gift, a title is as likely to go to a woman as to a man. It only comes up once in this book, but might be relevant later in the series, but women who inherit or are given a title take the male form of that title: duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. I imagine that a powerful woman or a group of them, at some point in the past, objected to being known by the same title as a consort. And, as Jasper points out to Cordelia at one point, who is going to argue with a woman who has a strong magical gift?
There is one other title in this United Kingdom of my imagination which is always given initial capitals because it is a name as well as title—a name that belongs to only one person in a lifetime. That title is Lady Catalyst.
Being creatures who like to categorize things, like all humans, my society recognizes three type of mage power: witches, who use physical objects and ritual to create spells, sorcerers, who use the power of their minds, and enchanters, who use the power of the minds of others. The English tradition is to regard sorcerers as the highest status power, and so they use the term “mage” for sorcerers, but not for witches or enchanters. Just as, in real life England, the honorific doctor is used for those who practice medicine whether or not they have an academic doctorate, while those with a doctorate in another area of study are seldom addressed as “Dr.”
Another group of categories deals with the object of the magic, such as healer, weather worker, animal whisperer, plant speaker. And so we have healer mages, healer witches, and healer enchanters, weather mages and weather witches, plant mages and plant witches, and so on.
In Unexpected Magic, the first book of the series, a power awakens that defies such categorization. It is described in the book.
Unexpected Magic will be followed by:
- Twisted Magic
- Small Magic
- Wild Magic
- Forgotten Magic
- Ordinary Magic
- Dangerous Magic
- Weird Magic
- Dark Magic