Frequency of magic-users in a setting with a masquerade

[Feo Takahari]

Given a setting where magic is a well-kept secret, about what percent of the population would need to be magic-users to create these effects:

Magic-users can't effectively find and communicate each other.

Magic-users can find and communicate with each other, but don't need to use their magic to keep their secret.

Magic-users can only keep their secret through regular and rigorous use of memory-wipe magic.

(I understand this isn't exactly a rigid science, but we should be able to come up with reasonable estimates. I'm going for type 1 in my current project--most people with magical potential go their entire lives without meeting anyone who can train them.)

 

[ThinkerX]

Thread reminds me of Barbara Hambly's 'Dark Hand of Magic' and related works, where mages went to considerable effort to conceal themselves.

Still...

Magic-users can't effectively find and communicate each other.

Magic-users can find and communicate with each other, but don't need to use their magic to keep their secret.

Magic-users can only keep their secret through regular and rigorous use of memory-wipe magic.

The answers depend on things not quantified:

1 - how much effort do the mages put into hiding?

2 - how convinced are 'ordinary people' that magicians exist?

3 - are we talking 'urban' (thousands of people in a confined area) or 'rural' (few people spread out over a large area)?

4 - can one mage automatically spot another?

 

[Feo Takahari]

Let's start with these default assumptions:

1. No magic use in public places, and no voluntary revelation of magic to outsiders, but no killing of those who discover that magic exists.

2. Not very; it wouldn't be much of a masquerade if they were.

3. Most likely urban--for whatever reason, masquerades rarely appear in stories that take place in rural settings.

4. There's no physical giveaway that someone's a mage, but mages can recognize when someone else is using magic.

Once we've got something for those, we can figure out how the estimates are modified when the factors are.

 

[CupofJoe]

I heard it said that back in the 1980s 1 in 3 of the adult population of East Germany was an informant for the Stasi [Secret State Police] but no-one ever admitted to it... or knew if anyone else was...
I think you can make up your own proportion but I would think that it would hinge on not how many there are but how hated/feared/despised they are for being magical...
There would only be few of them if no-one really cared if you were or were not.
The numbers could be higher if they might be despised or hated for being magical but they would have to be hidden.

 

[Chilari]

I'd say 1% is sufficient for magic users to be unable to effectively find and communicate with one another. It's estimated that a person's social circle - people you can keep in touch with, remember information about like famaily and job, etc - is about 100 to 150. This is also the estimated size of the majority of early settlements back in the stone age, and a lot of villages in less developed countries. With a 1% rate, you probably know someone else who is a mage, but unless you spot them doing magic won't easily find out, and they might be of a sufficiently different social group, different age or a different gender that spending time talking with them in private is very difficult indeed. You could concievably go up to 10% if there is a lot of animosity against magic users, as mages will be more careful about using magic. If a mage never uses magic, how are you to know?

 

[wordwalker]

I've been working with the idea of isolated mages for years, so I've got a take or two on this.

If a mage never uses magic, how are you to know?

Also, how much does the magic make big uses possible-- and irresistable? A mage may know better than to court exposure, but what happens when you get mugged or a drunk driver comes at you, if the best defenses are flashy? Or, more commonly, when someone you love is sick, if there's any healing power at all? How much can you risk using it to charm a business deal, or win a race or grow bigger flowers-- and then you have seduction spells, revenge options, and full-on Schemes of Conquest, if the magic has that kind of power. The more it does, the harder mages have to police each other, and their society has to strike a balance between "magic makes life easier, you don't need to cause trouble to get what you want" and "they not only can't catch you, you can't start thinking of yourself as above them."

The related question is, how visible is your magic when it's used? If there's any spell with a cinematic energy blast, or flashy telekinesis or transmutation, that's going to drop jaws and raise headlines if anyone sees it. Likewise, the more your spells depend on chants, visible runes, and so on, the more traces there are for someone suspicious to track it down or to suddenly realize "You stopped that fire with your staff... and I saw marks like that staff on the old house across town..."

On the other hand, the more the magic deals with invisible things like thought and perception, the less visible or at least the less provable it gets -- and of course, the more you can quietly nudge minds ("such a dull old house") or simply wipe them if they get close, but that can go VERY wrong if you do anything someone notices.

(For instance, my Shadowed is about magic that's definitely on the subtle side; the main reason any Whisperer knows any other one is that the way to gain power is to have the potential and see someone else use it. In my WIP it's a bit harder to hide, but people have figured out a few tricks, like the belt marked with "Made in Sha Ta Ruath"-- except "sha ta ruath" isn't quite the spell, you have to know enough to start experimenting with the words to use it.)

 

[Kit]

It also depends on what exactly they can do- do they have some kind of magical ability to locate one another? You can make it as difficult or as easy as you want.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

Sounds akin to being gay in the 1950s. I'd say something around 1 in 1,000 if you want them to have it be hard to find one another.