Do How Sorcerers Dress Tell Us Something About What They Studied? - Or How I Decided What Character's Studied Based On Patterns IN Their Dress: Part 1
This is going to be a 2 Part post
I MAY also end up HEAVILY editing this later on based on what I learn in the new series.
Also, I'm not super up to date on what exactly has and and has not been answered by Craig on BlueSky and Twitter.
I do know he said somewhere that Sorcerers don't originate on the Mystic Isles? I don't remember the exact place that was answered, but I do remember seeing it somewhere.
Therefore, a SIGNIFICANT amount of lore was built around seeing that.
However, please cut me some slack if I missed a Tweet or something from the show because I've been outlining all of this over the course of the last TWO YEARS while trying to build patterns out of what I've observed watching the show, using a combination of the casting styles of each character, known "magical school tropes" from Skyrim, Forgotten Realms, DnD in general, and some other places, before THEN trying to fit all that into the color patterns and schemes I saw in the multiple SORCERERS across the Sofia the First universe.
So ... again ... slack, please ... I do this between, like, being sat on and nap time.
A Few Additional Opening Notes
Fairies and Witches are separate types of magic users/ "magical beings," and they have their own ways of identifying themselves as well as studying magic.
Fairies color code themselves based on personality.
Witches dress based on Good Witch/ Neutral Witch/ Bad Witch affiliation.
Sorcerers dress based on field of study/ specialization.
(Aside: I haven't figured out the exact breakdown on Faires and Witch color schemes/ styles of dress yet because it hasn't been relevant to the story at this time. BUT, I know do this is how it will work eventually.)
However, the educational and casting differences between Fairies, Witches, and Sorcerers?
That I DO know, and it will be discussed later on.
But anyway, like, this was ... this just was ... Okay?
Huge task. So, again, if anything is a little weird or wonky. This is like directly and copied and pasted from my stream of consciousness in a Google Doc that I've been building over the course of ~2 years in between preschool pick up and laundry loads and only minorly edited.
But, people seem interested in how I think/ the lore behind what I'm building.
How Does Hexley Even Work Though? 15 Years Of Sorcery School, And What Does That Even Look Like?
When I knew when I was developing a story for Squish, my kiddo, who tries to sneak into my DnD sessions, and was "present" for many of them because I got pregnant shortly after I started playing regularly, I knew that I wanted to set up Hexley's system with actual "schools of magic" based kind of on the ones used in DnD, with some minor influences from Skyrim. If only because, I also like that game, and the Restoration magic in it is cool.
Then, once I knew I wanted to lean into the ideas of specific schools and types of casting, for sorcerers specifically, I knew I wanted sorcerers to graduate with "specializations" in a particular kind of magic. I figured that specialization would occur in the final years of the, supposedly, 15 year period of study that Cedric offhandedly mentions early in Season 1.
However, that necessitated figuring out how those 15 years would be broken down.
(Also, I accidentally AU'ed Hexley as a boarding school when I was first drafting because I couldn't remember if it was or not. My brain defaulted to automatically make the "wizard school" a boarding school because ... you know ... it's a wizard school? ... Greylock and Cedric were roommates at one point ... it was just as adorable and insane as it sounds.)
So, the way I chose to break apart the years from when a sorcerer begins their studies at Hexley, at ~7/8 years old, to when they finish their studies, at ~ 22/23 years old, assuming Hexley's cut off to start school is ~ September 1st - meaning some kids might spend most of that year a little older and/ or might be a little older when they graduate- was this:
Middle Level: (~10-13)
- Alchemy is added as a class in this grade band
High Level: (~13-16)
- The grade band in which Greylock and Cedric were roommates
- No additional classes added, they just get harder
Master Level: (~16-22)
- choose specific course of study in this year band
- Year 10 and 11 still include "seated exams" + "introductory field work"**
- All following years' grades are based on a "thesis work" and "field work"
(** Cedric's Year 10 "introductory field work" will become important to his story later)
I ended up deciding on this because, to me, it made sense that the most focus would be placed on the time in which the "specialization" was chosen.
I also kind of inferred that having a bunch of eight year olds using fire and beakers was probably not great? You know?
So, a lot of the choices in this section were practical.
However, once I had all of this decided, I realized there were some other things to consider:
How would people KNOW who studied what in those final six years of that "Master Level?"
Do they just have little diplomas in their offices?
And, I thought: "No ... these guys spend 15 years studying whatever it is they studied. To them, it would absolutely matter what they specialized in."
Then, I asked, two more important questions:
How are Sorcerers different from Fairies, Witches, and Humans?
What were the possible courses of study going to be?
In the rest of this post, I'm just going to tackle that first question.
How ARE Sorcerers Different From: Fairies, Witches, And Humans?
I really wanted to lean into the idea of each type of magic user being different.
Each magic user learns differently based on HOW they cast magic
Each magic user CASTS magic out of a different "core" place which affects the type of magic they're allowed to do & the extent of the magic they can perform successfully
Each magic user has different levels of success/ ability based on how narrow that "core" is
Fairies cast out of their "personalities."
For example: A fairy with a personal desire to "grow" can cast a spell, of any alignment, that either "grows"/ "creates" objects and/or "grows" people.
For example: A fairy with a desire to "protect" can cast a spell, of any alignment, with the intention to "protect" a person, profession, object, etc.
Fairies are drawn towards magic that expresses what they most love/ desire - whether that is is growth, protection, etc.
Fairies learn best by, first, discovering their interest and then perfecting spell craft within that area of interest.
Once they've discovered their interest, they are supervised by other Fairies in their personal development/ "stabilization" of their magic. (When a Fairy can find another Fairy of the same type to supervise them, they will, but that's not always possible.)
After a Fairy's magic is proven to be stable, the Fairy is declared free to practice their magic on their own.
Sometimes, once they're done learning what they can on their own, Fairies will collaborate with other Fairies of different "personalities" to make cooler and better stuff. But, this is only AFTER they've mastered their own abilities on their own. This stage of isolated mastery often lasts for YEARS after they've been supervised by another fairy or fairies in the stabilization of their magic as an "apprentices."
Witches cast out of their alignments - Good, Neutral, or Evil.
They learn through trial and error as well as experimentation.
However, unlike Fairies, there is no real "stabilization" period. Witch magic is much more free flowing, but it doesn't begin as strong as Fairy Magic. But, so long the spell aligns with the Witches' alignment - Good, Neutral, or Evil - the spell will work. It just won't be as powerful.
A Witch's Power scales with age and lived, practical, wisdom.
Fairy Magic is always intensely powerful, but it needs to learn to be controlled - hence the "apprentice" period with an older fairy/ fairies who can teach how to control magical whims.
Sorcerers, by contrast, are driven to magic by some mixture of BOTH heart/ alignment & a desire to research personal interest.
It is this combination of factors which led them to develop intensive study surrounding the possibilities of magic as well as its patterns and how to master them.
Unlike other "magical beings," True Sorcerers ARE NOT born on the Mystic Isles.
However, they are deeply magical, and possess ties, at the core of their beings, to the Mystic Isles.
All People have some inherent ability to cast magic as well as some minor magical abilities, but True Sorcerers are drawn to a field of study by their "Wish" - as in like the Wishes from Wish - towards the Mystic Isles.
Enchancians call these: "Heart's Desires"
Rudistanians call them: "Sacrifices of Odin"
Ulsterians (Cedric's Teacher's Country) call them: "The Root of Their Life Trees"
(Note: Eventually every country will have a name for their "Wish," but these are the only ones that have been plot relevant so far because Cedric & Greylock get into an argument about them at some point, and Roland references his in a chapter I wrote about him. So, I named them because of the argument/ Roland's chapter.)
But, regardless of what these "Wishes" are called culturally, True Sorcerers will be drawn by both a combination of natural alignment - Good, Neutral, or Evil - personality, and a desire to learn magic to connect with the part of them that is bonded to the Mystic Isles.
This, has lead some to believe, that Sorcerers are descendants of the mingling of genetics, in the EverRealm, of Witches, Fairies, and Non-Magical People.
Additionally, it is believed by most Sorcerers that they will go to some part of the Mystic Isles, or some offshoot of it, when they die because the part of them that is magical longs to return to the source of magic itself.
(Note: "Common people" & Royals can be born sorcerers. Though, usually, sorcery is genetic and runs in families. Some Kingdoms have a higher likelihood of their villagers having magical blood than others because of a multitude of factors.
Examples that crop up in my writing for reasons:
Winifred was a villager born a sorceress. [I thought this was a fun twist on the "long line of royal sorcerers" because, yeah, through Goodwyn because he's the only one anyone ever remembers.]
Fionn's (Cedric's Teacher because dude needed a name) Father: His mother was basically the Healing Edition of Goodwyn in his country, but his father was a common born person - though - tbh not uncommon in his country. 90% of the people in his country are Restoration Sorcerers.
Clio & Vivian - Royals born with sorcery powers - Transmutation will be specialization b/c "Music Magic" would fit as sub category of Transmutation ... more on that in the next post.
Sofia - probs the most random in this list because the idea of an Enchancian villager being born a sorcerer hasn't happened since the year before Cedric was born, so far as he knows. He only met one, and she was a year older than he was ... so Sofia is young enough to have been thei ... her child. Her child.)
Oh I'm so mean ... I'm ending it right there.
