i would like to have a bigger theme around it, like Rick Riordan's mist, but i need a auxiliar magic system so players around too tied on plot to have magic, so i am just throwing the idea of nobles do magic with movements and stuff by writing on the air, kinda like Dragon Prince but with material components.

to cast a spell, you need freedom of movement, speak and any materials the spell ask, but instead of needing a specific item like bat shit, you need something like a descriptor, so a cloud of daggers would be a cloud of edges, and anything that is sharp could be used to make the spell work. a item can have multiple descriptors, like a tiger claw would be "sharp", and "bestial", all to the discretion of the table and the master, any item used to cast a spell is consumed, and when you gather or buy an item you roll a rarity die and this becomes the modifier of the item, you roll once for a bunch of the same item, i am not entirely sold on this system, it would be cool, but i can't play test it.

familiars can be used as material components, so if something needs a "flammable" component you could use your familiar that spits fire and cast the spell with no item bonus. it should make sense with your familiar, so not every familiar can be used as every component. familiars should be useful in combat more as pokemons and not as spell bot, so they have this nice benefit for mages without being any less useful for everyone else.

because you need to take a action from your 4 to get an item to your hand or to change items of your hand, you can cast most fast spells with one action instead of two or three. it should also cost a resource but i am not sure what, maybe a resource that gets better as the battle goes on to create tension, leave your ideas.

you can cast spells outside of combat for free if you take a lot more time to do it, like rituals in ded, any material cost would still apply.

if you see another spell cast casting a spell, you can spell duel them, you cast another spell and roll opposing checks and who wins decides the result and if you two roll the same, wild magic happens. this is blatantly stealing from DC20 spell duel, but its a cool mechanic, again, the table and the master decide if it makes sense on the narrative.

i don't have any idea on how to theme this around but i decided on some schools of magic, these could be

soul, life, death and healing

time, gravity and entropy

prophecies and divination

enchantment and illusion

transport, transformation, manipulation and creation

this is all very generic and depending on themeing it could be bundled differently, but i don't know themes for generic arcane magic, i wanted some philosophy to support it like i have for the solarpunk druids, but i cant think of anything.

i think that's all i have around generic arcane magic that i need to make magic accessible to this fantasy setting, maybe i could make it more steam age and in a setting where people are already slaves of capitalism instead of in the process of capitalism world domination. so the magic would be more to be fantastic steam technology, i don't like that.