#nanxing

As per dragons, almost everyone in Nanxing can perform at least some form of magic. (Those that can’t are an unusual case and generally regarded with some distrust/suspicion/confusion by the general populace, like what. why. what did you do. how did you or someone else fuck up.) For most, this doesn’t go beyond being able to summon and control very small amounts of their native element (in this respect, Arcane manifests as “pure energy”, and Plague is more “decay” than disease) and shapeshift between dragon and human forms.*

*Side note on Nanxing culture - while most people tend to stay in human form for convenience (they take up less space and have opposable thumbs), it’s not entirely unusual to see dragons or - for those who have it, people in demi form (more on this later) - walking the streets. The main central road is large enough to accommodate two medium-sized Imperials walking side-by-side (so about one average-sized Guardian or Ridgeback, since Imps are so thin and noodly) and the crowds that pass through on account of the market. The street that the noble houses line is about wide enough for one Imp, and the various others vary in size from wide avenues to alleyways.

Magical talent is almost invariably something you need to be born with. It’s exceedingly difficult for someone with very little or even average magical potential to learn any more complex or powerful magic, regardless of how hard they train or practice, regardless of whether it’s because they can’t tap into the rest of their magic or because they simply don’t have that much magic to use. Mages also have various power and ability levels, aside from skill with magecraft - there are weak mages who can manage only a smattering of scales in their demi form, and there are powerful mages who could probably tear the city apart if they really put their mind to it.

The first sign that someone has anything more than basic magical ability is the ability to stay in human form but manifest draconic features at will - this is known as a “demi form”. It’s an extraordinarily easy skill to learn, provided you have the power for it. Which is to say, anything even remotely above average magical power. Since magic tends to be stronger in dragon form - a stronger connection to the Eleven and, thereby, the magic inherent in the world - the demi form is a way to retain the convenience of a human form and a bit more of the power of a dragon form. (A way to boost your magic power without having to go full-on destructive lizard.) The more draconic features someone can manifest, the stronger their magic, essentially. It can be a useful way to gauge how strong someone’s magic is.**

New mages just learning to control their magic have a tendency to accidentally shift into demi form, and even a skilled mage under extreme emotional or physical distress or trying to use a large amount of power at once can involuntarily shift.

**Almost invariably, it’s not possible to intentionally manifest more or less draconic features in demi form. Magic, for those born with the power to use it, is like a muscle: it grows stronger with more use and atrophies if it’s left unpracticed for extended periods of time. Mages who regularly use magic have been observed to begin to manifest more draconic features, and the opposite is true who haven’t used their magic in a long time.

That being said, mages (that is, those who have the potential to perform magic beyond the standard that near everyone has) aren’t… Revered, I suppose the word is? Not everyone has access to it, but then not everyone has the talent or mind for art or blacksmithing or any other trade you can name, either. Magic is considered a useful skill like any other craft, and magecraft/magic does number among the “honorable” crafts to study. Mages are present in every class of society, from the poorest commoner to the royal family, and is perhaps only slightly more common among the upper class, nobility, and royalty because of a tendency to attempt to breed magic into the bloodlines and the means to find suitable partners to do so. This works, a little - mages do tend to produce more mage children than non-mages, but it’s definitely very common for a mage to be born to non-mage parents, and a non-mage to be born to even powerful mages.

(Note: By non-mages I mean those with standard magic - the shapeshifting and basic control of their element - as opposed to someone with no magic at all.)

Powerful mages to tend to garner some respect, though typically not any more than a particularly skilled or famous smith or dancer or bookbinder or other craftsman.

If there’s any magic that’s even remotely considered to be “"revered”“ it would be healing. Much like the magical potential to work magecraft, healing is a talent one has to be born with. Even the most powerful mage, if they aren’t born with the innate ability to heal, can’t manage to do more than heal up little nicks and scrapes or ease the pain in a bruise. Anything more than a papercut and you’re going to want to see a proper healer. Healers are significantly less common than mages, but function in similar ways - there are healers of varying ability and skill levels, and healers tend to have healer children more often than non-healers. Even then, it’s considered a particularly useful craft to have, one with very little supply and relatively much demand, and mostly people respect healers because it means they’ll actually fix whatever you’ve managed to scrape or cut or bruise or break in your body. For a population so focused on the ability to do things and to create, a healthy body’s kind of important. Healers as a whole tend to also be strong mages, which is also part of why they tend to be respected. There are cases, however (as with Xuesen, one of the members of the royal family), that a very powerful healer is a very weak mage.

In a random sampling of, say, 100 people in the kingdom, maybe 10 will have anything more than standard magical potential, 5 will have enough to train as mages, and 1 will have any healing ability at all.

For the Nanxing royals: The king is effectively a non-mage, and the queen is a mage of fairly average (among mages) strength. It’s enough to be respectable, but she’s a far cry from the strongest or most skilled around, and it’s certainly not enough for her to be able to, say, take to the battlefield. The king’s brother and sister-in-law (Xuejin and Xuesen’s parents) are both mages a bit more powerful than the queen. They could, if they were so inclined, train as mages for the military.

Of the royal children, Langfeng, Langmei, and Xuejin are all non-mages. For those who do have magic: Lanting uses magic specifically related to weapons, i.e. imbuing them with magic to reinforce them or make them stronger (i.e. give a blade an impossibly sharp cutting edge), or creating them. Think Magi’s weapon reinforcement-style magoi manipulation with bonus “I’m gonna make a shiny weapon made of the essence of my fire magic”.

Langan is the strongest of the bunch and a true natural at pretty much anything you throw at him. He learns new skills exceedingly quickly and has spectacular control, especially considering his age, but his sickly body means that he can’t use a lot of magic without tiring himself and needing a long rest. Everyone’s kind of relieved that he’s such a calm, kind boy who couldn’t hurt a fly and that he’s so physically weak, because he could probably tear the palace apart from the inside out if he had the mind and body to. He’s even moved on from his native Wind and begun studying some basic Ice magic.