[Glorantha] Wizards and Sorcerers

[Peter Metcalfe]

Mikko:

>What thoughts do you people have these days of the prevalence of
>professional magicians in the Gloranthan societies?
>
>How many Adept level magicians are there in there in a given group of
>people in the West (Loskalm, city states of Janube)? What about
>apprentices, liturgists and Magi (plural of Magus?)?
>
>I'm thinkin of both the sorcerer's and the wizards, despite the header,

The best source so far is Greg's "Convince the Examiners" in
WF p84-85 in which he gives a figure of 2% magicians in the
general population, based on the clerical population of medieval
england and notes that most of the 2% are monks rather than
priests.

Now there are complications since liturgists are not automatically
clerics.  The most common non-clerical liturgist would be the
"village priest"* or guild liturgists.  Hence I estimate that there
would be as many liturgists outside the church as there are
inside.

How many church liturgists are there?  One priest per a
hundred souls seems a useful rule of the thumb, leaving
another one in every hundred for the adepts, magi and
sorcerers.

Loskalm does provide some hints as to the number
of wizards in the general population.  Two hundred knights
in their ten ordinary battalions are wizard knights while the
Noble Battle contains 2000 wizard knights.  This gives
a total population of 4000 wizard knights out of a general
population of 3.2 million which translates into one wizard
knight per eight hundred souls.  In my opinion, the number
of non-military wizards is the same size giving one wizard
per four hundred souls.

So there are eight liturgists (clerical and non-clerical)
for every wizard.

Hints on the numbers of sorcerers probably depends on the
ratio of atheistic communities to monotheistic communities.
In Loskalm, the nearest atheists live at Sog City which
has one fifth the general population of Loskalm.  For
Seshnela, Arolanit only has one twentieth the general
population of the peninsula.  So the number of sorcerers
per wizard lies between these extremes IMO.

*How to determine whether a village priest is an ordained
clergymen or not?  My guess is that if his congregation
includes a knightly or wealthy yeomanry family then the
priest is ordained.  If his congregation are all dirt-poor
then he's not.

--Peter Metcalfe