What is the hedge mage?

[JLV]

Personally, from reading fantasy literature, my impression always was that "hedge mages" lacked great magical ability; that is, they could learn to do a few small spells (more in line with the idea of "cantrips" than full on Wizard spells from the spell list) but lacked the ability to do the "big" magics, and had some healing, herbal knowledge, and maybe a wee bit of alchemical knowledge to get them by and help out the locals. Really more like the local "wise woman/medicine man" than anything explicitly described in TFT.

Of course, in TFT, we don't have levels of "magical affinity" (or cantrips), so you either know magic or you don't, and the whole concept of "hedge mages" becomes rather odd from my perspective... In effect, isn't any non-Wizard who learns a spell actually a "hedge mage" (regardless of where, from whom, or how s/he learned it)?

[FireHorse]

I did some searching and reading, and ~[IF]~ one places any value on Things Read On The Internet, it seems the origin of the modern Fantasy term "Hedge Mage / Wizard" goes back to "Hedge Priest", which in turn goes back to "Hedge Knight".

And "Hedge Knight" was essentially just a less polite synonym for "Knight Errant" — a warrior with no current feudal obligations, and therefore no lands or titles, who must therefore sleep outdoors (under a hedge).

It was apparently a derogatory term (certainly not a compliment), as it was felt that such men were untrustworthy and prone to banditry. (Note the similarity to the views on Ronin in Japanese feudal culture.)

Several of the sources where I read this cited Don Quixote as an example of a Hedge Knight. (Whether you consider that a positive or negative example depends on whether you've read Don Quixote, and how you feel about it, I suppose.)

[NOTE: Incidentally, some people appear to believe that George R.R. Martin invented the term "Hedge Knight", because he uses it in A Song of Ice and Fire, but that is false; the term goes back to Shakespeare's time.]

"Hedge Knight" then led to "Hedge Priest" — a good example of which would be Friar Tuck — and from there to our subject.

Or at least, So sayeth the Internet.

[Skarg]

Originally Posted by hcobb

My calculation is that a formal Wizard Academy education is $25k, half of which comes from the parents and half from general Wizard Guild dues.

In comparison training and arming an army recruit only takes $3500.

What is missing from your ad-hoc mages so they don't cost so much? Literacy?

Tuition?

(You asked that as if we had your notes. From other discussions, it seems to me you also tend to conflate actual needed costs with things like fees and salaries of the guild itself, or to do weird things like assume recruits are making combat attack rolls and will break spears as if they were in combat making attacks all day long.)

Most rural and education by family (and in many traditional apprenticeships) costs: room and board and adhering to agreements. (Well, and time/attention, and is offset by chores and other tasks the student does) Often there is more less no coin exchanged.

[JohnPaulB]

My view is that it is a wizard (not hero) that has not gone to Guild Sanctioned apprenticeship or any Guild approved Wizarding School.

To use some of the concept from Feist’s Riftwars of Greater Path and Lesser Path as Raymond Feist states:
“The lesser path can … use a mental focus or his/her own body. Which is why they can shape change and do other incredible stuff that greater paths can't do. On the other hand, the greater paths can "grab" energy out of the cosmos and make things happen, simply by using mental skills. I guess the easiest way to describe it is that greater paths are like programmers or system designers. They deal in abstract codes to get results. Lesser paths are more like artists and they directly manipulate the "stuff" that Nakor is always talking about, but through a focus, i.e. an object that's constructed for a specific purpose, through their own bodies, through their totem creature. Lesser path's are big on ritual, use of items (drugs, powders, potions, etc.), creating things, and are more exploratory by nature than Greater Paths.” http://www.crydee.com/raymond-feist/...ser-path-magic


Applying that to TFT, a regular Wizard Greater Path does the usual schooling and is more or less Government Issue. A Lesser Path Wizard (hedge mage) is one who has gone through an alternate learning of magical education. They might not follow the standardized method of acceptable magic procedure to get their end result. They can learn magic from books if they have literacy, but they try and put this formalness into Lesser Path viewpoint and application.

Lesser Paths usually runs in the family.
Also, most tend to learn non-magic talents as well because they haven't undergone the snobbery of Wizard Guild indoctrination and their family expects it of them. They are part of the local community (which is usually rural) unless they are anti-social or extremely shy.

The Lesser Path is almost always dealing with lower IQ spells.
(My preference is that they have IQ not greater than 10, with rare ones going 11. After they get IQ higher than IQ11 they have enough magic sophistication that they are no longer Lesser Paths but generic wizards.)
They are also a type of alchemist, but using herbs instead, making potions. They might tell fortunes. In my campaigns, lots of gypsies are Lesser Path's and also fortune tellers. Evil Eye (curses) and Amulets, Charms and Talismans are part of their repertoire.

They are mostly loners, but if they did socialize, they tend to try and form covens of 13. These are not Satanists, however their coven could end up being corrupted by one and thus the standard horror tropes of witches.

I see them often using ceremonial magic, either alone or as a group, to do spells higher than their pay grade, er... usual ability. Cauldrons are a useful device for them.

Hedge Mages are mostly ignorant of Wizard’s Guild or philosophically opposed to it or even barred from it.

Non-rural society tends to look down on Lesser Paths as yokels or riffraff.

I agree with the following:

• I have always taken the term "hedge" as being functionally synonymous with "unaffiliated" — a self-taught loner from the sticks, rather than a graduate of some wizards' academy. – Firehorse
  
• I would imagine that a Hedge Mage probably gets a much smaller (or at the very least, different and probably much more specialized) selection of spells than an Academy / Guild Wizard. The Hedge Mage can only learn what their mentor / trainer happened to know, while the other has access to a whole organization of teachers, or even whole Libraries full of knowledge. - Firehorse
  
• My vision of Hedge mages has them learning at the very fringes of WG. – Hcobb
  
• My hedge wizards are usually self-taught or had an apprenticeship to a recognized hedge wizard/witch, tribal shaman, etc. They don't have Staff, not required to have Aid, usually know how to do things useful in a rural village. Probably have some mundane skill learned from family.– Amenditman [JP: Except for the Staff part.]
  
• I thought hedge wizards were those who were educated in hedge schools, illegal schools for persecuted groups that perpetuate forbidden (perhaps subversive) knowledge. Hedge mages would be in opposition to the Wizards' Guild. – Shostak [JP: This would be a good alternative to my approach and could still be used in conjunction with it.]
  
• My impression always was that "hedge mages" lacked great magical ability; that is, they could learn to do a few small spells (more in line with the idea of "cantrips" than full on Wizard spells from the spell list) but lacked the ability to do the "big" magics, and had some healing, herbal knowledge, and maybe a wee bit of alchemical knowledge to get them by and help out the locals. Really more like the local "wise woman/medicine man" than anything explicitly described in TFT. Of course, in TFT, we don't have levels of "magical affinity" (or cantrips), so you either know magic or you don't, and the whole concept of "hedge mages" becomes rather odd from my perspective... In effect, isn't any non-Wizard who learns a spell actually a "hedge mage" (regardless of where, from whom, or how s/he learned it)? - JLV [Thus my putting a 'cap' on IQ for "hedge mage" and the GM could always create non-powerful cantrips.]

Hero's learning spells usually go the standard Guild Route, but could also get tutored via Hedge Mages.

Renegade or Outlaw Wizard's Guild magic users, the ones who don't flamboyantly flaunt the guild, might tend to masquerade as hedge mages or take on apprentices under the guise of hedge mages.

The Wizard's Guild either ignores hedge mages as beneath recognition, gives them a category D membership (the lowest form of membership, as a charity case and because this bolsters their claim that 99% of the Wizards are Guild members), pillories them as shysters, or runs them down as heretics.