[Magic] Rare Permanent Enchantment, Common Elixirs and Scrolls

[Prince Charon]

First, I will set out some numbers: Roughly 2% of the population, or 1 in 50, are mages (this, at least, is mentioned in some of the books, and I'm going with that); most of those will have Magery 0 and IQ 10. Let's say that 10% of all mages have Magery 1 or higher (consistent with GURPS Banestorm p23), and 1% of all mages have Magery 2 or higher without limitations that would prevent them from becoming enchanters, or 1 in 5,000 of the total population. Apart from those with limitations that require them to be enchanters (e.g 'Enchantment College Only' or 'Aspected: Magic Items'), most of them are not going to go for becoming enchanters, since you need very high skill in at least two spells (including one Very Hard spell) to get any real results - even those who are obligated to be enchanters will mostly make Scrolls or serve as assistants in Slow and Sure enchantment, take a long time to get up to skill (most of them have IQ 10, meaning 12 for spells, ergo 16 points to get a Hard spell up to 15, and 20 points for Very Hard spells like Enchant), or just give up on high-level magic.

Let's say that 1% of the mages who could be professional Enchanters (as in, users of the Enchant spell to make permanent magic items as their main employment) actually are - 1 in 500,000 of the total population, most of whom know only Enchant and one or two profitable spells at 15 or higher. Twelfth-century London had a population of around 15,000, though standardish GURPS magic, even with how limited enchantment with this set of assumptions is likely to be, could allow much greater populations, as could a better economy than twelfth-century England had (after all, ancient Rome did not, to the best of our knowledge, have magic, and the city had a population of around a million by some estimates, while at TL2). So, one or two professional enchanters per major city, at best, with a very limited selection of spells, and one or two per country for small or low-population countries. In general, permanent magic items are expensive and rare, and those with especially interesting and powerful abilities are legendary artifacts. Even a magic staff with a powerstone on it might be the mark of a master mage, not standard equipment for spellcasting adventurers.

Meanwhile, you only need Magery 1 and literacy to make a Scroll, and you can learn Alchemy or Herb Lore without even Magery 0 (and many Herb Lorists would probably be illiterate). A note on the Scroll spell, though: for purposes of this thread, I'm houseruling that scrolls have the energy cost of casting built in (though if you want to maintain it for longer than the writer intended, you must use your own energy, or get it from a source other than the scroll), and take one hour per point of energy to write, not one day per point. So, mages having some down-time and in need of money would have motivation to write a few scrolls to sell, and they take rather less time than making elixirs. The cost of elixirs might be kept down by the number of people making them, but most of them would probably specialize in one or two profitable elixirs, because Alchemy and Herb Lore are Very Hard skills. Herbal concoctions are still going to be cheaper than an alchemist's elixirs, not only because of the lower ingrediant costs, but because there will be more people learning to make them, and the people most likely to buy them can afford less. A village cunning woman or cunning man would tend to have worse quality control than an alchemist - the average quality might be lower (e.g. not lasting as long, having less of a bonus, odd side effects, et cetra) than what you'd get from the Alchemists Guild in London, but there a chance of something being usefully above average in some way. On the other hand, if you buy from the Guild, you are more likely to get a consistent product, one that does basically the same thing every time.

What effect is this likely to have on society, and on adventurers?

What magic items are likely to be common at all (beyond perhaps powerstones), and what magic items are likely to be hard or nearly-impossible to find?

How much do you think the costs of various items goes up by, when they can be found at all?