Quoting Denis DesHarnais <denisdesharnais@gmail.com>:
With so many wizards in the world, and human nature being what it is, there was soon a drive among wizards working for warlords to create a distinction between those practicing "The Art," or noble wizards, and those practicing "For Hire," or common wizards. Since noble wizards had the ear of the law makers, new and stringent laws were enacted to regulate and generallydiscourage the practice of magic for and by the general population.
ITL nearly has that with the Wizard's Guild, which tries to tax all magic one way or the other, and seriously tries to be the source of all magical knowledge. Alternatively, you have what my campaign has, which is industrial magic practiced on a large scale out of the public eye. Because the rulers really, really want their Youth Potions. If you really look at medieval accounts, the highest nobles are fantastically wealthy. Wealthy enough to finance wars out of their own pockets, for example. And with a small middle class (at least until the 1500's or so), they appear even more wealthy by comparison. You know how millionaires walk into a car dealership and buy whatever's most expensive? That's those guys buying armour. They simply don't count the cost. And they want to live forever.
Neil Gilmore raito@raito.com ===== Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com. Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body "unsubscribe tft"