Ruling Classes of Magic

This blogpost got me thinking about the nature of magic in D&D and its relation to social classes and the regions of the Known World. I've been thinking of treating D&D classes as social classes and vice versa for awhile now, but now I've come up with some new ideas that will really differentiate the different regions of the Known World.

The basic premise of my idea is this: each country/region of the Known World has a specific type of magic is common among an elite class which holds political power. This goes hand in hand with my continued attempts to differentiate the types of magic mechanically, Cleric magic works different than Wizardly magic, which is different than Elves/sorcerers, which is different than witchcraft, etc. Each country would have a ruling class which are these specialized magic user types, one country is ruled by magic-users, one country is ruled by druids, one country is ruled by clerics, etc., and any other form of magic is rare in that country and viewed with suspicion. Of course the magic user class may share power with another class, similar to medieval Europe where the church and the nobility ruled together. The clothes and attire and ritual accouterments of different types of magic users would make it immediately obvious that these characters are foreigners and there would probably be laws forbidding the use of 'foreign' magic in major population centers. Even in their native country magic users would have to follow strict rules of how and when they can use their magic.

So to apply this to the Known World there are a few obvious places I think this can apply. Glantri stands out first, as it is described in the expert set as being a magocracy. This would be where vancian magic user would originate and their center of power; each ruler in Glantri would have to be minimum of a 9th level wizard.The other easy choice is placing clerics as the center of religious and magical power in the empire (as designated in this post) similar to the status of the orthodox church in the Byzantine Empire. Alfheim and other centers of Elven population would obviously be ruled by their specific brand of magic and maybe a mostly human land could be ruled by Sorcerers (Humans with elven ancestry who inherited some magical abilities), maybe Wendar, I'll have to think about that.

That leaves the Northern Reaches, Ethengar, Atruaghin clans, Ylaruam, and Rockhome. Some form of Shamanism could be prevalent in Ethengar and Atruaghin. The northern reaches would use some sort of Runic magic, there's no shortage of D&D rules for that have been proposed, The northern reaches gazetteer and historical vikings setting for 2nd edition just to name two examples. Rockhome I would prefer to have a form of magic specifically tied to smithing somehow. A modified form of the dervish class from the gazetteer could be used for Ylaruam, or maybe a modified clerical class based on the Imam. Another option for Ylaruam, if I want to disregard most cannon information, is creating an entirely new religious ruling class based on Zoroastrianism.

I've also been considering the origin of Druids/bards and how to make them reflect their celtic origins better. We don't know much about the ancient druids, but it does seem they acted more as judges and priests and had authority covering political matters as much as spiritual matters, and the nature loving druids of D&D are completely unrelated to historical druids. Given that, I think maybe the best place for a druid ruled country might be the Isle of Dawn as it's supposed to be the Mystara analog to Britain/Ireland.

I also will probably have Hule be the origin of Necromancy which uses a form of Blood sacrifice powered magic. We haven't gotten there in our interview yet, but in one of the campaigns my dad ran for us, one of my sister's friends was given a special dagger and magical spells/abilities. He had to use the dagger on himself to draw certain amounts of blood from different parts of the body to enact his spells. I think this would go well with our version of Hule since the Master commanded hordes of undead we had to defeat.

The last option I'm thinking about is Alphatia. Since we already have assigned Vancian spell casters to Glantri, I think Alphatia should be different. One option that intrigues me is to make all the 'magic-users' of Aphatia be able to use psionics. We could keep the genetically different groups of Alpatians, and have the  purebloods have psionic abilities and that is how they maintain their rule of the less gifted natives.

Another option for Alphatia is to focus on the Mystara-Atlantis side of things. I always liked the culture and pseudo-technology presented in the Disney Atlantis movie, which I think ties in well with some elements from Eberron. I've been reading the Eberron Campaign Setting book recently and I really want to port the idea of the setting into Alphatia. The Alphatian Empire could be tweaked to be similar to the Galifar Empire. The common magic based technology is already present in a lot of the Alphatian material and fits my vision of what the Disney atlantis could have been like before they lost their tech. Both Alphatia and Ebberon have skyships. And I can see the dragon marks as being manifestations of pure Alphatian bloodlines. I think warforged would easily fit into this version of Alphatia. And Artificers could be the Alphation version of the magic-user, the council of 100 wizards are not vancian spell casters, but renowned artificers.