The most common form of magic - at least amongst humans - is the magic of faith. Throughout the Ivrean basin (and beyond) are organised churches, isolated cults and lone crusaders whose goals are to expound the tenets of a particular god's faith. These people are rewarded for their faith with the ability to cast magical spells. These spells are usually, but not always, related to the god's field of interest and they do not require the study of spell-books. Most priests gain the knowledge of the rituals needed to invoke each spell simply by meditating, or by demonstrating their adherence to their faith in other ways. Knowledge of the rituals is granted to the priests as a "gift" from the priest's god.

A rarer form of magic is that referred to as "wizardry" - the study of symbols, movements, sounds and elements which together allow the invocation of a particular magical effect. This branch of magic is sometimes called "the study of the written word" because of the degree to which most wizards are reliant on the notes written in their spell-books. Wizards must constantly study the notes contained in these hefty tomes, and memorise patterns of motion and sound. When a wizard casts a spell, it is this combination of movement, sound and sometimes even physical matter (spell components) which allow the wizard to harness magical energy.

There are many variations on these two broad categories of magic. Elven magic, for instance, sits somewhere between the two.

Elven wizards have far more intricate and more detailed spell-books, but rarely need to refer back to these tomes once a spell has been learned. These spell-casters simply meditate (much like those who rely on faith) in order to regain the clarity of though needed to invoke the magical rituals. Unfortunately, this has been a mixed blessing for elven students of magic - although elves are able to regain their spells without referring to spell-books, the notation used to record these spells is much more complex than that used by humans. This has meant that far fewer copies of elven spell-books are made, and the loss of one of these tomes can mean the permanent loss of many spells. In the last two generations, some elven students of magic, including the famed noble Camanthalar, have reverted to the human magical script, in an effort to prevent the unique knowledge of the elves from being lost.

Another variety of the "written word" is the part-magical script, part-musical notation favoured by many bards. This notation can be translated to and from traditional magical script with some effort, but seems to be a more efficient way of encoding magical rituals for those with musical talents. The rune-script used by the rare dwarven rune-casters of Urgari is yet another form of the written word, although it is removed enough from the scripts used by humans and elves to make translation almost as difficult as developing an equivalent spell from scratch. Even in human circles there are variations on the standard notation used by wizards; some branches of magic (notably alchemy and illusion) have developed enhanced forms of spell notation to better suit the specialised needs of their craft.

Even more exotic forms of magic have been recorded, including ritual dancing, spell casting through song and the embodiment of spell-casting patterns in physical objects. Some sages have even theorised that the mental powers known "psionics" are simply yet another form of magical expression, although there is little evidence to support this theory.

Despite the wide variety of magic known to sages, the rest of this treatise is concerned only with the traditional study of the written word, and with the institutions set-up to promote this form of learning.