Schools of Magic

School's done, and I've been putting a lot of energy into another hobby--gardening.
I decided I'm going to try doing longer posts, less frequently.

I was thinking the other day about the fact that wizards (or witches, and warlocks) are generally portrayed as being educated at schools. Whether it's a high/middle school like Hogwarts, Pratchett's Unseen University, Sabrina's Academy of Unseen Arts, etc. This does bring up a few interesting concepts:

• Perhaps 'School of Magic' is a literal thing. You could have an Arcanist's Academy, with a College of Conjuration, College of Illusion, College of Enchantment, etc.; all with their own respective Deans and administrative staff.
• Greek life allegories--wizards are often thought of as frail, old men; but that really only makes sense for professors/faculty. Adding in wizard fraternities and sororities adds in some complex dynamics. 
• fraternities with rivalries and ensuing pranks
• Pledges
• Hazing scandals
• Drinking/drug use--I bet Wizards have the best weed
• possible allegories and analysis of toxic masculinity, substance abuse, rape culture ,etc. if you're interested in exploring those types of heavy hitting concepts in elfgames. I'm not interested in doing that personally, but I can respect that some folks might be interested in doing that for reasons beyond 'controversy' and ' being edgy'
• Wizard athletics?
• On campus secret societies, a la Skull & Bones.
• TAs & graduate students
• If Wizards are basically someone with a PhD; what does that make someone with a B.S. or B.A.? A Master's?
• Does this mean Sorcerers are uneducated prodigies; or perhaps that they have a more practical understanding of magical workings (think 'plumber' vs. 'city planner')

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I also got thinking about the concepts of the schools of magic being assigned colors with opposing and complementary schools; similar to the color wheel. I remembered later that Magic the Gathering has that as well, but I've never claimed to be entirely original.

As a refresher, the traditional schools of magic are:

• Abjuration
• Conjuration
• Divination
• Enchantment
• Evocation
• Illusion
• Necromancy
• Transmutation

To do some thinking on what made sense for opposing and complementary magics, I did some casual reading on Wikipedia.

Many of these differentiation aren't based in folklore, at least based on a casual perusal of Wikipedia

• the 'mancer' part of 'Necromancer' just means 'divination'.  
• a Necromancer doesn't make zombies, they read the future in the entrails of birds or whatever.
• There isn't really a clear delineation between a Conjurer and an Evoker
• Abjurers aren't a thing apparently*
• 'Enchanter' is fairly catch-all, honestly
• an 'illusionist' is a stage magician, not someone who creates magical holograms

Interestingly, though illusionist, diviner, necromancer, conjurer and enchanter are all historical terms I couldn't really find anything for 'abjurer' or 'transmuter'.

*Further (from Wikipedia)

Abjuration is the solemn repudiation, abandonment, or renunciation by or upon oath, often the renunciation of citizenship or some other right or privilege. The term comes from the Latin abjurare, "to forswear".

Abjure doesn't really have any sort of magical implications outside of D&D et Al., whereas the others certainly do. 

A better term than 'Abjuration' is 'Apotropaic magic'; so, instead of 'abjuration' and 'abjurer', we could use some derivation of that, but to be honest it's pretty nightmarish to pronounce.

But, looking that up on dictionary.com, we have the definition as 'intended to ward off evil.'; so instead we could name that 'Ward' and a wizard who specializes in wards is of course a Warden.

And transmutation, is basically just alchemy.

So, going back to the color wheel; there are 3 primary colors and 3 secondary colors. That gives us 6 colors. If we merge evocation and conjuration (let's rename that 'Sorcery') that eliminates 1; and if we push illusion into enchantment that takes us down to 6.

I propose the following:

• Alchemy
• Divination
• Enchantment
• Necromancy
• Sorcery
• Wards

I think that the below makes sense, in terms of color assignments:

The traditional schools of magic are:

• Alchemy: Green
• Divination: Blue
• Enchantment: Orange
• Necromancy: Purple
• Sorcery: Red
• Wards: Yellow

This gives us the following opposed pairs:

• Red/Green: Alchemy/Sorcery
• Blue/Orange: Divination/Enchantment
• Yellow/Purple: Wards: Necromancy

The first is the least compelling in my opinion. The second is interesting, Divination is about gaining knowledge, Enchantments can be used to keep secrets. Wards are used for protection, Necromancy is harmful. I suppose Alchemy and Sorcery are compelling in that Alchemy seems subtle and gradual while Sorcery implies BOOM magic, which is not subtle.

And the following complementary groupings:

• Red/Purple/Blue: Alchemy/Necromancy/Divination
• Blue/Green/Yellow: Divination/Sorcery/Wards
• Yellow/Orange/Red:Wards/Enchantment/Alchemy

The first set is the most interesting to me--all 3 have knowledge as a tied goal. Understanding chemistry and the quest for the philosopher stone, knowledge of life and death, and knowledge of the future.

The second, I suppose could be interpreted as 'anticipate harm', 'deal harm to those who harm you' and 'protect from harm'.

The third--Wards, Enchantments, and Alchemy can be used as protective magics.