In the Ariya players secrets that I just got, there is an interesting
paragraph under the heading Demographics. It suggests that of 81000 people
in the city, 4500 are classed (most of them low level). What is interesting
is in the next few sentences when it suggests that 1/3 of the classed people
are mages!!! (and only 500 of them are spell casting priests). Now
obviously most of these will be magicians, not true mages but still this is
a very high number. It indicates that many assesments of the level of magic
in the Birthright world have been low. It also explains the profusion of
powerful magic items available to the published NPC's eg. Guilder Kalien
(4th level thief) with a Short Sword +4 and Bracers of Defense!.
This is a human city, what must elven cities be like? Is this
section a complete waste or do other people feel that these are reasonable
numbers of magicians?

Pieter A de Jong
Graduate Mechanical Engineering Student
University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada