Magic has a Price. The First Law of Magic, known to every mage with any degree of training or experience. Cecil Banick was always accused of taking the phrase too literally. A Maester of the First Order at Elbion, Cecil spent his formative education as a mage learning scripture magic, praising it’s flexibility. However, Cecil noticed that scripture magic paid for at least part of the price in it’s materials. Cecil reasoned that a magic’s price could be paid literally, after all what is money but a payment for one’s labor or energy? Thus Cecil created a new discipline of magic, Economancy.

Economancy has a very steep learning curve, because the ability to use it comes from an understanding of macro and microeconomics. While followers of other magics spend time learning how to write with precision, feed off of other’s emotions, or borrowing the life force of creatures, Economancy pulls energy from currency. However, an economancer must have his or her finger on “the pulse of the market”, and know what something is worth in order to know the cost to pay. While overpaying has an obvious cost, underpayment can have severe consequences for a would-be economancer. For these reasons economancy is most easily used for material solutions, such as creating a sword or key. Cecil is currently studying to unlock more kinetic applications, but only with limited success.

The basics of Economancy are simple to understand. An economancer simply requests a good or service from magic and “purchases” it through currency. However, in order to accomplish this an Economancy must have a keen understanding of what Cecil has deemed “The Five Costs of Business”. Some of these can be subverted or reduced in one way or another, but flippant imbalance of the Five Costs can result in spells that are ineffectual or dangerous.

The Cost of Materials refers to how expensive it is to procure the materials necessary to create the good or action an economancy is attempting to summon. Creating a steel sword for example, requires the market cost of a few kilograms of steel, depending on the size and make of the sword, along with wood or leather for the wraps. This cost can be reduced or removed if the economancer can procure some or all of the materials necessary.

The Cost of Labor refers to how much time and skill it would require a worker to shape the materials into the desired good or service. If it takes a blacksmith an hour to make a sword, it takes an hour’s wage in Cost of Labor. This cost can be reduced depending on the nearest market an economancer is located in. A blacksmith in a small town may charge whatever he pleases, but in the big city he must keep costs near his competition if he hopes to stay in business. Cecil also theorizes this cost could be reduced if the economancer has the skill to accomplish the task his or herself, but has little practical skills to test the theory with.

The Cost of Transportation refers to how much it would cost to transport a good from the nearest market, or obtain service at one’s location. It can become quite great in remote areas far off from civilization, or areas that are simply difficult to travel through. However, this price can be reduced by simply entering a city, town, or province where business is conducted.

After the Costs of Materials, Labor, and Transportation are summed, the Cost of Time is multiplied to the sum. The Cost of Time refers to how quickly the product or service is created. In his papers Cecil typically puts this at 1 for instantaneous creation, but by extending the time to takes to cast an economancy spell a mage can drastically reduce a spell’s overall cost.

All businesses exist to make money, and in the realm of economancy magic is no different. Once all factors have been totaled there is an additional 10% cost added to the spell’s total price. Unlike the other four costs of business there is no known way to reduce the Cost of Taxation/Profits.

While economancy offers tremendous flexibility, especially in the creation of physical objects, it is not without it’s criticisms. One criticism is that economancy is impractical in the field, due to the Cost of Transportation. Others note that Cecil Banick, the disciplines founder, is a noble of one of the most powerful houses in Vel Anir and argue economancy is impractically expensive for anyone but “people of privilege”. Finally, economists are curious where exactly the money spent on economancy actually goes. Visual inspection shows a magical swirl that seems to envelope the provided currency, but mages have not been able to track it after a spell is cast. Some theorize it simply returns to the mines as unrefined materials, others suspect is transferred to another dimension, while the most pessimistic believe it is simply destroyed entirely. As a result economists fear that widespread adoption of economancy could create a huge loss in the international economy, creating a deflationary environment and ushering a recession. Cecil disputes these theories as “The ramblings of worrywarts”.