Tell me - if you choose say, Merchant Spicer, could you also be able to perform magic at a minor level? Or if you are one thing, you cannot be another?

The only thing that determines whether a character can do magic, rules-wise, is taking the Magical Aptitude Talent and buying the Magic skill. So technically anyone can do magic, as long as he pays the points.

From a universe POV, magic requires at least some training, so generally only those who've had the education (whether from a university or the local witch-woman, depending on the background) would've had the ability. That might be your limiting factor there.

ANOTHER note about magic is that it is dangerous to use.  The weave was broken during the Night of Fire and spells are no longer predictable.  

What this means in game terms is that, you decide what spell you want to cast.  Anything you can imagine as long as it's in your school.  I tell you how difficult it's going to be, how many successes you will need to pull it off.  Then you roll your attempt.  For every non success you take burn damage.

...but the point is, magic has risks involved.  I've sat through a face to face session where a mage never used their magic, because of the risk involved.  So keep this in mind if you want to play a spell caster of some sort.

This cannot be stressed enough.  Quick example of magic use from a game play perspective.

We have Tobias, who is a mage. He was trained in Sorcery (a magic disipline) in the Before, and has 9 dice in his pool with which to cast spells.  His player describes what effect he wants his spell to have, and the GM assigns difficulty number, which is how many successes he needs to generate for the spell to go off successfully.  In this case he wants to use the weave to bind his enemy, which the GM decides will require 2 successes.  Now, Tobais can decide how many of those 9 dice he wants to roll, to get 2 successes, Keeping in mind that every die that is a failure will cause him one point of Burn (Damage). He decides on 4 dice, and when they are rolled, he has 2 successes and 2 failures.  This means his spell goes off exactly as he wanted, but he has to absorb 2 points of Burn.

Burn is better left for another discussion, just suffice it to say that Burn damage and Physical damage both come off the same Health. So casters can quickly knock themselves out of a fight if they are frivolous with their spells.

Thanks Jay,

Can burn in and of itself actually kill a spell caster?  I mean short of falling and impaling themselves on something or an enemy dealing a death blow?

Can burn alone take your health to a level that is mortal?

Burn is not inherently life-threatening, but it goes against Health like the other types of damage so it can cause a spell-caster to go unconscious.

If a spell-caster takes enough Burn to take his Health beyond -5, any additional Burn damage is converted to lethal on a point-by-point basis.

This can make damage-tracking a bit more complicated, since you have to track each type of damage (lethal, non-lethal, Burn) separately and also the total amount of damage to determine the effect of each.

Okay.  No spell casters allowed. 

Kidding! 

Thanks Nestor.