I know this question has been asked many times before, but I am having trouble finding previous posts. Here are some other questions about populations density

1) How many full magicians are there compared to aspected or adepts?

2) What does the typical awaken do? What kind of jobs?

3) Where do most awaken people work? Of course it depends where in the world we are talking about, but what about examples? There are probably similarities in many cultures.

4) Don't most work for corps?

5) What kind of education do most have? Is it really any different then most?

6) What % of metahumans are awaken compared to humans?

7) How skilled are they in using their magic? At least the ones that know they are ...

I'll answer the few that have a canon answer. Not all of these do.

1) How many full magicians are there compared to aspected or adepts?
Nobody knows.

2) What does the typical awaken do? What kind of jobs?
In the NAN they search virtually everybody for talent all the time, and nearly every awakened person becomes a tribal shaman. Outside NAN, Corps hire wagemages in virtually every field but particularly security. Shamans do whatever their Totem tells them, and adepts might wind up anywhere. Outside of corps you find wisewoman types, healers, and Talismongers mostly.

3) Where do most awaken people work? Of course it depends where in the world we are talking about, but what about examples? There are probably similarities in many cultures.See above.

4) Don't most work for corps?
Corps hire mostly mages, being as Shamans are harder to control. However the Corps do hire Shamans as well, particularly shaman's who's beliefs make them more suitable for corporate life. A Snake or Spider Shaman is much easier to deal with than Raven or Coyote.

5) What kind of education do most have? Is it really any different then most?
Mages yes, they typically learn at a college for mages and have to study from Hermetic libraries a lot. Shamans don't, so they are less likely to have a different education.

6) What % of metahumans are awaken compared to humans?
As far as I know it's the same for both.

7) How skilled are they in using their magic? At least the ones that know they are ...
Anywhere from the Sorcerer's Apprentice to Gandalf, of course. Just like asking how skilled shadowrunners are at using pistols.

I don't know if it's official, but I remember reading on here sometime that 1% of the population has some magical ability, that could mean an adept, mage, shaman, or something less than any of them, like someone who can cast 1 spell and that's it ever! Or someone who gets flashes of astral sight sometimes, or someone slightly awakened who never experiences anything magical at all.

In my Shadowrun universe all of these exist but there aren't rules for playing them, I might houserule it if anyone ever wanted to.

Oh yes, back to the point. Out of the 1% of the population that are magically active somehow it was said that 1% of them are full mages/shamans/adepts (i.e. the magical classes there are rules for playing). That would make the magical classes you can play 1% of 1% of the population which is 0.01% of the population.

That makes 1 person out of every 10,000 a mage/adept/shaman.

No, according to Magic in the Shadows, a full 1% of the population (1 out of 100) are Awakened. The context suggests that only a small fraction of those are aspected or otherwise never saw their potential for one reason or another. The majority of that 1% are full magicians.

That means there's approximately 30,000 full magicians in Seattle alone.

OK this is from memory (so forgive any misquotes), but according to Awakenings: New Magic in 2057 0.64% of the population is awakened. Of those that are, only about one in ten are full magicians while the rest are some form of adept (sorcery, conjuring, elemental, physical or astral).

Since that's an SR2 book and it's set a good 6 years behind the present timeline the numbers might well have changed. Either way, it does mean that there will be plenty of magically active people in a city the size of Seattle.

I don't know about you, but 1% of the population doesn't really jive well with "Mages are different with a capitol 'D'." Heck, if that were so my old high school would have had over 240 mages. They didn't even have that many honors students!

OTOH, I have albinism, specifically a form of partial albinism. Having albinism puts me in a 1-in-10,000 population group. Now *that* is different!!

Awakenings actually says:

I've always had the feeling that if you have a SIN and go to school your magical talent will eventually be noticed. I'm sure corps/government is highly interested in testing anyone possible to recruit for the specialized jobs that require someone with the talent.

That being said, if you're SINless you may never know, but I have a feeling the corps could/would run things like "Magical Ability Testing Day" down at the soup kitchen or whatever to bring in even more bodies of talent.

There may even be certain religious groups or magical organizations that go around doing the same thing for recruitment into their private organization, etc. I just get the feeling that the unknown magical talent thing is probably rare.

[edit]
I hate clicking submit just before getting the thought for another paragraph.

Anyways, one thing to keep in mind is that as the magical cycle grows the percentage of the population that's born awakened is probably also going to rise. So one can assume that all the 'ultra-rare' stuff from first edition/early second edition is slowly becoming 'just rare' and much more commonplace.

While Awakenings had it at just over half a percentage point, I can see it being a full percent by now. Of course, a lot of those people are still kids, so among fully professional people out there in the world it's still going to be pretty rare stuff. Another 10 years of game time and I think it will end up being more common, and mages and such won't be so rare.

Magic in the Shadows trumps Awakenings. While they don't give an exact percentage, the context for it definitely states that Full Magicians are the norm of the 1% of the population while adepts, aspected magicians, untrained magicians, and those that go bonkers because of their magic are a mere "fraction" of that 1%.

Sure, the "fraction" could be 9/10th, but again, the context suggests otherwise. At *least* 0.5% of the world's population is a full magician as of the 2060's... and its suggested that its closer to 0.8-0.9%.

Those numbers are just going to keep rising every year, too.

To determine if a person is awakened but doesn't know it yet (ie. a pre-manifesting child) requires 5 successes on a TN of 4, despite frequent tests it can be quite hard to tell if somebody is going to be magical or not until they actually start using the power. Even a person with intelligence 10 won't be right more than half the time.

No, two students did. He only has partial albinism, hence 0.4.

Two students had full albanism; he was the third with the 0.4.

so is it 1/10,000 with albinism, or 1/10,000 with the special/partial form of albinism that you have... cause that would really throw of our calculations.

Oh good Lord, I was off by a '0', wasn't I? I swear I shouldn't be allowed out during the day. Objection shamefacedly withdrawn.

For information about albinism, check out http://www.albinism.org/; I don't even trust myself to quote the statistics anymore.

And Aura Reading. Can't forget Aura Reading.

Two things:

1) As for metahumans, the percentages are the same. Flat out. Elves do not drip pixie dust, and dwarves aren't 'magically resistant' (except for the extra willpower).

2) Just because the me in me has to say it. The awnsers to all these questions and more are in Magic in the Shadows. Buy it, support the industry, and more importantly, the game.

1%, in terms of the population as a whole, however, seems rather much, given how rare and valuable awakened people are supposed to be. 0.1% would make much more sense to me.

The numbers I've heard (and I can't remember the source) are 1% of the population is awakened and 1% of the awakened population has magic of the strength equivalent to priority A (ie, full mage or shaman). Most of the rest are a mix of aspected mages and adepts.

Seems about right to me, I guess...