Talent Mechanics

	"There are three things that must all work together for a man or woman to become a mage. First, there's your glore vyrden, roughly your life-magic. It's magic gleaned form your living processes, like we get energy from food, or maybe it's from your soul-we don't know, but it's internal. Half of all  people have a glore vyrden. Maybe everyone, just in most it's too small to detect. Second, some people have a conduit or a process that translates that power into magic or into action. It's usually very thin. Sometimes it's blocked. But say a man's brother has a loaded hay wagon fall on him-in that extremity, the man might tap into his glore vryden for the only time in his life and be able to lift the wagon. On the other hand, men who have a glore vyrden and a wide-open conduit tend to be athletes or soldiers. They sometimes preform far better than the men around them, but then, like all others, they must recuperate. The amount of magic they can use is small and quickly exhausted. If you told them they were using magic, they wouldn't believe you. For a man to be a mage, he needs a third component as well: he must be able to absorb magic from sunlight or fire so that he can refill his glore vyrden again and again. Most of us absorb light through the eyes, but some do it through the skin."

The Way of Shadows, Chapter 25, pg. 211