Greetings, I have been approached by a messenger to draft a report to inform you, Arch Mage White, on the topic of “Mages Armor”, or rather, the lack there of it. My name is Hredan Orgidel, I am the master at arms for the Royal Conservatory in Ledas.

My expertise in this matter comes from my experience in the field, as well as logistical experience. Normally I would be quite more concerned with the ongoing reintegration of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers pulled out after the ceasefire, however considering the lion’s share of those men and women came from your jurisdiction, I am willing to lend some time if needed.

First, to answer the question presented to me by the messenger. “Why are mages not commonly seen wearing armor?”, there are a few separate reasons for this occurrence, however I do wish to inform you that so called “Mage Armor” does exist. However its use case is niche to say the least.

I’ll begin by explaining the most simple reason for this, it is heavy. As you no doubt are aware, the act of performing a magical techniques of any description is a physically demanding task. While such techniques could be performed while covered in plate-mail, doing so would require incredible amounts of physical training to maintain on top of the regular training a mage requires to learn at all.

This also increases the risk of performing certain techniques, I am no mage myself, but my colleagues among the mage corp inform me that numerous schools of magic, including Kinesis and Elemental Magic, require movements and gestures that are difficult to perform in such heavy armor. Not to mention the implied risks of using lightning based elemental magic, or the concept of manipulating space with Kinesis while wearing heavy iron.

The second factor that plays into this fact is that even with negative downsides of plate-mail ignored, armor would plainly be inferior to a mage who has properly prepared. With Abjuration, and Warding specifically, there is little to nothing that a mundane force may do that cannot be resisted with magic. Even large yield explosions would barely hamper an experience war mage.

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Though the downsides of armor can, and sometimes are, overcome through the use of magic, most mages find it to be a needless bother. As for it to be viable, they would need to dedicate constant attention to maintaining the runes and enchantments that nullify its weaknesses, while at the same time also performing whatever duties they were originally intended to perform. Most put in this situation would rather take the risk of being blindsided by a sneak attack then risk being caught out in armor.

The last factor in this situation is a topic that I am personally not knowledgeable on, so I once again sought the assistance of my colleagues in the mage corp. To my understanding, it seems that there is something inherent to metals that causes them to be poor conductors of mana. This is a well known fact among thaumaturges and myself, but the concept that I was unaware of was that by its very nature, metal in high concentrations will reduce the efficacy of magical techniques, the draw of mana, and the the flows of mana itself. This is one reason why Enchanting is such a difficult practice, as metal naturally resists the mystical influence of mana.

With that said, there are multiple known cases of “Mage Armor” so to speak. One notable example to my mind is the among the house of Helexian in Lego Delta, they specialize in training their youth in specially crafted suits of armor that are designed to limit the weaknesses of metal armor, while enjoying some of its benefits. As interesting as this novelty is, I can attest from my own investigation previously that this is not feasible on a mass scale, not only because the resources to produce such armor would be hard to come by, but also the House of Helexian maintains the exact fabrication of such armor as a trade secret.

Another such case is rather unorthodox example to my knowledge comes from Aegisrancor of all places, before the calamity that befell it, there seemed to be a guild of mages on its western shore that worked together to master an interesting form of elemental magic that constructed stone into something approximating armor. I have looked into this matter, but its doubtful that any of their order survived.

In conclusion while there are trace examples of such a thing as “Mage Armor” in modern times, the practice of magic makes its use untenable for the vast majority of mages.

With that, my report is finished. Yours, Hredan Orgidel.