Wizard Hats in Scarterra
Tall pointy hats with wide brims are nicknamed "wizard hats" or "mage hats" in Scarterra. Like the term "wizard" itself, wizard hats are a unisex. Women are just as likely to wear them as men.
It's not forbidden for non-mages to wear such a hat, and quite a few non-mages wear these hats, but if a normal people wear such a hat long enough, they will face some ribbing from their friends and neighbors about them having secret magical powers.
Reagents dealers, alchemists, and others who regularly deal with mages often choose to wear wizard hats, at least when manning shop fronts. If a mage is selling potions on the open market, she is probably not manning the storefront herself, so a lot of potions merchants often choose to wear wizard hats as part of their salesmanship uniform.
Almost every actor or actress playing a mage on stage wears a wizard hat as part of their costume. Some wizards find this offensive and have started refusing to wear standard wizard hats as a form of silent protest, but they are as of yet a small minority.
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Mechanics & Inner Workings
There are many variations of the wizard hat archetype. Some wizards favor fancy hats to show off and others favor projecting an air of modesty.
Wizards hats can be inexpensive and simple or very ostentatious and fancy with every permutation in between.
Many wizard hats are made of simple materials and with simple dyes. Sheep's wool is the standard in much of Scarterra. In warmer climates one are more likely to see linen wizard hats. Some wizards like to flex their wealth and status (or exaggerate their wealth and status) and deliberately seek out hats made from rarified materials such a silk, velvet, or even the wool or hides of exotic beasts.
Some wizards go all out decorating their hats with runes, jewels, or assorted trinkets, but most opt to go with unadorned hats.
If a wizard gets a position in a noble's court, she might choose to wear the colors or insignia of her liege on her hat. It's less common but by no means of unheard of for temples to employ wizards who may be a full part of their holy order, or may they simply be hirelings. Either way, these wizards may wear wizard hats stylized with the colors of their allied priesthood.
A lot of wizards are fiercely individualistic so they may pick a color or decal simply because they like it, symbolism or markers of status be damned.
Some favor simple and modest colors and others favor bright loud colors which can also be a bit of a status flex since brighter dyes are more expensive.
Each of the six major branches of magic is associated with a specific aura color and some mages like to showcase the colors of their magical specialty in daily clothes (or just their hats). Many wizards prefer not to broadcast their capabilities, so they wear simple gray or brown wizards hats but a wizard that really wants to hide his capability is probably not going to wear "a wizard hat" at all.
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History
-Henio the hat makerby me with Midjourney"Some peasant superstitions believe that wizards favor wizard's hats because the shape of a wizard's hat helps them channel mystic power. Others say that wearing these hats was part the fulfillment of an ancient pact with Fae or spirits or the Greymoria, the Kindly One. The truth of the matter goes all the way back to the Red Era, but it's not a very magical tale. Most books and scrolls were destroyed during the Second Unmaking. When the Third Age dawned, most surviving texts describing classical hermetic wizardry were on the Island of Lunatus, what we now know as the capital of the Elven Empire. Classical hermetic wizardry became the dominant magical tradition on the island and most of the other mages quietly left. Even more than other mages, classical hermetics are the sorts that would rather stay a musty library endlessly reading than go outside. So like other scroll heads, classical hermetics are often a big pale of complexion. The Island of Lunatus is located on the equator and is very sunny. If pasty-faced scroll heads do venture outside, they will get sunburned very quickly. Ergo, wide brimmed hats became necessary.As the Elven Empire expanded their trade network, classical hermetic wizardry spread with it, and the rapidly growing ranks of human hermetics opted to wear tall pointy wide brimmed hats to fit in with their elf mentors and would-be colleagues. Wizard hat style began to evolve among humans and elves alike very slowly over the centuries. The style gradually changed from rigid pointy hats to floppy pointy hats. Maybe they got tired of knocking off their hats walking through narrow doorways. Classical hermetic wizardry became the political dominant magical tradition in West Colassia and Penarchia and Folk Magicians started copying their hat styles, because folk mages copy everything. Hermetics and folk magicians now collectively make up the bulk of mages in most human lands, so now their style of hats are considered iconic to mages in general, whether they like it or not. Many don't like it. Most Swynfaredian Dragonbloods wouldn't be caught dead in a 'wizard's filthy peasant hat'. Most warlocks dress to blend in with a crowd rather than stand out. I haven't met enough rune casters to make a broad judgement on them, but I'm pretty sure the tattoo wizards would walk around naked if it were allowed."For a long time, gray elf lords and ladies associated height with social status, so they wore tall pointy hats to accentuate their height. The elven hermetic wizards wanted to get invited to the lords' fancy parties so they started wearing tall pointy hats, but kept the wide brims. Eventually tall pointy hats went out of favor among the elf nobility but this point, peasants and princes alike were so used to seeing their wizards wearing tall pointy hats with wide-brims, that it sort of became part of their public uniform.by me with Midjourney
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by Eron12 with Hero Forge
Item type
Clothing / Accessory
Related Technologies
Rarity
Fairly common
What about gnomes with pointy hats?
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