The following excerpt belongs to an article published as a collaboration of the Reptilian Collective, the Mandrake League, and several less famous paranormal research organisations, in hopes of preventing confusion whfn trying to identify mages.

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  Mages are people, human and otherwise, who manipulate their mana, as well as that from other sources. It is the general term for those deemed aetherkinetics by the Zhayvin. Magic-user is an equivalent term, often used for more skilled or professional mages. Practitioner used to be seen as one, but it being applied to demonologists and mundanes with access to paranormal resources has seen it fall out of use, at least within the general magical community.

  Spellslinger is a more casual way to refer to mages, although certain figures have long desired to have it declared a slur, due to it making magic sound too casual, or a lack of accuracy (not all mages cast spells, in the pop culture sense).

  Sorcerer is not an equivalent to the general term "mage." All sorcerers are mages, but the opposite is not true. Those who call upon resources beyond their mana practise sorcery, not just magic.

  Witch and wizard are generally used as shorthand for "female/male mage." Claums that there exist types of magic separated by mages, with potion brewing and cursing being "witchy" and everything else being "wizardly" have been debunked, like the short-lived theory which circulated in the nineties that witches need to submit to their magic and let themselves be filled by it to cast, whereas wizards need to make it submit to them and force their will upon it through actions that can certainly be inferred.

  Warlock is not an official term in the magical community, although almost everyone can agree on the connotations. "Warlock" is used to refer to criminal mages, as well as those who call on dangerous or dubious powers and patrons (those who do so for society's good are generally called sorcerers). "Witch" was used as a female version of the term in certain countries during the Long Watch, but this has been viewed with distaste since, as several organisations have been trying to put a more positive spin on the word and encourage male mages to refer to themselves as witches if they so wish.

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  (On a similar but not truly related note, the International Nondenominational Christian Church's Internal Affairs and External Relations Management Bureau, dramatically referred to by some, but never by themselves, as the New Inquisition, has been trying to phase the term "witch hunt" out and replace it with something less magophobic. Claims of inherited institutional guilt being the driver behind this have yet to be addressed by the Bureau.)

  Thaumaturge or wonderworker, like "practitioner", are terms too broad to refer to mages alone. They are used to describe those paranormals whose abilities are not derived from divinity ("theurges").

  While the Mandrake League is not an official authority on mages, their input and methods are valued. This has led to their criteria for being called an archmage becoming fairly widespread.

  The ML classifies those mages who surpass their fellows in one or more areas using three classes:

  -third class archmages have become suffused with their mana to the point of lacking many mundane needs and weaknesses, as well as being unnaturally powerful and fast physically (these physical enhancements are passive and unaffected by antimagic). Since this is usually the result of long periods of growth, 3C archmages are often far more powerful than common mages;

  -second class archmages are able to enhance their physical and arcane prowess at will, with some being able to develop specialties in magic different to their inherent skill with enough effort;

  -first class archmages are able to grant themselves nonmagical paranormal abilities, with these powers behaving as if the mage is also the paranormal species with a certain power as their signature. Antimagic has no effect on these powers;

  While the scale implies an archmagical hierarchy, it is possible to posses fractions of each class' overall powerset while lacking others. It has also been criticised for being anthropocentric and too focused on direct magic to the detriment of enchantment or artificing; though the archmage scale is still a work in progress, a psychic equivalent has been proposed for the developing psychic population, though a counterpart to "archmage" is still being debated.