[Puck]

It depends what you want to achieve.

A really cool, characterful, detailed magic system that is simple to use.

If you want people of the Cat totem to be able to cast cat-like spells but not to be able to cast other magic then link spells to totems and give a cast chance based on the totem, so people with the Cat Totem have a skill Perform Cat Totem Magic and can cast cat totem spells but can't cast Rat Totem spells.

and

If you want some people to be able to cast spells of a certain type, for instance Fire-based magic from the Volcano-dwellers, then give them special rules for casting their own spells.

These are along the lines I was thinking.
Although some cults may teach more than one type of magic; for instance the Volcano-dwellers may have two realms/runes: fire and earth each one learned separately and having a separate skill.

Definitely not....

If you want someone to be able to cast some spells from the Cat totem. some from the Rat totem then give each spell a cast chance and let people learn spells individually.

.....which is more along the lines of BRP magic.

The other option I was seriously considering was the RQII battle magic or BRP sorcery where there is no skill. The way I wanted to write it though only certain spells would be available based on the rune, school, or totem the character belonged to. This is how I wrote the Totemists and Wealding magic.

Hmmn? It is one of those things that as soon as I start writing I am going to second guess myself and find all sorts of reasons that I wrote it the other way.

I am starting to swing to the side of giving each totem, rune, realm a skill though. Skills should go up pretty quick with only having one skill for a bunch of spells and there are other things that can be done with this to give magic a little more flavor.

Thanks...always helpful to hear from you.

You may not find magic so bad... I was pleasantly surprised. It is pretty basic but plenty pliable..What is really nice is that I think RQ or II or III magic could both be used with the system without skipping a beat.