Apostates

Definition
An apostate is a mage who is not part of The Circle of Magi. They may have been born outside of it or fled it (a rogue mage).

Before the Mage-Templar War
It is not uncommon for the neophyte to mistake apostates and Maleficarum as one and the same. Indeed, The Chantry has gone to great lengths over the centuries to establish that this is so. An apostate is merely any mage who does not fall under the auspices of the Circle of Magi (and therefore the Chantry). They have been hunted by The Templar Order, and quite often they will turn to forbidden knowledge in order to survive, but it would be a lie to say that all apostates begin that way.

Historically, apostates became such in one of two ways:
 * They are either mages who have escaped from the Circle
 * Or they were mages who were never part of the Circle to begin with.

This latter category includes what we tend to refer to as "hedge mages"--those with magical ability out in the hinterlands and other wilds places of Thedas who follow a different magical tradition than our own. Some of these hedge mages are not even aware of their nature. Undeveloped, their abilities can express themselves in a variety of ways, which the hedge mage might attribute to faith, or will, or to another being entirely (depending on his nature). Some of these traditions are passed down from generation to generation, as with mages amongst The Chasind Wilders or the shamans of The Avvar barbarians.

No matter how a mage did become apostate, the Chantry always treated both categories of them alike: Templars begin a systematic hunt to bring the apostate to justice. In almost all cases, "justice" is execution. If there is some overriding reason the mage should live, the Rite of Tranquility is employed instead.

After the War
At a result of the mage rebellion more apostates were created. During the chaos of the battles many mages escaped and though while some returned to the Chantry, not being able to survive outside of the unique culture of the Circle of Magi, and others joined The Libertarian Order or the Resolutionists movement, many mages simply drifted and became wanderers. As the war progressed the "safe havens" for such mages became more defined, a number of former Circle mages fleeing to Rivain for instance.

Public Perception
There are certainly more mages "open" about their magic and more apostates in the public at large, but their freedom to be mages openly depends on where in Thedas they are. Those in Orlais, for instance, will be arrested by Templars and forced into a Circle - whereas in Rivain they are free to use magic within the confines of morality and law, which is to say maleficarum are not exactly welcomed, the Dairsmuid Libertarians punishing maleficars as is deemed right and just.

Untrained vs Trained
Apostates are not all untrained, in fact the common "hedge mage" or "witch" or "shaman" is often highly trained. When we speak of training we do not refer to the education of the Circles, but rather the learning of magic and magical traditions and crafts. In the secrecy that was necessary in the pre-war world most apostates were indeed self taught, but some had the fortune of being born into a culture of learning (such as the Avvar or Chasind shaman or the Rivaini Seers) but there were others who learned on as apprentices to masters. This latter style of learning is far more common since the war, with more apostates being able to find each other in the more magic tolerant parts of Thedas.