Around the end of the Draconic Age and the dawning of the New Age, there occured a great schism, or split, within the magical world and the opinion of arcane magic. Two practitioners of this ancient art were the Wizards and the Socerers. Each was capable of wielding powerful energies by tapping into and harnessing the enchanted field known as the Essence. However, each "magic-user" approached the craft in a different manner.
Wizards were often viewed as the more elite of the two. Many of their kind were considered wise and ancient, quite learned in the field of spellcraft. Many of their greatest members were visable as scholars and counselors to kings and heroes of old. Though they could be both good and evil, most folk viewed the wizard with awe and reverence, capable of advancing the cause of mortalkind.
Sorcerers, with their more chaotic ways, were generally seen as young upstarts, unskilled and unpracticed in the ancient ways. Many sorcerers claimed to have draconic blood in their veins and so were seen with contempt or fear from those around them who had grown fearful of the dragons after hearing the stories told by their ancestors during the reign of the dragons and the Great Revolt. Sorcerers were perhaps viewed as "tainted" and a source of misfortune dispite their intentions.
As this fear and ignorance began to grow like a malignacy, sorcerers found themselves the object of mistrust and even ridicule. Even the more lawful wizards showed signs of distain toward their arcane breathren as they began to fall prey to the current rumors. In time, sorcerers found themselves objects of persecution. Some were even used as scapegoats by the less noble governments of the land and were tried and executed for crimes they never committed.
Children born with the sign of sorcery were often hidden from the outside world by their parents and in some rare cases shunned or banished from the only place they knew as home. By the early 2nd century, the sorcerers realized they could no longer dwell among the rest of mortalkind and therefore sought refuge where they could once again live in peace. A small island chain in the Midland Ocean was chosen by the wisest of the sorcerers and thus began the period in time known as the Magical Migrations.
With this loss of many talented and good-natured spellcasters, communities that once thought they would be better off without their resident sorcerer soon found themselves open to hostility and attack from many evil humanoids and vile creatures that sought to take advantage of this Schism. It was indeed true that wizards, no matter how much power they possessed, could not be everywhere at all times. It was at this time that the clerics of Maya, the Queen of the Magi, became further enlightened on the ways of magic. These clerics began an attempt to educate the populace and open their minds by creating a deeper understanding of the ways of the Essence as Maya had intended it. Sorcery was not something to be feared. Like a coin, it was simply one side of magic and a balance to the orderly ways of the wizard. Priests and priestesses of the goddess of magic were largely successful in their indoctrination. Although it took time, the old fears and suspicions slowly disappeared. There are of course some people that refuse to accept sorcery as anything but a tool of the fiends but these folk are more the exception rather than the norm.