"Do not become jaded to the magic of the technology which is all around you for that is the path of the inept. What is the oldest (but modern) piece of technology you can remember? Perhaps a simple transistor radio? Do you understand how this achieves what it does? Open it and look inside. Crystal and wire, silicon and track. If you do not even understand the nature of these components you are looking at then these may as well be eye-of-newt and tongue-of-crow. It is magic to you. Yet with this simple box, and a few relays the Technomage can control his environment in an apparently magical manner.
The inept accept the magic that occurs continually around them and are overwhelmed and dulled to it. Continue to wonder at the magic and derive its secrets and you will transcend all."
What distinguishes the True Technomage in world of highly available consumer electronics? Is every kid with a mobile phone and a walkman a technomage? Where is the line separating technology from magical effect?
The answer is simple, there is no line. All those who utilise technology, utilise the magic of the ages, devised in the minds of men and women and then made manifest by the skills of the artisan.
The technomage is in a real sense, walking technology. Close enough to the pinnacle of skill that others with the same skill are continually confounded as to how an effect was acheived using that skill. Have you ever been asked how you achieved an effect by your peers and they remain baffled even after an explanations are given. (certainly they can be shown - but for a brief time, you have achieved magic). This is the beginning of the True Technomage.
The image of the magician is one that pervades many cultures and each has its own effect on the populace of that society. Technomagic is much more than just the application of technology but uses a gestalt of emergant action, the physical, and the cultural power of symbology and legend upon the mind of both caster and observer.
Another major difference between the technomage and the skillful technologist, lays in WHO wields the powers they create and how those powers are wielded. The technomage seeks to control and wield the powers they create in a manner that utilises the technology in favour of effect, where those effects are framed in the language of the wizard (often in the fantasy rpg tradition).
Although much capability must be based about a location (eg your desktop PC, an inner sanctum), the technomage seeks to internalise as many powers as possible through the use of portable technology. The technomage's connection to their sphere of influence must be seamless and invisible.
The secrets of the technomage are considered sacrosanct and are closely guarded (at least from the inept), for it is the view of the technomage that the release of such knowledge is also the release of power.
Finally, the True Technomage knows clearly where the boundaries of
reality lay (but is happy to obsfucate those boundaries for
others)....