Ambient magic

Ambient magic is a form of magic in Tamora Pierce's Circle Universe.

Basic theory
Ambient magic manifests in a person as an innate ability. Every ambient mage, as the gifted are called, has an innate connection to a phenomenon important to human civilization or culture, either an aspect of nature (like plants or weather) or a craft (like weaving or smithwork), which shapes the kind of magework they can do with their ability. Ambient mages draw upon the magic inherent in the physical manifestations of the phenomenon connected to their ambient magic to fuel their abilities, like plants for plant mages or clothing for thread mages. Ambient mages perceive these manifestations as something alive, sometimes communicating.

Ambient magic takes different forms depending on the mage and the craft they perform–common ones include stone, carpentry, healing, cooking, thread and needlework, pottery, fire, and weather.

Comparison to Academic magic
The Circle Universe has another form of magic, the more common academic magic. Simplified, academic magic is the more traditional spellwork seen with traditional magecraft in other fiction. Academic magic requires an innate ability too, but works differently. Academic mages need to use self-created power from inside themselves to perform spellwork, while ambient mages receives a constant flow of magic from the things connected to the aspect of nature or craft they represent, sometimes to the point of being too much to fully control. Academic magic is more common than ambient magic; only one mage in four is an ambient mage.