Re: Class in Fantasy
Very very interesting thread, Somthign I feel must be commented on though is that social class, at least innitially, is nearly always determined by one factor... Power, it may degenerate to a chaste system, but these governments are almost always formed by those few who had greater power then the average human, either they were cunning tacticions, prodigious leaders, or mighty soldiers.
bareing that in mind I find it hard to imagine that, in a world setting where magic can pop up, the vast majority of governments wouldn't be at least partially magocratic (ruled in by those with the most powerful magic). in such settings bloodlines known to produce powerful Mages would be highly sought after. Certain taboos would also develop, such as Mage+NonMage couplings.
Religion is another point that should be adressed, the early religions usually developed to explain things that humans didn't understand, where as some later religions developed to consolidate power.
Thus what you really get would depend on era, an early era world would likely be a very fudal Mago-theocracy, in which he positions of power were held by the Mage-priests and Ill-informed peasentry treated the ruling class as somthing akin to Gods.
In later eras, when magic has been more thourghly studied and mages are more common, Mages would be treated as somthing more similar to brillant scientists, and power would have shifted to the middle class, Somthing similar to a Magocratic-Rebublic might develop, in which all Mage-gifted were treated as the Upper Class and given and equal vote. The Peasants would still be in essentially the same position they were before, however its much harder to think of a Mage as a god when there is a chance your own child could be born Mage gifted, and when chances are you work (albeit distantly) with the area's local Mage, and know perfectly well that he's mortal.
Of course infinite exceptions to this could exist, depending on entirely on whatever the GM desides to do.