Magical Questions in a low-mana world

We have morphed into a spin-off of the original Texas Revolution campaign, based on the 1st Texas Navy.  I'll hold off on a campaign description for now, as I'll be focusing this post on some questions regarding my character, the ship's doctor, who also just happens to be a necromancer. I want to use this opportunity to ask these questions without eating into game time...

One "skill" I took was "Necromantic College" through GCB.  I didn't know what it did when I chose it, but it sure sounded cool ;> After looking through the books, and then finally through the GCB manuals, I discovered that this is a GCB placeholder for college summaries to use for improvisational spellcasting.  I just wasted 5 CP, oops.  As an aside, GCB has a printing option (the Grimoire), which calculates and prints this data as part of your spell lists.

On the other hand, considering that we are playing in a low mana campaign, it may just be that we consider this "skill" to be a prerequisite for learning magic at all, or to add a +1 bonus to the college for learning improvisational spells, or perhaps a bonus in spell research.




If we decide to do this as an explanation for character background, is it possible to do this for the other colleges as well?




This leads to the second set of questions; how did Ash learn his spells to begin with?  Grimoires? Research (spell invention, "Magic" p16)? Improvisational spellcasting?  Teacher?  Demonic tutoring? I can certainly see a doctor with a comfortable wealth level able to drop some bucks in the research department :)


This brings me to a follow-up question regarding the learning of improvisational spells:  If a spell is learned in this method, does it allow the mage to learn the spell without learning the prerequisite, or does the mage have to learn the prerequisite as well, and spend the CP for both?


I also have questions about the skill of  thaumatology...can this skill be used as a substitute for college skills when attempting improvisational spellcasting?  Can it be used as a  bonus for spell invention?  "Grimoire" references "new inventions" in the "Basic" manual (186-187) for this skill, but that seems too easy compared to the method in "Magic".

Finally, there is a section  in "Magic" at the end (p119) - Time, Energy and Cost Tradeoffs (Hurried or Careful spellcasting) that discusses additional time for energy or for skill; this is different then the "Alternate Magic
Ritual Rule" sidebar on p7 that we have been using.  The biggest way in that this is different is that there is not a limit set to how much time can be spent preparing, and that might not be appropriate for a low mana world.


All I know is that is going to be a major pain learning new spells!