Themes of gender stereotyping, sexism, ageism, racism, ethics, economics, environmentalism and politics are explored in the course of the series, which examines the world through the eyes of its protagonists.

The feats which are feasible depend on the user's (genetically limited) potential, on developing those abilities, and on the laws that govern the interaction and balance between the two forces in nature.

The ancestors of those who would predominantly wield black order known as Angels, were marooned 600 years later, and would found two authoritarian, militaristic, matriarchal, vaguely misandrist states on Candar and generally fought native opponents rather than their Rationalist counterparts.

However it does evolve an intolerance for anything that threatens its highly successful order-based homogeneity, banishing anyone they believe to be undesirable, chaos wielders and those unwilling or unable to fit in to Recluce society alike.

The technology, weaponry, and ideology of each culture is reflected in the magical abilities, hair colour, and world views of their descendants in the Recluce universe.

Offspring can usually inherit magical abilities, and talent for both black order and white chaos appeared in the descendants of both groups, although one was generally favored over the other, if the other wasn't oppressed or shunned.

Initially, upon landing on a mostly-uninhabited part of one of the world's continents, the Rationalists (later known as Demons) managed to create a number of advanced mechanical devices, powered by chaos.

But when Lerial is sent abroad to be fostered by Major Altyrn to learn the skills and wisdom he will need to fulfill his future duties, he begins a journey into a much larger world that brings out his true potential.

Lerial has talents that few, as yet, suspect: he is one of those rare beings who can harness both Order and Chaos, the competing natural forces that shape the world and define the magic that exists within it.

Generations after the Angels reshaped the political climate in central Candar, the Prefect of Gallos seeks for an excuse to start another war with Westwind in the opening of The Mongrel Mage.

In Elparta he increases his skills in order magic, finds works serving in the city patrol and helping a coppersmith forge cupridium, and strives to recover from the turmoil of Gallos.

Recruited into Elparta's defense, Beltur excels as an arms-mage, bolstered by his desire to defend his new home and its people which now includes Jessyla, her mother, and many other recent friends.

In Outcasts of Order Beltur attempts to return to his daily routine immediately after the war with Gallos but intrigue among the Trader's Council and the local group of black mages removes any chance he has to make Elparta his permanent home.

Forced to flee after defending himself and his coppersmith partner from two murderous black mages, Beltur travels to Axalt as the request of the smith and with Jessyla as his new consort.

Remembering an invitation from a mysterious trader in Montgren, Beltur and Jessyla travel with the young white mage and her family to the small duchy to seek a better life.

Surviving bandit raids and surveying local power structures along the way, Beltur's followers arrive in Montgren to find themselves not only welcome, but expected.

Westwind is under threat from the white wizards of the city of Fairhaven, which exerts a great deal of influence over the male-dominated lands of Eastern Candar.

We also begin to learn the dangers of widespread order or chaos magic, as Creslin's unskilled efforts to make Recluce habitable cause severe weather elsewhere in the world, including massive storms, hurricanes, floods and droughts.

Dorrin begins using order magic with his innate engineering talent to create steam-powered machines from order-infused wood and metal.

It deals with the familiar motif of exile for a budding mage as yet unable and/or unwilling to control his newfound powers, this time on the continent-country of Hamor.

The switch (which is a Modesitt trademark) from a pro-Recluce viewpoint to one inside the heretofore vilified Hamorian empire provides a probing look at prejudice, and also lays bare the conflict and corruption within the Recluce society and organizations at that time.

Rahl, an apprentice scrivener with no taste for responsibility or accountability, is discovered by the magisters of Recluce to have an inordinately strong grasp of certain order abilities.

Caught in the middle of a conspiracy immediately after his arrival, Rahl soon finds himself in the infamous penal ironworks of Luba only to escape them when his abilities surface.

The two books flesh out two of the areas of the world that were mostly ignored in earlier novels and provides insight into the evolution of the Empire of Hamor, which plays a prominent part at the end of the series.

Gunnar, who has kept himself and his family alive using druidic techniques taught by his brother Justen, sends his son Lerris (who is unaware of his father's history and his own magical potential) to Candar to undertake a rite of passage commonly administered to dissatisfied individuals living in Recluce, especially those who have an affinity or ability for either order or chaos.

Centuries of dominance by Recluce and their order engineers has once again led to increasingly more powerful chaos wizards in Candar, with one in particular threatening to cause trouble on the scale of the white council.

The climax of the story, 5 years later, in The Death of Chaos sees the powerful Empire of Hamor, the oldest inhabited continent in the world, has been using the relative instability of the rest of the world to build weapons using bound order, building an enormous fleet of steel warships armed with powerful cannons.

In the final climactic battle on the shores of Recluce, Lerris and his family use their mastery of order and chaos to forcibly impose a balance on the world, unleashing vast amounts of subterranean lava directly into the ocean beneath the invading Hamorian forces.

In the end, Lerris uses the vast amounts of order in Recluce to bind all of the free chaos into small, balanced units (again, strongly reminiscent of particle physics).

At the concluding scene of the book - and so far, of the entire series - Lerris, deeply scarred from the final cataclysmic battle, is happy to leave magic behind him and settle into the life of a skilled craftsman.