I would like to see a realm bound, slow and material dependent magic system.
at least in the fortress.
The dwarfs from the nordic myth were masters in the creating of magic/enchanted items.
and every other pantheon had their share of the ugly guy sitting in his forge down in some volcano or pit churning out magic stuff for the other gods while needing precious and rare materials.
One of the funny things is .. no one mentioned the alchemists yet. For me they would be an essential part of the magic system, providing your wizard with all that overly expensive crap to show off ( black dragon fat candles, bottles of gnome blight and kittens blood .. )
So i would like the magic system bound to large rituals and enchanting of items with a definitive religious side to it.
The megabeast wizards of lord of the rings where actually some kind of angels send by the allfather of middle-earth to look after his remaining creation.
that much about learning magic
For the enchanting/crafting part of the magic I would say .. legendary dwarfs ..
my weaponsmith turned legendary, which means he now is finally good enough in his
profession to start making crafts that are usable for magic purposes.
And I don't mean masterwork items, but a new kind of profession, that only legendary dwarfs are able to learn.
urist is now a legendary weaponsmith
urist is now able to learn runic weapons smithing.