SOLVED. Society of wizards, unspecified race but not human(?), staffs of power,daily ''making the day' ceremony [s]

[Tim]

I read this in the 80s, I think it was quite new at the time. There are lots of magicians in some sort of guild-type society. They would each make their own uniquely powered staff. Every morning at dawn every wizard in the world would individually perform a 'making the day' (or possibly 'raising the day') ceremony. The hero was extremely tall, I seem to recall 8 foot plus, I think everyone was some non-human race but it wasn't specified what. From what i remember the whole book had a melancholy tone.

[Tim]

Bumping bump :)

I've been pondering this one, some extra info added...

The hero makes his staff fairly early on in the book, and of course it is somehow an extra-powerful one. For some reason I even remember that the staff is slightly curved like a bow. (Wish I had simply remembered the name of the book instead of that useless bit of trivia!). The staffs don't have "spells" or anything like that, they are just described as power sources.

Hero's name might begin with J?

There is a female love interest. Sorry don't remember much else about her.

The wizards are all defending against some great threat. It isn't an army or anything, it's some kind of magical threat. They spend a lot of time standing at the top of cliffs being all wizardly and coming down hours later exhausted and with premature grey hair. They take it in turns to do this (?)

[Kagama-the Literaturevixen]

I think this sound very interesting. My searches has come up empty so far though :(

I hope someone finds this book :)

[Tim]

Thanks for looking :)

Just wanted to add that this book was bought new from the fantasy section of a mainstream bookstore in Hong Kong. Back in the 80s this would suggest it was a major publisher. It wouldn't have been some independent or tiny print run job.

The magic system in the book was very undefined. It was totally not like dungeons and dragons or anything like that.

From what I remember the story was much more high than low fantasy, amd there are no swords or any warrior-types in this book. No fighting either as I recall.

[Tim]

Okay I've found it. After thinking about it for a few days I had this inkling that this book somehow had the word "Unicorn" in the title, even though there is no* unicorn in the story.

The book is Unicorn Quest

So my description above may be somewhat incomplete :D although amazingly I did get the hero's initial right.

Thanks to everyone who looked! Sorry but I don't know how to mark this as 'solved'.

* - according to my thirty-year-old memories.

[Andria]

Congrats on figuring it out, Tim! I'll move this to solved and shelve it for you. :)