Magic

Six schools of magic, each with its own way of growing stronger and its own part to play in a fight. Every spell's description tells you exactly what it will do at your spellpower, and where that spellpower comes from.

The six schools#

A few spells are taught elsewhere too, by wandering teachers and the lieges. Every spell's wiki page lists who teaches it: browse the spells by school or level.

Learning spells#

Spells come in six levels. Buy one from its teacher: a level-1 spell costs 500 shillings, and each level doubles it, up to 16,000 at level 6. Every character starts with Blink and Phase, and anyone may learn Minor Heal, whatever their school.

To learn your first spell at a new level, you need to be good enough at the level below: your three best spells of that school one level down must add up past a mark that grows with everything else you know, and shrinks with your intellect. Once you know one spell at a level above 2, or two at levels 1 and 2, the rest of that level is open to you.

In practice:

• One school climbs to level 6 easily.
• Two schools can both reach the top, with skill and a sharp mind.
• Three schools, with fighting skills as well, is out of reach.

A potion of forgetting takes back a school's spells. Priestess Tenuv'vyal sells Faren's for 2,500 shillings, the Qor and Shal'ille priestesses each sell the other's, and Kraanan's priestess sells one that forgets fighting skills. Rodric d'Stane in Raza sells four of them for 1,000.

Getting better#

A spell improves as you cast it. Higher-level spells improve more slowly, and so do spells of a second or third school. To improve faster, spend training points in the Train window (the Train button on your Statistics tab, or type train): each percent of a spell costs the training points its description shows, up to 99%. Our client's Study casts a spell over and over for you, resting when your mana runs low.

Spellpower#

Spellpower is how strong a spell is: its damage, healing and how long it lasts. 99 is full power. Attack spells, heals, songs and many blessings and curses carry on past it, up to 150 (an attack spell hits about a quarter harder there); the rest, such as the walls and teleports, stop at 99. Look at any spell, known or not, and its description shows three things under the story:

• At your spellpower: what it will do, in numbers.
• Costs: mana, vigor, reagents, the time to cast and how long before your next spell.
• Spellpower: your total, the most that spell can reach, and every part of it.

The parts:

• Your skill in the spell gives half of it: up to 49.
• Your school's two sources, in the table above. The first gives up to 30, the second up to 10:
  • Shal'ille: the land (forest 25, mountains and swamps 20, down to nothing underground), then the light (up to 10 in a bright room).
  • Qor: the hour (26 at midnight, 2 at noon), then the darkness (up to 10 in a dark room).
  • Kraanan: the company in the room, then your health (10 at full health).
  • Faren: the land and water around you (lava and beaches most, then waterfalls, swamps, badlands and hills, down to deserts) and fires in the room, then your vigor.
  • Riija: the moon, then your strongest Riija disguise: Anonymity, Illusionary Form, Morph or Shadow Form.
  • Jala: your instrument, with no limit (a lute 20, up to the true lute's 40), then your health (10 at 120 base health).
• What you wear: robes add spellpower (plain robes +5 to every school, disciple robes +15 to their own), a wizard hat +10 to its school, the ivy and thorn circlets +15 to Shal'ille or Qor, and magic of focus more. The Duke's and the Princess's soldier shields add some to every school (Factions), and a guild shield's sign or seal to its schools (Guilds). Metal armour, helms and edged weapons take it away: plate armour costs 30. See Magic Items.
• Faction favour: your liege's for their two schools or, if you're unaligned, the unaligned's for every school; a new character gets 3 (Factions).
• Shrines held by your school.
• Kraanan's favour: every Kraanan spell gets 20 more.
• Faren's attunement: 10 more for your element's spells (below).

Casting#

A spell costs mana (a point less above 40 spellpower, and another above 80), vigor and its reagents, taken from your hands, pack and bags. Spells with a trance take longer to cast at low spellpower and less at high, and after any spell you wait a moment before the next: the same wait as after a blow. A broken trance loses the spell.

Spells don't fizzle: if you can pay for it, it's cast. You can't cast while resting, nor harmful or room spells in an inn or other place without fighting, and a foe's Silence stops you.

Spells against monsters#

Most fights are against monsters now, and the spells aimed at players work on them too:

Fade and Invisibility hide you from monsters: they never see a faded player, nor an invisible one who hasn't struck them, and they lose a target that vanishes.

Faren: the elements#

Faren's spells climb by element: touches at levels 1 and 2, bolts at 3 (Fireball, Ice Shard, Lightning Bolt), blasts and room spells at 4, the fire and ice walls, Brittle and Shatter at 5, and storms at 6 (Fire Storm, Ice Nova), with Ring of Flames and the lightning wall.

Each element has its own effect:

• Frost chills: Ice Shard, Explosive Frost, Ice Nova, the ice wall and Freezing slow a monster's moves and attacks, or a player's recovery, for about 4 to 6 seconds.
• Storm disrupts: Lightning Bolt and Shocking Fury stop a monster casting for 3 seconds, and the lightning wall holds whoever crosses it for a second.

Attunement. Once you've done the Disciple of Faren quest and can learn level 4 Faren, say attune to Priestess Tenuv'vyal, then attune flame, attune frost or attune storm. Choose carefully: it's for good. Your element's spells get 10 more spellpower and do 15% more damage. A flame-attuned mage's Fireball, Blast of Fire, Fire Storm and Touch of Flame set their target burning instead, for a quarter of the hit again over 6 seconds.

Jala: songs#

Jala's songs reach everyone within 8 squares, and further with spellpower, up to 17. A singer keeps up to two songs at once. Listeners hear each song's own music.

The school songs now turn on your foes, monsters and the players you may fight, and never on you or your friends:

• Sacred Resonance (holy, double against the undead), Profane Resonance (unholy, and you regain a little health) and Disharmony (earth, and foes can't cast) hurt every foe in range every 5 seconds.
• Civility weakens their blows, Conciliation may calm a monster, Warp Time slows their attacks, Truth reveals the hidden and dispels illusions, and Spellbane weakens their spells.

Priestess Themala teaches every Jala song, though Truth, Mirth and Melancholy need the Pupil of Truth quest first.

Shal'ille and Qor: light and dark#

The two rival schools draw on light and darkness, and hurt each other's followers more: Holy Touch and Holy Blaze strike a player who knows Qor harder, and Unholy Touch and Vampiric Drain a player who knows Shal'ille.

• Holy Blaze heals anyone its caster may not attack, and burns their foes.
• Forces of Light makes its caster's allies strike truer (not followers of Qor), and strengthens every Shal'ille spell cast in the room.
• Detect Evil and Detect Good make evil (or good) monsters flash, and players who know Qor (or Shal'ille), hidden ones included.
• Silence, Qor's level 6, stops its caster's foes in the room from casting or speaking, for as long as the caster keeps up the trance.

Kraanan: the fighter's friend#

Kraanan blesses the fight. Its spells get 20 more spellpower from Kraanan's favour, and a Kraanan caster loses only half as much spellpower to armour and weapons.

• Martyr's Battleground, level 6, blesses every player in the room, with their companions, minions and the lieges' soldiers: better aim, harder blows, and healing each time something dies there. Monsters get nothing.
• Mana Shield, level 5, turns the blows you take into mana lost instead of health, one and a half mana for each point.

Riija: illusions that bite#

Foresight is Riija's first spell, so a new player can read a monster before fighting it. Riija's illusions work on monsters now:

• Bewildered. Vertigo, Dement, Forget, Illusionary Wounds and Flash leave their target taking 10% more damage from everyone for 15 seconds.
• Illusions that bite: monsters believe Illusionary Wounds and the illusionary fire wall, and their wounds don't heal back.
• Summons that last: Reflection, Evil Twin and Apparition have real health now.
• Disguises add power: staying in Anonymity, Illusionary Form, Morph or Shadow Form adds a tenth of its spellpower, up to 10, to your Riija spells.

What you'll see#

With Enhanced Visuals on (the default, in the Options), spells show their school:

• Your hands glow in your school's colour as you cast; other casters glow about their figure.
• Blessings and heals rise round their target in their school's sparks, and curses sink.
• Hits burst by their element: fire embers, falling ice flakes, lightning, acid drops, holy stars, unholy smoke, earth dust.
• Projectiles leave trails, and Vampiric Drain streams back to its caster.
• Range rings: with a mouse, hover a song or an area spell (Flash, Mana Bomb, Fire Storm, Ice Nova, Earthquake) in your quick slots or spell list, and a ring on the ground shows how far it will reach. A song's ring follows you while it plays.
• Room spells colour the room: Heat shimmers, Freezing snows, Winds streaks, and Silence muffles every sound.

Turn Enhanced Visuals off for the original game's look.

Magic weapons#

A revealed magic weapon of moderate tier or better glows round its edge in its magic's colour, in your hand and in everyone's sight. Magic Items has the colours, and how to reveal and name what you find.