Meridian 59: Shards
Monsters sometimes drop weapons, armour and jewellery with magic in them. Every magic item works from the moment you find it; revealing it tells you what it does, and names it.
Finding magic items#
Only a monster you kill yourself can drop magic, and some drop it far more often than others. Each monster's treasure has a difficulty: the harder the treasure, the better the magic and its tier.
Each magic item has one property, and how strong it is, its tier, depends on the treasure it came from:
| Treasure | Slight | Moderate | Potent | Enormous |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 70% | 30% | ||
| Middling | 40% | 40% | 18% | 2% |
| Hard | 15% | 40% | 35% | 10% |
| The hardest | 5% | 30% | 45% | 20% |
The kind of item depends on you as well: the more health you have, the better the base item a magic drop is likely to be.
Every boss of the Fallen Halls carries a magic item, better further up the ladder: the last hall's boss and the Ascended Queen of the Inner Sanctum carry the best.
Reading an item's icon#
A magic item has a small disc in its icon's corner:
- A grey disc with a question mark: magic you haven't revealed yet.
- A coloured disc: revealed. The colour is the property that names the item, and the sign on it says which of that colour's properties it is: a heart for vitality, a flame for fiery, its element inside a shield for a resistance. The icon doesn't show the tier.
| Colour | Properties |
|---|---|
| crimson | vampirism, vitality |
| blue | siphoning |
| yellow | blinding, shocking, storm resistance |
| teal | holding, icy, frost resistance |
| green | venom, acidic, acid resistance |
| silver | purging, warding |
| violet | sorcery, unholy, a school's focus |
| gold | enchanted, glowing, ceremonial, of the master |
| orange | fiery, fire resistance |
| white | holy |
| amber | adventuring, durable, transcendent, indestructible |
| the liege's own (deep blue, pink, olive) | of the duke, of the princess, of the rebellion |
A revealed weapon of moderate tier or better glows round its edge while you wield it, in your hand and in other players' sight.
Revealing magic#
An unrevealed item's description says only that there's something odd about it. Three ways to find out what:
- An elder reveals any item for 1,000 shillings. Double-click them: Afiera D'xor in Jasper, Ran er'Hoth in Marion or Rodric d'Stane in Raza. Their window lists every item you carry with hidden magic.
- The Reveal spell, Shal'ille level 2, for three emeralds. Rodric d'Stane, Priestess Xiana and Jonas D'Accor teach it.
- A wand of revealing casts Reveal a few times.
Once revealed, the item has its full name, and its description lists what each property does.
Full names#
A revealed item's name is its tier, then any properties that come before the name, then the item, then a property that comes after it:
- potent short sword of vampirism
- enormous chain armor of warding
- moderate fiery longsword
- potent disciple robes of Qor
Tiers#
| Tier | A weapon gets |
|---|---|
| slight | +25 to hit, +1 damage |
| moderate | +50 to hit, +1 damage |
| potent | +50 to hit, +2 damage |
| enormous | +50 to hit, +3 damage |
A weapon gets its tier's bonus once, on top of what its property does. Armour and jewellery properties grow with the tier instead, as below.
Weapon properties#
Before the name:
- enchanted: strikes creatures that only magic can harm.
- glowing: gives off light while wielded.
- ceremonial: the tier's bonus again, in the arenas.
- holy, unholy, fiery, icy, shocking or acidic: 1 to 5 more damage of that element with every hit. Against players, holy harms only those who know Qor magic, and unholy only those who know Shal'ille's.
After the name:
- of blinding: 15% of hits blind the target.
- of holding: 15% of hits hold the target where it stands.
- of venom: 15% of hits poison a player, or burn a monster for 10 to 30 more damage.
- of purging: 15% of hits purge the target's enchantments.
- of vampirism: 10% of hits heal you by the damage done, up to 8.
- of siphoning: 15% of hits drain the target's mana, and you gain half as much again as it loses.
- of sorcery: 15% of hits cast a spell: Dement, Enfeeble, Vertigo, Evil Twin, Forget, Mark of Dishonor or Dazzle on the target, or Invisibility or Shadow Form on you.
- of the master: the tier's bonus again, as far as your skill with the weapon goes.
- of the duke, of the princess or of the rebellion: the tier's bonus again against the other lieges' people, and half of it against everything else, while you serve that liege. See Factions.
A spell can't overwrite magic you found: Holy Weapon, Unholy Weapon and Enchant Weapon refuse a weapon found enchanted or elemental, and Glow one found glowing.
Armour and jewellery properties#
| Property | Slight | Moderate | Potent | Enormous | Found on |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| of warding | +15 defence | +30 | +50 | +75 | armour, helms, gauntlets, plain rings and amulets |
| of warding, on a shield | +5 block | +10 | +15 | +20 | shields |
| of fire, frost, storm or acid resistance | +5% | +10% | +15% | +20% | armour, helms, shields, plain rings and amulets |
| of Shal'ille, Qor, Kraanan, Faren, Riija or Jala | +3 spell power in that school | +5 | +8 | +12 | robes, circlets, wizard hats, disciple robes, plain rings and amulets |
| of vitality | +3 maximum health | +5 | +8 | +12 | armour, helms, plain rings and amulets |
A disciple's robes or a wizard hat with a school's focus always have their own school.
Plain rings and amulets are found only with magic, and never wear out. You can wear two rings at once, even two plain ones, and one amulet.
Robes give spell power of their own: plain robes +5 in every school, and disciple robes +15 in their own school and +5 in every other.
Properties without a tier#
A few properties have no tier word and no to-hit or damage bonus:
- adventuring: bonus experience for every kill.
- durable: three times the usual durability.
- transcendent: stays with you when you die (nothing drops at death now, so it changes nothing).
- indestructible: never wears down.
Repairs#
Weapons and armour wear as you use them, and break when you die to a monster, in a guild war or in the Faction War. Your jewellery, masks, soldier's shield and guild shield are spared. A broken item keeps its magic but can't be used until it's mended.
Smiths repair any weapon or armour you carry or wear, worn or broken, back to full, for up to half its base value: the more worn, the more it costs. Double-click them for their repair window:
- Fehr'loi Qan in Barloque
- Quintor in Jasper
- Colhorr in Marion
- Tomas in Raza
- Ixla cha'Totlak in Ko'catan
- Roderick Merk in Berg
- Tylo Barsis in the Hidden Village of Jixa
Or cast Mend, Kraanan level 4, for a sapphire and an orc tooth: it restores an item to full durability, broken or not.
What's gone#
There are no cursed items, and no Curse Weapon or Remove Curse: the Amulet of Shadows casts Shadow Form while you wear it and comes off like any amulet. Identify is gone too, and Reveal replaces it.
Maintained through Git.