Magic

You cast a spell from the abilities menu (a), where spells have their own heading, Spells. Spells are paid for in mana. You know a spell for good once your class gives it to you or once you have learned it from a grimoire (see Learning spells), unless a miscast makes you forget it.

Every spell follows the same rules: its spell level, its shape, and how it finds its target. Your learning decides which spells you can learn. Creatures that cast use the same spells by the same rules (see Spells).

More about magic:

• How spells work: shapes, targeting, spell types, zones, and how a spell grows with your stats.
• Learning spells: grimoires, your learning, and a spell’s ranks.
• Schools and caster styles: the seven schools of magic, the Magic page, and the styles you cast in.
• Miscasts: what can go wrong when you cast, and the miscast table.
• Wands and rods: magic anyone can use.
• Spell circles: the rings that show buffs and hexes on the map.

What your class gives

Each casting class gives only a few spells, at the levels in its class table:

• A full caster gets a cantrip at level 1, and from three to a dozen spells in all. The wizard and the witch also start with a short cone that needs no hit roll: Burning hands and Grave breath. These are good against a few weak foes, but a few casts empty the pool.
• A bard, a paladin, or a ranger gets a few boons and hexes.
• The other classes get none.

A class’s spells are only where it starts. Any spell can be learned from a grimoire, and some come only from grimoires (Acid arrow, Grave spear, Slumber, Glamour, and others). A caster who finds few grimoires stays a modest one. A spell your class gives is yours at that level, whatever your Decipher script.

Three spells are aimed at a corpse you see, of any age. Without one they are refused, costing no time and no mana.

• Charnel burst goes off where the corpse lies, without flying there. What it kills leaves corpses for the next one.
• Grave feast reaches only a corpse beside you or under your feet. It gives back hit points and mana, never past your maximum.
• Rouse the dead stands the corpse up.

Beguile makes a hostile creature you see your ally for a few minutes, against its own band. When the charm ends, or the moment you leave its level, it is itself again, wherever it stands.

The spells

Every spell has a level, from 0 to 70. The level sets its cost in mana, and how learned a caster must be to learn it from a grimoire for certain.

Every spell has a base: what it does for anyone who casts it. It may also have ladders for its damage (or healing), its reach, and how long its effect lasts. A ladder names one stat and lists scores, with what the spell does at each. For example, Fireball: 4d6 fire; Intelligence 13: 6d6, 16: 8d6, 19: 10d6, 25: 10d6+2. When your score reaches a number, you cast at that rung.

The last rung is as far as your stats take a spell. Your talents and magic items may add to that in their own ways, each listed in its own row: a rung up, a die more, bigger dice, a bonus, a die rolled again (see How a spell grows). A scroll you read and a wand you use cast at a rung of their own.

The list below gives each spell’s level, its base (what it does and how far it reaches), its ladders, and its mana cost without armour or talents. Under “Grows with”, a stat alone is the damage or healing ladder; “range”, “length”, “radius”, and “degrees” name the others.

Every spell belongs to one of seven schools of magic: the kind of magic it is.

The abilities menu shows a spell’s roll as you would cast it now, with its damage type, the way the character screen shows a weapon’s (4d6 fire, 26 mana, aimed). It also shows what the spell costs you now, with your talents and armour counted. The line below says how far it reaches now and which dice you roll again.

Identify asks which of your things to cast it on. The list of what you carry unidentified opens, as for the scroll of identify (see Scrolls). When it tells you something new, the thing’s description opens.

Every scroll holds a spell, and reading it casts that spell once. Spells are learned for good from grimoires: the grimoire of identify teaches Identify, and the grimoire of light teaches Light.

Spell levels

Every spell has a level, from 0 to 70. It is the spell’s base mana cost (at least 4: see What a spell costs), and the learning at which you learn it from a grimoire for certain.

A spell of level 0 or 1 is a cantrip. It is priced as a level-4 spell, like every spell below level 4: Ray of frost costs 4 mana, Burning hands 6 (a cone), Mend 3 (a touch). Anyone trained in Decipher script learns a cantrip for certain.

What a spell does comes from its own roll and ladders (the list above) and its rank, whatever its level.

What a spell costs

A spell’s mana cost is worked out in steps:

1. Start with its level, at least 4: a spell of level 0 to 4 counts as level 4, so a cantrip is never a trifle. A starting wizard’s pool buys four to eight casts of Ray of frost.
2. Multiply by its shape’s share and by its resolution’s share (a touch is cheaper).
3. Multiply by what your armour adds.
4. Round to the nearest point, once, and never below 1.
5. Apply your talents and the spell’s rank, their percents added together, rounding down and never below 1: School focus takes 10 % off the spells of its school or element, Archmage 50 %, and Empower 10 %, while Brimming adds 10 %; a rank takes off what the spell’s own table says.
6. Last, Frugal caster takes a fifth off, and magic items of Thrift their percent with it, never more than half together (see Mana).

Your learning never counts. A spell you know costs the same whoever you are, and your mana is what holds you back.

A few spells have a cost of their own instead, whatever their level. Identify costs 60 mana (before your armour and talents), so no caster can cast it in their first levels. A wizard has the mana for it from about level 7, and a priest or a druid from about level 8. Its level (6) only says how hard it is to learn.

Heavy armour and big shields hinder casting. While worn, each makes every spell cost more, and what you wear adds up.

A Mage-wrought piece (body armour, a helmet, or a shield that hinders at all) hinders casting less, by its own number. Mage-wrought plate of 15 adds 25 % instead of 40 %. A piece eased to nothing (chain mail of 10 or more) adds nothing, and no longer counts as armour for your caster style. The ease applies only to that piece, never to another.

See also: Miscasts, Wands and rods, and Spell circles.