Academy of Knowledge/Library/Restricted/Witchcraft

Witch Craft

Year 7 Month 4

It is here that the records become substantially more detailed, though sadly still incomplete. I could prattle on about what I’ve learned, but it would be a waste of paper really since what pieces there are explain them selves rather well. I’ll just translate everything into the common language of the day, provide a little order and structure and let you sort it out.

Schools of Witch Craft

The magic arts are a complex area, and many years are needed before a spellcaster even starts to master them. In order to make both teaching and learning easier, magic has been divided up into several areas, called Schools of Magic. All spells belong to a school, though some spells are in near-identical form known to several schools under different names. This chapter provides an overview on the concept as well as a description of the schools themselves.

Schools define not so much what you do, but how you do it. There are many ways to skin a cat or kill a demon, and the act itself does not say much about your magic. But whether you call upon the help of the gods to smite the abomination, or summon another demon to draw it into the netherworlds, or blast it with a bolt of pure energy - these things say a lot about how you view your own magic. There are many effects that are almost identical in several schools, but the ways to bring them about can be very different. There are no schools that give a general advantage over other schools. The choice of schools is much more a roleplaying choice than anything else.

The following is a list of the schools as well as a short description of the kind of spells most common to this school.

Basic School of Magic

This is a special school as it does not subscribe to any special philosophy or interpretation, but instead has a fluid concept of basic magical powers that is easily adopted to whatever interpretation a council requires. It offers basic and often very generic spells, most of which are of no use in a certamen. The school is broad in scope, but small in power, with most spells being low-powered and more expensive than comparable equivalents from more specialized schools. But no school offers the same amount and diversity to choose from.

School of Celestials The School of Celestials teaches the contact with higher powers and the channeling of their enery. While usually used for healing and other peaceful spells, it also sports a good assortment of "heavenly wrath". This school usually requires intensive acts of faith, whose specific nature depends on the religion involved - they can range from prayer to blood sacrifices. Yes, Celestials does include evil gods and even some "higher powers" that can only be described as insane. Usually, the religion of the individual spellcaster restricts him to subscribing only to one side of the spectrum. Celestials magic requires faith to use, and you can only truly believe in one thing at a time.

School of Death The energies of death and the undead are the area of this school. Different from other schools, this directly affects the life energy of its targets. A death spell will not damage the body, just remove the life from it. Death also deals with the undead, with skeletons, zombies, wraiths and other creatures of the night. At first glance, only evil spellcasters choose this school. On second thought, however, it becomes clear that in intimate knowledge of death also helps to avoid it. While this is of little use during certamen - there are no real healing spells in this school - it is good enough reason for many spellcasters not happy with the rest of the school to engage in its study. The prime shortcoming of the school of death is that it can only affect things that either are (still) alive, or once were alive.

School of the Mind The school of mind is special in that it deals with the inner workings of magic first and foremost. While impressive effects are possible with it, they usually lack the pyrotechnics that other schools provide. Mind is a school of concentration, silence, and almost invisible effects. It is also a school that concentrates deeply on the spellcaster himself, and thus provides more "internal" than "external" effects, most of them of no using during certamen - such as telepathical communication.

School of Nature The forces of nature are the realm of this school. Trees and rain, rivers and meadows - all fall within the school of nature. Usually, the spellcasters in this school treat nature as a companion and friend, but as everywhere there are also power-driven individuals who are more concerned about learning new and better ways to twist nature to their own devices. The School of Nature excells in it's environment-changing ability. No other school allows such quick and easy access to spells that change the weather, turn a river into a dry canyon or let plants grow or wither.

School of Primal Mana The school of choice for the "pure magician", this one does not burden itself with any concepts of dubious nature. Instead, the spellcasters takes magical energy - mana - and shapes it into the desired form. Simple, effective, and versatile. Quite expensive on the mana-side, however. This school offers a broad array of powers, but is very slim and theoretical on the philosophic side. Almost more of a science than a magical art, Primal Mana offers a broad array of spells but does not differentiate between various elements - the school only has pure mana-based spells.

School of Spirits Another school with a variety of interpretations applied to it. In all cases, this school draws upon exterior, but not godly, forces. Contrary to the school of Celestials, spirits or demons are of a variety of powers, from the lowly, easily subdued, to ones many times more powerful than the spellcaster. The school comes in two basic flavors, Spirit Lore and Demon Lore, in much the same way that Celestials knows "good" and "evil" gods. While the lack of mana-based spells is noticeable, an almost complete set of spells is available to this school. From attack to defense, from healing to disturbing, spirits can do almost everything they are asked to.

School of Unity This very unique school differs in all others that no council offers formal training in it. Many spellcasters - among them ironically several quite adapt in this school - even refuse to recognize it as a school, and instead consider it to be more of a framework for the knowledge that one already posesses. The School of Unity does not teach any own philosophy, but rather provides a kind of education and philosophical, religious or whatever-is-appropriate background that gives the student new insights into the views he already holds. While it does not teach any new knowledge, it certainly deepens that which is already there. From what is known publicly, the School of Unity offers no spells of its own. Instead, it has developed enhanced versions of many spells from other schools. You can not learn the School of Unity until you have at least Advanced Training in at least two other schools!

School Rankings

The world is not so simple that one either knows or knows nothing about a certain school. Instead, how much a spellcaster knows about a specific school of magic is approximated with four levels of knowledge:

Nothing Especially young and lower-ranked spellcasters often know nothing at all about several schools, but many spellcasters specialize and decide to rather learn more about their chosen schools, and in return remain ignorant about one or more other schools.

Basic Knowledge The first level of training, basic knowledge provides all the details one needs to use most spells from this school. It does not yet refine that use or teach details, which means a lot of mana gets unnecessarily burned to achive the desired results, and every once in a while some detail gets omitted, leaving the spell dying in mid-air.

Advanced Training In-depth study and extensive training provide the additional rafinesse that makes the art easier to handle and much more reliable. This is the level most spellcasters aim for. With the exception of some very rare and complicated spells, advanced training opens the whole arsenal of spells the school has to offer.

Mastery Not many people reach mastery in any school, and very few in more than one. This is mainly because mastery requires extensive dedication and lots of experience. When the hardships pay off, however, magic becomes easier, almost natural. In addition, the long training turned it almost into second nature to the spellcaster, who has a much easier time handling the more intricate aspects of the art and can cast even the most esoteric spells.

Levels of knowledge define which spells can be cast as well as the amount of concentration required to successfully cast a spell. Casting a spell that requires basic knowledge when you have mastery is much easier and requires much less concentration then if you only basic knowledge.

Objects of Power

Magical items are the only physical commodity of value to spellcasters. They are broken down into two groups here: Artifacts and ingredients.

Artifact

Artifact is a catch-all term for magic items. Manufacturing an artifact is a task that only groups of spellcasters or some SpellMasters can accomplish, which means that artifacts are very rare. Most of those known today are very old and have histories and personalities of their own. Artifacts are almost always unique, as are their powers.

Ingredients

Ingredients are mundane items, often plants or minerals, that have a special property: They can store mana. As mana cannot be manipulated by spells, the only way to gain additional mana beyond the amount one learned to store inside the body is to use ingredients. In addition, ingredients are necessary for scroll creation.

This page lists all ingredients in the game. There are two categories: Well-known ingredients are fairly well researched and the places where they can be gathered are widely known. The majority are of this kind. There is also a small amount of ingredients that are not as well known. Despite intensive research, their sources could not be found. Nobody knows much about them.

All ingredients also share one other property: They can not be located by magical means. Spellcasters looking for plants in the forest or stones in the mines have to take the hard way. It is only upon direct contact with the ingredient in question that it will reveal itself as such.

Azima Stones These stones are mined from the Arakir or more easily collected from the surface after an eruption. Their mana is of a pure and solid aggressiveness. The Arakir and thus the Azima Stones have been in control of the Lich King for the past century or so. It is rumored that he has a large supply of them. If this is true, it is to be assumed that any attack on him or his realm would meet with most lethal resistance.

Bloodstone This dark stone can be found in multiple places on the southern island. None of these sources provide a regular or a large supply, but it almost appears as if new places with Bloodstone spring up every once in a while. As with Azima Stones, Bloodstone is of a solid and aggressive nature, but also has a soothing feel to it. As there is no single source, nobody is in control of the Bloodstone supply.

Burning Wood The magical tree that Burning Wood is cut from can be found in the forests all over the known world. If you find such a tree, you can either cut it down, giving a huge amount of Burning Wood once, or cut one branch at a time, giving it time to regenerate the loss. The mana of Burning Wood - named this way because the colors are those of a wildfire - are of a fiery, yet steady, yet changing nature. Working intensively with Burning Wood is a confusing experience for most spellcasters.

Corila Ant Powder This ingredient must be processed instead of harvested. If you take a complete colony of the large corila ants that are at home in the forests of the western island, make sure that the queen is among them, and then grind them into a fine powder in a special way, you will get Corila Ant Powder. Not only the process, but also the result is quite disturbing in nature.

Eagle Heart The large eagles are almost exterminated, but every now and then you can still see one roaming the skies. They are almost twice as huge as the normal eagles, but it still takes a trained eye to spot them when they are high up. You need to capture one alive, then drown it in water and take it's heart out. The heart alone contains some mana of a soft and airy kind.

Leaves of Oura This magical herb grows only in the northern areas of the eastern island. It's main leaves store mana of a distinct, not easily described kind. The minor leaves are often used in healing potions by the local shamans and witches.

Mastered Gold The dwarves of Alowca know a special way to refine, or master, gold. The process is extremely expensive and troublesome, and only few dwarves know the secret. This limits the output of this ingredient considerably, which stores a form of mana that is best described as a golden glow.

Perdan Minerals Found in the mines of perdan, these minerals provide a strong and clear flavor of mana. Whoever is in charge of Perdan controls the world's supply of Perdan Minerals as well. In recent times, this has been the Mages' Guild.

Phagecrystals These recently discovered ingredient is still not fully researched. Two caves where small quantities can be harvested are known, but it is suspected that more exist. Both sources are on the eastern island, so it is unknown whether or not Phagecrystals can be found on the other islands as well. Their mana gives a feeling of safety and brightness.

Ratan Leaves The ratan plant is a meat-eating plant that can be found at the north coast of the southern island, and in the very south of the eastern island. It's leaves store mana of a hard and repelant kind. Mass harvesting by spellcasters brought the plant close to extinction a few generations ago. Nowadays, ratan plants are rare and difficult to find.

Salamander Tail "Salamander" has long been a term for small fire elementals. The "tail" refers not to a physical tail, but to certain spiritual parts of it. When it was first discovered that this was of magical use, a large array of experiments where started. To the dismay of the involved spellcasters, however, it was soon found out that both other elementals and elementals summoned are devoid of mana. This leaves only naturally created fire elementals. It is still being discussed in learned circles what makes them so special, but maybe it is the fact that fire is the only non-persistent element in our world. Be that as it may, fire elementals can be found all over the world, but they are rare and short-lived, which makes this ingredient one of the most valuable ones.

Scorpion Legs Not just any scorpion, of course. One special kind of scorpions on the coasts near Isadril provides a source for mana, which is stored in the legs. Unsurprisingly, the flavor of mana is quite aggressive, and there is even a small taint of poison in it which makes working with this ingredient a bit unpleasant.

Virgin Flower The virgin flower can be found on both the western and the eastern island, but only in the northern parts of both. It only opens for one hour at noon, and it is during this time that it must be harvested to be of any magical use. The flavor of mana stored here is very soft, almost a fluid.

Water of Life One of the most powerful ingredients, the Water of Life is created by the Magic Spring on the eastern island. A few units of it can be harvested during every full moon.

Wyvern Scales Almost as rare as their dragon cousins, the half-dragon wyverns store mana in their scales during their growth-phase. Which means that a baby wyvern is what spellcasters try to find (and kill). Needless to say that the wyvern parents will try to stop this act.

Black Sand of Twrn The source of this sand is well known, it is the coast of the island where the Lendan Stones are located. Unfortunatly, the sand per se is worth nothing. Only a special process turns it into the Black Sand of Twrn, with it's confusing, yet soothing and crystal clear flavor of mana. Nobody knows the process, yet units of this ingredient continue to turn up. It is unknown whether some force working in hiding or a natural event creates them or whether they are remains from ancient depots of the ingredient.

Dark Gremlin Tongue Finding a dark gremlin is a quest all in itself. Especially since you must find a lone one. It has been found out by... say "trial and error" that if you kill one or several or all of a bunch of them, there is no magic whatsoever. But if you find and kill a lone one, it's tongue will contain considerable amounts of mana.

Fark Tree Leaves An ancient tree of the jungle, the fark tree unfortunatly looks like all the other ones. The local animals, however, somehow feel the difference and avoid the fark tree, since it's leaves contain mana that radiates an uneasy feeling.

Tindan Smoke The tindan flowers grow in many places all over the world, but they are rare and hard to find. If you burn the flower, the smoke can be captured in a vial and will store some mana of a smokey flavor.

White Onyx This rare gem contains a very confusing mix of mana flavors. No gems of this kind have been found "in the wild" so far. Instead, those around have been found with dead men, or in ancient temples or other unlikely places. The whole ingredient is still a mystery for most spellcasters, many of whom avoid it because of this.

Magic Duels

Certamen is the Councils' way of resolving conflicts, via the use of - of course - magic. Many of the rules below are also valid for free-form roleplaying. Certamen is just a more controlled form of roleplaying, where mana use etc. are actually calculated.

The goal of Certamen, as in any duel, is the defeat of your enemy. As with all duels, no replacement but the ultimate confrontation has proven to be acceptable in the long run. Only when everything is at stake and all reserves get called is it guaranteed that the outcome is undisputable. Of course, the weapon of choice in spellcaster duels is magic. And of course, given the high destructive power of most spells, the first priority is a strong defense.

Certamen is a highly ritualized duel, and is a matter of honor. A lot of fine points, unspoken rules and unwritten regulations result from this, but most of them are immediatly clear once you have the "honor" part realized. For example, it is of course dishonorable to shun a justified challenge, as much as it is to issue challenges for no good reason.

Also remember that the goal of Certamen is to settle a matter once and for all. Once Certamen has decided, there is nothing left to discuss, no excuse to be made and no "but...".

Losing Certamen does not necessarily mean bodily harm or worse, though. Almost always, surrender or drain of magic is the deciding factor, but minor injuries do happen, and over the centuries there have even been a few deaths.

Duel Structure

Every Certamen starts with the participants preparing for the upcoming orgie of destruction. The most important step is use of any ingredients the spellcasters wish to boost their mana pool with (it's impossible to do the necessary rituals or spend the required concentration and time during certamen itself). Without additional ingredients, every spellcaster starts with ten times his current power level as mana. With ingredients, this can be boosted to a maximum of twice that. So a spellcaster with a power level of 5 would start certamen with 50 mana.

Once Certamen has begun, things are far less ritualized. Everyone does to the best of his abilities what needs to be done, namely to take out the enemy.

Of course, protecting yourself is still the most important part of the game. Getting burned to ashes just isn't much fun. It is also important to know where the point of surrender is. All spellcasters have the instinctive ability to link their life energy to their power level - which means that they can avoid death or serious harm by taking damage to the power level instead. The downside is that having your power level reduced to 1 for the next weeks will attract enemies like flies.

Certamen is extremely fast-paced, and usually has phases of high mana consumption and phases of less activity, where participants regenerate their mana pool. All spells cost mana to cast, and mana regenerates only slowly. The rate is the spellcaster's current power level times two per turn - if your power level is 5, you will regenerate only 10 mana points per turn.

All spells that target someone else hit one turn after they were cast, giving the target a chance to cast a defensive spell. Spells cast on yourself go into effect immediatly.

Duel End

Spellcasters can lose Certamen three ways. The first, and most common, is surrender. The second is mana drain, which causes unconsciousness, and the third is severe wounds or death, which cause the spellcaster to be unable to continue.

You can surrender at any time, but remember that spells cast the turn before will still hit you, and spells cast the turn you give up will of course also happen. You just can't stop a bullet in mid-flight by raising your hands. So remember to surrender early. There is one exception: Spells that summon intelligent creatures as means of attack usually will not hit you any more once you have given up. But do not bet your life on that. Mana drain happens whenever you take real damage. Mana drain means simply that your mana pool gets reduced since your body instinctively uses up mana as a rapid-healing mechanism. Once the mana pool is empty, your power level gets drained. Every time your power level gets reduced, there is a chance that you lose consciousness, increasing the closer you come to 0. If you are "lucky" enough to be still conscious with a power level of 0, you will take further damage directly to your body. Healing done this way is much less efficient than healing done via spells, by the way.

Certamen ends when all but one spellcasters have either surrendered or are unable to continue the fight. Because of the implications of victory, ancient tradition requires that the victor of Certamen be the first one to speak about it. Everyone else is expected to keep silent until he has done so. Usually, the victor takes a few days to sort his thoughts and prepare not only his, but due to merit of victory the official report of what happened.

In game-terms that means that all participants of Certamen can continue roleplaying a day or two after Certamen has started, even while it is still going on. The only requirement is that they don't talk or even speculate about what is happening in Certamen. It is ok to post Certamen turns to the mailing lists, if all participants of that Certamen agreed. But as long as no victor has been determined, participants are expected to refrain from commenting the events.

Spells

Spells are the game-representation for magical powers. They are used both during certamen and during roleplaying, although they are more guidelines than limitations in the later case. This page describes the various spell types as well as the spellcards, the form that spells take when being handled.

Spells are distributed in form of so-called SpellCards. Here is one (non-working) example:

2e59d8319cc3cc1a87b102971fddd1e7 - Test Spell

Technically, a SpellCard is a cryptographic hashsum of the spelldata. In other words: While it doesn't make much sense to a human, the server can verify it against the full data set, and there is sufficient guarantee that you can not "guess" any spells. There is a one-on-one relationship between spells and SpellCards. If you have the SpellCard, you can cast the spell. If you don't, you can't. Please note that only the hashsum itself is the actual SpellCard. While it is recommended that you keep the line intact in order to clearly see which SpellCard is what spell, the hashsum without the name is completely sufficient for the game engine.

SpellCard management is the only bookkeeping task you have to do in this game. Since SpellCards are the spells, you can do all sorts of interesting things with them - like trading.

One important aspect of this game is the trading of SpellCards. Because you can cast any spell whatsoever by sending in the correct SpellCard, you can trade - or rather: share - SpellCards with other players. The actual act involves lots of intrigue (whom do you want to give which SpellCards?) as well as bartering (do you exchange SpellCards for other SpellCards? For ingredients, favors or deeds?). Just remember that a SpellCard represents knowledge of a spell - you can teach others without losing it yourself, but once they know it, they can do with it whatever they wish. Including using it for trading themselves. However, you will at times get spells whose only value to you is in its trading value - for example when it requires a school you do not have.

There is one additional complication. Not all spells are created equal. Many spells exists in various versions, with different advantages or disadvantages. There are even spell-pairs where one spell is clearly superior to the other one. So trading will not always be equal. In addition to the spell's own value, knowledge about it's powers can further raise the price. See below for details on spell knowledge.

Trading is a very interesting topic all in itself. You can benefit a lot, or you can give away a lot, depending on how good a trader you are.

Casting

Casting spells requires concentration and focus. Concentration is an in-game value that represents how "focused" the spellcaster still is. How much concentration a spell costs depends on how well you know the school it is in. If you have the level the spell requires, casting it costs 10 points. If you have one level more (example: The spell requires Basic Knowledge and you have Advanced Training) it only costs 6 points. If you have two levels more, i.e. the spell requires Basic Knowledge and you have Mastery, it only costs 4 points to cast. Concentration is expressed as a percentage value, starting at 100% at the start of Certamen. It also regenerates every turn, by 75%. So if you are down to 60%, you will regenerate 75% of the missing 40%, or 30% and have 90% concentration at the beginning of the next turn. Concentration determines the effectiveness of your spellcasting. If your concentration drops to 60%, your spells will only have 60% of their usual effect.

Research

Knowing how to cast a spell and knowing exactly what it does are two different things. Compare it to a phone number - the number itself does not tell you who is going to answer the phone. Of course, only weirdos cast spells whose effects are unknown. All spellcasters have some kind of laboratory to experiment with newly learned spells, finding out their effects and powers. Unfortunately, you do not gain knowledge for nothing. The analysis takes a few hours of time (you can only do one per day) and uses up one ingredient. Actually, an ingredient is only used up if it worked on analysing the spell, otherwise you will be informed that this ingredient does not work on this spell. And here is the evil part: You don't know which one you need. So you have one attempt per day to guess right. The lab has it's own webpage here where you feed in a spell ID and choose an ingredient, and it will tell you what you find out.

Improvised Casting

During free-form roleplaying, spellcards still define which spells you know. However, you can also work magic without using spells. Spells are just the most efficient way, but not the only one. Spells should be used as guidelines of your power during roleplaying. If a spell costs 10 mana to cast and you have a power level of 4, you shouldn't roleplay casting this spell a dozen times in short succession. For mana costs, assume that you regenerate mana equivalent to your power level per minute, so with a power level of 4 you will usually have 40 mana available and once that's gone you will "refresh" 4 points per minute. Non-spell magic should be assumed to be about three times as costly as spells are, both in time and mana cost. So working some magic that does the same than the above 10 mana spell does would cost 30 mana and take several minutes. As you can see, a nice collection of spells is important even if you don't get into certamen very often.

If you need to do something you can't do according to these rules (raise an army of skeletons, burn down a city, anything really big) then you can still do it via Extended Ritual. Basically, if you spend enough time on something, mana isn't important anymore, just Power Level is (to determine what your limits are). There are no hard rules on this. In case of doubt, consult the GM.

The Basic Spells

The Grimoire is a collection of well-known spells. For new players, it is the starting supply of spells. You will find here spells from all schools and for all purposes, together with SpellCards and Spell Knowledge.

All spells can be dispelled, either by their creator or by someone else. A successful dispelling ends the spell immediatly. This does not reverse the spell effect, but it stops further effects. Summoned creatures are either destroyed or banished to wherever they came from. The lab lists two dispelling costs for every spell: One for the original caster and one for everyone else. It is almost always easier to dispell your own spells.

Spell Discussion

Defensive Most defensive spells and even some attacks can be held active for more than one turn for a much reduced mana cost. Just cast the same spell again, it will only cost half the mana (round down, minimum 1). On the other hand, this same spell class also can be cast only once total. For example: You can only have one Holy Armour active per turn, but you can re-cast it for half the mana cost. On the other hand, you can cast as many Fireballs as you wish per turn, but spend the full mana cost for every single one. The lab tells you whether or not a spell is an active spell or not. Outside certamen, active spells will gradually vanish, and should be recasted every few minutes in order to stay effective. There is some variation here allowing for saving mana by recasting a little later in exchange for having a reduced effect for some time. Example: A flight spell will become slower, more "sluggish" and lose height, so if you need all of it you will have to recast it after maybe 2 minutes, but you can extend that up to 5 minutes if you only need to stay airborne. The maximum time for an active spell is 5 minutes. At that time, it will have almost no power left, but you can still recast for the reduced mana cost. After that time, you will need to cast a new spell.

Summon One other special case is the summoning of creatures. It costs mana to keep creatures around and loyal. This constant expenditure is called binding. As long as a summoned creature is bound, it is under complete control of the binding spellcaster. Most creatures do not like being bound, and often act hostile towards the summoner if the binding ends without the creature being dispelled. Running out of mana with several summoned creatures around is definitely not a good idea. The lab shows how much mana it costs to bind a creature. If you run around with summoned creatures around you outside certamen, just substract the total of their binding costs from your mana reserve.

Mana

Mana is a shortcut and summary for all various kinds of magical energy, of that what drives magic in SpellMaster. As a concept, Mana is a complex issue (and there is a whole own school devoted to its study), but it's in-game usage is quite simple: Casting spells costs mana, and there's only a limited amount available.

Every act of magic consumes mana, which slowly regenerates itself. All living things have mana flowing through them, but only spellcasters know how to store mana and use it for magic. There are also some items, called ingredients that can store mana which can be used by spellcasters in addition to their own pool. Ingredients are described below, after some more details on mana itself.

Also, mana is special in that it is the only thing that can not be affected magically. There simply are no spells to channel, destroy or create mana. As an (incomplete) example, compare it to electricity - the one thing you can't do with it is create electricity.

Both the amount of mana a spellcaster can store and the speed at which he regains it depend on the spellcaster's power level which is an in-game value that represents his ability to handle magical energy. Mana is explicitly used only during Certamen, but should be kept in mind during free-style roleplaying. Just remember that spellcasters can't go around throwing spells all day. Well, maybe some SpellMasters can. Your Certamen amounts should only be used as a rough guideline. Remember that during Certamen, you pull everything that you can. Unless your life is threatened, you will not burn mana at this rate outside of Certamen. During Certamen, you regain twice your current power level per turn. You start Certamen with ten times your power level and you can store up to twice your starting value (20*PL), which means that even with extensive ingredient usage, you can never have more than this available.

Outside Certamen, mana refreshes much slower. A complete refresh of your mana pool will take anywhere between one and two hours depending on external circumstances. As a guideline, you refresh your power level in mana points every 5-10 minutes. You refresh faster if you are at rest or even meditating and slower if you are active.

Because mana is so rare, and storage capacity so limited, magical ingredients are an important asset. Their advantage is that they provide additional mana - for a short time. Their disadvantage is that they get used up and that they are rare themselves. Ingredients are simple to use. During the preparation phase of Certamen, together with the setting up of your elemental shields, you choose whether and if so, which of your ingredients you want to use. Ingredients yield varying amounts of mana, though most ingredients are around 5 point of mana per unit. Note that your storage limit still counts - especially apprentices aren't yet very adapt at using ingredients.

Assets

Assets are locations or places that a council claims for itself, and where that council's influence is so entrenched that other councils or individual spellcasters have a hard time enforcing their will.

To become an asset, a location has to be claimed. This is a general term for the actual tasking-control-of. There has to be a roleplay and some actual activity - just saying "we now control X" doesn't cut it. One example is the council-backed election of a new king, or dedicating parts of the council mundane followings (read: guards) to an ingredient source. Something that constitutes a controling move in the physical world. Claims are only valid if they are done on the main list (for everyone to see) and if there is no objection. Objection here means a reminder of prior actions - don't be afraid that someone comes jumping in and just says "nay, I want X". But it's possible that you forgot (or didn't know about) something about that place, and there should be a chance for other players to remind you (and the GM) before you claim it as an asset.

Assets also need to be maintained. If it is not maintained, it is not an asset. Maintainance consists of two parts. First, there must be a public place where everyone can at any time see that X is your council's asset. The council's webpage is a very good place for this. So putting a list of assets on your council webpage is important. The second part is that you should occasionally (at least once per month) write roleplays about your asset. How you support that king with goods and advise, or what your guards at that remote ingredient source are doing - anything that shows that you have not forgotten about it is sufficient.

Having an asset brings one considerable advantage: Control. No other council or player can just take your asset away, or do something to it. While this protection is not absolute, it certainly is good. For example, if you control city X (by virtue of having elected it's king and supplying him with gold and good advise) then nobody not of your council can write a roleplay that starts a civil war in X. He still can do things like this, but it will take lots more efforts. Instead of just writing that a civil war has started, he will have to go through all the effort of founding some rebel group, strengthening it, starting some conflict and making it escalate into fights, etc. - a lot of roleplaying that will give you ample of time to jump into the story and start counteractions.

Note that assets are always council property and never belong to an individual spellcaster. They do not leave the council should the one who claimed and/or maintained them leave. If the council disbands, they are no longer assets, and nobody owns them.

Gaining Knowledge and Ranks

Although you start the game as an apprentice, barely capable of understanding and controlling magical powers, a lot lies in front of you. This section details the various advancements available for characters.

The advancement most directly tied to magical knowledge is the learning of new schools of magic or higher knowledge in ones already known. Learning a new school or advancing your knowledge in one your already have requires extensive study, experiments and the gaining of experience. However, to simplify things, in game-mechanics it simply takes time and it is just assumed that your character spends this time with appropriate activities. You, as the player, have to announce the start of your studies and write at least one summary roleplay at the end of the required time. It is, of course, recommended to write a few "learning roleplays" inbetween. Once the time is over, bring your summary roleplay to the gamemaster's attention in order to have him decide whether or not to grant the advance. If your advance is declined, you can try again after half again the study time.

Progress in spellcasting skills is far too difficult to be achieved in more than one area at a given time. This means there is an absolute, no exceptions, rule that you only learn once thing at a time. This means you cannot announce a new study course before you have either achieved or given up your current study. In addition, at least one full day (24 hours) must pass inbetween two learnings. I recommend letting a few days pass and go for other things instead - this game is not exclusively about learning new skills. That said, many spellcasters just are addicted to knowledge. No problem playing them that way, as long as you stay within the spirit of the game (e.g. there's a lot of knowledge out there that does not immediatly translate into schools of magic or power levels. It would be odd if a learning-machine type spellcaster is completely oblivious to the world around him).

Speaking about power brings us to the power level: Instead of schools you can also raise your power level. The power level is quantity, where the school knowledges are quality. You need a certain amount of both, but where you put your focus is entirely up to you.

The time required for school advances depends on two circumstances: The level you wish to attain and how much other stuff you are already juggling around in your head. Take your current school knowledges and sum them up. 2 points for every Basic Knowledge, 4 points for every Advanced Training and 8 points for every Mastery. Add your power level to this. Add one for every magical skill you have. Divide this total by 5 (rounding down) and you have your base learning time in weeks. Instead of doing the calculation yourself you can also look into your online Character Details and find the result there. If you want to learn a new school (Basic Knowledge), add 3 weeks to find the total learning time required. Upgrading Basic Knowledge to Advanced Training takes only 2 additional weeks, while attaining Mastery requires 5 weeks. Raising your power level adds your current power level in weeks. Example: Merlin has Mastery Basic Magic, Basic Mind, Advanced Primal and a Power Level of 5 (no magical skills). That means he has a total of 19 advancement points, which means 3 weeks of additional study to everything he wants to learn. Example 1: He wants to learn (Basic) Death. Basic takes 3 weeks, plus his usual 3, for a total of 6 weeks. Example 2: He wants to raise his Power Level to 6. That takes 5 weeks (his current Power Level) plus his usual 3, or a total of 8 weeks.

The rank system of SpellMaster is completely independent of knowledge or power levels - it is a political system. Intrigue rules supreme in this realm. The rank of apprentice is usually reserved for newcomers, so there is not much intrigue going on at this level, since almost everyone is promoted to wizard as soon as he or she has proven to be worthy. Wizards and mages, however, are running the game. The voting power of mages over wizards is considerable, and since promotions are handled by vote (see below), those who already are mages usually try to keep their circle closed. On the other hand, too many wizards accumulating can outvote a couple mages, so at the same time the mages try to be friends with the wizards, and promote those they consider "loyal" to mage rank, as additional "defenders of the higher class". SpellMasters are a different animal again. In smaller councils, a single SpellMaster can outvote everyone else...

Promotion works by nomination. Only people of the next higher rank are eligable to nominate someone, that means that for example only mages can nominate a wizard to be promoted (to mage rank). The nomination is a formless announcement that you consider so-and-so fit to rise to your own rank. Once a nomination has been made, a vote is called and if it passes, the nominee receives his new rank. There is a tradition that the nominee himself does not take part in this vote.

You can also be demoted, especially for repeated violations of council law or endangering the council. There is no formal procedure for demotions, since they are rare, but in case of doubt, a vote can always decide the matter.

Relaxing from politics for a second, there are also the various skills available to spellcasters, magical and non-magical. The "Non-Skills" do not have a formal way of obtaining and are left to gamemaster decisions. Learning skills works similiar to learning schools: You announce that you start learning it, wait a specific time and post a summary roleplay. The only difference is that the learning time is calculated differently. For magical skills, the first you learn takes 2 weeks, the second 4 weeks, the third 8 and so on, always doubling the time required for every additional skill. For non-magical skills, the same rule applies except that the first skill takes only 1 week, then doubling from there.

Other Skills

There are things aside from schools of magic that a spellcaster can - and should - learn. Some of these are magic-related, others are not. This page lists the available skills and their uses.

Special abilities that have some impact on the magical powers of the spellcaster fall in this group. Here is a list of the available skills:

Alchemy The experimental and theoretical study of magic, in contrast to the art of spellcasting. Alchemy is useful in analyzing spell effects and in working with ingredients. Alchemy grants a +1 bonus on mana when using ingredients and gives a 50% chance of having a second lab try if the first failed.

Meditation The art of concentration and focus. Meditation is useful in all walks of life, but is of special worth to spellcasters because the art of magic requires intense concentration. Meditation allows a spellcaster to regain an additional 10% of concentration per Certamen turn.

Personal Mark The spellcaster has a personal way of casting spells, or has all of his spells accompanied by some personal feature. While this has no effect on the actual effect of spells, it may be impressive or offer other roleplaying advantages. The type of personal mark must be choosen when this skill is taken and can not be changed later on. The spellcaster can, however, choose to cast spells without using the personal mark.

Communication The spellcaster can communicate with animals, spirits and other beings with ease, and often without the need of spells.

Skills that have no direct effect on spellcasting and are mainly of roleplaying use. Since many spellcasters had a mundane life before the art called them, it is possible to start the game with one or two of these skills, if the gamemaster approves and the skills fit to the introductory roleplay of the character. Note that you can give "average" skills to your character at will. If you want him to be a thief, he will know how to pick pockets and locks. Likewise, he knows how to handle weapons, if you want. Taking a skill, however, means he is really good in it - he not only knows how to fight, he could actually defeat a trained soldier.

Weaponskill The character is experienced in the use of mundane weapons, and can defend himself without the use of magic.

Specialist The character has exceptional abilities/knowledge in a non-magical profession, craft or other field. You must choose the field of knowledge when acquiring this skill, and have to get the skill a second time to become specialist in a second craft.

Adventure Experience The character has extensive travel and adventure experience. The main advantage is that he can travel faster than others, especially in difficult terrain and/or weather. This includes a speeding up of magical travel (flight, even teleportation, which is not instanteneous in this game). The secondary advantage are skills like wilderness survival and the like that the character picked up during his travels.

Mentor The character is very skilled in teaching other people. If a mentor accompanies at least half of the learning time of someone else with teaching roleplays, that someone will need 1 week less to acquire a new school. In addition, the burden of learning roleplays is now shared between two people, which should make learning even easier.

Presence Characters with this skill cause strong emotional reactions in most people they meet. What kind of reactions depends on the character. Some have an aura of authority, others cause fear, yet others are subject of adoration or appear to be extremely trustworthy.

The final group consists of skills that are not really skills. Things like wealth or other personal miscellany that don't fit anywhere else, but need to be expressed in game terms are in this group.

Wealth The character has considerable personal or family posessions. The player should define what kind of wealth the character owns (land, money, valuables).

Influential Family The character was born into a rich merchant family, or maybe is a noble. While family ties usually get severed upon initiation into a council, he still is a so-and-so and may be able to gather the related advantages. Doing so, however, may well get him the related enemies as well, plus put his family in danger of being the target of other spellcasters' activities.