Magic

Magic in Icesus comes in two flavours. Most spells are whole units you cast as-is — cast mirror image, cast erosion at troll. Mages also have combination spells, where you stitch a base shape together with a damage type at the moment of casting. Both kinds pick targets the same way.

Picking a target

The target word can follow the spell directly, with or without at:

cast erosion at troll
cast erosion troll

If you cast a damaging spell with no target, it lands on whatever you are currently fighting. If you cast a non-damaging spell with no target (a self-buff, for instance), it lands on you.

Combination spells (mages only)

A combination spell is built as:

cast <base> of <damage>

The base is the shape: arrow, ball, storm, rain, and others. Different bases trade damage against difficulty.

The damage is the kind of energy: fire, cold, acid, lightning, steam, ice. Monsters resist some types and are weak to others, so picking the right damage type matters. Most mages specialize in one or two damage types rather than spreading thin.

Examples:

cast arrow of steam at monster
cast ball of ice at monster
cast rain of acid

You can put a modifier in front of the base for a smaller, easier-to-cast version:

cast small arrow of steam at monster

Combination order is fixed: base, then of, then damage. These do not work:

cast steam arrow         (wrong order)
cast arrow steam         ('of' missing)

How well a combination casts depends on your skill in each part — and the weakest of the parts pulls the average down more sharply than the others, so a poorly-trained damage type drags an otherwise solid caster.

Note: a few non-combination spells just happen to contain the word of. cast orb of light is one whole spell, not a combination. Knowing arrow, steam and orb of light does not let you cast orb of steam or arrow of light.

Casting in combat

Combat is run on combat points. Spellcasters need points in casting:

battle -a casting

No casting points means no spells go off, no matter how well you've trained. The skill concentrated casting expands the casting budget.

Pure casters fight better unarmed and unarmoured: most weapons can't be used while casting, and heavy armour hinders the work. A few special weapons let a caster swing and cast both — uncommon, but they exist. If you plan to mix melee and magic, talk to a hybrid guild.

Spell points and weakness

Casting drains spell points (SP, the middle number on your prompt). Run SP very low and your body weakens — this is magical weakness, which lowers your stat maximums and is genuinely dangerous. Two things help:

• The magical endurance blessing reduces the effects.
• The spell weaver race is immune to magical weakness entirely (its major magical endurance racial ability).

Skills that matter

Mages

• magic lore — helps with every spell
• cast fire, cast cold, cast acid, cast lightning — per damage type
• fire focusing, cold focusing, etc. — per damage type
• concentrated casting — bigger casting budget
• extract magic — pulls magic jelly from hearts (used for rites)

Priests

• <element> lore — air lore, earth lore, fire lore, water lore
• Doctrine and ritual skills — vary by guild
• rite of success — see below

Train what your guild teaches first; specialise after.

Rites

Both priests and mages can perform the rite of success, which raises the chance the next spell completes cleanly:

perform rite of success

Priests pay for it in Divine Favours. Mages need magic jelly, extracted from hearts with the spell extract magic.

Mages also have the rite of power, which boosts the damage of their next offensive spell:

perform rite of power

Same magic-jelly cost. Many mages keep a few jelly on hand specifically for opening big fights with a powered shot.

Elemental phase

The world cycles through five elemental phases. Casting is easier when the current phase is the Magic phase. Type time to see what phase it is.

The cycle order is always: magic → fire → earth → water → air → magic. Each phase lasts 23 game days (the orbit of the moon Aythzilla). Read Elements for the full picture.

See Also

• Combat — combat overview
• Combat points — attack/defence/casting split
• Spells — list of spell categories
• Cantrips — minor spells learned outside guilds
• Elements — elemental phases
• Blessings — divine blessings, including magical endurance
• Divine favor — earning DF