Magic

Spellbook and scrolls

• Use a spell scroll to copy its spell into your spellbook for good. One scroll is used up. If you already know the spell, the scroll is not used.
• Starting spells: Mages begin with Mend, Spark, Weaken and Frost Bolt. Everyone else begins with Mend and a few reagents for it.
• Scrolls in treasure: chests and wrecks can hold scrolls of circle min(7, 1 + level / 9), or one circle lower.

Circles and requirements

Each spell has a minimum and a maximum Magery. Every spell in a circle uses the same values:

Success chance (Magery including gear bonuses):

• At the minimum: 20%.
• Above it: rises evenly to 100% at the maximum.
• Below it: drops to 10%, then falls to 1% at 20 points under.

What a cast costs

• Mana and reagents are taken when the spell lands.
• Fizzle: if the success roll fails, you lose the reagents and half the mana.
• Before casting: you need the full mana and every reagent.
• Between spells: 1.2 seconds after any cast.
• Learning: every cast gives a chance to raise Magery: 50% × (1 − success chance) + 8%. That is zero once your Magery reaches the spell's maximum.

Wind-up, moving and interrupts

• Cast time: each spell has a base cast time (cast_time in the spellbook, 0.75s to 5s). Real cast time = base × max(0.5, 1 − (Magery − min) / 150). At best that halves it.
• Moving: walking cancels the cast at no cost.
• Frozen: you can't start a spell while frozen, and being frozen mid-cast stops the spell at no cost.
• Interrupts: each blow that hurts you while you cast has a chance to break the spell:
  • chance = clamp(0.65 − (Magery − min) / 80, 5%, 65%).
  • A broken spell costs the reagents and half the mana.
  • Damage from statuses (poison, burning) doesn't interrupt.

Spell power and quality

• Power: damage, healing and summon strength scale with (1 + max(0, Magery − min) / 150 + INT / 250) × quality.
• Status length: status durations scale with (1 + max(0, Magery − min) / 150) × quality. INT doesn't lengthen them.
• Quality: every cast is Normal, Exceptional (×1.2) or Masterwork (×1.5), rolled from margin = Magery − min:
  • Masterwork chance = clamp((margin − 30) / 500, 0, 12%). It is rolled first.
  • Otherwise, Exceptional chance = clamp((margin − 10) / 80, 0, 60%).
• Damage spells: subtract half the target's Defense. They always do at least 1.
• Poison from Venom: max(1, Magery / 15) stacks.

Targets and range

• Enemy spells: reach 7 tiles. They land on your target when it is a creature (a monster or an animal) in range. If your target is yourself, a friend or a pet, or nothing, they go to the nearest monster instead.
• Helpful spells (Mend, Greater Mend, Cure, Might): land on your target when it is you, another hero, a pet or an animal within 7 tiles. If your target is a monster, they land on you.
• Resurrect: the ghost you target, or else the nearest ghost within 3 tiles.
• Targeting works the same for everything: see Targeting and abilities.
• Area spells: centred on you (Meteor radius 2, Frost Nova 2, Starfall 3). They hit every creature in range and also other heroes (see Friendly fire). They can only be cast if an enemy is in range.
• Circle of Mending: you and every living friend within its radius (3).
• In town (Havenbrook): only self, travel, Mark, Gate, Resurrect and Circle of Mending spells work. Attack spells and summons don't.
• Ghosts can't cast.

Mana and Meditation

• You meditate on purpose. Out of a trance mana comes back slowly: 1 every 3.6 − INT / 120 seconds (3.2s at INT 50).
• Meditate (MAGIC panel, or the action bar) rolls to enter a trance: min(98%, 45% + Meditation / 150 + INT / 1000). In a trance mana returns 1.5 + Meditation / 20 times faster, never quicker than 1 per 0.4s (Meditation 100 and INT 50: about 0.49s).
• Moving, attacking, casting, bandaging, taming or taking a hit ends the trance. So does full mana. Hiding doesn't: a hidden mage can sit and meditate.
• Meditation practice: only in a trance, each mana point regained gives a chance to raise Meditation: max(2%, 12% × (1 − Meditation / 110)).
• Mana potions: mana potions restore a fixed amount.

Summons

• Strength: summon HP and attack = the creature's base × (0.7 + Magery / 300) × the cast's quality multiplier.
• Duration: the spell's seconds × (1 + Magery margin / 150) × quality.
• Pets (Call Spirit Wolf, Summon Guardian):
  • They fight hostile monsters near you, within their aggro range and within 10 tiles of you.
  • With nothing to fight, they follow you and stay within 2 tiles.
  • Their kills count as yours, loot included.
• Wild summons (Raise Skeleton, Summon Elemental, Summon Ashen Fiend):
  • They appear beside the nearest monster within 6 tiles, if there is one.
  • They obey no one. They attack whatever is nearest: monster, pet or living hero, including you.
  • They count as hostile, so you can fight them.
• How monsters treat summons: a monster turns on a summon that is closer than the hero it is hunting. Creatures hitting creatures make no hit roll and subtract half the target's Defense.
• Ending: a summon that dies or fades leaves nothing behind. Summons also fade if every hero is more than 30 tiles away. They are never champions.

Recall, runes, Mark and Gate Travel

• Waystones: walk into a waystone to attune to it. After that, walking into any waystone opens free travel to every waystone you have attuned. Ghosts can use waystones too.
• Recall: takes you to an attuned waystone (you arrive one tile south of it) or to a marked rune in your pack. It works from underground.
• Mark: turns one blank rune (made by a carpenter) in your pack into a marked rune for the tile you stand on.
  • It works on the overworld or in town, never underground.
  • The rune is named after a named landmark within 3 tiles, otherwise after the land.
  • A rune only works while it is in your pack.
• Gate Travel: opens a gate beside you and another at the destination, for 30 seconds.
  • Anyone can walk through either end, both ways.
  • It can't be cast underground or to a spot within 3 tiles of you.
  • It needs open ground at both ends. This is checked before anything is spent.
• Locked lands: in the free trial, travelling into a locked land opens the unlock screen instead.
• Training grounds: none of the travel spells work there.