Arcane Incantation is crucial in determining scaling for spells that utilize it. Essentially, this skill forms the lion’s share of the raw power behind spells, though not all spells scale or are governed by INT score.

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Arcane Linguistics serves several purposes:

All mantras have a specific requirement in Linguistics that must be met even to attempt the spell (this is identical to the Arcana requirement).

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“Speaking to a man, you reach his mind; speak his language and you’ve been heard by his heart. I would be remiss if I could not do the same with the progenitors of our existence.” - Selwyn Tadhg

The role of Meditation has been revamped. Mana regeneration is now linked to the character’s INT value. One can still actively meditate using [meditate command.

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The spells are sorted in different Arcanas. Each Arcana has around 50 spells, a mix of direct and AoE damage spells, healing and summoning spells along with utility ones.

General Arcana has no conflicts. It represents a basic understanding of spellcasting; it boasts a collection of down to earth mantras and becomes the single most utilitarian of the Arcanas. Though its spells may be considered “inelegant” and more limited in scope, this does not mean they are not very handy to have. It deals in “energy” effects.

Archmagic Arcana has no conflicts. It represents advanced magic and group casting. The group casting aspect of this Arcana is represented mechanically by an adaptation of the Arcane Focus system - allowing multiple Archmagists to empower their moriums, in turn empowering their spellcasting. It deals in “cold” effects. It is also a prerequisite for Enchanting and Rune Magic.

The remaining three Arcanas are the result of a magic-user taking their art to a certain weighty philosophy or way of life. All three are mutually exclusive, and all three are opposed to one another. In mechanical terms, conflicting Arcanas detract skill points from their counterparts with every spell cast.

Divine Arcana conflicts with the Paganistic and Diabolism Arcanas. It is the most support-oriented of the Arcanas with a focus on a wide variety of healing mantras, and helpful enhancements. It also deals in various”fire” effects, especially useful against Torment.

“To dare utter the words that shaped Eden itself - for some, even in sin there can be no compromise; the words spoken and the energies embraced through sacred Principatus must be clean and whole, for only extraordinary purity has any hope of resonating with the purity of the Heavens. All the same, they say that wielding this forfeits our souls. Ironic, then, that we feel the very heartbeat of planes we will now never cross…” - Niamh Valfear

Paganistic Arcana conflicts with the Divine and Diabolism Arcanas. It is a varied Arcana that is unapologetically both vile and benevolent - its users may not even acknowledge the weighty beliefs of other specialists, preferring to find their own truth in Eden itself, and the ancient things it harbours, which cannot be said to be wholly good, or evil. It deals with “physical” effects and the manipulation of natural forces.

“If you hear the call of the balance, strengthen the balance. But, never speak of what the Lass whispers in your ear - the civilized folk will light your pyre for things they don’t understand. Blessed be!” - Virgle Jack

Diabolism Arcana conflicts with the Divine and Paganistic Arcanas. Diabolism is a powerful art with a clear focus on poisons both explosive and insidious, the summoning or reanimation of powerful pets and allies, as well as the cursing of the living. All in all, the most wholly vile of the Arcanas, these mages are rarely accepted anywhere at all and, as a consequence, often hide their art from prying eyes.

“This isn’t the language of angels. These are words of power– they are our mother tongue, our birthright as children of the long night.” - Septimus Ambrose

As a result, a mage can have one, two, or three Arcanas. All are to be useful in their own way, while none is the be-all and end-all.

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It is important to note that you are encouraged to give your own truth to your character’s choice of Arcanas and spells. The above quotes are merely examples of the beliefs of player characters, which you may agree or disagree with - that is the beauty of Requiem.

In previous acts, magic was more black and white; Daesermos was plainly not the same as Principatus, and Synergy blended the two. In this act, all magic is Principatus - for is the Thirteenth not equally a child of the Mason, equally an Archangel?

Many choose instead to think of the different Arcanas as different evolutions of the original language; some may wish to be purists or adherents to the source, some may care only about results, some may relish in twisting and warping the language into a pale shadow - there are many different ways to take this point of view, and you are more than welcome to develop your own.

As well, we should be wary of falling into the metagame trap of attaching too much importance to the mechanical allocation of points when determining the »nature« or specialization of a mage. One may have 100 points in Divine to wield the fiery spells within, but does that make one a Divinator, or a Pyromancer? If a mage has 120 in Diabolism but only uses it to heal and protect against poison, are they really a Diabolist?

Any magic tradition can be used for good or for evil. The more player philosophies and beliefs differ from one another, the richer magic becomes - resulting in thoughtful debates or heated conflict as others are accepting of your philosophies, or bored, or perhaps offended.

Artisanry is the trade skill that includes spellcraft; the crafting of scrolls, books, and actual spell mantras. While not entirely required, having points in this skill means that you are not reliant on others for the main means of progressing your mantra repertoire. It is also used (alongside Archmagic) for crafting runes for Enchanting and Rune Magic.

World Lore is required for the research of new mantras, as well as identifying recipes, potions and items found in the world.

Alchemy offers useful potions for anyone and is vital to mages because many of the reagents involved in magic and spellcraft must be first processed before they can be used. This tends to take only a relatively low alchemy skill.

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Horticulture offers some means of gathering a set of spellcraft reagents, namely those harvested from the wild such as Wyrm’s Heart. It also lets you gather the wood that an artisan can turn into paper and scrolls. Note that you can also acquire paper by simply using scissors on a book - the outcome of this is dependent on your skill in Artisanry.

Geology allows gathering of precious gems that are used in crafting of Power Words and runes for enchanting and rune magic. Gems and other crafting-related materials are found as a secondary resource while mining underground.

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Agriculture offers some means of gathering another set of spellcraft reagents, namely those grown and harvested, such as Black Pearl and Bloodmoss.

Skinning can be used to skin a variety of creatures and monsters that yield special resources needed for spellcraft.

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Arcane Resistance is not mage specific, but equally worth mentioning. This skill protects against “control” type spells, by way of a direct comparison between the offender’s Arcana skill and the target’s Resistance skill. It is possible to reduce these spells down to 0%, completely passively! Arcane Resist also offers some protection from magic damage, though this aspect of the skill is dependent, in part, on your intelligence score.

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The easiest way to attempt to cast a spell is to double click its spell scroll - you pretty much never want to do this, as it consumes the precious scroll. You will want a spellbook (you start with one as a mage, and more are made through Artisanry – books can be converted to spellbooks by [CreateSpellbook command.) that you have bound to your character by clicking it and selecting “Bind”. Then, click the mantra scroll only once, and choose to add memorize it. Now you may cast it by speaking the words of the mantra.

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You can open your book at any time to see the mantras that have been added to it, as well as the power words you have learned. If you know all the words for a scribed mantra, then you may try to cast it simply by speaking those words. The system will check if you have the required skill in an Arcana and Linguistics to attempt the spell, as well as the required mana. If you do, then you will either cast it or fizzle; a fizzle simply means you botched the attempt. For a spell to become »trivial« or beyond fizzles, you typically need to beat the skill requirement by 40 points. Yes, this means that some high-level spells or »Parlances« never become trivial.

Spellbooks have four tabs (red ribbons at the bottom). First two tabs list the mantras and Power Words that are stored in a spellbook. The Third and Fourth tab offer detailed descriptions of the mantras and Power Words. It also allows adding custom notes to each page which offers excellent personalization. Each spellbook can also be obfuscated. The ability to obscure is governed by Arcane Linguistics and countered by World Lore skills.

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The type of damage the spells do is governed by the spell’s inherent Arcana. General Arcana and Archmagic deal energy damage, while Pagan, Divine and Diabolism Arcanas deal occult damage. Having a spellbook equipped in your paperdoll will change a certain percentage of that damage to corporeal damage. The material with which your spellbook is made will influence what percentage is converted to corporeal damage. This is useful while fighting enemies who have high resists of a certain type but are lacking in others. NPCs usually have a focus on either blunt and slash, or energy and occult resistance. Their corporeal resist will always match the lowest of the other resists. As such, dealing corporeal damage is very advantageous in PVM.

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As your spellbook grows, you will notice that most spells beyond the basic require moriums. This is specified in the spell description. If you try to cast these without a morium present in your character’s inventory, you are inviting disaster! You start with one morium, and more may be looted or found, or created through the perk in Arcane Incantation.

All spells that utilize moriums have the potential to result in morium failure. This can be a nuisance or catastrophe, depending on the result and how well you were looking before the failure. A morium failure is typically a painful explosion that drains both your hit points and mana, but there is such a thing as a “critical” failure. These are very unfortunate, and can very much ruin your day, or your sanity, or your life.

The chance for a mantra to result in morium failure is determined by that mantra’s casting value (the required skill) and its mana cost - the higher these are, the more dangerous the spell is to cast.

Existing moriums can also be charged by disenchanting magical items. Those could be magical items found as a loot or crafted ones. By the process of disenchanting, you transfer the latent energy into a morium that is not fully charged. If the energy cannot find a reliable item, you can expect a failure similar to those of unsuccessful spellcasting or enchanting attempts. Disenchanter ability is tied to Archmagic Arcana.

Moriums can be found on spellcasting mobs in the world or created by mages with [createmorium command (linked to the ability in Arcane Incantation). It costs 1 Animus point.

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There is a collection of perks under the Arcane Linguistics skill that can give your mantras an additional dimension. If you have bought these perks, then you can now “alter” the numbers of your spell by either whispering the incantation, or yelling it. You can whisper by prefacing the mantra with “;” or yell with “!”.

Whispering a spell will limit its scaling significantly, resulting in a weaker spell, but is much easier on your mana reserves. Conversely, yelling a spell consumes more mana in order to magnify the scaling of the spell. Simply speaking the spell is always the balanced approach, with no penalties or bonuses to either variable.

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Power words are found as loot or treasure and are simply double-clicked to use. You will be presented with the found page in a unique window, and you may now try to decipher it to learn what power word it holds. This is based on luck, simply - the only tool that can help a bit with this process is the Parchment Handling perk in Arcane Linguistics.

If you decipher a new word, you can consume the item in order to learn it. Power words are not added to your book but simply learned permanently by the characters themselves. If you already know the revealed word, then you can keep the deciphered page in order to trade it or to use it for spellcraft.

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Spellcraft requires power words and/or reagents. There are nearly 40 different reagents, ranging from herbs to gemstones to bodily fluids to strange crystals. These reagents are looted, gathered, farmed, mined… they are to be found everywhere. To be used in spellcraft, they must all be processed by an alchemist.

Beyond this point, spellcraft relies entirely on the Artisanry crafting skill. This is how you create new spells for you to add to your book and to use. To become familiar with this system, you first need to understand the various Artisanry tools involved. Please refer to the Artisnary guide for a detailed description.

Spellcraft Kits are made using Bookbinding Kits along with blank books and tomes which can be converted into spellbooks. Tomes created in this way can often hold more spells and are more aesthetically pleasing, though heavier. Spellcraft Kits are used to create power words out of reagents and blank scrolls, other spellcraft ingredients such as arcane inks, and actual spell mantras.

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Only Cantrips (basic spells) are known at character creation, and every other spell must first be discovered and learned as a recipe. These recipes can be bought or traded from fellow players, found as loot, gained through the Research system, or awarded through RP.

If you have learned a mantra recipe, you can use looted power words or freshly crafted power words via the Spellcrafting Kit to piece it together - resulting in a new scroll for you to add to your book.

Researching mantras is probably the easiest way to obtain new spells. Spell research is based on Research perks within Arcane Linguistics skill. Arcane Research I allows you to research uncommon mantras (cantrips), Arcane Research II allows the research of rare mantras (dictions) while Arcane Research III gives you a small chance to research an epic mantra (parlance). Research always provides a single copy of a mantra. A detailed guide got Item research can be found in the World Lore guide (wiki link). Briefly, you put Acacia Gum (Horticulture), Drafting Ink (Artisnary), Beeswax (Horticulture), Vellum (Artisanry), a morium and a ground/crushed/powdered material (Ground Black Pearl) of your choosing into a Research Kit (Artisanry) and begin researching. After you actively obtain 5,000 Infusion, the research is complete, and you obtain a mantra recipe that you can either learn yourself or trade with others.

Researching spells is somewhat specific since you can actually »aim« for a specific recipe, not unlike normal crafting skills. If you, for example, research contego, the system looks for all spells that contain contego and also all the other words you know, then according to your skill and a random chance and if you already have recipe copy uses it adds those to a list of possible spells to research, then it chooses one of those at random to be the final researched spell. Knowing more copies of the same spell actually improves your chances to research other mantras with that same power word. The current number of copies when your chances to research that mantra drop considerably is 2 (down to only 10%).

Legendary/Arctifact spells cannot be researched.

The Research Kit is also a wonder place to store all your ground up materials! Weather is crushed gems or powdered liquids, or ground up materials they all can be stored within the Research Kit directly. You can also store Tools, Moriums, Acacia Gum, Drafting Ink, Beeswax and Vellum. Stored Moriums reduce their weight down to 1 stone.

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This system serves to attach magical properties to equipment. The potential to create powerful items is smaller than what we remember from old UO or what we see on some GM-made items, but enchanters on Requiem can still take crafted or looted equipment above and beyond, and tweak it to specifications.

To access this sub-system, you first need an Enchanter feat from Archmagic. This allows mages with 240 sum in arcanas (for example 120 in Archmagic, 80 in General and 40 in Divine) to convert certain moriums (random chance on double click) into crafting tools for runes. Those runes are used for both rune magic and enchanting. Weapons, armor and jewellery are enchantable, as well as spellbooks. The higher the quality of an item, the higher is its “enchanting capacity”. Not all enchants are considered equal. Some are lighter and will occupy a smaller portion of that capacity while others are heavier.

The success chance to apply the rune to the item and the potency of the application is based on your sum of arcanas. The higher it is, the better are your chances to apply the property in one go, minimizing the necessary resources and keeping the integrity of the item. Example: We would like to apply +STA to a leather tunic. When you apply the rune, the property added can be in a range of +1 to +9 STA. If your score was under +9, you can apply another +stamina rune and repeat the process, but you can never exceed the +9 total. If the integrity of the item is sufficient, you can proceed and try to apply another property via another rune (+HP for example).

The enchanting capacity is linked to the quality level of an item. A Masterwork (MW) item is usually easily enchanted to the MW level, but it can be pushed even further by applying additional runes. This is known as “overenchanting” and it is hazardous business as enchanted items are prone to weakening and breaking. In fact, good (lucky) overenchanting attempts are rare, and you should expect to break an item (or trigger something worse). As a rule of thumb, the enchanting capacity of a certain quality is double the capacity of a lower-tier item. If Exceptional is 1, then Extraordinary is 2, Masterwork is 4, Mythic is 8 and Legendary is 16 (a. u.).

Two examples are in the image below. Both items were crafted as MW (purple text in second row). The robe has only a small amount of magical properties which is indicated with green text in the first row (Exceptional level). The item on the right was overenchanted to the mythic level (orange text) and therefore has more magical properties.

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Rune Magic relies on many types of magic skills. It uses your various magical skills to determine the likelihood of casting a custom spell.

There are 38 runes in total. Split into 3 main groups: targets, effects and modifiers. All mantras follow this same logic of target + effect + modifiers (optional). A single target rune can be used at one time to avoid stacking and confusion.

To combine runes, the mage must use at least one target and one effect rune, whereas using multiple targeting runes won't add any effect. Lastly, the rune order doesn’t matter.

Target runes:

• Selfcast: meant for self heals and buffs. 0.75x base mana cost;
• Ranged target: 1x base mana cost;
• Ranged target instant: 1x base mana cost;
• PB AoE: 1.25x base mana cost;
• Ranged target AoE: 1.5x mana cost.

Modifiers:

• Reverse effect: a heal becomes a damage spell, buff becomes a debuff 1.25x mana modifier;

• Delay: effect is delayed for 2 sec for each rune. No change in mana cost or difficulty of casting. Due to the top limit of runes, you can only effectively stack 3 of those together so there won’t be any crazy “explosion” stacking;

• DoT: turns damage spells into DoTs, heals into HoTs. No change in mana cost or difficulty of casting;

• Arcane Linguistics: amplification based on skill. First rune has full effect, the second 0.54x, third 0.24x. To promote the use of different amplification runes;

• Arcane Incantation: same as above with this skill.

• Skill-specific amplification: only effective if a rune from that specific school is used for the “effect” rune. 1.5x intensity, 0x for others.

Effects:

• Damage runes: 1 for each arcana (5 in total). Does damage based on your skill in that specific arcana and will trigger the arcana-specific effects if you have the perks. Allows for combining of different effects, same way the on-hit enchants now work;

• Heal: should be a single rune that can be modified with others to make AoE and HoT spells;

• Buff to a single resist (Blunt, Slash, Corp, Energy or Occult);
• Buff to a single stat (Strength, Hit Points, Dexterity, Stamina, Intelligence or Mana);
• Buff to all stats.

Rune categories:

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The system revolves around Runic Spellbooks (crafted in the same way as an ordinary spellbook, by using [createRunicSpellbook on a tome) and casting runes, crafted by the use of “crafting moriums”, just like enchanting runes. Runes are placed into the runic spellbook in a sequence which forms a mantra (up to 5 runes per spell). If the spell is valid and mage has the required skill, he/she will attempt to cast it.

Spells in rune magic generally have higher required skill, mana cost and morium failure chance associated with them. Each crafted rune also comes with a power level that will slowly deplete when the rune is used in spellcasting until the rune crumbles. It is therefore wise to carry few replacement runes in case they break in the middle of a hunting trip.

The possibilities of the system are endless. By combining different runes, one can produce completely custom and unique spells. Damaging spells, AoE spells, healing spells, stats buff and replenishment spells are all possible in the realm of rune magic.

Focus Morium is an ability under Archmagic that enhances one’s spell potency when close to other mages with the same ability. By using [focusmorium you convert an existing moriums to focused one for 25 min. During that time, you receive a boost in SDI if there are other casters nearby.

Wide acceptance of magic is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of Eden. Consortium is actively present in the First Province, which gives the validity of the writs that the members carry with them, but it is by no means an universal shield. Dedicated groups and individuals will find a plethora of different motifs to turn their swords against mages, so whoever chooses to walk down the path of magic needs to be prepared for this reality. This is especially true for those who stray away from Consortium and choose to find their path.

I love the smell of witches in the morning. - Warbishop Naum Alexandrov

I want to be a living cannon and lay waste to scores of enemies.

- Archmagic boosted with an arcane focus ritual, followed by Diabolism, or Divine.

I want to be a conjuror/summoner and have many useful familiars/pets.

- A huge majority of the summoning spells are concentrated in Diabolism and Paganistic. The first boasts the greatest summoning potential, but its summons are not so tolerated by the majority of players.

I want to heal and support my friends.

- Divine, followed by Paganistic.

I want to be at least useful in every situation.

- General, Paganistic, Divine.

I want to be a really weasely mage with a trick for everything.

- General & Archmagic, Paganism to some extent.

Special thanks to Auri, the original creator of this guide.