Mage

Peering into the Dark Wind, Magi learn to read and alter the patterns beneath the visible world. Heat has structure; distance can be folded; memory leaves a pristine copy behind the mind. Death, light, and even an interrupted moment can be written down if the Mage is patient enough. Those observations accumulate in a leather-bound spellbook, and the field is where they become more than theory.

In the guild's older vocabulary, gramarye is the art and a spell made real is a working. Cantrips, charms, and malisons describe the temper of particular workings rather than separate advancement tracks.

Mage is intended to feel useful immediately. Mana Shard and Missile are steady first-page attacks, while Analyze, Detect, and Blaze give a new member reasons to open the spellbook outside combat. Level-appropriate fighting supplies most Mage guild XP, or GXP. Useful field casting adds smaller, rate-limited awards, so varied play advances Arcane without rewarding empty repetition. Arcane has fifteen ranks, and every rank reveals another portion of the spellbook.

Learning the spellbook

A working develops its own history alongside Arcane. Its first useful casts move it from Copied to Practiced, then onward through Fluent, Inscribed, and Instinctive. The progression is compact enough to understand at a glance, but the consequences accumulate naturally: costs fall, rune sockets open, and automatic casting becomes quicker.

The first rune socket makes a familiar page personal. Ashkenazy may push it toward raw force, Talek toward cold and Chilled, or Ravidel toward fire and Burning. By the time the second socket opens, two Magi can carry the same working and use it rather differently.

Workings and combat

The combat pages are meant to form sentences rather than sit as isolated buttons. Fireball and Inferno leave Burning behind. Icestorm brings Chilled, and Stasis resolves a few seconds after casting with cold damage and Freezing. Glassstorm hangs written panes in the air before breaking them across nearby enemies and applying Exposed. Once the room is carrying enough hostile conditions, Singularity consumes them and gains fifteen percent damage from each, up to seventy-five percent. A group that brings its own statuses can help write the same ending.

Echoform waits beside the Mage's thoughts and copies the next direct offensive working for a thirty-five percent echo two seconds later. Recollection is the quieter signature spell. After a vulnerable four-second weave it restores all missing SP at the cost of ten percent maximum health. Its private timer begins at ten minutes. Recollection mastery removes one minute at Practiced, two at Fluent, three at Inscribed, and four at Instinctive; wielded FOCUS and worn AURA equipment each remove another minute, with a five-minute floor.

Delayed workings require commitment. Movement by the Mage or a chosen target tears the unfinished geometry loose, and another working cannot begin until the pending one resolves. The delay is visible through the normal buff/status display, making the risk legible to both the caster and the group.

Battlemage resonance

Barrage lets Mana Shard, Missile, Fireball, Icestorm, or Bolt cast a lighter copy of itself beside ordinary combat. A Practiced working can be prepared with barrage <working> and continues to improve as its automatic casts land. Its cadence rises from every four combat rounds at Practiced to every three at Fluent and every two at Inscribed. Mastery lowers its SP cost, Falx can quicken the rhythm, and Instinctive barrage costs nothing.

Wielding a FOCUS brings that playstyle forward. Any known barrage working may be prepared while it is still Copied, its automatic casts cost no SP, and the weapon improves both cadence and damage. Worn AURA equipment completes the battlemage resonance, adding another improvement to each. A freshly Copied working therefore fires every four rounds with FOCUS alone or every three with both pieces; practice soon brings the fully resonant cadence to its floor of two rounds. The Mage still makes ordinary weapon attacks and may still choose manual workings, so the result feels like weapon-and-spell combat rather than a caster waiting between commands.

battlemage reports the current equipment resonance, prepared page, cadence, SP cost, and Recollection timer. barrage off releases the prepared working.

Investiture opens at Arcane 4 and lets a Mage borrow one missing half of the style. investiture focus writes temporary FOCUS resonance over an ordinary wielded weapon, while investiture aura draws an AURA around the caster. The working is bound to the chosen weapon and goes dormant if that weapon is no longer wielded. Because only one Investiture can be sustained, it completes a real FOCUS or AURA rather than conjuring full resonance by itself.

Runes and the old Isle

Four rune patterns belong to ordinary Arcane instruction. Five others wait for the spellbook to witness a feat or discovery.

The Isle of the Magi lies south of Darkwind, still scarred by the war that separated Mage and Necromancer lore. At Arcane 9, a Mage can attune to the surviving Focus Point and enter the buried portion of Arcanarton's broken tower. A fused palimpsest and a violet fracture preserve more of the old argument than the official history admits. Bodach's page waits elsewhere, beneath the disused well, after the Wyrm's breath no longer overwhelms the quieter voices there. These discoveries remain in the spellbook permanently.

Long study and useful commands

GXP continues accumulating at Arcane 15. Surplus study opens Silverline, Ember Script, Aurora Hand, and finally the Void Palimpsest. These marginalia styles change the flourish around completed workings without making the cap another compulsory power climb; marginalia lists the open styles and selects one.

Most of the guild can be navigated through a small set of commands. research or study describes Arcane progress and the next page. spellbook follows mastery, rune sockets, equipment resonance, and the prepared barrage, while spells is the working index. runes, inscribe, and unbind manage the customization pages. battlemage explains the live weapon-and-AURA setup. Guild conversation uses mage <message>—with m and ma as aliases—and magi lists visible members.