In divine magic the practitioners, ``priests'', do not use their own power but rather channel power from divine entities (``gods''). They utilize various ``prayers'' to cast their magic and grace is the measure of how much magic the priest may channel. The higher the level of the priest and the better his wisdom and power, the more grace the priest will have in the eyes of his god. In the practice of wizardry a ``wizard'' calls upon his own lifeforce (or ``mana'') to power his arcane incantations. Mana is based on of the wizard's innate power but may be increased through his skill in wizardry .
The scope and sphere of these two magics are different. Through the use of divine magic the priest has access to powerful spells of protection, healing, and of slaying unholy creatures. (Note A ``spell'' is a common name referring to both prayers and incantations.) If the multiple gods option is used (Note: this is the default), the god a priest worships will have other impacts on the priest's magic and abilities (see section multiple gods). In contrast, wizardry is more oriented towards the harnessing of elemental forces of creation, alteration and destruction. There are two minor variants of wizardry : alchemy and rune magic.
Each form of magic is orthogonal to the other. In some no magic areas, the wizard is blocked from accessing his store of mana, but the priest may operate his magic normally. Similarly, there are unholy areas in which the priest loses his contact with his god and cannot cast magic; in unholy areas the wizard is unhindered. Of course, no magic and unholy areas can sometimes coincide.
In addition, wizards have the handicap that if they are encumbered with 'stuff', they are less effective at incantations. Heavy weapons and heavy armour are the main cause spell-failures. See the section on encumberance for details. Weapons and armour have no effect on the practice of divine magic but grace regenerates slower than mana, and the amount of grace that a priest possesses helps to determine the success of their prayers.
% chance to learn = (base chance + (2 * level))/1.5
The base chance that a prayer/incantation will be learnt is based on WIS/INT respectively. Look at table primary stat effects to find your base chance in the learn% column. If you are attempting to learn a prayer, you would use your WIS stat to find the base chance. Likewise, the level used in the formula is related to the type of spell. If you are attempting to learn an incantation, the value of level to use is your wizardry experience (and you use the praying experience level for learning prayers. Once your chance to learn a spell exceeds 100%, you always succeed in all attempts to learn spells.
The Paths themselves are given in table spellpaths.
A character (or NPC) that is attuned to a Path can cast incantations/prayers from that Path at 80% of the mana/grace cost and in addition receives duration/damage bonuses as if the caster were five levels higher. A person that is repelled from a Path casts incantations/prayers from that Path at 125% of the mana/grace cost and receives duration/damage bonuses as if the caster were five levels lower (minimum of first level). The casting time is also modified by 80% and 125% respectively. If a wizard or priest is denied access to a Path they cannot cast any spells from it.
Paths are quite powerful; they don't come cheaply. Most magical items with path_attuned attributes will have path_repelled and path_denied attributes as well, to balance them out.
Under the multigod option, priests are allowed to select from an array of different gods. Worship of each god is unique, and brings differing capabilities to the priest. See Appendix C for a listing of the gods and some of the attributes/effects of worshiping of these cults.
Prayer | Description |
---|---|
Bless | Enhances the recipients combat ability and confers some of the gods special sphere of protection. |
Banishment | An AT_DEATH¹ attack is made versus enemies of the caster's god. |
Call holy servant | Weaker version of an avatar is summoned. |
Cause wounds | These prayers use the attacktype of ``godpower''. This means they will effect magic immune creatures AND each prayer has the special attacktype(s) of the priest's god. |
Consecrate | Dedicates an altar to the caster's god. |
Curse | Decreases the recipients combat ability and confers some vulnerabilities particular to the caster's god. |
Holy orb | Its like a fireball, but has the same effect as holy word². This prayer is most effective against single creatures. |
Holy word² | This prayer shoots forth a cone of power that will damage only enemies of the caster's god. |
Holy wrath | Currently the most powerful ``holy word''² prayer available. |
Summon avatar | Summons a "golem" that is tailored to the powers of the worshiped god. This prayer is more powerful (in general) than a summoned elemental and is one of the priest's most potent attack spells. |
Summon cult monsters | Summons creatures friendly to the priest's god. Depending on the god this can be a powerful or wimpy prayer. |
In order to get better at making stuff, you will need to learn the alchemy skill. Books found in shops (and elsewhere) will give you formulae for making stuff. There is no hard limit on the number of formulae which might make something (the code is pretty flexible), so you can always experiment on your own, but this will be dangerous!
There are several runes which are specialized; these can be set as your range spell. Some of these are:
Rune of Fire | does fire damage when it detonates | |
Rune of Frost | does cold damage | |
Rune of Blasting | does physical damage | |
Rune of Shocking | does electric damage | |
Rune of Death | attacks with attacktype "death" at caster level |
Magic Rune | You may store any incantation in this rune that you know and have the mana to cast. | |
Marking Rune | this is basically a sign. You may store any words you like in this rune, and people may apply it to read it. Maybe useful for mazes! This rune will not detonate, nor is it ordinarily invisible. |
'invoke magic rune heal
will place a magic rune of healing one square ahead of you, whichever
way you're facing.
'invoke magic rune transfer
as above, except the rune will contain the spell of transference
'invoke magic rune large fireball
as above, except the spell large fireball will be cast when someone
steps on the rune. the fireball will fly in the direction the caster
was facing when he created the rune.
'cast rune of fire
prepares the rune of fire as the range spell. Use the direction
keys to use up your mana and place a rune.
'invoke marking rune fubar
places a rune of marking, which says "fubar" when someone applies it.
'invoke marking rune touch my stuff and I will hunt you down!
places the marking rune warning would-be thieves of their danger.