Magic

This page will serve to explain how both game mech and role-play magic functions on Sanctuary. This is not a game manual page, but rather a lore page, intended to help players understand the basics behind Sanctuary magic.

Fiction Update

After months long debate and discussion between the various covens, cabals, conclaves and circles the magical community has announced its intention to re-classify various forms of magic as well as release new and updated books of lesser magic. Magery has been broken down into the practices of Evocation and Incantation while the summoning aspects will be rolled into Necromancy and redefined into the science of Vahonomancy with demonic, necrotic and shamanic schools. Spellweaving has been completed and has been re-introduced as Druidry. Mystisim will receive an complete overhaul of lesser magical spells for the decerning practitioner. Finally a complete new school of air magic will be introduced as part of Influxion.

Lesser Magic

Refers to all magic on Sanctuary that is actually performed via game mechanics. As of 9/16/19 with the release of the pre-aos version of Devotion, Devotion was switched to using stamina not mana and is no longer considered a magical ability.

Scope of Magic

We can make the following statements about magic as being generally true:

• Relatively immediate.
• Always local, line of sight.
• Of limited duration, instant or minutes, not hours or days.
• Usually consumes ingredients upon spellcasting.
• Primarily offensive or healing with some protective spells.
• All schools of magic use spells books, mana and power words.
• All schools require some form of additional magical discipline, such as spirit speak or evaluate intelligence.

Game Mechanics

The status of game mechanic magic on Sanctuary, this is an excellent overview of the systems: Magic in Ultima Online

Alchemy Cooking makes food, inks, dyes, paints, and alchemy potions.Read More.. Focus The Focus skill could be defined as the "Warrior's Meditation Skill." Read me .. Imbuing Imbuing has been deactivated on Sanctuary for the time being. Inscription  This skill allows you to create incantation spell scrolls, paint pictures, make maps and weave baskets. Read More.. Magery Magery is the primary skill of the spell caster. Magery is not recommended to first time players as it is both difficult and costly to level up. Read More ..

Meditation Meditation both passively and actively regenerates mana. Read More .. Mysticism This skill is being rewritten, its currently non-functional. Read More .. Necromancy Necromancy is the primary skill of the Necromancer. Necromancy has been significantly crippled by the implementation of Pre-AOS. Read More .. Resisting Spells Resisting spells reduces the effect/damage of incoming spells. Read more .. Spellweaving Druidry, which replaces Spellweaving, has been released for player testing. Druidry is the primary healing and buff skill of the new magic skills. Read More .. Spirit Speak Spirit Speak allows players to understand dead players as well as channel healing from monster corpses. Read More ..

Types of Magic

Sanctuary appears to have:

• 4 major schools of magic; Magery, Mysticism, Necromancy and Spellweaving
• 2-4 magical crafting forms; Inscription, Alchemy, Tinkering. Imbuing is currently disabled.
• 5 lesser magical talents; Spirit Speak and the barding skills of Discordance, Musicianship, Peacemaking and Provocation. Given the uncanny ability for Healing to function instantly it is also usually assumed to be a magical talent.
• 4 disciplines necessary for magic; Meditation, Evaluating Intelligence, Resisting Spells, Focus

Supporting Skills

Evaluating Intelligence

The ability to evaluate the intelligence of a target is a crucial skill to many of the magic systems on Sanctuary. This skill directly affects the offensive power of Magery, but is not used in Mysticism.

Focus

Focus, which is defined as a warrior's meditation skill and is responsible for Mana and Stamina regeneration. Focus effects a mystic's spell power.

Inscription

Inscription which is the skill used to inscribe magical scrolls effects the damage of some mystic spells.

Meditation

Meditation is the skill that is used to restore mana.

Resisting Spells

Resisting spells can be thought of as the ability to shield or ward one's self from some offensive magic cast by Magery, Necromancy, Spellweaving and Mysticism

Spirit Speak

Spirit speak is a magical talent that is necessary to improve the outgoing damage of Necromancy spells.

Sources of Powers

Corpses

Used only by Spirit Speak to channel the power of the recently dead to heal.

Items

Magically crafted items such as scrolls and wands can be used to cast magic, sometimes without needing to have any magical skills. Magical items, such as scrolls may be consumed upon use, while wands may have multiple uses.

Mana

Mana is a spell casters personal well of power that they can draw on to cast magic. It functions much like a type of magical stamina. The more powerful the spell the more mana it takes. All four schools of magic; Magery, Mysticism, Necromancy and Spellweaving use mana to cast spells.

Reagents, including Focus Crystals

Reagents are spell ingredients that are consumed when the spell is cast. They are assumed to be small amounts and easy to carry enough to cast a few hours of magic while hunting, a pinch per spell at most. Magery, Mysticism and Necromancy uses reagents, Spellweaving uses focus crystals.

Spell Books

Spellbooks are considered magical objects in their own right, and while most spell books require other sources of power to cast the spells, such as mana, reagents, etc, the book itself is a necessary magical item. All schools of magic, Magery, Spellweaving, Mysticism and Necromancy use spell books.

Words of Power

Magical words are obviously a necessary component of spell casting for most of the different magical system on Sanctuary. All schools of magic, Magery, Mysticism, Necromancy, and Spellweaving uses magical words to cast spells.

Residual

It is important to understand that magic requires power, you don't cast something and it keeps going. Here are a few understood limitations:

• Magical Residue fades at the next dawn
• Wards, protections, circles and such require a continual power source. They are not cast and then left to run without power. This power can be local sources of power, consumable sources of power, personal power, or otherwise, but there is always a source of power.

Great Magic

Great magic is defined by magic that is either role-played only, or is implemented in RPCSS.

Scope of Great Magic

While it is up to the seer or gathered players, Great Magic should really only be performed by characters with grand mastery in the appropriate magic skills.

• Magic that takes more time to craft
• Magic that can be cast on targets not local to the spellcaster
• Magic that lasts days and weeks
• Magic that can effect more targets on more than one game screen.
• Requires written spells, reagents, words of power and mana.
• Great magic requires power equal to the effect and duration.

Seer Guidelines

Divination is basic "great magic" as it isn't very difficult, but other then Spirit Speak there is no divination spells/skills. Skill checks can be done against Spirit Speak, Intelligence, or based on a player's application-documented RP ability. Divination should involve 10 mins of RP. However, the divination against another trained practitioner who is assumed to know how to hide themselves is skill to skill, see below.

Determining Difficulty of Great Magic

Because we assume that players performing great magic are grandmasters in at least two of the necessary magical skills, we, therefore, assume that they are going to be able to perform the spell. The questions then that need to be answered are: How long will the RP take? When will the spell take effect? How long with the effect last? How powerful is the effect?

• To determine the difficulty go read the list of things that define lesser magic and count off how many don't apply to the great magic ritual. Don't go crazy, just make a quick count. For every one of them, the ritual should take 10 mins.

• Great Magic that is not a direct extrapolation of lesser magic is rarely instant -- it can take hours or days to take hold.

• Great Magic requires resources to power the duration of a spell. So let's give it some hard numbers for casual implementation: 1k gold (equivalent) = 1 day. As the average GM hunter can make about 4-6k/hour, let's say 10 mins of RP (per person) = 1 day.

• To determine effect we are going to use a formula: Start with 100 and remove 10 for every 10 mins the ritual will take. Then add 10 for every additional person who is a grandmaster practitioner (5 for Master aka 80 skill). Roll xd100/x where x is the number of practitioners participating. The roll should be below the determined difficulty. If it's close the effect is limited, if it's large the effect is significant.

Conceptually, more people will make the spell easier, but it will also be more likely to generate a "normalized" effect.

• Get the reagent they use and have them save their journal of the ritual.

Resolution

It is harder to undo a spell then it is to cast it in the first place.

• Like to Like: If a cast spell was X Level and had X people then to have a 50% chance of removing it with the same level of spell with the same number of people.

So if I do a spell that is a level 70 spell and put 3 people on it, I have to roll 3d100/3 under 100. But to reverse is the same level 70 spell with 3 people have to roll 3d100/3 under 50 .. However, they can raise that number by adding people.

• Duration counts: If a player is actively "keeping a spell up" on a daily basis then the responders have to "actively keep the uncrossing up".
• Who Dun it: If they want to know who did it, then it has to be total magical skill points vs total magical skill points. If both sides have 900 its 50%, if the aggressor has 1100 its 30% if the defender has 1100 its 70%.