This is for Apocalypse. Other Godwars may not have the complete Mage code, and becoming a Mage will simply be a matter of finding a Mage and paying out some experience points. These notes on major spellcasting should still apply. These help files will someday be changed to show differences between low and deluxe codes or other codes as I play them. Atm they are posted pretty much as is just to get them up for everyone who may need or want them.
Becoming a Mage: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To begin with, find a Mage who's willing to take you on as an apprentice! Apprentices take a lot of experience, and however polite and intelligent they are, teaching anyone anything tends to be hassle. Strangely enough, Mages tend to fit the stereotype of old, powerful, reclusive and crabby. You have been warned: don't hassle. If you're patient, getting a Mage shouldn't be a huge problem.
Once you've become an apprentice, several new spells are available to practice, and a very important new command.
'learn', for a spiralling cost in primal, will get you knowledge of the runes, glyphs and sigils necessary for rune spellcasting. Once you've learnt all of them, have 240 in all the five colours of spellcasting, and have 10 million XP, your Master can turn you into a full Mage. He needs to have 1 million XP as well.
Hybrids: ~~~~~~~~
There are certain differences between Mages and Mage hybrids: Hybrids use 1.7 times the mana of full Mages Hybrids can only use 3 page chain spells, except for Skindancers (WW/Mages) that can use 4. Hybrids can _only_ use their colour of spell. Hybrids can't use 'apply' affects anymore. No blesses or trains. Soon they should be able to use them on themselves tho.
Truemagic: ~~~~~~~~~~
I recommend you have have one book for action spells, one book for rune spells, one for creation spells, a test book and one for every chain spell. You might want to combine the action and rune books, maybe even the creation book, but I find a book with too many pages in it becomes cumbersome.
Basic book and page manipulation: turn book
(Note that page 0 is the index) chant {target} c ins page book (inserts page into your book. 10 mana) c 'remove page' book (removes the current page from your spellbook. 10 mana)
Note that if you remove the last page from a book, the order of all the pages is reversed. This is why a test book is recommended. On Cursed Lands this no longer holds true code has been changed where you can remove or insert a page from any place in a book.
Spell casting is easy. Hold your spellbook in either hand, turn to the spell, and 'chant' or 'chant {target}'. Mage spells still require mana, same as usual spells though. Normally hefty chunks of it too, 500 up. 10k is a healthy amount for a full Mage to have, although more is always better. Spell writing, however, is a whole different ball game.
The newly taught mage needs to do several things before they can even start writing. They must become adept, through diligent practice, at the skills of copying, inserting and removing page and major creation (prac {skill}). This will take something like 4000 xp.
Using the spell of major creation (c major {item}), you should create a pen and a book. Hopefully your teacher will have given you some runes of mastery (at least 20, 50 means you can play about a bit). You should then hold the pen, and you're ready to write some spells.
Every page has to be major created (c major page) then have the rune of Mastery copied onto it (copy mastery page). If you have a client, it's wise to make this an alias.
You should then title the page (write page title {title}, alias this too) and at last you are ready to write the spell proper.
Each line is written using 'write page line {line}'. Alias this. If you make a mistake, drop and sacrifice the page and start over. You may wish to read it first so you can look at your scroll and copy what you'd already written out. A good technique is to prepare a spell in the form of an alias or script, then run that whenever you want that kind of spell.
Spells can be of several different types: action, affect or damage. Each type follow the same kind of pattern however (check the tables at the end for the format).
Let's start with damage spells, the easiest ones. A basic damage spell might be:
Start.damage.spell victim.target min.damage: 500 max.damage: 1000 message.1: fireball message.2: A fireball immolates $N. message.3: $n waves $s hands and a fireball engulfs $N. end.spell
The first line tells us it deals with damage. The second line tells us that it needs a target, a victim in this case (other spell types might use object.).
The next two items are the spell's variables. For a damage spell, there are only two, min.damage and max.damage. They can be the same, but I wouldn't advise having a min.damage greater than a max.damage. On Low code min 500 max 501 for xp bombs or your book will explode causing extreme damage to person holding book, however, on Cursed Lands (deluxe code) you can use xp bombs with a min 500 max 1 spells these work great on mobs.
After that are the messages. These are what people see when you cast the spell. The first message is the type of damage, the second is what you, the caster sees, and the third is what everyone else sees. The poor victim just gets a 'A fireball hits you' message *=)
Every spell ends with 'end.spell', then you want to 'c ins page book'. Every spell is basically the same. However, some have more complex variables, more variables, and the message 'aiming' is different. These tables explain it pretty well. Also a good hint on books and equipment always change weight if you have it with alterweight sphere spell (alterweight {item}) if not quest {item} weight this is well worth the quest points it cost and the sphere spell cost nothing to use if you dont have sphere but are on a mud that has spheres get a full mage to help you alterweight it is well worth the effort.
Format: ~~~~~~~
Start.{type}.spell - Starts a spell of type (action/affect/damage) [target] - See 'Targets' [global.target] - Target something MUDwide except within a container [reversed] - Reverses spell effect, ie damage to heal [variables] - See 'Variables' [messages] - What's shown when you cast the spell [next.page] - Chains spell. Next spell in book is cast. end.spell - Ends the spell description
Targets: ~~~~~~~~
victim.target: Spell requires a mob or player target. object.target: Spell requires an object target. area.affect: Spell is cast against everyone in the room. This _includes_ group members. If you do this, it's wise to include not.caster, possibly no.players.
Variables: ~~~~~~~~~~
min.damage: {minimum amount of damage to inflict} max.damage: {maximum amount of damage to inflict}
An important aspect of damage spells is that they _can_ be reversed, making a heal spell. Since it's much quicker to get mana back, a good heal spell could save you a great deal of time.
It's most mana efficient to have min.damage and max.damage the same. Damcap for max.damage is 1k, damcap for min.damage is 500.
aggravated Part of the Damage done by the spell is aggravated. not.caster Doesn't affect caster. Useful for area.affect spells no.players Doesn't affect players. Again, area.affect spells apply: {str/dex/wis/int/con/hit/dam/ac/hp/mana/move/save} bonus: {num} affect: blind Blinds victim. invis Turns subject invisible. detect.evil Find evil people. detect.invis Makes invisible peeps visible to target. detect.magic Makes target notice magic things. detect.hidden See hidden people. umbra Places you out of most people's reach. umbra.vision See people in the Umbra (shadowsight still works) sanct Large damage reductions. faerie.fire Heavy AC penalties. infravision See monsters even in dark areas. curse Combat penalties and can't recall. burning Sets the victim on fire. poison Poison! protect Protection vs. evil people. ethereal Makes victim ethereal. sneak Lets target sneak. hide Hides target. sleep Sends someone into enchanted sleep. charm Victim is charmed by you. fly Fly! passdoor Walk through doors. web Target is webbed, with AC penalties. contraception Safe sex *=) aura.no.magic Makes target immune to Mage damage spells. true.sight True sight; see vanished peeps (based on blue magic). tendrils Entraps victim in tendrils of darkness. rot Rots victim's flesh. fear Makes victim scared. jail.water Entraps victim in a jail of water. duration: {num}
The bonus variable is in % change. So 100 is the maximum. It acts with the apply variables to change those stats. Bonus 100 gives up to: hp/mana/moves 500 points AC -500 points HR/DR 50 points
Duration is in MUD hours (1 hour about every 30 IRL secs). Any number of affects can be set, but each one has to have it's own line and every affect raises the mana cost of the spell.
Again, these spells can be reversed. The classic being a reversed bless so it costs less to train hp/mana.
Action: move - Moves you to target. mob: {exact short of mob} - Creates a mobile. object: {exact short of mob} - Creates an object.
Action spells are quite possibly the most useful mage spells. The 'move' variable sends you to the same place as your victim or an object (just use victim.target/object.target to switch). In reverse, they summon players (if they have summon on), mobs or objects to your location. The limitation of move is that the target has to be in a MUD location. Not in an inventory, not equipment, not items inside items. However, you _can_ step to the container, open it, and retrieve the item.
The two create commands are also useful, object much more so than mob. Mobs created with spells don't give you xp. Objects created with spells do keep all bonuses of the originals however.
When creating things, however, you must get the _exact_ short name, as it appears in your inventory (ie 'some chain shackles'). Otherwise the spell will fail.
Messages: ~~~~~~~~~
Note that you can use 'message.one' instead of 'message.1'. '.1' is just shorter. It also means that the message texts line up, making them easier to compare.
Damage spells... message.1 = damage type (eg: fireball, lightning bolt, etc). message.2 = message to caster. message.3 = message to everyone else in the room. Message.1 appears in a 'Your {spell} hits X extremely hard' type message. Keep them short. affect spells... message.1 = message to caster. message.2 = message to victim. message.3 = message to everyone else. action spells... message.1 = message to victim message.2 = message to others at original room message.3 = message to caster's room For creation spells, the third message doesn't matter, but must still be included. Use 'message.3: (null)'. Within messages you'll inevitably want to use pronouns, names &c. Just use: $n for your name $e for he or she $s for his or her $m for him or her $p for objects
and capitalise for the target. IE "$n's fireball hits $N, burning $S flesh." For a reversed move, cases are swapped. The target is lowercase, and you're uppercase.
For a standard move, $N _should_ be the target, but at the moment comes out as ' {@@@} '. Instead, use $n for the target, and just type your name.
Chained Spells: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chain spells are an extremely powerful tool Mages have to create a series of effects one after another. They're fairly easy to create, but the trick is in caring for the pages. If the order changes at all, even temporarily, the chain will be broken. It's usually best to create seperate spellbooks for each chain spell.
Basically, all you do is put next.page before end.spell. It then chants the spell on the next page of your book whenever you chant the first spell. Affect spells don't chain well since a character can only have one spell of each colour on them at any time. However, damage type spells chain very well.
The good side to chain spells, despite their fussiness about page order, is that they usually require less mana than single spells. You can also play with messages more, or possibly have a chain to web and blind someone before you blow them up. It's also much faster to cast a chain spell than a single page spell five times.
Advanced chain toys include:
'parameter: {text}' - Casts the next spell in chain as per 'chant {text}' Classic is a damage/damage/damage/heal/heal 'spell.first'- Courtesy of Elymas (unconfirmed as yet) First spell in chain must have spell.first AND next.page AND parameter. Then the second spell gets cast before the first with the parameter. It does not work without the parameter!
spell.first doesn't do anything without next.page. I suspect that the order of parameters doesn't matter.
Sample chain damage: Start.damage.spell victim.target global.target min.damage: 500 max.damage: 1000 message.one: fireball message.two: $N's flesh burns away. message.three: $n waves $s hands and $N's flesh burns. next.page {, end.spell \___ The last spell won't have next.page in it.
Colours: ~~~~~~~~
Every Mage studies one of the five colours. This comes into play with affect spells mostly, although it does have other effects. No creature can be affected by two spells of the same colour. So you can't cast your 'Raise hp/mana' spell 50 times on yourself.
However, if you get a Mage of another colour to write the end.spell for you on another page, you can several effectively identical spells on someone. Very useful for training/blessing spells.
Nephandi are white, Skindancers are pink, and Liches are black, and Mages are one of red, green, yellow, blue or purple. The hybrids can only chant their colour of spell, but a Mage can chant any of the five Mage colours.
Exercises: ~~~~~~~~~~
A few broken spells to fix. Each spell has three types of mistake. These are hard, don't worry *=) You should be able to see the problems with the aid of this help however. No peeking at the spells before you've finished!
Start.action.spell victim.target global.target move message.1 You enter the Astral and quickly find $n. message.1 $N disappears in a flash of light. message.1 $N appears in a flare of light. Start.action.spell victim.target reversed move message.1: You summon $N. message.2: You have been summoned! message.3: $N appears in a flare of light. end,spell Start.dam.spell victim.target global.target min.damage: 1000 max.damage: 1000 message.1: You blast $N. message.2: You blast $N. message.3: $n blasts $N. end.spell Start.affect.spell victim.target global.target reversed apply: hp mana move bonus: 100 duration: 100 message.1: You train $N. message.2: $n trains $N. message.3: $n trains you. end.spell
Another frequent problem is missing .'s, but I haven't found two other frequent errors to group it with.
If you try to chant a spell and you don't even get an error message, then it means you forgot to copy a rune of mastery onto the page before you started.
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Email me at © 1997 mystalia@sbcglobal.net
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