(c) Alexis Lee, 1998.

                     A Mage's Primer
                     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
            A guide to Magic in all its forms
            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.
  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.

Hybrids:(not currently in use)
~~~~~~~~
  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 <forward/backward/page #.>
    (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.

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.
  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.

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 its 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.
    Created items don't work for quests... but it's perfectly possible 
    to use the various move spells and very useful.


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 '
                        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
  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
reversedmove
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
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
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.

Rune Spells:
~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Rune spells are written by copying a rune, a glyph and a sigil (in that 
order) onto a page. It can be titled, and notes could be scrawled on it, 
but don't expect your doodles to do anything .
  The runes disappear when used, so apprentices who haven't learnt them 
must rely on Mages or more educated apprentices for them.
  The big plus with rune spells, of course, is that they cost 0 mana to 
cast. This makes them invaluable for training against mobs (heal the mob 
and train forever) or similar situations where a minor spell is needed 
very often.
  Shortly, there may be a new way to cast this kinda spell. Peeps on my
mailing list will get details if/when it's used.
  (Remember: the rune of Mastery is for standard spells)

Runes:  Mastery Spirit Mind Life Death Light Dark Earth Air Fire Water 
Glyphs: Protection Reduction Control Destruction Transportation 
        Transformation Creation Information Summoning Enhancement
Sigils: Area Object Self Targeting

FIRE + DESTRUCTION + TARGETING  - Double fireball
FIRE + DESTRUCTION + AREA       - Flames a room, 50% affected char gets lit
FIRE + ENHANCEMENT + OBJECT     - Resistance spell
AIR + DESTRUCTION + TARGETING   - Global chill touch 
AIR + TRANSFORMATION + TARGETING - Global-ish move drain. Hps stay <= max.
AIR + DESTRUCTION + AREA        - Double call lightning
AIR + ENHANCEMENT + TARGETING   - Fly
AIR + ENHANCMENT + OBJECT       - Spellproof spell
EARTH + DESTRUCTION + AREA      - Double earthquake
EARTH + ENHANCEMENT + SELF      - Stone skin
EARTH + ENHANCEMENT + TARGETING - Global giant strength
EARTH + ENHANCEMENT + OBJECT    - Fix (equipment) 
WATER + CREATION + OBJECT       - Create spring
WATER + DESTRUCTION + AREA      - Double gas breath
WATER + ENHANCEMENT + SELF      - Triple mana spell
WATER + CONTROL + TARGETING     - Global jail of water 
DARK + DESTRUCTION + TARGETING  - Triple harm
DARK + TRANSPORTATION + TARGETING - Global curse 
DARK + ENHANCEMENT + SELF       - Frenzy 
DARK + ENHANCEMENT + TARGETING  - Global darkblessing 
DARK + REDUCTION + TARGETING    - Global poison 
DARK + CONTROL + AREA           - Sleep 
LIGHT + CREATION + OBJECT       - Continual light 
LIGHT + DESTRUCTION + TARGETING - Triple colour spray 
LIGHT + ENHANCEMENT + SELF      - Sanctuary
LIGHT + ENHANCEMENT + TARGETING - Global bless 
LIGHT + PROTECTION + SELF       - Protection 
LIGHT + PROTECTION + TARGETING  - Armour 
LIGHT + PROTECTION + AREA       - Global shield 
LIFE + CREATION + OBJECT        - Triple create food 
LIFE + DESTRUCTION + TARGETING  - Double global dispel evil 
LIFE + ENHANCEMENT + SELF       - Triple refresh 
LIFE + ENHANCMENT + TARGETING   - Triple heal 
LIFE + ENHANCEMENT + AREA       - Global heal 
LIFE + ENHANCEMENT + OBJECT     - Enchant armour 
LIFE + REDUCTION + TARGETING    - Global double drain life
LIFE + TRANSFORMATION + SELF    - Superheal (details below)
LIFE + INFORMATION + TARGETING  - Global know alignment #
DEATH + SUMMONING + AREA        - Triple guardian 
DEATH + ENHANCMENT + OBJECT     - Preserve 
DEATH + REDUCTION + TARGETING   - Weaken 
MIND + ENHANCEMENT + SELF       - True sight 
MIND + REDUCTION + TARGETING    - Global dispel magic 
MIND + INFORMATION + TARGETING  - Global read aura (ignores shield)
MIND + INFORMATION + OBJECT     - Global identify spell
SPIRIT + CREATION + OBJECT      - Double soulblade 
SPIRIT + SUMMONING + AREA       - Summon 
SPIRIT + TRANSPORTATION + SELF  - Teleport 
SPIRIT + ENHANCEMENT + SELF     - Pass door 
SPIRIT + ENHANCEMENT + OBJECT   - Enchant weapon 
SPIRIT + REDUCTION + TARGETING  - Global faerie fire 
SPIRIT + CONTROL + AREA         - Faerie fog 
SPIRIT + PROTECTION + SELF      - Aura no magic (immune to magic)

Superheal, courtesy of Infyrno -
  The only known rune combo to cost mana, but well worth it.
  This actually allows you to go above your max hps (energy drain style).
Only thing is, if you have any sort of regeneration, when your mana
returns to max, you'll lose the extra hps as per a heal spell.


Truemagic Spells:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
  Note that these are not the only spells possible: there is an infinite
variation. They also have pretty lame messages. But they are adequate for a
beginning Mage.

Astral Walk
~~~~~~~~~~~
  Start.action.spell
  victim.target
  global.target
  move
  message.1: You enter the Astral and quickly find $N.
  message.2: $n disappears in a flash of light.
  message.3: $n appears in a flare of light.
  end.spell

Summoning
~~~~~~~~~
  Start.action.spell
  victim.target
  global.target
  reversed
  move
  message.1: You have been summoned!
  message.2: $N vanishes in a flare of light.
  message.3: $N appears in a flare of light.
  end.spell

Fetch
~~~~~
  Start.action.spell
  object.target
  global.target
  reversed
  move
  message.1: You summon $p.
  message.2: You have been summoned!
  message.3: $p appears in a flare of light.
  end.spell

Astral Find
~~~~~~~~~~~
  Start.action.spell
  object.target
  global.target
  move
  message.1: You enter the Astral and quickly find $p.
  message.2: $n disappears in a flash of light.
  message.3: $n appears in a flare of light.
  end.spell

Freedom
~~~~~~~
  Start.affect.spell
  victim.target
  affect: fly
  affect: passdoor
  duration: 50
  message.1: They now have freedom of movement.
  message.2: You shimmer slightly.
  message.3: $N shimmers slightly.
  end.spell

Blast
~~~~~
  Start.damage.spell
  victim.target
  min.damage: 500
  max.damage: 1000
  message.1: blast
  message.2: You blast $N.
  message.3: $n blasts $N.
  end.spell

Bomb
~~~~
  Start.damage.spell
  victim.target
  global.target
  min.damage: 500
  max.damage: 1000
  message.1: bomb
  message.2: You bomb $N.
  message.3: $n bomb $N.
  end.spell

Train
~~~~~
  Start.affect.spell
  victim.target
  reversed
  apply: hp
  apply: mana
  apply: move
  bonus: 100
  duration: 50
  message.1: You train $N.
  message.2: $n trains you.
  message.3: $n trains $N.
  end.spell

(In case you're wondering why this is called a train, it lowers your hp,
mana and move by about 500. This makes it MUCH cheaper to train your
stats. Don't worry if they go negative, all the better in fact.
  Just remember to 'dispel magic' on yourself when you finish training!)

Bless
~~~~~
  Start.affect.spell
  victim.target
  apply: hp
  apply: mana
  apply: hit
  apply: dam
  apply: ac
  bonus: 100
  duration: 50
  message.1: You bless $N.
  message.2: $n blesses you.
  message.3: $n blesses $N.
  end.spell