Spells

A spellbook in a mitten puts its spell on that mitten's mouse button. Hold to charge or aim; release to cast. A longer hold is a stronger cast, up to the full charge -- after that, holding gains nothing.

Some spells aim forward, along your crosshair. Some aim at the ground: the reticle marks a spot on the floor (or on somebody's feet) and that is where the circle lands. A ground-aimed spell never snaps back to the caster, so it is always possible to put one somewhere useless.

Books are found, not learned. Any class can carry any book -- the wizard simply starts with one.

A book is not the only thing that casts. An imbued staff puts one of the simpler spells on its hold instead of the grab, and swings on the click as any staff does; it casts weaker than a book, and what it casts is decided by the staff, not by you. See Weapons.

Arcane Bolt

The plainest spell there is, and the only one no book teaches: a staff imbued of Force carries it. One unerring bolt of raw force, no element, no blast -- it wounds what it touches and nothing else. It is what a staff casts when nothing more interesting was bound into it.

Fireball

The wizard's starting book, and the one every other bolt is built on. Charge, release, and a bolt flies along your crosshair and bursts where it lands: damage falling off from the center of the blast, a shove that throws props, and fire.

Anything solid between the burst and a target shields it. Other characters and other bolts do not, so a fireball through a crowd catches everyone.

Magic Missile

Gather and release for a volley of unerring bolts -- they do not miss. A longer hold is more of them, which makes this the one bolt spell where the charge buys count rather than force.

Ray of Frost

A bolt of cold. Modest on impact; the point is the cold it leaves, which eats the target's lifebar from the right and takes their stamina with it. Remember that cold fades faster near friends, and much faster near fire.

Ray of Sickness

A bolt of venom that poisons whoever it strikes. Poison is the slowest affliction to shake off in the game, so this is the bolt for a fight you expect to last.

Chromatic Orb

Charge and release an orb of fire, frost, venom, or lightning. The orb decides, rolled at the moment of release -- you do not get to pick. In exchange it is every element on one book.

Chain Lightning

A bolt whose strike arcs to everything close by. Against one target it is an ordinary bolt; against a room full of skeletons it is the best book on the shelf.

Thunderwave

No bolt at all. Gather, release, and everything around you is hurled away -- characters and props alike. It is a panic button and a physics toy in equal measure: use it to make room when something has closed on you, or to put a crate somewhere it was not.

Burning Hands

Sweeps a cone of fire from the mitten on release. Short ranged and wide. What it touches burns, which means it also lights bats -- and a lit bat is a worse problem than an unlit one.

Misty Step

Aim at the ground and release to blink to the mark. Walls keep their opinions to themselves. The single best answer to a chasm, a spike pit, or a boss winding up a slam.

Cloud of Daggers

The heal circle's hostile mirror. Aim at the ground and release to fill a circle with whirling blades that cut everyone standing in it, caster included. It does not check names.

The cuts land as grazes -- damage with no stagger -- so the blades never root a victim in place. Whoever is in the cloud is always free to walk out of it, including you.

Sleep

Aim at the ground and release to drop everyone around the mark where they stand. What it leaves is the drowsy affliction, which cuts the walk to a fraction and fades after a spell. Good for disengaging; not a kill.

Heal Circle

The cleric's starting book. Aim at the ground -- or at somebody's feet -- and release to lay a circle that pulses healing into whoever stands in it. It heals friend or foe, so a circle laid carelessly in a fight is a gift to a skeleton.

Beside the health it puts back, a heal also lifts the fatigue a revive leaves. Picking a teammate up and then standing them in a circle is the full recovery.

Summoning Circle

The cultist's starting book, and the strangest thing in the game. Lay it like a heal circle. It gathers on a fixed clock, then consumes everything resting inside it at once as one combined sacrifice -- drops, props, skeletons, spiders, a teammate who lingered -- implodes, and manifests something in proportion to what it ate.

A small offering fizzles. A larger one pays gear. A larger one still sends back a follower. Feed it enough and it sends back something mighty, or something angry, and you do not choose which.

Whether a thing is edible is declared by the thing itself, so the menu grows as the game does. A corpse is never on it.