Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula

What's it called? Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula (in short, KOF)

What does it do? One of the best single-hitting offensive spells, this spell will summon a varying horde of fire-bunnies which will start crashing and burning into your target. As to their number, it will vary depending on skills; they come in waves, the next one smaller than the previous one; nice methods and offensive should give arround 12 bunnies for the first group. 6 will be the staple at mediocre bonuses, and 4 can come in the worst of cases.
The damage they give is quite small, but adds up (it's one of those 'damage over time' spells), specially if you keep casting other offensive spells on the poor sod or proceed to mergings (that is, casting the spell again while the first cast is still in effect; this will merge the carrots involved -while throwing rabbits, the used carrot floats on top of the victim- and throw out a higher number of bunnies per wave. The danger is that re-casts while many bunnies are already coming out may lead to a failure, and the bunnies attacking the caster).
Two more virtues of the spell are that skills requirements are quite low (meaning it can be cast from early ages, even though it won't do much damage then) and the fact that, once cast, it is unavoidable: your running victim won't be able to elude them or hide while under its effects.
Overall, the spell is very useful, its main setback being the frequent use of carrots needed (and each costs almost a dollar, although they can be harvested for free in some places), that the damage only affects one victim, and over an extended period of time, and that trolls are greatly protected against its fire damage. Actually, the spell *can* be cast on more than 1 person, but it will spend a huge amount of gps (the whole amount used for the spell for each additional victim), cause less damage per head and have a greater chance of miscasting.

Where is it? As would be appropiate for a spell that consists of magically burning and wicked bunnies, it is only fit that it should lie in the charred pages of the Spelles of thee Arte of Fyre grimoire, at the Unseen University Library.

What does it require? A torch and a carrot. This second item is consumed, not so much in the casting as at the end of the bunny-waves, when it flickers out of existence.

What skills do I need? Convoking, Fire, Convoking (2), Fire (2)

Has it worked? The proper output should read something like this:

You prepare to cast Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula on xxx.
You wiggle your eyebrows around a bit.
You think about a nice, big, orange, burning carrot.
You point at xxx.
You ceremonially set fire to the carrot with the torch.
The carrot floats up and hovers above xxx.
X fire bunnies leap out of the ground and throw themselves at xxx.

Help Information:

Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula - A nasty bunny.

Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula is a first/second order offensive spell which summons fire bunnies to attack your targets.

Woddeley's Forgotten Front

So, what where you expecting? Journey of the Heavenly Storm Dragon? I'm not powerful (and mad...) enough to start as yet tickling the Dragon's tail...

I was going to write you about the custom shoes I've ordered (following Aznin's advice), and lament that we don't have that many wizzie customization options for them (would be nice to have some custom ones available at one of the guilds), but as the lazy cobbler still hasn't finished them, I have to find something else to rant about...

As newbie wizards (yes, we've all been that sometime or other...) you may have noticed (even newbies are capable of noticing things; at least, some of them... ) that our famous primer doesn't really inform you about all the skills that might be required of wizardry. From a general overview, one would guess that the magical skills explained are the ones that are most employed by wizards and might not be obvious from their names.

So, what are the skills that don't feature in its pages? Well, going block by block we have:

Elemental: as the name implies, these skills give you mastery over the natural elements (at least, before the invention of the Periodic Table... and in the Counterweight Continent they add strange things like 'wood' and others to them...). One or more of these skills is generally needed in the main offensive and defensive spells of the Disc. All combined, they make lightning for the Spear and Heavenly Dragons for the deadliest (both ways) of Agatean spells.

Air: probably, the most useful skill (with fire), as it is used in Sound and Smell room spells, in the Feathery Reliever, in the uncontrolable urges one and (like most) in Nimbus of Porterage and Weather Butterfly.
Earth: Its specifics are Brass Knuckles, Trollskin (important one), High Enchanting, or Seizing Hands. Only high requirements for the earthquake spell though...
Fire: Pragi and Firebunnies make it the most imporant elemental overall, even though requirements aren't that high for both the spells.
Water: Least useful of elementals. Aside from spells that are very easy or use them all, only the new amulet spell requires it (and at less than 200 bonuses).

Items: not that we use so many... at least those out of Silver Star/Brown range. Scrolls, wands and rings are the staple fare. Some items aren't even used by wizards.

Scroll(s): basic, although less so then for non-wizards who like to portal. Main use is having a personal library for those unfortunate deadly occasions...
Talisman(s): no use for us, except for deluding valuable and esteemed items (and that requires time and patience, but no wizardly magic)

Held:

Wand: probably the most useful of these, thinking on top level wands, like balsa, or low level but handy ones, like pickling sticks. Great variety of 'em too.
Rod: Marginal, it is a requirement for the top Star spell: Wonker's rubber weapon turning.
Staff: Mainly useless (someday they might re-discover staves with knobs though). Red staff (firebunnies thrower). Primary for all wizards.
Broom: out of our sphere, except for sweeping ash.

Worn:

Amulet: Flambardie's Grim Amulet requires a small amount of skill in it...
Ring: Quite useful, not so much in magic casting (still, there's the weather rings) as in using the Pink and specially the Blue rings (get out of danger).

We could also include the subsets of magic.spells and magic.points if we liked, and in that case, we'll see that their inmediate use isn't as obvious as the preceding ones.

Magic Spells: primaries for all, methinks; they are the staple fare of every wizard.

Offensive: mainly determines the damage capacity of your spells.
Defensive: same, but referred to duration and solidity of magical defenses.
Misc: same, but related to the subset of general, unclasifiable spells ('miscellany').
Special: determines mindspace (generally, you have to add your bonus + 30).

Magic Points: determines the maximum guild points you may spend on magical castings. In this case, it is your bonus + 50.

Out of the magic skills branch there's still two or three habilities which an all-spell casting wizard has to master up to a point (they are generally crafts skills and primaries for the Silver Stars):

Smithing: you know, foundry stuff. Nothing too fancy, though...

Gold: always handy for weather rings, rubbery turnings and detections galore, as well as for fixing your blorpled jewellery.

Carpentry: magical-wise, it does have some marginal uses, those being:

Turning: for detections and charms
Whittling: for sparkling staves and charms

Points: for repairing stuff or playing music, making pottery, etc... Now it isn't used for any spell I know of (even though it is still a Silver Star primary...).

Jorodin's Magnificent Communicator

What's it called? Jorodin's Magnificent Communicator(in short, JMC)

What does it do? Jorodin's turns any item of your choice into a full working talker, with a new line added to the item: ''Just beneath the surface, you can make out what looks like a pair of glittering eyes'. The help file gives a more flourishing description, as you'll see below, but that's the stuff.
Because Jorodin the shop-owner can turn the items you give him to talkers for the meagre sum of one dollar, the spell only has anecdotal value and use.

Where is it? Spellcheck Project's entry described a supposed tome, the 'Thyn Aire' book, where it could be found. If this was so in the past, it doesn't seem so now, as I've never found such a book in any of the libraries. The only present way to find the spell is through a scroll you buy at Jorodin's.

What does it require? An item, just about any item, that you want to turn into a talker (my present one is a Sung family crest).

What skills do I need? Channeling, Binding, Evoking

Has it worked? The proper output should read something like this:

You prepare to cast Jorodin's Magnificent Communicator on xxx.
You listen to the xxx.
You whisper meaninglessly to the xxx.
You exclaim: Pop!
Somewhere inside the xxx a pair of glittering eyes swirl into being.

Help Information:

Jorodin's Magnificent Communicator - communicate with others.

Jorodin's Magnificent Communicator allows the caster to summon a Loquacious Spirit from the Plane of Neverending Chatter and bind it to an inanimate object, forcing it to repeat the words of other nearby spirits and their masters for all eternity (not to mention their voice comes in various fashionable colours).

Gold, Gold, Gold!

(At Spellcheck Project)

As you may have noticed, there seems to be some inaccuracy in the stages prediction of some spells at SPC. The two most notable cases are, it seems, Wonker's Wicked Wobble and Gillimer's Ring of Temperate Weather.
The problem is with the gold skill (at least that's the case with Wonker's, and probably so with Gillimer's). One of the reasons might be that when submitting spellchecks, we have to remember that the gold skill isn't part of the magic branch (that is to say, it won't be submitted if we type 'skills magic' and 'spellcheck fully xxx' and then uploading). Just 'skills' is your friend.

Right now at 253 bonus in crafts.smithing.gold (which SPC says should read 'you are a little more likely to succeed than to fail' but my own spellcheck states as 'you would most certainly fail'), I'll keep spending xp in it in the following days and sending spellchecks. Might do the same for Gillimer's, but I imagine my gold bonus is quite over what may be needed (and useful in research) for that...