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...).