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...).

Summoning

Summoning ys the firft method ufed yn any spirit meeting or demonological encounter, since yt ys ufed to bring a spirit into a wyzard's prefence

Divining

Divining ys the eckftraction of information from a spirit. A counterpart to scrying, yt has the advantage of not putting your own senfes at ryfk, but the difadvantage that most spirits are notorious meaning twifters.

Conjuring

Conjuring - not to be confufed with the type of magickal creation of thyngs - ys ufed to requeft a spirit to perform some action, like abjuring but the other way around.

Banishing

Banishing ys usually ufed to end an encounter with a spirit, sending yt back to yts normal place of dwelling. Having control over the spirit ys a great asfet, as often they prefer being here and don't want to go back.

Abjuring

Abjuring ys one of the moft important parts of demonology, for those that care to get involved in such thyngs, as yt forces a spirit to abftain from some action, such as leaping out of the magick octogram and devouring the wyzard.

Scrying

Scrying ys a broadly applied method ufed to send a wyzard's senfes to another place. Often thys ys done indirectly using crystal balls, mirrors, bowls of water, Caroc cards, Ching-a-ling and a whole hoft of techniques ending in -mancy. Thefe methods are generally preferred over sending the raw senfes where there ys the danger of not coming back.

Healing

Healing by magick ys a tricky bufinesf, but when yt works yt boofts the life force of a living thyng. Yt ys generally better to rely upon potions or the attentions of a prieft, yet those sufficiently skilled may have enough control to ufe yt succesffully.

Evoking

Evoking means to draw forth the magickal properties of an object. A subtle method, yt ys important for wyzards as yt ys the major diagnoftic skill yn probing thyngs magickal.

Enchanting

Enchanting deals directly with the raw matter, so to speak, of magick as yt ys the changing of the magickal field of an object. Except yn the prefence of a sourceror, enchantment muft be conferved: for low power spells, such as Brother Happalon's Elementary Enchanting, the enchantment may be eckstracted from the naturally occurring fluctuations yn the background, while more powerful spells muft, yn esfence, tranffer enchantment from one object to another.

Dancing

Dancing ys a method similar to chanting yn many regards, confifting as yt does of the ufe of body-motion afpects of spell cafting. Many treatifes on witchcraft contain fafcinating accounts of rites involving thys skill to which the interefted reader ys directed.

Chanting

Chanting concerns the vocal afpects of spell cafting. Often more important for the attainment of a mood or feeling, yt can still have a profound occult effect on some types of creature.

Brewing

Brewing ys another method that tends not to be practifed by wyzards but ys moftly utilifed by wytches and apothecaries. Yt confifts of performing a magickal reaction on a micksture of subftances - as oppofed to a merely alchemical reaction - to obtain a magickal subftance or potion.

Binding

Binding involves the attaching of a magickal effect to an object. Thys ys ufed, for inftance, yn the manufacture of magickal weapons and armour: a wyzard might bind an effect to allow better night vifion ynto a helm or a better grip for climbing ynto a pair of gloves.

Cursing

Cursing ys the method ufed to affect the beliefs and other attributes - though ufually belief ys sufficient - of someone. Thys tends to be the province of wytches, whereas wyzards prefer being more direct.

Convoking

Convoking draws together other minds, either to magnify the power to be ufed yn a spell or merely for a mental conference. An ynterefting eckfample of thys skyll may be found yn the spell "Kamikaze Oryctolagus Flammula", one of the famous creature spells of the fyre wyzard Frottjor.

Charming

Charming ys ufed to convince someone to do your bydding. Yt becomes more dyfficult to charm with yncreafed mental ability of the target, although choofing a target for whom the relevant action would be yn character or conform with the target's beliefs helps confiderably.

Channeling

Channeling ys the conveying of mental energy from one place to another, ufually between minds. The moft bafic form would be the tranfferral of power from one wyzard to another; the reverfe of thys, the sucking of energy from one mind by a wyzard ys evil and, moreover, dangerous, since yt attracts the attention of Thyngs.

Animating

Animating involves giving a mind to something inanimate. The clasfic ecksample ys the creation of a golem; a more fafhionable ecksample ys the making of a Brassica oleracea ambulata, the walking cabbage. Generally speaking, animating ys not too arduous, since all thyngs yearn towards sentience, but yt works beft with a object of suitable complecksity to hold the mind.

Woddeley's Occult Primer

Yes, the basic book on wizardry and spell abilities is here too!. Not all of them appear, yet the descriptions that do appear of magic skills well deserve the publishing and the reading. Like the order rooms, the spells and the spellbooks, we will be publishing here the full contents of this book.

This is a thin, useful-looking, cloth-bound book. It looks well read, judging by the way the pages curl at the corners.

It is closed.

Contents of Woddeley's Occult Primer

I. Mental Methods:
Animating. . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Channeling . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Charming . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Convoking. . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Cursing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

II. Physickal Methods:
Binding. . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Brewing. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Chanting . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Dancing. . . . . . . . . . . . .10
Enchanting . . . . . . . . . . .11
Evoking. . . . . . . . . . . . .12
Healing. . . . . . . . . . . . .13
Scrying. . . . . . . . . . . . .14

III. Spiritual Methods:
Abjuring . . . . . . . . . . . .15
Banishing. . . . . . . . . . . .16
Conjuring. . . . . . . . . . . .17
Divining . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Summoning. . . . . . . . . . . .19