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Spell circles and workings

Choose a tradition by what you want your character to do: protect companions, call elemental attacks, mend wounds, conceal a passage, or unsettle a hostile creature. Each circle below describes its purpose and its ordinary workings, including spells you have not learned yet. Reading the reference does not teach a working.

Choose a circle

Circle What it offers
Lesser Breath Hearth and road spirits teach protective wards, relief from bleeding and stun, companions' aid, and forceful spirit attacks. Quiet Guard and Hale Breath resist hostile wardings; Spiritshawl helps turn aimed blows aside.
Greater Breath Deeper spirit study offers magical protection, mana recovery, concealment, sanctuaries, and passage to companions. Its hostile workings bind creatures, interrupt casting, and loosen enemy magic.
Cleric's Wheel Devotion joins consecrated attacks with shelter, cleansing, group blessings, aid for the fallen, and resurrection. Its wards protect against both aimed attacks and hostile wardings.
Lesser Vein The foundation of elemental study combines layered wards with lockwork, trapwork, enchantment insight, and attacks of gathered force. Its Veinguards cover aimed attacks and magical resistance; Truevein also strengthens warding offense.
Greater Vein Deep elemental study offers battle wards, mana theft, faster movement, spell interruption, charged vessels, and destructive weather. Its protections complement its attacks, while some workings demand care with equipment or mana.
Wizard's Wheel The Wizard's Wheel specializes in aimed elemental bolts, destructive weather, defensive veils, bondlings, and lasting enchantment. Bolt aiming and warding offense follow different training paths.
Empath's Wheel The Empath's Wheel repairs the healer's own wounds and scars, supports companions, and turns pain against hostile creatures. BEAR treats another person's injury; these repair workings mend the Empath afterward.
Sorcerer's Wheel Disruptive study attacks enemy mana, minds, bodies, and active magic. Protective phase-work and wards accompany disabling curses, lingering afflictions, corpse workings, and dark enchantment.
Ranger's Wheel Living land lends concealment, sure footing, protection, natural attacks, and a bondbeast companion. The circle also supports gathering, skinning, and magical vessels shaped from found materials.
Paladin's Wheel Oath and patron strengthen an armed adventurer with personal wards, group support, recovery, weapon consecration, and judgment. Both aimed-attack defense and warding defense appear among its protections.
Lesser Coal Disciplined will protects body and mind, steadies movement, frees companions, and unsettles hostile creatures. Its workings include magical resistance, physical protection, concealment, and control of a foe's actions.
Bard's Wheel The Bard's Wheel carries group wards, battle songs, travel, singing weapons, and hostile music. Basic songs have cheaper renewal costs, and training lengthens the renewal interval. A stun gives you 15 seconds to recover the tune.

Understand the protection

Guard helps turn aimed blows and bolts aside. Resolve is protection against hostile warding spells. A working that improves one does not automatically improve the other. Some wards improve both, and some instead help with bleeding, stamina, healing, movement, or concealment. The spell descriptions name the actual benefit.

Focus strengthens your hostile wardings. Study in the circle containing the spell, your experience, the circle's relevant attributes, and Focus-enhancing workings help it land. Study across circles and protective wards help you resist enemy wardings. Spell Targeting helps aimed bolts; Channeling builds the mana to cast more often. See Magic for practical training guidance.

Read a working

  • Catalogue code: the address you type with PREPARE or INCANT. It does not encode learning order, strength, or mana cost.
  • Use: the working's job. A bolt is aimed; a warding meets magical resistance; a maneuver tests physical readiness. Protection and support explain beneficial magic.
  • Targets: who or what the working affects. Group workings cover grouped companions present; hostile area workings have a limited reach governed by magical control.
  • Mana: the usual catalogue price. Active magic can sometimes reduce the amount actually spent. Held songs also require renewal mana.

Workings are listed from least to most circle study required. The game still requires appropriate study and experience before casting. SPELLS shows ready workings; SPELLS ALL includes every learned working and marks current casting limits. Filter either view with BUFF, WARD (offensive wardings), BOLT, SONG, HEAL, UTILITY, MANEUVER, or ATTACK; plurals work, and ALL can go before or after the filter. Targets and spell-specific conditions still apply. SPELLS <catalogue code> gives a working's full explanation. Use TRAIN to see your study choices and CHECK IN at an inn to take lessons.

Found magic and Wordcraft

The Deep Wheel is encountered through found magic and special discoveries. Learn a vessel's workings from the item and its use; it is not another ordinary study circle. Savants compose Wordcraft from learned forms and elements instead of training these numbered circles.

Magic and casting ยท Skills and training