Moon Mage guide 1.3

By the player of Raecear Olieral

List of changes in version 1.3.1 (10/19/06)

- Corrected a few typos

- Made a minor update to Burn description

- Updated Moonblade to reflect the ability to store spells

- Added min prep and spell cap information

- Made updates to a number of areas due to helpful comments by Dhimani – Thanks for the tips!

- Updated foraging methods

- Updated appraisal methods

- Updated hiding methods

- Updated comments on difficulty of PD

- Updated DO description

- Updated shadow servant description

- Changed a few sections to reflect more appropriate armor and evasion training methods at low ranks

- Made a few other miscellaneous updates

List of changes in version 1.3 (9/07/06)

- Made a significant number of wording corrections

- Added some content outlines before each section

- Added “Guide to the Guide” section

- Added “How to Use Magic” section

List of changes in version 1.2 (7/06/06)

- Clarified description of intelligence and wisdom

- Minor update to Power Perception description

- Minor update to Appraisal description

- Added references to the Astral Plane where appropriate

- Clarified Locate description

- Updated Moonblade description for pending enhancements

- Updated Partial Displacement to have correct requirements

- Updated TKS description

- Removed erroneous comment from Psychic Shield description

- Cleaned up some language

- Added sigils displayed for sandstone bowls, updated for new skills

- Added second tier sect preps

- Added g’nar peth sect prep (thanks Lunora!)

- Added a few web pages to the links section

List of changes in version 1.1 

- Removed the spell vs. agility component from references to Burn

- Clarified wording in description of Power Perception

- Modified paragraph on learning TM to account for the change to spell tiers

- Noted that there is a small climbing requirement to reach Knife Clan

- Noted that Shadows does not improve stalking

- Updated notes on escaping

- Updated weapons and armor selection to mention Invocation of Energy

- Made minor adjustment to recommended equipment list

- Added Invocation of Energy to spell list

- Updated TKT description in spell list to account for the spell tier review

- Updated Burn description in spell list to account for its change to a TM spell and the addition of Katamba as a light source

- Updated Imbue description to list its use in creating shards to power Invocation of Energy

- Updated Partial Displacement description to account for the spell tier review

- Updated Dinazen Olkar description to account for spell tier review

- Updated Crystal Spike description to account for spell tier review

- Made a number of minor changes to the wording in the spell list

- Added Align Moon to the list of moon mage abilities

- Updated the combat advice section to take the spell tier review into account

- Expanded the melee combat path level 30-39 advice

- Added some very general circle 60+ combat advice

- Made minor corrections to combat advice section

- Modified roleplaying suggestions slightly

- Updated links section to remove broken links, correct those that have moved, and added a couple new ones

Preface:

This guide will attempt to provide information useful for the creation and advancement of a moon mage, with some additional information on peculiarities unique to the Platinum environment. This guide is intended for players unfamiliar with the Moon Mage guild, and may be of use to player who are familiar with the guild but unfamiliar with DR Platinum. I also have tried to include a number of useful reference information that all moon mages may find convenient. I made an attempt to include sufficient basic information about the game so that this guide will be beneficial to very new players as well, but it should not be considered a guide to DragonRealms as a whole.

Guide to the Guide:

As the guide has grown in size, I’ve realized that it may be difficult to digest in its entirety. While I still feel it may be valuable to read through as a single piece, I’ve tried to include lists of particularly pertinent sections that may apply to various classes of players as an aid to those seeking specific information.

If you are:	Then consider reading:
New to DragonRealms	Races Attributes How to Use Magic After you become more familiar with the game, move on to Getting started in Plat, Spells and abilities, and the rest of the guide.
New to Moon Mages, familiar with DragonRealms	Spells and Abilities Hunting Concerns RP Considerations Appendix II for introductory information on enchanting Specific skills as needed if having difficulty learning.
Familiar with Moon Mages, new to Plat	Getting Started in Plat Specific skills if having difficulty learning in plat Spells list for any plat specific information Hunting Concerns Role playing considerations Appendix I for divination tool details
Familiar with Moon Mages and Plat	Abilities list for details on ability syntax RP considerations sect information Appendix I for divination tool details

Outline:

I. Choosing your Race and attributes

II. Getting started in Plat

III. An overview of spells and abilities

IV. Hunting concerns

V. Role playing considerations

I. Choosing your Race and attributes

A. Races

B. Attributes

Many people will have already chosen their race and attributes by the time they read this guide, so I will largely focus on the benefits of adapting your play style and attribute training to your race and spell selection. In a way, in Platinum it is best to choose the race you want based on their descriptions and your personal role playing desires rather than mechanics anyhow, and then try to use what you have in the most effective fashion.

Race:

In case you have not yet chosen a race and wish to make the most mechanically sound choice, I first will discuss the advantage of each race with regards to the moon mage guild.

Human: A very adaptable race. Human is a good choice if you don’t quite know what you want to do yet, or plan on being very versatile. Humans offer little in the way of benefits to a moon mage, but they also offer no penalties. To be blunt, there’s no reason to be a human in particular. I like to play them, but if you plan on focusing on ANY attributes more than the others, picking a race that is strong in some of those attributes will always put you out ahead of Humans for efficient training. The only way they would come out behind is if they insisted on focusing on their weak attributes. All that said, Humans are still one of the most common races, and are a solid RP choice for any kind of character.

Dwarf: Dwarves make surprisingly good moon mages. Their penalties are in the area of reflexes and agility, and are not huge. Their strengths are stamina and discipline. They excel in many of the spells that moon mages are known for, and discipline is used for virtually every contested spell. They’re one of the few races that come out ahead in the will vs. will spell category, which moon mages use frequently. A couple of RP considerations with dwarves: females grow beards, and togs are going to show you their toothbrush, so be warned.

Elf: Elves are a race with lots of modifiers. Every stat you have besides intelligence and wisdom have either a bonus or a penalty, so you’ll have to expect that certain things are going to take you longer than others. Elves are strong in agility and reflex, which makes them very effective in combat and survival tasks that require these attributes (juggling, lockpicking, training melee weapons above your level), and strong in charisma as well, but they are weak in strength, stamina, and discipline. Discipline in particular hurts as a moon mage, and you probably will suck it up and train that even though you have a penalty for it. Just remember that even though you’re paying more for discipline, you’re paying less for charisma, and your total TDP expenditure will be identical to that of a human for these two attributes if you keep them even. The strength and stamina is a pain, but eventually you’ll have enough of both to get rid of burden, and then can continue raising your agility and reflex at your leisure to increase both your offensive and defensive abilities. I would recommend elves only to those moon mages who are interested in training a wide variety of skills or have a particular RP reason to be one.

Halfling: Halflings are similar to elves, attributewise, only more extreme. Strong strength penalty combined with discipline and wisdom penalty means that they’re going to have difficulty fighting and learning, and the bonus in agility and reflex probably aren’t going to compensate the difference. They are much more durable than elves though, so if you were planning on making yourself a very defensive oriented moon mage and were willing to muddle through the discipline and wisdom, you may still do well, especially since you probably won’t ever need to raise wisdom past a certain point and don’t have any intelligence penalties. Also, if you plan on putting your high agility to use in the survival department, then that may tip the scales in your favor as well.

Gor’Tog: I won’t go into all the roleplaying potential in a gor’tog character; you’ll have to look elsewhere for that, since it’s enough for a guide in itself! Suffice it to say that you may want to play one of these for a reason that has nothing to do with mechanics. As far as those go, things are a little tough, but not as bad as some people might imagine. The intelligence penalty is probably the most difficult to manage, but they don’t have a lot of other weaknesses as a moon mage. No discipline or charisma penalty, extremely strong and quite durable, and just a little penalty to reflexes, which isn’t a huge deal if you’re competent in using your magic to prevent things from attacking you all the time. All that said, your life will be rough until you get your mentals up, but if you’re thinking of going combat heavy, a Gor’Tog moon mage might be your cup of tea. Be aware that the posted statistics on the play.net site are off a little. Gor’Togs have had their strength bonus increased to balance their penalties.

Elothean: These guys are the vanilla of the moon mage world. According to the play.net site, over 1/3 of all moon mages are Elothean. While you shouldn’t jump on the bandwagon without thinking about it, they do have a number of bonuses. They learn quickly and have a reflex bonus. Their intelligence bonus combined with lack of penalty to discipline or charisma makes them one of the few races that come out ahead in the will vs. will spell department (a common moon mage spell type). Their drawbacks are that they have a large penalty to stamina, as well as a moderate one to strength, which means you’ll have a very difficult time carrying all of your moon mage stuff around later (good incentive to learn shadow servant) and also may have difficulty in combat for awhile. Also, many people stop raising their wisdom somewhere around 30, which means that having a bonus in that attribute may go to waste eventually.

S’kra Mur: These guys are pretty bland, attributewise. A little bit of learning problems, compensated by higher strength and reflexes. Don’t hesitate to pick them if you want them for RP reasons (or want a tail), but unless you really want a little edge in combat, there’s no particular advantage playing them either.

Gnome: The last of the races that come out ahead in the will vs. will department, these guys are brilliant. Strong intelligence bonus (so please don’t talk like a child when you play your gnome.. please, for the children), strong reflex bonus, and an agility bonus all make gnomes very appealing to a magical character. Their stamina is troublesome however, and their strength is quite pathetic. The problem here is not necessarily going to be doing damage or wielding weapons, but rather making it into combat without an excessive burden. Your best bet in combat is to focus on fixed RT weapons (like bows) or agility based weapons (light edged, or some medium edged weapons, for example), and the lightest armor you can find. Of course, if you plan on staying out of combat entirely, gnomes make an excellent choice.

Kaldar: Similar to S’kra Mur, Kaldar have mild penalties to wisdom and intelligence, and a bonus to strength, but they also have a bonus to charisma, which is a bit more useful to moon mages than reflex, as far as spell casting goes. This probably would put Kaldar ahead of S’kra Mur for me as ideal moon mages. They can carry a lot, and have no penalties besides intelligence and wisdom. If you’re planning on being a fighter, Kaldar is not a bad choice. They also have the roleplaying advantage of being fairly human-like, if that’s your thing.

Prydaen: These are another one of those if-you-really-want-a-tail kinds of races. They also come with claws, which make brawling a breeze. Large wisdom penalty and moderate discipline penalty also make things difficult early on, but wisdom is one of those attributes that you probably will stop raising eventually, so from a purely mechanical tdp perspective, these guys aren’t really too bad, assuming you plan on having a high reflex. Charisma and discipline kind of cancel out for spell casting, so basically you’re trading a lot of wisdom for reflex. If you don’t really plan on being at melee range a lot and making evasion a priority, don’t pick this race, unless you just want to be one for a roleplaying reason.

Rakash: One of the more unusual attribute setups can be found in the Rakash race. Every bonus they have comes with a corresponding penalty, making it difficult to specialize. They have good reflexes but poor agility, good discipline, but poor wisdom and very poor intelligence. The only area they really come out ahead is stamina. Playing a Rakash moon mage can be quite a challenge, but very defensively sound. The real drawback is going to be keeping intelligence high enough to aid will vs. will spells. I personally wouldn’t pick Rakash, since I don’t think stamina is important enough to most moon mages to warrant the trade off. One reason some Rakash are moon mages is so they know when Katamba will be full, which causes them to be in wolf-skin, but I don’t see that as enough of a trade.

Attributes:

Now that you have some idea of how your race affects the way you play a moon mage, I’ve provided some additional information about each attribute that may clarify some of the above comments.

Strength: No direct application towards moon mages, with the exception of the occasional “spell vs. stamina” spell, of which we have very few. It is useful for reducing weapon round times, burden, and hitting harder with your weapons, the importance of which is entirely up to the way you want to play your character.

Reflex: This can help modify your chances of success when engaging in “spell vs. agility” contests. This includes a couple moon mage spells, such as tezirah’s veil and shadow web. It also helps resist such spells when cast by other guilds, and is the most useful defensive stat for combat in general.

Agility: Also aids in “spell vs. agility” contests, as well as your ability to hit with weapons of all kinds, juggle, open boxes, and cast target magic spells. Agility also can help with certain mech lore related enchanting tasks.

Charisma: Once one of the more neglected traits, this attribute now plays a role in every single contested spell, making it somewhat of a must-have. Many people still feel it’s not as significant as discipline, but I try to keep them fairly equal. This has the added side effect of increasing your spirit health, which gives you a longer depart timer if you die and helps you resist spirit draining effects a little bit. Also helps you barter with shop keepers and teach.

Discipline: This used to be the one and only significant moon mage trait, and a certain amount of bias in its favor has lingered on. It certainly does have a lot of uses for us however, from aiding all of our contested spells to helping resist stuns to increasing our skill pool size, which can help us learn faster.

Wisdom: This helps you absorb experience faster, but it increases with diminishing returns, so eventually you’ll probably stop raising this as the difference it makes grows less and less. It is a percentage, however, so as the experience needed to improve your skills increases, even a diminished percentage can be noticeable, and acquiring enough wisdom to train efficiently early on can be very important. It doesn’t affect any of our spells, so the main reason most moon mages end up with a lot of wisdom is because they’ve decided their combat attributes are high enough and just want to learn faster. Magic primary guilds tend to need higher skill ranks to circle, so having a high wisdom can help in that regard.

Intelligence: Intelligence is useful to moon mages in two ways. First of all, it will help you with will vs. will spells, which is always a perk. In a more every day use, however, it will increase the amount of experience you can learn before becoming “mind locked” in a skill, which can help you learn faster. This is particularly noticeable in tertiary skills. If you want to train combats OR use mental blast effectively, you’re going to want intelligence. Unlike wisdom, it does not increase with diminishing returns, so you can hypothetically keep raising intelligence to keep increasing your learning potential as well, though your skills require a greater amount of experience to increase at higher levels, so it balances out somewhat.

Stamina: Stamina only affects our “spell vs. stamina” spells, which is not the reason why we would probably increase it. It helps resist stun, poison, disease, and increases our total pool of vitality and fatigue. Early on you will need stamina to prevent yourself from becoming tired, and later to help combat poison or critical hits from enemies. In my experience, most moon mages don’t have a whole lot to get out of stamina after about 30 points in it, but your mileage may vary.

In conclusion, all of the attributes can be a potential strength or weakness depending on your play style. All moon mages, however, tend to want high discipline and charisma, and to tailor their other attributes to the type of spells they like to cast and the way they choose to engage in combat.

II. Getting Started in Plat

A. Making Money

B. Training Skills

C. Essential Goods

Making Money

I will assume that you’re not funding yourself with money from another character. If you are, jump to the bottom of this section for the “essential goods” list.

Moon mages early on in their life have very little earning potential. This can be especially challenging in plat where spawn can be low and other players hard to find. There are a couple of things you can do to make life easier for yourself however.

Forage sticks for Mags:

All you need for this is a container of some sort. Mags is outside the reflex trainer in crossing and will pay around 10 copper for a stick or branch. I recommend sticks for two reasons – they are smaller so you can fit more in a backpack, and they are slightly harder to find, so you’ll learn a little more foraging. If you plan on training foraging, use “forage <item> careful” to get more experience out of the deal, otherwise just “forage <item>” to make things go faster. Once you have as many sticks as you want, take them to mags and “give <container> to mags”. You may have to have it in your right hand and just try “give mags”. It is a little finicky on syntax. You can make a total of about 5 gold before she’ll stop paying you for them. This should be enough to buy some basic equipment.

Sell pelts:

Obviously not the most lucrative business for your first 10 circles, but don’t forget to skin anything you fight and sell it to the tanner.

Pawn valuable goods:

As a moon mage, one easy source of valuable goods early in life is goblins outside the west gate. Those short swords and target shields sell for a decent amount, so be sure to gather those up in addition to the loot the critter drops. One thing that you can do to make some real nice coin early on is to break all the gweths you find and fix the chains. You can break a gweth by wearing it and removing it repeatedly, then get the chain and “fix my chain.” You should be able to sell these for 8 to 10 bronze at the pawn shop! Please don’t take the gweths from the basket at the gate for this purpose, but feel free to sell the chains of any you find in the field, as this can account for some sizable income in the early game. Don’t neglect the pawn shop as you become more skilled either. Reaver axes and shields can turn quite a profit for an enterprising young character.

Training Skills

Moon mages have three areas of skills we are required to learn and two that we aren’t, but you’ll probably want to train them all anyway. Moon mages are magic primary, survival and lore secondary, armor and weapons tertiary.

Magic

Additional information about magic use can be found in the section “How to Use Magic” under “Abilities.”

Primary magic and harness do not require any particular items to train, and can be learned simply by casting spells. If you’re having trouble making them move, try casting your spells with lower mana, but shorter casting times. For example, if you run out of mana casting shadows at 5 mana with full prep, try casting it at 2 mana, but only waiting 10 seconds before casting instead of 20. You will use up less of your attunement and cast more quickly.

Power perception is different for moon mages than other guilds. We do not perceive room based mana, so changing rooms and perceiving will not teach you very well. You must perceive the different things that moon mages can sense. After perceiving each type, it’s safest to wait a minute or two before perceiving that again. Here is a list of all the possible perceive targets for moon mages:
(no target) – tells you which mana type is strongest, also includes “area” and “self” perceive messages

Transduction – checks level of transduction mana

Perception – the same, for perception mana

Moonlight Manipulation – the same

Psychic Projection – the same

Stellar – the same

Katamba – gives info about moon phase, position, and how much mana it’s putting out

Yavash – the same, for Yavash

Xibar – the same

Moonbeams – checks for moonbeams in the room

Self – just shows spells on you, lower RT than general percieve

Area – checks for area effect spells

Watchers – checks to see if anyone is observing the room through magic

<NPC name> - can perceive NPCs and monsters to check for spells (requires 60-100ish skill)

<player> - can perceive players for spells (requires skill also)

Magic devices can be learned a few ways early on. Ideally you want to acquire some cambrinth to use when you cast spells so you can train magic devices at the same time as your other skills. This will not always be possible, however, so you have a couple of options. Devices classes can get your skill moving very quickly for the first few levels, so don’t discount the possibility. You do have one advantage that prime players don’t have however, which is easy access to gweths. All you need is a gweth and you will be able to learn MD for at least 20 or 30 ranks, possibly more (depending on your patience.) You simply focus on the gweth over and over again while holding it in your hands. It is dull and doesn’t teach anything else, but it’s free and you can do it while listening to a class or the like. Runes are another option, which are not generally a very fast way to learn, but if used properly can help you get your first 30 ranks of MD very quickly. As long as you are only circle 1, you will not have enough concentration to activate a rune by rubbing it, but you can still learn well from the process without depleting the rune, so simply rub it over and over again.

Target magic is easier to learn earlier on than it once was. Thanks to the (relatively) recent changes to spell tiers, all our targeted spells now teach fairly well within their usable skill range, and can be used to learn target magic effectively. Your options here are to start with telekinetic throw (tkt) as soon as you like, or attempt to hold out for burn at a higher circle. Both spells have their limitations, but given the increase in difficulty to crystal spike and partial displacement, tkt and later DO (dinezen olkar) are now pretty reasonable ways to learn TM for some time. Just use general target and min prep with a crossbow bolt or arrow. This should work well in rats (since they don’t drop anything to get in the way.) Also keep in mind that if you can get your opponent off balance (brawling, chopping off its leg, whatever) then your spell will hit harder and you’ll learn more TM.

Lore

As a new moon mage you need Scholarship, Teaching, Astrology, and one other lore of your choosing. The more useful of the choices for the fourth lore skill are Mechanical Lore and Appraisal. I recommend training both of them, but if you wish to stick with just one, either will do and are fairly easy to learn early on.

Scholarship is going to be your biggest bane for quite some time, in all likelihood. I would advise spending as much time in classes as you can, especially early on. When you’re opening boxes or scraping pelts, find that one other person in crossing and make them teach you! The northeast gate is a good place for this. Once you get 25 scholarship, you’ll want to invest some of your Mags money in a sewing pattern. These can be purchased in Arthe Dale (n,n,n,n,e,go door, from the entrance to the Arthe Dale) at the sewing shop, and can be studied once a minute for scholarship practice. It’s slow and they wear out, but it definitely works. You just have to make it a regular habit, and you’ll keep scholarship cooking right along. For other ways to learn scholarship, see astrology.

Teaching is not a difficult requirement, but it’s ever-present. We need a steady 2 ranks of teaching per circle from 1 to 100 (where it jumps to 3.) This really isn’t too bad, but unfortunately it’s not something you can learn by yourself, which makes it a challenge in plat. You will probably have to have someone teach you teaching early on (which helps scholarship anyway) before you have enough skills to teach other players. Again, the northeast gate of crossing is probably your best spot for now.

Astrology initially requires 2 ranks per circle, but gets harder as you grow more powerful, so you’d be advised to keep it moving as much as possible so you don’t get stuck needing it to circle. One advantage of making astrology a priority is that it will also teach fairly decent scholarship to perform any of these tasks. Early on, predict the weather every couple of minutes. You won’t learn a ton, but you’ll get some scholarship and perception as well. This should get you the first couple of circles worth of astrology. If you have severe difficulty, you may wish to find an astrology teacher for a short while.

Predict weather is nice because it works at any time of day, but for a little more serious practice, you’ll need to observe some celestial bodies. You start out only knowing the three moons, the sun, and the constellation “the heart.” In order to predict the future, observe the body in particular until you learn something about the future. This may take awhile, and you might want to make sure you cast Clear Vision before attempting it. Once you have studied a constellation or moon, you can “predict future <target> <skill type (optional)>” to cause a vision to occur. Eventually you will be able to use these predictions to give skill boosts, but right now you’re mostly aiming on learning astrology. After you successfully observe, there is a timer before you can observe again, which is a couple minutes. Try to make a habit of observing whenever you can, even if you don’t predict. Observing teaches a modest amount of perception as well. More detailed information on prediction in section III.

Around circle 10, you may be ready to learn event prediction, which allows you to study the sky at night, and then predict events on yourself or others. This teaches astrology and scholarship quite well, but works very poorly during the day. More information on this in section III as well.

Mechanical Lore used to be one of the more irritating skills to learn, but now we have an easy way to practice it up until around 100-120 ranks. Simply forage for some grass (forage grass) and braid it (braid my grass). Repeat until you start getting messages about failing consistently (3 or 4 in a row), then ditch the grass and repeat. You’ll have to forage up more grass to add in periodically. Once your foraging is higher (around 40 ranks or so, less with clear vision up) you can forage for vines, which work better because you have to spend less time foraging up additional ones to add in. This method should teach great up until 100 ranks, at which point it will begin to slow down and you’ll want to switch to origami or another method.

Appraisal is equally straightforward to learn and can be done in a couple different ways. The fastest way to learn appraisal is to killing some rats and bundle their pelts to appraise. You may also want to make a habit of appraising your weapons and armor in combat occasionally, and once you get 10 ranks of appraisal appraising critters after you attack them. Pouches full of gems also make excellent appraisal targets.

Survival

Depending on the way you play, the survivals you choose will be different, but you’ll need to get 8 of them to 20 ranks, and then continue to train 6 (you can let 2 drop out if you like.) The best survivals to pick aren’t necessarily the easiest ones to train, but rather the ones you’re going to remember to do on a regular basis. Climbing is easy to train, but if you never do it, it will always be that one skill you have to sit down and practice for a few hours at the end of your circle.

Evasion is one of those skills everyone ends up needing a little of, and I’d strongly recommend keeping this in your top 6. For your first 30 or 35 ranks you will learn evasion with just about any amount of armor on, but after that point you should be practical with the amount of armor you wear to make sure you can keep evasion going. Plate users, for instance, may limit themselves to smaller pieces of armor until they have enough skill to move well in a full set, whereas leather users probably can continue to wear all their armor. Seer’s sense can also help make learning evasion less painful.

Perception is a big moon mage essential. You need perception for predicting the future and enchanting, so make a point of training this one. Foraging, disarming traps, observing constellations, and predicting the weather can help you get some early ranks in the skill. See foraging and astrology section for more information on using those methods. Once you have clear vision and 10 or 15 ranks of perception, you’ll be able to start juggling 1 stone juggling items, which can be purchased on Aesry for a couple silver or from the clown on the amusement pier, also for a couple silver (and some luck.) Your best bet may be asking around for some or trying to find someone to make the trip to Aesry for you.

Climbing is fairly easy to train, and highly recommended in Plat if you want to get around on your own. You’ll want at least 25 ranks if you plan on getting into rock trolls, as the requirement for getting over the barricade is not level-based as it is in DR Prime. You can get your first ranks on the tree in Arthe Dale (n,n,w,s from the Arthe gate) and also on the tree in the Halfling housing area in Arthe Dale (check Ranik’s maps, see Appendix III.) Those should teach you for a long time, and you can start adding in additional areas around crossing (the tree in the copse out the north gate, the path up to young ogres) into your climbing practice, as they all have a learning timer and you won’t be able to use the same ones over and over. Also if you want to enchant some day, you’ll want decent climbing skills to help pass the test.

Swimming is pretty much in the same category as climbing, and I’d recommend training them together. What works pretty well is to climb something, then swim somewhere while you wait for the climbing timer to reset, then repeat. You can get your first swimming ranks in the swimming hole in Arthe Dale, and after that you can move to the brook past goblins out the west gate. From there you can more into the drainage ditch in Baernholdt’s farm yard, which can teach well over 100 ranks in swimming.

Disarming boxes can be a good way of making some coin and keeping perception moving. The problem early on with this is that you won’t be able to get any boxes until you can kill goblins, which means you’ll have a hard time using it to circle right away. My advice would be to either have someone teach you some ranks of this, or pick up an additional survival until you’re high enough level to kill goblins. Don’t forget that clear vision increases your perception, which makes disarming boxes easier (and less dangerous.) Also don’t forget about the auto healers. If you get sprayed with acid and there’s no empath around, you’ll need to visit an auto healer. Never (except in the case of poison or an absolute emergency) visit the martyr in the crossing hospital unless you want to be left with scars and lots of debt. The auto healers in most other cities are cheaper, but if you’re in crossing, you should go to Dokt in Knife Clan (you may have to consult a map – it’s out the west gate past goblins and cougars, and you will need some climbing to get in.)

You might as well take up lockpicking if you’re going to learn to disarm, as it’s the only way to get the goods out of the boxes. You can use some of the money you made selling sticks to get a lockpick, but again, you won’t be able to get boxes early on unless you have someone helping supply you, so you may wish to find a teacher for the first 10 or so ranks, or choose a different survival until you’re a high enough level to kill goblins. Also remember that we have no master lockpicks for sale here. Only a few people can make them, and they’re kept within the thief guild, so if you want to pick boxes, train that agility and buy those stouts (and make those lockpick boosting enchantments!)

Hiding can be a very useful skill for a moon mage in plat, both in combat and for roleplaying purposes. If you plan on training hiding, make sure you keep it up right from the start, or you’ll have to start hopping around hunting grounds to train it later. It’s easiest to train wearing leather (as are many survival skills) or in no armor, so if you choose to wear chain or plate, you might consider taking it off to practice this. We can now hide at melee again with enough skill, which makes this all the more useful defensively. To train hiding the most efficiently at a young level, cast shadows, let a creature advance to melee on you, then retreat, begin advancing, and hide. If you have enough skill to hide at melee range, that teaches even more quickly, and is not hard to do on rats at all. You can hide at pole range and learn three times on each creature, or around five times at melee. After you’re at melee range with an enemy, you can type any attack command to try and ambush it. Ambushing a creature gives additional hiding experience.

We also have a number of ways to help improve our hiding ability for training purposes, making this a fairly easy to train skill in the long run. Shadows can help us hide more easily, and mental blast can stun enemies which makes them easier to hide on. With these two spells, you will be able to train hiding even in metal armor, while hunting a bit over your head. If you plan on learning refractive field, this ability may not be quite as useful, but it’s faster than casting the spell.

Stalking tends to go along with hiding, and if you’re planning on learning one, you may as well pick up both. Leather or no armor for this skill as well, using the same tactic as above for hiding – from melee, retreat, advance, hide. You’ll hide at pole, then learn stalking when you advance to melee while hidden. If you need to learn extra stalking, hide at pole, then advance and retreat a few times quickly. Note that shadows doesn’t aid stalking ability, but stunned creatures still have lower perception. When you have more ranks of stalking, you will also be able to <stalk creature> successfully, which doesn’t inflict any round time if you succeed. Throwing in a stalk on each creature in the room each time you are in hiding will help keep stalking going.

Foraging is one of the less popular skills to learn, but now that we can forage careful, it’s not too hard. Initial ranks of foraging and perception can be gained by simply foraging for coins. Two normal forages followed by a collect coins works quite well. When you have about 40 or 50 ranks, you can find enough items to learn well by cycling through your hardest items using forage careful. Consult olwydd.com or another list of forageables and find the hardest items you can successfully forage careful, and repeat them over and over.

First Aid can be nearly impossible to learn in plat. You never know when you’ll be infected, and there isn’t always someone around to help. As a consequence, we tend to have less first aid skill over here. My advice would be to have someone teach you it until you get 20 ranks (enough for level 10) and then not to use it to circle, but tend your wounds whenever you have them for a little while before getting them healed to keep it inching along. If you’re really serious about wanting to learn first aid, then get it up to around 40 ranks, along with your mech lore and skinning skills and ask someone about bloodworms.

Skinning is one of the few ways to making money early on, so you may as well learn it at least for a little while. If you don’t plan on hunting, you may wish to drop it, but otherwise I’d keep it in your top 6. You learn skinning whenever you skin something you kill, preferably performing the skinning with a light edged weapon (for best success.) After you’ve skinned something, you may also be able to scrape the skin using a hide scraper for additional skinning practice as well as mech lore training, which is highly advisable (if somewhat slow). Scraping is a good thing to do if you have to sit and listen to a class.

Escaping is currently rather difficult to learn for circling. You can learn escaping by going out the north gate and wallowing around in some of the muck off to the west a bit. If you get stuck, be sure to “dig” before trying to move again, or you’ll just keep falling over forever. You can learn up to 30 ranks of it in the dusk ogre tunnels outside of Riverhaven, and there are creatures you can fight to learn escaping off of, but none of them will be practical in a reasonable time frame, so you’d be spending a lot of time in class. I don’t really have a good suggestion about this skill, other than “don’t rely on it.” There are other escaping options available when your combat skills are higher, but do not make it a viable skill to circle with at this time.

Weapons and Armor

I group these together since we don’t really have any ‘requirement’ to train them and I just have a few general recommendations.

First of all, you’ll want to customize your weapons and armor to your attributes and survival skills. If you plan on training hiding and stalking, plate might be difficult. If you are a gnome, plate be more than difficult! If your race favors agility and not strength, go light edge (LE), medium edge (ME), or some kind of bow. If they favor strength, you might consider HE, 2HE, or some kind of blunt. Or do whatever you want. Honestly, you can get good at any weapon, but just be practical with how you want to raise your attributes. Moon mages get one spell (seer’s sense) to modify combat skills directly, but we also can succeed by impeding the enemy. It’s quite possible that you can mental blast or calm critters to successfully train unbalanced or slow weapons. You can use tezirah’s veil to help train multiple armors and multi opponent skill. At higher skills, we have Invocation of Energy to modify our agility and reflex for short periods of time. Consult the combat section for more details, but when choosing your weapon and armor skills, your personal inclination and what you can get a hold of are the best guides.

As far as armor goes, moon mages frequently favor light chain or leather. We can’t really train anything down terribly well. HC is good to learn, but we don’t have the same kind of forgers as there can be found in prime, so HC isn’t really worth the increase in hindrance, at least at this point. If you go leather, be aware that there are no perfect firecat leathers, or any kind of player made leathers at all for the most part. Your high-end leathers are probably going to be shard hunting leathers and your LC might be decent forged if you’re lucky, or just a crossing chain shirt. Basically, look at the store-bought items and decide your armor based on those. If you train light chain, train heavy chain through accessories. If you train plate, be sure to get some heavy and some light. There’s no additional penalty for a second armor of the same type, so you may as well get experience in both, since we mind lock our tertiary armor skills so quickly.

Lastly, train shield. Take a goblin target shield, get someone to get a shield from a reaver or a grendel, do whatever. You don’t have to be great at it, but in plat invasions, everyone needs to contribute sometimes, and you don’t want things shooting you when you run through rooms or what not. It can be your worst defensive skill (as you’re probably best relying on evasion since we learn it faster), but any shield skill is better than nothing.

Essential Goods

The last thing under “getting started” is a list of goods that are pretty much standard issue for a moon mage. Some of them you may not be able to afford for awhile, but you’ll want to have one way or another “eventually.” Some of them have nothing to do with being a moon mage, but you’ll probably want them for general training and RP purposes.

J and K gweths (check the basket or kill goblins for awhile)

Gem pouch

Bundling rope (can make your own)

Skinning or carving knife (or some LE)

Hide scraper

Clothes (you might get some funny remarks wearing nothing but armor and a shirt)

Stout lockpick

Sturdy backpack, or similar sized container

Shield

Armor for all parts (don’t feel obligated to wear it all until you have more skill though)

At least 2 or 3 weapons (if you’re in for combat, since they lock up fast)

Razor (gentlemen and all dwarves, or a clipper if you want to keep your beard looking nice)

Cambrinth armband (from the Fortress south of the gondola – feel free to ask for help getting one)

Cambrinth orb (eventually)

Telescope (you’ll need this for enchanting eventually)

Jumpy Jewelry (see spells and abilities and do yourself a favor and keep them in a container)

III. An overview of spells and abilities

A. Spell Casting

a. How to Use Magic

b. Spell Descriptions

B. Abilities

a. Prediction Related

b. Jumpy Jewelry

c. Enchanting

d. Astral Plane

e. Other Abilities

Spell Casting

As a magic primary guild, spells are our bread and butter. You may play a diverse character with many skills, but if you want to advance in the guild, you will spend a significant amount of time casting spells. First this section will discuss how to USE magic, and secondly it will provide a description of all the spells as well as commentary on their potential uses.

How to Use Magic

Casting Spells

Your first exposure to magic as a moon mage will likely be through casting spells. When you join the guild, the guild leader will give you the choice of learning Clear Vision, Shadows, Calm, or Telekinetic Throw. Clear Vision and Shadows are ideal first choices as they do not require any creatures to practice with. For more information on specific spells, see the spell description section. Once you know a spell, you can now cast it at any time. You will learn a new spell at levels: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, and every 3 levels thereafter (until level 100, at which point you learn 1 every 5 levels.)

To cast a spell, first you must begin preparing the spell pattern. To do this, type “prepare <spell name> <amount of power>”. The amount of power you use will determine how effective the spell is, how difficult it will be to cast, and how much it will damage your attunement to the streams of mana. For example, if I type “prep shadows 1” I will begin preparing the shadows spell with 1 mana. Casting it will not accomplish much, but will cost me very little and is not very difficult. If I type “prep shad 30” I will attempt to cast a much more potent shadows spell, but it will drain me much more as well. After 20 seconds, you will receive the message that you feel fully prepared to cast the spell. At this point you “cast <target>” to cast the spell. If it is a beneficial spell, you do not need to specify a target if you wish to cast on yourself.

Before casting the spell, you may also harness additional mana to power your spell pattern. For example, I could prepare shadows with 4 mana, then harness 10 mana right before I cast to make the spell more potent. One advantage to doing this is to gather mana in smaller increments, which does not damage your attunement as quickly. Preparing a spell at 5 and harnessing 5 more uses less total attunement than preparing at 10 and casting. A more recent advantage is that you can slightly exceed your mana range using harnessed mana. You may be only able to cast a spell with 10 mana normally, but by preparing the spell at 5 and harnessing 7 mana, you might cast it more powerfully. Be careful that you do not hold harnessed mana for too long, as it can damage your nerves. As you become more skilled, you will be able to safely hold more mana for longer times without as much risk.

Some offensive spells are slightly more complicated to use. They can be prepared much more quickly, taking only 4 seconds to fully prepare, but you must spend time targeting the enemy for them to be as effective as possible. Telekinetic Throw is an example of a targeted spell. To cast a targeted spell, prepare it as usual and then “target <enemy>”. You may begin targeting the spell prior to completing the pattern, which will add the extra preparation duration onto your targeting time. You will receive a message when you are finished targeting, at which point you can simply type “cast.”

Magic Skills

Your Primary Magic skill determines how much mana you can squeeze into a spell without it failing. As your Primary Magic skill increases, you may find that you can go from casting Shadows with 1-3 mana to being able to cast it with 5, 10, or eventually as much as 60 mana at around 200 ranks of skill. Your Harness skill has a couple effects. It increases your total available mana and it also helps you hold mana safely and use mana more efficiently. As a beginner, you may find that casting a spell at 10 mana greatly damages your attunement to mana streams, but with more skill, you will be able to cast 10 mana spells all day long. The last player in the spell casting trio of skills is Power Perception, which determines how much mana you have available to you. Power Perception and Harness work together to help you cast spells with more power and not become drained.

As a moon mage, the amount of mana you have available varies not only on your skill but also on the phases of the moons. By perceiving the different spell books you can see how much mana is available for that type of spell. For example, I might “perceive transduction” and see that I have quickly pulsating mana streams when casting telekinetic throw, but if I “perceive moonlight manipulation” I might only shimmering streams of mana. For a list of different mana levels, see the “plat resources” on the drplat.com webpage. The more mana you have available, the less draining it will be to put mana into your spells.

Magical Devices

Up until this point, we’ve only discussed casting spells without any outside assistance. Magic devices afford you a number of ways to augment your ability to cast spells.

Cambrinth – One of the more common devices is a magical material known as cambrinth. Cambrinth can absorb mana and store it until you wish to release it to power a spell. To use cambrinth, you first charge it with mana by using “charge <item> <amount>”. At first, you will not be able to charge it very efficiently and much of your mana will be lost. With a little practice you should be able to get all of the mana to go in without wasting any. Once the cambrinth is charged, you “focus <item>” to forge a link with it. Again, this may take a few tries until your skills with magical devices improves. After forging the link, you simply cast a spell like normal and the mana in the cambrinth will be added to your spell as if you were harnessing it.

Runes – Runes is a generic way to describe a class of magic items that store spell patterns. Rather than provide you additional power, runes and rune-like items store actual spell patterns that you can use to cast a spell you don’t already know. If you have a rune or a charm, you can try to check what spell is contained within it and how well the spell pattern is holding up by focusing on it. You can adjust the power going to the rune by focusing on it as well, using “focus <item> <power – from 1-100>”. The more power flowing through the rune, the higher you will prepare the indicated spell when you activate the rune. To attempt to prepare a spell through a rune or charm, you usually “rub” it. The spell will leap into your mind as if you had just typed “prepare <spell name>”. You may augment this spell with harnessed mana or mana from cambrinth.

Other Devices – There are a number of devices not covered in this guide with a range of functions. Often you can attempt to discern the function of such items by focusing on them. If you come across an item you do not understand, you might try asking other players about it (or just searching in google.)

Tips

- Harnessing mana will slightly increase the amount of power you can get into a spell.

- Casting a spell before you’re finished preparing can be done, it just increases difficulty.

- Casting before you’re done preparing also teaches better primary magic.

- If you begin targeting a spell before you finish preparing, the extra time will be added to your targeting time.

- Charging cambrinth is more time efficient the more mana you charge at once.

- You may not see immediate benefit from training power perception, but keep at it! Eventually mana will get much better.

- Try to use cambrinth whenever possible. It is somewhat inconvenient, but pays off in the end when you begin enchanting.

Spell Descriptions

Perception

Clear Vision – Increases perception - Useful for juggling, foraging, opening boxes, predicting, enchanting, and spotting people hiding. Required for learning a wide range of other spells. Min prep is higher than shadows, so probably skip it for your first spell, but definitely good for second or third choice if you want to learn any of the perception related magic.

Min: 4, Max: 70 (17 roisaen)

Aura Sight – Increases astrology and power perception skills, with a penalty to perception. This spell will help with some enchantments and improve your ability to predict the future at the cost of some perception (kind of contradictory, I know). It also provides a boost to power perception which scales with mana used at roughly 1.25 ranks per mana, from the last time I tested (back during the magic preview.) It generally isn’t of a lot of use to younger mages, but might help out in some of the more mana intensive enchantment processes. This is kind of a niche spell. It can eventually help increase the speed and accuracy of astral plane navigation, but you won’t be able to use it to do that until after circle 40.

Min: 6, Max: 60

Locate – Can be cast to show the room of the target player. This is especially useful in plat, since you might be the only person in game who can find someone who dies. Required for seer’s sense, so I’d recommend it even if you don’t generally like locating people. Has a high min prep, which means it’ll be pretty draining at early levels. You must have CV up to cast it on a player. It has an additional use of being able to locate creatures around you when cast without a target. You can find NPCs and monsters up to 2 rooms away, even if they’re in hiding. I actually use that more than the primary function of locate. Requires around 100 skill to use that function and does not require clear vision to be cast first.

Min: 10, Max: 50

Piercing Gaze – This spell is pretty narrow in function, but is useful for what it does. It will let you see through cloud cover to observe constellations or study the sky. It also appears to provide a boost to scribing sigils in enchanting, though whether it does this through a skill boost or a direct increase in success chance, I do not know. You can also peek inside boxes or containers with this. If you plan on learning crystal spike, this is a requirement, and if you plan on enchanting, I would recommend getting this before you start.

Min: 8, Max: 55 (19 roisaen)

Seer’s Sense – Seer’s sense provides an evasion boost as well as a possible additional boost that aids in the enchanting process (unconfirmed). I have heard that people have had additional success using this spell while picking locks, but I haven’t had any experience to support that. It gives a pretty decent duration, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who plans on doing anything combat related. You can also cast it on another player in order to make it easier to send thoughts to that person, as well as sense things about them (how far away they are, if they’re healthy, standing up, and so on) by perceiving.

Min: 10, Max: 56 

Distant Gaze – Distant gaze lets you watch the goings on at the location of one of your moonbeams. It also provides a boost to power perception. This boost is static, however, and doesn’t seem to scale with power used (around 25 rank boost at a guess.) One advantage of DG is that it’s very difficult to cast and uses minimal mana, so you can train primary magic skill very efficiently with it if a moon is up.

Min: 6, Max: 60

Transduction

Seal of Deflection – You can only learn this spell off of a scroll. It basically reduces the power of offensive spells cast on you. It is exceedingly difficult and mana intensive however, so not functionally recommended before at least circle 50. I hear it trains quite well, and works well in conjunction with other defensive spells such as psychic shield and shear.

Min: 5, Max: 50

Telekinetic Throw – Our basic TM spell. Throws an item on the ground at the target. Works well in conjunction with moonblade and dazzle, and generally works best with pointy kind of items like crossbow bolts. Can throw up to about 225 stones with maximum mana, but anything heavier than that can cause the spell to fail. Recently the mana cap on this spell increased to 54, making it more taxing to use as a high power spell, but the minimum mana was reduced to 1, which makes it much more appealing as a first spell choice.

Min: 1, Max: 54

Unleash – Allows the caster to prepare a spell directly from a scroll. Cast on the scroll and the spell will leap into your mind, as per rubbing a rune. There is a chance that the scroll will be destroyed in the process, though this chance has been reduced since the original release of the spell. Unleash is also the easiest spell to use in activate sigils during the enchanting process and may provide a bonus to some enchantments. It is possible to get by without it, as no enchantments require it.

Min: 3, Max: 55

Burn – Burn focuses light from the sky to attack a target from above and is a full TM spell. It does use a modified hit location calculation, and bypasses shields, which makes it desirable in certain instances, though it lacks some of the punch that it once had as a contested spell. As a tradeoff, it teaches target magic and PM much better than it used to, and it now has a fast 4-second preparation. You may only cast burn when a moon is in the sky, or during the daytime. This is an improvement from the previous state of Burn, when Katamba was not suitable for casting it, but recently the spell pattern has been modified to use energy from Katamba as well. Aligning to a particular moon (see abilities) will cause burn to prefer using that moon for damage. Burn is somewhat challenging to cast, and I would hold off learning it until the ‘teens’ in circles.

Min: 8, Max: 44

Moonblade – This spell creates a weapon in your hand that is either ME or HE, depending on which skill is higher. Both are very light for their size, and do fairly low damage because of their poor impact stat. They are very balanced however, so they make good weapons to parry with. It is possible to kill things with them, just difficult. You can cast dazzle on a moonblade to cause it to explode into slivers that orbit around you for use with the tkt spell. Moonblade is also an effective way to learn the first 120 ranks of MD, by focusing on it repeatedly. You may also store spells in the moonblade. It will hold as many as three at once, depending on your skill. These spells may not be “offensive” spells, and when cast from the moonblade they will have the same target they were originally cast with.

Min: 10, Max: 70

Imbue – Basically an enchanting requirement. You can perform some enchantments without imbue, but in the plat environment, there aren’t enough people around for you to rely on someone else imbuing your items to enable you to complete the rest of the enchantments. It can also be used to turn moonbeams into shards which can be used to power the Invocation of Energy spell, but by the time you are prepared to use that spell, you likely will be ready to enchant, so I would hold off on Imbue until you reach that point.

Min: 8, Max: 75

Shear – This is a fairly difficult spell that protects you from all spells, both positive and negative. It gets a nice duration though, and if it succeeds and stopping the attacking spell, it will stun the attacker as well. The big drawback is that it prevents you from casting any spells in the psychic projection book. Another drawback is that there aren’t really a lot of people to attack you with spells! This might be more useful if there were more creatures that cast spells, which is gradually starting to happen.

Min: 8, Max: 60

Steelstar – A relatively impotent but amusing weapon. If you lodge it in something and cast dazzle on them, it will explode for a good amount of vitality damage, but other than creating expendable and not very powerful light thrown weapons, it doesn’t have a lot of use. The stars are generally very difficult to lodge in the target, so unless you plan on LT being your primary weapon, I’d probably stay away. Using this spell does not teach you any targeted magic.

Min: 4, Max: 50

Teleport – Teleport isn’t quite as useful in Plat, since we have Jumpy Jewelry (see Special Abilities, below), but it still has its functions. It will teleport you from your current location to the location of one of your previously cast moonbeams and stun you. The stun duration can be trained down, but you won’t notice a lot of difference until after circle 50. With teleport AND jumpy jewelry, you can get just about anywhere and back with a minimal amount of effort. It’s needed for contingency also, which is a handy spell in Plat, so you may wish to take this eventually. Casting this spell on a moonbeam that you do not have available will yield a violent and explosive death. It is required to enter the astral plane.

Min: 15, Max: 26

Invocation of Energy – A fairly recently discovered spell, all of the details are not yet known about it. It is relatively advanced, however, and I would not recommend it until around circle 60. By creating ritual circles from two moons in the sky, or shards that you have created from the moons, you can give yourself a short duration boost to two attributes. Which two moons you combine determines which attributes are boosted – Katamba + Yavash = Agility and Reflex, Katamba + Xibar = Wisdom and Charisma, Xibar + Yavash = Intelligence + Discipline. Attempting to invoke multiple bonuses at once results in a quick death.

Min: 15, Max: 36?

Partial Displacement – One of our few “normal” targeted spells. This one will work anywhere, any time, which is a big perk as far as moon mage spells go. It *seems* to bypass shields occasionally, but it’s hard to tell from the messaging. Safest to just treat it like a generic TM spell. Fast prep, good damage. It’s a good spell if you don’t want to learn the prereqs for the other attack spells, like tkt or clarify gem. Recently it has gotten a boost in difficulty that makes it a better teaching spell than before, but it requires you to be 40^th circle to learn and requires enough skill that it may be wise to defer learning it until 45^th circle or later.

Min: 10, Max: 46

Telekinetic Storm – A pulsing spell that randomly flings an item on the ground or a shard orbiting around you at a random target in the room. This could be another player or a creature. It doesn’t seem to hit quite as hard as a single TKT, but it has a higher cap, which might allow you to do more damage in the end. Knowing this spell also enables you to throw multiple items at once with your tkt spell, which might warrant learning it if you use tkt as a primary hunting spell. This spell can reveal hidden targets if it attacks them.

Min: 10, Max: 45

Whole Displacement – This spell has two functions. If self-cast, it will give you a decent duration effect that will teleport you to missile range as soon as anything reaches pole range in combat with you. This works particularly well on creatures that swarm or advance from hiding, as it will keep you at missile even if you can’t see the attacker. The drawback is that it stuns you when you teleport for a short period. This isn’t a problem if you’re just blasting away, but it makes it hard to attack effectively with ranged weapons or avoid spells and arrows. Keep in mind that this stun can trigger contingency and interrupt a spell you’re preparing (prepared spells are interrupted if you are in stun when you would normally receive the message that you feel fully prepared to cast.) The second function of this spell is to teleport the target away from you and stun them. This is a much more difficult to use facet of the spell and will not be very useful without a significant amount of skill. Its advantage is that it would allow you to stun targets while you have a Shear spell up, since WD is not in the psychic projection book. With enough power, the target can be teleported out of the room entirely. This use is a spell vs. stamina contest. One serious drawback of Whole Displacement in the plat environment is that it is useless in any of the premium hunting areas, as they all have a teleport ward so you can’t even cast it at all.

Min: 12, Max: 55

Moongate – This spell is both more and less useful in plat than in prime. It opens a gate between your current location and the location of one of your moonbeams. It requires a decent amount of held mana, especially over long distances, so you won’t get a lot of use out of this until after circle 30. It’s more useful because you are frequently the only person available to help rescue someone, and if someone dies in an out of the way area, you can’t always find a cleric with the skills to get there. I would estimate 80% of the moongate uses in plat are rescuing dead people. It’s less useful because everyone has JJ. There’s no real need to take people places, because they can all take themselves. Sometimes it’ll come in handy if a moon is not up, or you’re teleporting to some out of the way area that JJ will not get to, but the only reason I learned this spell for use with the astral plane. In all fairness, I do use it fairly often as a convenience now that I have it. Attempting to cast moongate on a moon that you do not have a beam for either kills you instantly or summons critters from the void, and then kills you. (Are we starting to see a trend here?) Moongate can be used to bring others into the astral plane.

Min: 10, Max: ~100

Ripple – Ripple causes waves of teleportation energy to “ripple” outward from you, teleporting enemies and items on the ground into the void, or wherever. Quite possible one of the coolest spells we have, and also one of the least useful. You don’t get experience or equipment for critters you send away, and it’s not as fast or efficient as compost for destroying items. It’s hard to cast too, so you can’t snap cast it in an emergency. Basically it lets you create a safe room for a short period of time, except instead of calming the enemies, it sends them into eternal darkness. Good for cleaning up after foraging as well. Its primary use is getting rid of super powerful creatures that you can’t defeat normally. It is a spell vs. agility spell.

Min: 10, Max: 75

Contingency – Contingency can be cast on a moonbeam, or on a player that you have previously cast seer’s sense on. You do not need to be in the same room as the player or the moonbeam to cast contingency (though you do have to be in the same room to cast seer’s sense.) While active, contingency pulses periodically and checks if you are stunned, webbed, immobilized, or dead. The stronger you cast the spell, the more frequently it pulses, and thus the more likely it is to trigger in time to save you. It gets quite an impressive duration and usually only needs one or two casts during the course of an hour or so of hunting. This spell is quite handy in plat if you like hunting in out of the way areas. The only real drawback is that if you die and drop your weapon, it does not bring your weapon with you, which may cause you to end up losing it.

Min: 14, Max: 45 (2 anlaen)

Riftal Summons – This spell can be cast on a person that you have previously cast seer’s sense on to bring them to your location. It is a spell vs. agility contest, so if your target is willing, they can lie down to help you bring them more easily. The teleportation is temporary, however, with a duration based on the power you used to cast the spell. At the end of the duration (a few minutes), the target is teleported back to the location they were when the spell was first cast. If the target is unable to be teleported back (in an area with teleport wards, for instance) both the caster and the target will take nerve damage periodically until the target can be teleported back.

Min: 15, Max: 50

Psychic Projection

Hypnotize – Also known as calm (can prepare as either calm or hypnotize). This is a will vs. will contested spell that attempts to prevent the target from attacking. A successful cast will last a minute or two and prevents the target from performing any offensive maneuvers. A more powerful cast will place the target in a passive state, which will enable you to command creatures to fall down, kneel, sleep, etc. Note that while you can achieve this level of success with players, you can not command them to do anything. This state has a slightly shorter duration (only about 30 seconds). This means you’re better off casting with slightly lower power on players, to get a longer duration, oddly enough. A third level of success will completely immobilize the target. This is rather difficult to do unless the target is already stunned, has nerve damage, or is significantly weaker than you. Very good crowd control because of its ease of casting and low mana cost. You won’t be able to achieve higher levels of success until you have around 100 PM for passive and 200 PM for immobile.

Min: 3, Max: 75

Mental Blast – This is another will vs. will contested spell that attempts to stun the target. Like hypnotize, it has three levels of success. The lowest one is a short duration stun. The second one is a stronger stun and will cause the target to drop the items in their hands, as well as inflicting minor nerve damage. The third level of success causes the target to become unconscious for a significant time. Casting mental blast repeatedly is a good way to achieve higher levels of success, as a stunned target is less capable of resisting will vs. will spells. The “double tap” method is the standard way of knocking targets out, as it’s very difficult to knock them out with the first cast. Min prep is pretty high, so regular use of this spell probably won’t occur until after circle 20.

Min: 10, Max: 65

Psychic Shield – This spell will protect you for quite a long duration against any will vs. will contested spells. It has a pretty limited use, but it’s good at what it does. Common will vs. will contests include mental blast, tingle, thunderclap, bard’s Resolve enchante, and the Halt spell. Each spell successfully resisted will reduce the remaining duration of the Psychic Shield. It does not currently protect against barbarian roars.

Min: 6, Max: 66

Thoughtcast – Thoughtcast allows you to send a thought to a target without the use of a gweth, and at a much longer range. It is easy to cast on a target that has seer’s sense cast on them, but with more mana can be cast on anyone. It’s fairly mana intensive and not really recommended until after circle 20. It has an additional use of stunning yourself when self cast. This is not generally very useful, but can be used to trigger contingency if you’re trying to force it to teleport you to another player or your moonbeam. You can thoughtcast dead people, who can’t hear gweths, to let them know help is on the way, but that function is less useful now that plat has Chat, which dead people can also hear.

Min: 14, Max: 60

Shadowling – Casting shadowling creates a small creature with room environmental actions that people can interact with. Its basic purpose is to increase the mana regeneration of moon mages in the room. You can only cast it outside during the night, or inside if the windows are shut at any time. It will occasionally wander off, which is a pain, though it does this less frequently than in the past. A secondary purpose for this spell is training power perception, though this requires large amounts of available mana. You can perceive the shadowling for experience, then cast another and repeat. Hiding and stalking can be trained in this way to a limited degree as well. Min prep is quite high (23) so you may have difficulty getting enough mana to cast it if you choose it too early.

Min: 23, Max: 73

Shadow Servant – Shadow servant is a very challenging spell that creates a servant to hold belongings for you. It can carry up to 10 separate items, which can include containers full of other items. The total capacity of your servant is about half your ranks in primary magic and has an upper limit of 300. This spell is very handy if you’re an enchanter, or a race with low weight capacity. Be sure to close whatever containers you hand to the servant or it will dump all of the items in the container onto the ground. I recommend highlighting the text for when it does this, so you don’t lose your stuff. In order to see inside your servant, you will need the piercing gaze spell. Minimum prep is 44, so this is probably a good spell to consider around circle 40 or 50. You can also power perceive your shadow servant for experience. Additional mana put into the spell increases the speed with which it catches up to you.

Min: 44, Max: 54

Moonlight Manipulation

Shadows – This spell is required to learn focus moonbeam, which means you will probably have to learn eventually, but it is a strong choice for your first spell as well. It is more difficult to cast than clear vision, and has a minimum prep of 1, which means that it will teach you well and efficiently for a long time. Its function is to increase your effective hiding ranks. Be aware that this doesn’t affect your stalking skills, however.

Min: 1, Max: 60

Dazzle – By itself, Dazzle doesn’t really do a lot. It gives the target a round time and causes a limited amount of internal eye damage. The only time you generally want to cast dazzle on a target would be if they were so far above you that none of your other spells could effect them, since Dazzle still seems to operate under obsolete mechanics and works on just about everyone. Dazzle can also be used to break a moon weapon into slivers for use with tkt, and also can be used as a spell to activate sigils in lieu of Unleash. It’s also required to learn crystal spike, indirectly, which is the reason most people take it.

Min: 3-8, depending on available light, Max: 40

Focus Moonbeam – FM is necessary to cast many of our other, more useful spells. You have to take it eventually. It’s not good for training and it doesn’t do anything by itself, so put it off until you want something it’s a prereq for.

Min: varies, Max: 120

Darkness – This spell causes all the players in the room to go into hiding instantly. It is only learnable off of a scroll, though moon mages can memorize it permanently for the cost of a spell slot and some tdps (time development points). It’s not terribly hard to cast and doesn’t inflict any roundtime, but it is not a very commonly chosen spell.

Min: 11-17, depending on time of day, Max: 50

Dinazen Olkar – Another “pure” target magic spell, this one throws a shadowy noose at the target and squeezes. It works best on unarmored targets, but recently has been tweaked a bit to become much more effective at teaching PM and TM. Overall not a bad choice, and like PD, it can be cast anywhere. It’s extremely mana efficient, and consequently makes a great TM teaching spell for quite awhile. The only reason to consider avoiding it is that it basically serves a similar function to the higher-tiered partial displacement, so if you think you can hold out that long then you may want to pass.

Min: 3, Max: 39

Refractive Field – Refractive field is a held mana spell that makes you invisible. This means you have to hold all of the mana for the duration of the spell. Holding mana has a few consequences. First of all, you take gradual nerve damage, and secondly, you can’t cast any spells without using up the mana and dropping the field. Any combat actions or picking up coins will break the field, though picking up items or dragging people will not. It’s not a prerequisite for any other spells, so many people refuse to take it since it just duplicates the effect of hiding and stalking, but there is something to be said for being able to move unseen without RT and take actions without becoming visible. Not recommended until 100 ranks of harness or more.

Min: 4, Max: ?

Tezirah’s Veil – This spell is a spell vs. agility contested spell that attempts to distract the target by placing a veil over their eyes that blinds them with all the possible actions that they or those around them might take. End result – agility and reflex penalty. These are actual penalties, which means they can increase the target’s RT and make them more susceptible to further spell vs. agility spells. This is a pretty easy spell to cast and is mostly useful for helping to train your melee skills on the things you can practice target magic on. It also is helpful for making multiple opponents slightly less challenging, and since it’s an attribute reduction, not a skill reduction, it doesn’t seem to negatively impact learning. All that said, I rarely use it, as I try not to fight in situations where the creatures will be too dangerous for me to fight without TV, since all of our combat skills are tertiary and lock up fast enough that I don’t have to push myself to learn well.

Min: 5, Max: 58 (more effective per point of mana at night)

Shadow Web – Shadow web is a scroll only spell that moon mages can memorize if they know Tezirah’s Veil. It is a spell vs. agility spell that attempts to web everyone in the room, including the caster. Escaping skill can reduce the time you are stuck in the web, and any player considering this spell would be well advised to have at least 50 ranks in escaping. Many players have very few escaping ranks however, so this spell can achieve quite long durations on them. Creatures tend to break out fairly quickly unfortunately, and those with claws break out almost immediately. A couple of interesting points of note about shadow web: you can cast spells while webbed (making RF desirable), but not do almost anything else. Shadow web also teaches a bit of TM, which, while not an incredible amount, allows you to milk some learning out of a group of creatures without having to kill them. There is a room effect after casting it in which shadow web is very difficult to recast, gradually becoming easier and easier over time until it achieves its usual difficulty.

Min: 12, Max: 52

Shift Moonbeam – Shift moonbeam is a held mana spell that allows the caster to command his or her moonbeam to move from room to room as long as the mana is held, by gesturing in the direction the moonbeam is to move. It can also be used to send your moonbeam to the location of another player, though the range on this is somewhat restricted (no further than gweth range generally.) This is done by locating the target first, then casting shift moonbeam and gesturing the target’s name. This spell’s usefulness, like many other teleportation spells, is somewhat limited in plat, as we have many other ways of getting around, and there also are generally very few people around to whom you can shift a moonbeam.

Min: 5, Max: ?

Clarify Gem – This spell raises the value of the target gem by around 40%, depending on chance and amount of mana used. In order to cast clarify gem, you must have piercing gaze cast on yourself, be outside, and have a moon in the sky. There is a chance that clarify gem will break the target gem, but it is relatively small. This spell is still a pretty big mana hog, so I wouldn’t recommend it before level 20 for any kind of regular use.

Min: 10, Max: 40

Crystal Spike – Crystal Spike is an odd sort of targeted spell. It has a quick prep time, like a TM spell, but does not need to be targeted, allowing it to be cased rapidly with a high degree of accuracy. It does not permit you to attack a specific body part, but its damage generally compensates for that loss. It is a very difficult spell to cast and teaches PM and harness fairly well, but it now has a requirement of circle 40, which makes it inaccessible for some time. One drawback for this spell is its delay after casting. When you cast the spell, there is a brief pause before the first attack, then another pause and a second attack. The first attack sometimes does no damage put instead puts the target off balance. This seems to be determined by the discrepancy between the target’s defenses and the damage you’re going to do. More mana in the spell seems to increase the chances that both attacks will do damage, and also scales up the damage this spell inflicts very quickly.

Min: 10, Max: 40

Stellar

Stellar spells all (thus far at least) require level 40 and a quest to acquire, in addition to an open spell slot and the spell’s prereqs.

Shadewatch Mirror – This spell creates a mirror that rises out of the ground and allows the caster to view the target’s room in their familiar window. You can’t pick this before 40, so you don’t have to worry about taking it too soon. It is hard to cast though, and teaches magic quite well. If the target goes inside or in a no clairvoyance area, the mirror stops focusing on them, and the caster must look into the mirror once more to restart the viewing. Other players besides the caster may look into the mirror unless the caster turns the mirror murky by rubbing it. The people in the room that the target is in may sometimes see the faces of the people who look into the mirror in the sky.

Min: 15, Max: 60

Starlight Sphere – Starlight sphere creates a frigid sphere out of starlight that can be pointed at targets, upon whom it will advance and attack. It does not operate under standard advancement principles (you can not retreat from it, but you can leave the room without having to retreat) and pulses every 10 seconds. If you get lucky and point it right before the first pulse, it may deliver its first attack 21 seconds after you cast it, but if you are unlucky it may take as long as 30 seconds. Once it begins attacking it will strike every 10 seconds. It hits very hard and is an extremely mana efficient way to kill and learn, however its usefulness is somewhat lessened in plat, since we rarely have the type of swarms that allow us to take advantage of having a sphere to kill one target while we kill another.

Min: 13, Max: 40

Special Abilities

Prediction –

Predicting the future is one of the foundations that the moon mage guild was originally built on, and most of our special abilities revolve around the idea of predicting the future. Below are the different aspects of prediction we can learn.

Predict Weather – typing this will allow you to estimate what will happen to the weather in the immediate future. Every 10 levels you can see one step (about 10 minutes) further ahead in the weather pattern.

Predict Future – this is the basic type of vision that moon mages can call forth. These predictions pertain to one specific skill on the target and can affect that skill either positively or negatively. First one must observe a celestial body until receiving the message that they learn something of the future. Then they can predict future on themselves or on others and attempt to provide a bonus for one skill in the skill set governed by that body. You can also continue to make observations on the same constellation or a constellation governing the same skill set to “fill up” your prediction pool for that skill. The more observation data you have in that pool, the more powerful prediction you will be able to make. There are references available at the end of this guide that contain lists of constellations and their skills, so I will not list them here, but for example, observing Xibar successfully would allow the moon mage to make a prediction on a lore skill. Syntax and analysis as follows:

>Observe Xibar
You learned something useful from your observation. (if you succeed)

You see nothing regarding the future. (if you fail)

You have not pondered your last observation sufficiently. (try again later)

>Predict future Raecear lore

You look inside yourself in an attempt to see beyond the now.

You focus your thoughts on your lore skills.

> 

After a few moments, the mists of time begin to part.

You see yourself reading an ancient manuscript. (shows it’s a lore skill)

You see the sun rising on a bitterly cold winter's morning. (degree of warmth indicates the strength of the bonus)

You see an elderly man, laying on his deathbed. (The closer to death, the shorter the prediction)

A sudden feeling of warmth pervades your soul. (Successful prediction resulting in skill bonus)

You sense the visions involve appraising valuable items. (This line is not always visible. It is based off of skill and luck.)

It’s always a good idea to cast Clear Vision, Piercing Gaze, Seer’s Sense, and Aura Sight (if you know them) before attempting predictions.

Predict Event – Event prediction can be learned when one’s scholarship and astrology skills are around 50 ranks. This occurs by finding an older mage to do an event prediction on you. If you have enough skills, you will figure out how to do it yourself when they predict on you. In order to predict events, you must study the sky (study sky), preferably at night. The more celestial bodies in the sky, the quicker you will be able to do an event prediction. The number of bodies you can observe at once is determined by your astrology skill. If your event prediction pool is not yet filled you will receive the message:

You feel a lingering sense of dissatisfaction and think the heavens bear further observation before you attempt to unravel the mysteries of the future.

Once you have filled your event prediction pool, you will no longer receive that message. You may attempt to predict events without a full pool, with a percentage chance to fail based on the amount of information in your pool. Syntax is predict event.

Predicting events won’t provide mechanics bonuses, but will give you clues as to possible future events and releases, to be interpreted as you see fit. Event prediction is also a fantastic way to learn scholarship and astrology until you can enchant, with only about a 10 second timer between each attempt to study the sky.

Align Moon – This ability allows you to specify in advance which moon to use as your target for any spells accepting a moon as a target. For instance, you might align yourself to Xibar, meaning that when you cast moonblade or focus moonbeam, you will automatically use Xibar as your target if you do not specify when you cast the spell. Be careful that you do not forget that you have aligned to a moon that set when casting teleport!

Align – Align is a verb that you can learn to use in conjunction with predicting the future. In order to use align you must be circle 4 and perform a small quest. Your best bet in completing it would be finding another moon mage to show you the way, but an adventuresome mage might explore the Greater Fist guild area, particularly the library. Once you know align, you also require a prediction tool, such as divination bones, in order to make use of it. Align allows you to focus your prediction on a specific skill. It is not always successful, but becomes more so as you gain in skill. Syntax is:

>Align <skill name>

Alternately you can attempt to force a negative prediction with this skill using:

>Align <skill name> curse

Use this before employing your prediction tool (you don’t have a choice, the prediction tools will not work if you do not align first.)

Before you can use a prediction tool for the first time you must rub it to form a bond with it. This bond can strengthen with continued use of that particular tool, enabling you to make more powerful predictions. Looking at the tool will give you an indication of its condition and the strength of your bond. If you wish to release your bond with a tool so another mage may use it, invoke <tool>.

There is a belief that removing head and hand armor and sitting or kneeling can affect your chance to damage your prediction tool. Whether or not this is true I cannot confirm, but you may wish to try these things if you are damaging your prediction tool frequently.

The syntax and details of prediction tools vary. Sect members receive a bonus when using their preferred prediction tool, but all moon mages may use all prediction tools. You can find additional information about sects under “Roleplaying considerations” and additional information about interpreting the results of your predictions with tools in Appendix I.

Divination Bones – These are the favored prediction tool of the Nomads. They are also one of the more common tools. Bones can be purchased in Muspar’i or Therenborough for a range of prices around 6 gold lirums (negotiable), or made through the enchanting skill. Finding someone to make a set for you probably would be the preferred option. The seller in Therengia is a strange creature by the name of Krrish. From the gate of Therenborough, head N, E, E, NE, E, E, E, SE, SW, S, E, go door, go bead. Order bones and then offer prices just like if you were bartering at a normal shop.

To use, roll bones at <target>.

Sapphire Prism – The sapphire prism is primarily used by the Monks of the Crystal Hand. They tend to be a fairly positive prediction tool. You can acquire them from a dwarf who wanders around outside the southeast gate of Leth Deriel for 5 gold kronars.

To use, turn prism and then raise prism. Currently these may only be used on yourself.

Vellum Charts – These are generally used by the Heritage House sect and have the benefit of clearly showing the skill you affect. They may be purchased from the dwarf southeast of Leth Deriel as well, for 5 gold kronars.

To use, unroll the charts and then study charts. To use on someone else, show charts to <target>. Roll the charts when you are finished.

Crystal Mirror – The preferred prediction tool of the Progeny of Tezirah, these mirrors are excellent for giving curses. Unfortunately that makes them slightly harder to use to give beneficial predictions. They can be purchased from the Despondent Elothean wandering the Middens east of crossing for 5 gold kronars.

To use, gaze mirror. To use on someone else, gaze mirror with <target>.

Sandstone Bowl – Sandstone bowls are favored by the prophets of G’nar Peth. You can buy them from Krrish in Therenborough for around 8 gold lirums (negotiable.)

To use, first you must find a source of water (such as the fountain in the cleric’s guild courtyard) and fill your bowl with water. Then simply gaze bowl. To use on someone else, show bowl to <target>.

Tokka Cards – These aren’t currently implemented, but are the planned prediction tool for the members of Fortune’s Path.

Jumpy Jewelry (JJ) – This is the colloquial term for the Personal Transportation Devices (PTDs) sold in Baravor's Wagon. They are a Plat perk that allows us to teleport to preset locations when the right moon is up by wearing the item and then rubbing it. The idea behind the introduction of JJ into plat is that it helps people get to the same place quickly in the case of an event, or just relocate more easily (along with the free vault transfers.) Currently Baravor's wagon is located on the upper tier of Throne City, outside the Enchanting shop, but in the past he has always been a transient merchant. While all the players in Plat have access to and can use JJ, only moon mages can identify, recharge, and set them.

Identifying JJ - This is a very straightforward process. Simply focusing on a piece of JJ will give you a glimpse of the room name in which the piece was set, as well as which moon it was set to and approximately how many charges are left in it. You may also receive a message if the piece has been used recently, indicating how long you must wait until you can use it again.

Recharging JJ - Not the most entertaining of ways to spend your day, recharging JJ is fairly time consuming. Typing "charge <piece>" will attempt to channel lunar energy into it, replenishing one use at the cost of a 25 second round time. That is, of course, if you're successful, which you very frequently won't be for a long time. There was a discussion on whether skill with Devices increased the success ratio awhile back in which some people attempted to argue that it did not, but Devices skill, circle, or some stat most certainly play a role in success, as you will find that you go from almost constant failure at circle 1 to almost constant success as you approach 300 ranks in Magical Devices. Generally speaking, moon mages charge for this service, as it's quite a pain and teaches a very minimal amount of skill except at low ranks of MD. Currently, however, with most pieces being available for a few gold in Throne City, many people opt to just replace depleted pieces rather than pay a moon mage to recharge them. This means you will probably just use this ability for your own benefit (getting one charge into a PTD right after you use it tends to be less tedious than trying to get in 20 when it's empty), though some players make seek your services setting or recharging custom JJ.

Setting JJ - JJ come in two varieties - the preset, and the blank variety. Preset JJ are cheaper and all consistent. You can find a link to a list of which piece goes to which location in the links section at the bottom of this guide. Blank JJ can be set to any location that does not have a teleportation ward however. They cost between 8 and 20 gold lirums for a variety of styles, but all function the same way. You simply wear the piece and then tap it while you're in the location you wish to set it to. The moon it sets to, unfortunately, is entirely random at this point. Focusing on them prior to setting will indicate a moon, but this has no bearing on what moon actually comes up when you tap it. Neither do the moons in the sky, what room you're in, or the time of day.

Enchanting – Enchanting is a high point for moon mage abilities. It requires adept or better skills in mechanical lore, perception, scholarship, astrology, and magic devices in order to begin to use comfortably. As this mostly a beginner’s guide, I’d advise you to consult one of the excellent reference pages at the end of this guide to learn more about enchanting specifics. I’ve also added a bit of starter info under Appendix II for those who want to learn more first.

The Astral Plane – The astral plane is a relatively recent development and allows moon mages to travel quickly between shards of the shattered moon Grazhir. The minimum circle for entry is around 40 and to comfortably travel the astral plane you will probably want significantly more astrology and power perception than required for that circle. Discipline and concentration are key factors for survival in astral space, so circle is definitely a limiting factor. Since the astral plane is beyond the scope of this guide, I will not discuss it further here, but I may release an Astral Plane guide as a separate entity.

Other Abilities – In addition to the “powers” we get as moon mages, there are a few other unique skills we can access. You can learn them by asking the guild leader about them (ask Kssarh about skills) when you have the necessary experience.

Time Sense – This is the first skill moon mages can pick up. It allows you tell what time it is while indoors using your power perception skill. In order to learn this you need around 50 ranks in power perception. Just ask Kssarh about skills and he should teach you about it (or yell at you if you don’t have enough skill.)

Backtrace – Backtrace is the second of the skills Kssarh will teach us. It also is unfortunately the last at this point. In order to learn backtrace you must have about 75 ranks in power perception, be circle 20, and know the spell Locate. By perceiving in a room recently after someone has located in that area, you can detect who located there. With more skill you will be able to tell their location as well. With enough skill, you will be able to backtrace people backtracing you. You will automatically sense when someone backtraces your locate, who it is, and even where they are when they backtrace you if you have enough skill.

Cantrips – While not technically skills, there are a few cantrips available to every moon mage. In order to learn them you must first posses general cantrip knowledge. If you are very anxious to learn them, you must make your way below the crossing guild (I’d advise a guide) and study something there before you can learn any cantrips. If you’re not in any hurry, supposedly Kssarh will show you general cantrip knowledge with enough skill. After you have it, you can ask the different guild leaders about cantrips and they will give you some clues as to where you might go about finding them. If you join a sect, your sect representative will show you cantrips specific to your sect as well, and may teach you general cantrip knowledge required to learn them.

IV. Hunting Concerns

A. Melee Combat Path

B. Magical Combat Path

General Notes

There’re a couple of things to keep in mind when you’re hunting in plat. The biggest of these is that you rarely have someone else in the hunting area with you unless you bring them along. This has a couple of consequences. First of all, if you’re careful and get to know your hunting areas, you will almost never have to worry about getting swarmed over, since the same amount of creatures will generally show up every time you hunt. This can make things tough for combat guilds, but for weapons and armor tertiary it usually works out quite well. Moon mages don’t usually need more than 2 of anything to lock up most of their tertiary skills, so don’t take on more than you can handle unnecessarily. It also means that you may have to move around a lot to find enough things to kill with your magic to keep target magic moving.

Secondly, in Plat, it’s important to hunt as safely as you can. There won’t be people hunting nearby to drag you, there may not be any moon mages around to find you, and there may not be any clerics to rejuvenate your memories. To that end, there are a few spells you should consider employing on a regular basis. If you plan on being in melee range often, contingency and seer’s sense are solid investments, and remember to use contingency in advance or it won’t do you any good. If you plan on focusing more on magic, whole displacement and seer’s sense combined with a shield will keep you quite safe. Also try not to hunt in areas that people won’t be able to get to easily. For example, if you want to hunt on Ratha, doing it when Xibar is up will give you the greatest chance of getting a rejuv, since the standard JJ to Ratha works when Xibar is up.

Combat Paths

Moon mages have a great flexibility available to them that some guilds don’t. They are not required to train any combat skills, at all. This is not to say that you will be able to meet your survival requirements very easily without skinning, disarm, lockpicking, first aid, or evasion, or that you’ll particularly enjoy getting 28 (or more, ugh) magic ranks per circle if you don’t learn a little target magic. What this does mean, however, is that you can choose to engage in combat however you like without really worrying about it preventing you from circling. Below I will outline the two basic approaches to moon mage combat, which you can feel free to adapt to your own style of play.

Melee Combat Focus

This is the approach that my Plat character uses. I mention this first because early in your career you will have little other choice. Unless you plan on abstaining from combat entirely until circle 15 or so, you’ll want to learn some melee skills at least up through goblins regardless of which path you take. The suggestions here are organized by circle because of your approximate spell selection and magical effectiveness, but it’s possible that you will be fighting more difficult creatures at an earlier circle if you are particularly diligent.

Circles 1-9

During these circles you will have little magical assistance for your combat endeavors. Most mages are wise to take a spell they can use out of combat for their first spell so they can practice magic anywhere, and unless you really want to get an early start on TM, there’s no particularly compelling reason to take tkt until at least circle 5. Calm is also not terribly effective in this range, and can help get critters off your back, but you will not be able to command them to do anything. Consequently my advice is purely of a non-magical nature.

You may want to wear a variety of armor while you’re still fighting in rats and can learn evasion regardless of your hindrance. This will allow you to get 20-30 ranks of a wide range of armors, at which point you can decide where your preference lies. If you’re using chain or plate, be sure to wear a mix of light and heavy pieces for your respective armor, as there is no penalty for wearing light and heavy chain together, or light and heavy plate. If you are wearing multiple types of armor and having a hard time learning a particular type, remove the other types as they become mind locked, since armor exp is divided up among all your armor types. Removing the types that don’t need experience can help you learn the other types more quickly.

If you can get a bit of armor, a shield, and a weapon or two while you’re still a commoner, you might consider standing around in rats until your fighting skills are all around 20 ranks before you even join the guild, as your combat skills will not be tertiary as a commoner. Now is also a good time to learn multiple armors, as rats will teach you just about anything to 20 or 25 ranks without you having to do any real work.

Some extra tips at this stage: If you grow too fatigued swinging your weapon, just set your stance to evasion 100, parry 80, and let a bunch of rats bite at you for awhile. Parrying with your weapon will teach parry and also teach the weapon that you’re parrying with. If your armor and multi opponent skills aren’t moving quickly enough, switch to a shield stance or wear more armor, as you get more experience in those skills if you’re not dodging all the time. Remember that when you have a shield out, it will be more difficult to evade. If you plan on learning stealth skills, now’s the time to get started, as you’ll want to have at least 20 in those before you move into goblins. Don’t forget to skin everything you kill and collect all your ammunition if you’re using a ranged weapon.

Circles 10-19

By this point your (non-TM) magic skills should be getting up around 50 and you probably are killing goblins with relative ease. You may even have moved on to more difficult prey. This is the range of circles where you will start using your magic to actually kill things, and pick up your first TM spell if you haven’t already. The things you’ve learned over your first 9 circles of fighting still apply now, but you’re probably going to be swinging your weapon a little more, wearing a bit more armor, and going through creatures a little faster.

At this point in your career, your TM options are going to be Telekinetic throw, Dinazen Olkar (if you’ve already chosen tkt), or Burn. Crystal Spike and Partial Displacement will not be available yet, but the first three choices will all get the job done. They each have their own quirks, and you may wish to consult the spells section to determine which one you wish to learn. You may not be able to cast Burn until you have around 75 ranks of primary magic, however. Now, just because something is lower on the list does not mean that it is not possible to use effectively. The key is casting them at the time when your opponent is most vulnerable to get the best effect. Depending on the amount of mana you have available, you will want to limit your casts to those times when the creature you’re fighting is in the most vulnerable. One modifying aspect of combat most people are familiar with is ‘balance,’ but do not neglect the other combat factors. Position (prone, kneeling), status effects (stun, immobile), and last combat move performed also affect how well your target can defend.

Knowing these things, you’ll get the most mileage out of your mana by preparing your spell, targeting it if it can be targeted, and then casting it right at the moment your target is most vulnerable. You can arrange for this to happen even if you lack any spells to cause negative effects on your target through the use of your weapon skills. If your weapon skills are higher than your target magic, as they are likely to be in this level range, at least for awhile, try aiming your weapon attacks at the head to cause stuns, or brawling to push your opponent off balance. One tactic that served me incredibly well in conjunction with the burn spell was brawling until I knocked an enemy over and then grabbing it. Once grabbed, it won’t be able to stand up unless it breaks your hold. You can circle occasionally to keep it off balance and prone and cast burn at your leisure to great effect. For even better damage, wait until your target lunges, then push it over and grab it. It will suffer from the lunge maneuver penalty as long as you prevent it from attacking again. Alternatively, you can advance to melee, wait until your target performs a move with a defensive penalty (lunge and sweep work well), and then simply retreat and cast on it while it’s at a disadvantage.

If you are aiming to remain focused on melee combat, I would strongly recommend making sure that you keep evasion as one of your top two survival skills at this point, and make a serious effort to always find two enemies at once to practice on so that you can keep up your other defenses and multi opponent skill.

Circles 20-29

At this point you’re starting to get more use out of your spells, because of your higher magical skills, and you’re going to have more options of what to cast as well. By circle 20 you should be able to calm creatures into the passive state, at which point you can command them to fall over. You should be able to effectively use mental blast, many of the TM spells, contingency, and seer’s sense. Basically you’ll start to come into the type of fighting at this point that you will develop into your permanent fighting style.

The biggest change in your approach to melee combat in this range is going to be your ability to exert crowd control. We don’t often have enough enemies at once attacking us to have to worry about this on a regular basis, but you’ll want to find out exactly how quickly you can prepare and cast calm at low mana, and how often you can use your mental blast spell. Once you hit this circle range, you have no real excuse for dying in combat, as you can prevent your opponent from attacking in seconds with a snap cast of calm, you have seer’s sense to allow you to boost your evasion, and you should strongly consider picking up contingency to drag you out combat in case of a stun. The chain stun will occasionally still kill you if you die before contingency triggers, but keep your opponents to two at once and you should be pretty safe.

Circles 30-39

By now you should have enough mana to use your higher prep spells a little more often. Mental blast is probably not quite so draining now, though I preferred calm for a long time. Your enemies are becoming more dangerous as well, so don’t let them get an advantage. It’s easy to say, “oh, there are only three of four total, I can kill them easily,” but all it takes is one more critter than your multi opponent skill can handle for them to start getting lucky shots. If you can handle two and more come in, make calming them a priority. Almost all of my deaths come from overestimating my ability to quickly kill additional creatures. Yes, usually you can, but all it takes is one hit to your hand or eye and before you know it you’re stunned with four creatures at melee range. Our advantage is in preparation, not recovery, so keep contingency up, calm additional creatures, and be aware of your surroundings.

Circle 40-59

By circle 40 you will be able to use almost all of our spells effectively. As a Melee combat specialist, there are a couple that won’t be a whole lot of use to you. Whole displacement should have little to offer, as you have no need to be out of melee range, generally speaking, and you can’t cancel it at will, so once you cast it, you’re stuck waiting out the duration before you can engage. SLS is another spell that I find I don’t have much use for in a melee combat fighting style. I ended up learning it eventually for the flexibility it gave me, but it’s too slow and there’s too little swarm in Plat for you to need it with this style.

At this skill level you’ll have a couple of approaches to fighting available to you. You can dance for skill, during which time you’ll be using your magic to kill any additional enemies that enter the room, or disable the ones you’re fighting to make them easier to survive, or you can focus on killing enemies quickly for profit or practice. Don’t neglect your melee skills as a viable offense, even though your target magic is likely higher at this point. A two handed sword and mental blast can kill things just as quickly and with a lower mana expenditure than using magic alone, and with time delay spells like SLS and crystal spike you can very easily fight two or three enemies simultaneously. This multifaceted approach to melee combat, wherein you engage enemies on physical and magical levels at the same time is very typing intensive, and in my opinion one of the most entertaining parts of playing a combat moon mage.

Circle 60 and beyond

While the circle 40+ period saw an increase in your magical prowess, the difference between your magical skills and combat skills has likely widened by this point. A diligent mage may resist circling in order to keep them in line, but I really see no advantage to doing this. Circles mean TDPs, and TDPs mean safer hunting. The higher your magic skills, the more you can control your combat and increase your combat learning speed, so unless you have some particular reason for holding back, let the gap grow. What this means, however, is that you will have to balance the creatures you fight for safety and for learning ability. As a melee specialist, your TM will probably suffer somewhat, but your other magic skills will greatly outstrip the creatures you fight regularly, allowing you to dominate them with very little effort. This is not a bad thing, as Primary Magic, Harness, and Magical Devices can all be trained well, regardless of critter difficulty.

Be aware, however, that as you begin to push the boundaries of your physical skills, you are only as safe as your awareness and preparation. More than ever before, you must be ready to control the situation immediately, before it reaches dangerous levels. Because of your magical skills, the critters should have difficulty resisting, but if you neglect to handle a threat immediately, you may find yourself over your head rather quickly. 

Magical Combat Focus

This was the approach that my character in prime used. The idea here is to learn some basic combat rudiments to keep you survivable, but focus on your magic to keep you out of danger and do most of your damage. I’m going to begin this section at circle 15, because largely it is not practical until you’ve got a bit of skill in your primary magic.

Circles 15-19

At this point you’re just branching away from the melee fray, and still probably have to expect a little bit of melee engagement in order to hunt effectively, since you just won’t have enough mana to kill things reliably. The difference between this path and the melee path is that you’re going to want to make a more serious effort to catch your target magic up quickly. If you’re planning on retreating and casting, don’t be afraid to spend a little time at melee and wait for your target to make a maneuver with a defensive penalty before retreating.

You might also consider seriously training hiding and/or picking up the refractive field spell as a defensive measure. RF will not be a good idea to maintain for a long duration, but even getting it up for a few seconds will make everything stop advancing and give you a second to recover balance and health. A ranged weapon, preferably one with a fast loading time, can also be quite a boon for someone who wishes to maintain distance from their foes. Also, unlike the more melee-focused crowd, you can put calm to good use much earlier. You can’t make things fall over, but you can still fire off calm with minimum mana expenditure to keep yourself safe very easily and pick off enemies as you’re ready for them.

Lastly, you’ll want to make sure that you invest in some good attack spells. Tkt will move your target well, but you may wish to invest in DO or burn. You have two “spell chains” to consider. You have the telekinetic path – TKT, DO, Starlight Sphere, and possibly telekinetic storm, and then you have the moonlight path – burn, partial displacement, crystal spike. You may, of course, take spells from both sides, at the cost of having to fill additional prerequisites. Alternatively, you could continue to use TKT and pick up moonblade and dazzle, to allow you to create slivers to throw when the room is cluttered.

Circles 20-29

Here you probably are going to want to focus very heavily on spells that will keep you alive and out of trouble. Whole displacement is a must, or at the very least make or acquire a good retreating script. Unlike prime, we don’t have the kind of swarms that make every mage drool over whole displacement, but it still can be a life saver, especially if you have connection problems. You probably won’t have enough skill for it until this circle range, so put it off as long as you feel comfortable. Remember that WD stuns you as well, so it tends to not work well with contingency.

Also consider making a script to cast calm quickly if you have difficulty typing at all. Since you’ll be spending more mana attacking that someone who focuses more heavily on the melee combat approach, you want the most efficient way to get your enemies off balance you can find, which is going to be calm. If you have to use more than 3 or 4 mana to put your enemies into the passive state, raise your will vs. will stats (see contested spells link at the end of the guide) until you can calm them with min prep.

If you are at all capable of it, you may also consider trying to find a way to train shield. You probably will have to spend a little time hunting things below your magic skills to do this, and keep up a moderate amount of other defenses as well, but the big disadvantage of playing the magic-only hunter is that anything with a ranged attack is going to give you a hard time. Hiding and RF will make life easier to a certain extent, but nothing beats some solid shield ranks.

Circles 30-39

This is where your fighting style will begin to come together. Not held back by the requirement of training as many tertiary skills, you probably will be able to move through the critter ladder more quickly. What’s going to hold you back a little bit is your ability to skin and open the boxes of the enemies you fight. If you plan on using either of those skills, as you should if you plan on hunting frequently, then try to find enemies at this point on which you can practice both simultaneously. If you’re in Theren, blood wolves for pelts and marauders for boxes work well. In crossing, gargs in the premie hunting area can give you both at once. Whatever you have to do to find creatures nearby each other that will teach you both skills will help you to keep them up and not have to spend excessive time back training.

Circle 40-59

Here’s the height of this fighting style: Starlight Sphere. With a strong cast of whole displacement and a starlight sphere, you become the CEO of your hunting ground. Simply point and wait, and critters die. Of course, it’s not always that straightforward, and that’s not necessarily the fastest way to get the job done, but SLS is definitely something I would recommend. It’s the most mana efficient spell we have.

Once you get past circle 40, you may also begin to enter the realm of enemies who cast spells. If you’ve kept up your shield, you already have a good first defense against some of them, but not all magic can be blocked. Fortunately, moon mages have a good selection of spells to help in this regard which start to come into effectiveness after circle 40. Psychic shield will protect you against will vs. will spells (basically adan’f and war cats), but you need it to get Shear, which protects against everything. Both of these spells get good duration and are fairly effective. Once you get around circle 50, if you find that you need additional magical defense, Seal of Deflection combined with Shear can make you nearly untouchable for a few minutes at a time, though Shear will deprive you of calm and mental blast.

Circle 60 and beyond

By this point you should be living the good life, as far as magic goes. As long as you’ve trained Power Perception regularly, mana no longer should be an issue for you, as long as you are judicious. If you can’t stun what you’re fighting with minimum prep Mental Blast, keep working Discipline, Intelligence, and Charisma until you can. You might consider picking up Invocation of Energy as well, to give yourself a nice will vs. will boost and increase your hunting range a bit. The real difference between this range and the previous is your ability to cast continuously. No longer will you really have to rely on SLS to do your dirty work, though it certainly adds a bit of efficiency, but you should be able to have the sphere fighting while you are blasting away the opposition.

Just as in the combat path, you are probably seeing a greater spread between your magical and non-magical skills at this point, and your ability to train the skills you need to circle should be your limiting factor. If you don’t mind training below your target magic skill to get boxes or skins, or practice hiding and stalking, go right ahead, but remember that as a magic combat specialist, you may not have enough defenses to fight your box dropping or skin wearing creatures without magic. This means you may not learn a whole lot off of them, if you have to under hunt with your magic.

Combat Conclusions

These two paths, of course, are not the beginning and end of all your options as a moon mage, but rather two generalized approaches that hopefully will give you some idea of what you might expect. I’ve tried to stay away from prescribing specific skills, armors, weapons, and spells, aside from the few recommendations of which spells are good for which purposes in combat. The moon mage guild is fortunate to have very few lemons in the combat magic department, and you can do well with any of them (as long as you don’t try and rely on dazzle as the lynchpin of your success!)

Another thing that I’ve come to realize as I continue to play the guild is that, as a naturally diverse guild, there will be a great degree of crossover between the paths if you desire to train that way. As a combat specialist, my spell selection is somewhat different, but beyond circle 60 you generally have enough spells to play either role. I can dance with black leucros for defense practice and personal entertainment, or I can drop dobek moruryns with mental blast and crystal spike to make money. Try to keep your options open by training as many skills as you feel comfortable, since your general magic skills will likely be the only thing to hold you back anyway. Don’t spend that time sitting doing nothing but casting spells and focusing on an orb! Try to make sure that you always have some other skills draining as you practice.

V. Roleplaying considerations

A. General Notes

B. Sects

First of all, I’d like to make a couple of suggestions about roleplaying in plat in a general sense.

1. Dress like you want your character to be thought of. Generally people in plat will actually read your description (unless it’s a page and a half long and full of endless jewelry.)
2. Come up with a history as soon as possible. Figure out ways that your character would react to certain situations, and make them react that way. Try to resist playing all of your characters the way you act in real life and you’ll probably enjoy them more.
3. Make up some personality traits that help define your character and make them recognizable. They don’t have to be goofy or shocking, just minor little quirks that make them unique and help you define their role-play.

Just as in prime, moon mages in plat have come to have a certain reputation as being a little off kilter in a variety of ways. This can be very difficult to combat, so I’ll post a few of my suggestions on how to maintain character uniqueness in the face of moon mage stereotypes. Having played a moon mage to around circle 40 before my true guild affiliation became known, I’m pretty familiar with the challenges of such a task.

4. Don’t assume that people will take the things you do purely in character. What do I mean by this? If someone sees you use a sect prep that they’ve seen before, they will assume they know you’re a moon mage. If someone gets a weird feeling and they know none of the other people online are moon mages, they’ll assume you’re a moon mage. Obviously if someone sees you cast a moon mage spell, they will assume you’re a moon mage. Some of that may be common sense, but be aware of the way you use “typical” moon mage abilities around other people unless you are willing to deal with some classification.
5. If you can afford it, consider purchasing a spell prep from Throne City that is more suited to your character than the basic moon mage prep.
6. Don’t be afraid to sequester yourself off somewhere and practice things “OOC.” Save up the things you want your character to be seen doing for doing at the gate. This isn’t the ideal situation, of course, but even if people know you are a moon mage, if they see you opening boxes, scraping pelts, and packing weapons, it might do a little bit to make sure they don’t treat you like a nutjob.
7. On the other hand, if you wish to be a traditional mage type character, find some other defining aspects of your personality that you can use to force people to recognize your character’s uniqueness.

This, obviously, just brushes the surface of the possibilities one has with a new moon mage, but remember that the moon mage guild was formed of people belonging to many different sects with many different beliefs. Almost anyone can find their way into the moon mage guild as long as they have the necessary inner sight.

Sects

Sects are subgroups within the moon mage guild with different cultural and ideological backgrounds. I don’t know enough to give you a full history lesson, but before the formation of the moon mage guild there were merely groups of like-minded peoples who shared the interest in prophecy and the skies. <insert long and tumultuous history> Eventually they signed the Lunar Accord establishing the Moon Mage guild, for various reasons, such as making themselves look more reputable and getting guild status so they can throw their weight around with various governments and the like.

In spite of all this, there are still numerous conflicting backgrounds to be found in the guild. Some people tend to just think of themselves just as “moon mages,” but even after the amount of time that’s passed since the Lunar Accord some mages associate more strongly with their sect origins than the guild as a whole. Still other mages have no previous connection with a sect, but choose to join a sect after their induction to the guild.

Practically speaking, all of the people joining sects today are in that third category, as the sects don’t generally practice outside of the guild context, but for roleplaying purposes, you can do whatever you feel like really. You won’t be able to officially join until circle 15-20, but nothing is to stop you from roleplaying your sect before then.

Location and specific powers of sects are in game secrets, but below I’ve included a brief rundown of some general information about each of the sects’ ideology. Sect titles are available by circle 39 and most sects have access to two to three minor cantrips around circle 25 and 36 (varies slightly on sect), a sect shop that sells appropriate garb and occasionally other things, and a few have a spell that they are slightly more adept at casting. Second tier sect titles seem to be available at circle 70. Sects also have special spell preps that I am including in this guide even though they may be considered secret, because a spell prep can be a very personal and roleplaying oriented decision in plat and I want everyone to be able to make an informed choice.

Celestial Compact

These guys are one of the political centers of the moon mage world. They are scholars and politicians, the serious talkers, robe wearers, and empirical astrologers of the realm. One fun example of a Celestian we all know is Kssarh, Guild Leader of the Crossing guild. You might ask him for info on where to find the sect. Their first sect title is Celestian, and their second tier sect title is Advisor.

Celestians can learn the following spell prep:

Raecear turns his gaze heavenward and traces a series of lunar sigils in the air.

Fortune’s Path
The Gypsies, as they are known, are not so much an organized sect as a collection of like-minded people who happened to end up in the same guild. They are the gamblers and fortune tellers, the soothsayers and rogues who ended up in the guild by virtue of their foresight, if not their demeanor. They know how to tap into the web of fate and follow their destiny, whether to play the game of life, or a game of cards. Their preferred prediction tool is a deck of Tokka Cards (which are not yet implemented), and they can take the title Gypsy. Their second tier title is Unbound. Lomtaum is the guild's Gypsy, though you'll need to go a bit out of your way to talk to him about it, as his guildhall is on Taisgath Island. Gypsies can learn the following spell prep:

Raecear makes a careless gesture as he begins an almost musical chant.

Monks of the Crystal Hand

The monks of the Crystal Hand focus on seeking self-perfection in all things physical, mental, and spiritual. They have a reputation for being skilled in combat, as well as in the magical arts, though this is not a requirement. Focus and discipline, and above all, balance, are their goals. Their favored prediction tool is the sapphire prism. If you wish to learn more of the Crystal Hand, seek out Tiv, the Guild Leader of the Greater Fist Guild. The sect title for the crystal hand is Sophister, with the second tier title being Ascetic. Monks can learn the following spell prep:

Eyes unfocused, Raecear raises one hand before him in a studied gesture.

Nomads of Arid Steppes

Nomads exemplify the wanderer within us all. They relish the beauty of nature and the kinship with the open skies. They believe they were unified by a leader sent to them by the spirits and follow his words to this day, taking only what they need of the land and not taking up arms unless the cause is just. To learn more of the Nomads, you might look for a wandering Yurt somewhere in the dangerous Dragon’s Spine Mountains. The sect title for the nomads is Nomad (unsurprisingly) and their second tier title is Animist. Nomads can learn the following spell prep:

Raecear whispers softly as his words are carried away by an errant breeze.

Progeny of Tezirah

Tezirah was a powerful mystic in the last days before the practice of Sorcery was condemned by the empire. Though she was eventually accused and executed for supposedly practicing Sorcery, she formed a cult in her name that endured after her death. Depending on the perspective of whom you ask, she either was a practitioner of dark Sorcery who escaped her execution into the plane of probability or a falsely accused magess who was hung without cause. Regardless, the Progeny of Tezirah no longer is in possession of any illegal magic, but does focus on the magic of shadows and bringing curses upon those who displease them. Their prediction tool is the crystal mirror and their title is Tezirite. Their second tier title is Shadowmancer. The Guild Leader in Shard is a member of this sect, and while he claims to know nothing of it, one is almost certain to find something at his tower. Tezirites can learn the following spell prep:

With a sly smile, Raecear murmurs a tenebrous phrase.

G’nar Peth

G'nar Pethians are of the belief that our mortal perception impedes our inner sight and they are best known for the extreme practice of gouging out their eyes. While modern Pethians are in no way required or expected to do this, they are renowned for their perception and ability to pierce any illusion. They frequently wear purple robes and blindfolds in imitation of their Master G'nar-Peth, said to hail from the Blasted Plains. Their favored prediction tool is the sandstone bowl and can take the titles G'nar Pethian and later Garden Seeker. One may seek the G'nar Peth in the forests south of Therenborough. G’nar Pethians can learn the following spell prep:

Raecear raises one hand in a sharp gesture, chanting an obscure mantra.

Heritage House

The sect that’s not a sect, Heritage House believes that the other sects have fallen into vague shadows of their original conception, and the real way of the future is a united Moon Mage guild. Very few people in the guild today were alive when the sects had a credible foundation, and the Heritage House sees the sects as generally divisive and unnecessary. They are also the lore keepers of the guild, charged with maintaining the history and libraries of the Moon Mage guild. The Heritage House is the only sect that someone can join after already joining another sect; in the spirit of unification they will accept even people who are currently members of other sects. Their preferred prediction tool is vellum charts. Those seeking the Heritage House should investigate the streets of Throne City. Heritage House members can use the sect title of Heritage Keeper, and eventually choose the title Proctor. Heritage Keepers can learn the following sect prep:

Raecear spreads his hands apart, then brings them slowly together with fingers interlocked.

Appendix I. Additional Divination Tool Information

Here are some extra details for those of you who want more help figuring out what the results of your predictions actually mean. Note: I took a lot of this information from posts by various people from the moon mage forums, most notably Mozzik. The information on strength and duration is designed to give you a general idea of where to begin your own analysis.

Bones:

Pros and Cons:

Pros – straightforward to interpret and can be acquired with a high quality due to enchanting

Cons – readings are not terribly precise

Analysis:

Each of the divination bones has its own line in the prediction result. When you roll the bones you should see something like the following.

You toss your divination bones on the ground before you.

The Krr-tich bone bounces twice.

It points directly away from you.

The Sek-rith bone bounces once.

It points directly away from you.

The Moon Sphere rolls in a lazy circle.

It comes to rest and depicts a suit of leather.

The Sun Disk bone lands white side up.

You scoop the bones back up.

Roundtime: 10 seconds.

The first two bones govern strength and duration of the prediction respectively. The more they point to you the stronger, and the more they bounce the stronger. It tends to be kind of vague. The moon sphere governs which skill is affected. It will not always show a skill, but you can see in this example it shows a suit of leather. The sun disk determines whether the prediction is positive (white) or negative (black.)

Roleplaying verbs:

Hug, tap, push, clean, raise.

Prisms:

Pros and Cons:

Pros – precise readings, long lifespan

Cons – requires list to interpret, only works on self

Analysis:

The analysis of a prism prediction has four significant factors. The strength of the prediction is determined by the color of the light reflected on a scale from light violet to dark red (included below.) The duration depends on the evenness of the spin. A nice smooth spin will yield a much longer duration than a thin wobbly one. Actual skill targeted can be found by way the light fractures. Below is a list of all the fracture messages and their meaning. Lastly you will receive a message of either sadness or joy. This indicates whether or not the prediction was positive.

Here is a sample prediction and interpretation:

Raising it to catch the available light, you release the prism, allowing it to spin freely from the chain. You focus your sight on the prism as it spins, casting blue tinged light as it moves quickly in an uneven spiral then cracks into several thick fractures. As the sapphire prism swings to a halt you notice the cracks disappear and feel a fleeting moment of joy.

Strength – the blue tinged light is fourth on the list. This is somewhat low strength prediction.

Duration – moves quickly in an uneven spiral. Probably not a particularly long prediction.

Skill – several thick fractures indicates Perception (the skill I was targeting, coincidentally.)

Success – fleeting moment of joy indicates positive bonus

Here are the lists of information about Prism results:

Power Colors:
Light violet
violet
violet-blue
blue
green-blue
green
yellow-green
yellow
orange-yellow
orange
orange-red
red
dark red

Skill readings:

Scouting - few scattered

Climbing - several scattered
Evasion - few thick
Perception - several thick
Stealing - handful of thick
Stalking - many thick
Hiding - countless thick
Lockpicking - few wide
Disarm Traps - many wide
First Aid - some long
Escaping - few long
Foraging - few broad
Skinning - several broad
Swimming - many broad

Leather Armor - few fractures forming a lattice pattern
Light Chain - few irregular
Heavy Chain - several irregular
Light Plate - many irregular
Heavy Plate - countless irregular
Shield Usage - few circular
Parry Ability - several circular
Multi Opponent - many circular

Scholarship - some twisting
Mechanical Lore - several twisting
Appraisal - many twisting
Teaching - some large
Astrology - countless large
Percussion Instrument - few miniscule
Strings - several miniscule
Wind Instruments - many miniscule
Vocal Instrument - countless miniscule

Animal Lore - handful of large

Empathy - many large

Trading - few large

Primary Magic - few spiraling
Harness Ability - several spiraling
Power Perception - handful of spiraling
Magical Devices - many spiraling
Targeted Magic - countless spiraling

Light Edged - few thin
Medium Edged - several thin
Heavy Edged - many thin
Twohanded Edged - countless thin
Light Blunt - few slanted
Medium Blunt - several slanted
Large Blunt - many slanted
Twohanded Blunt - countless slanted
Slings - few barely noticeable
Staff Sling - several barely noticeable
Composite Bow - handful of barely noticeable
Short Bow - many barely noticeable
Long Bow - countless barely noticeable
Light Crossbow - few fractures of varying widths
Heavy Crossbow - several fractures of varying widths
Short Staff - few hairline
Quarter Staff - several hairline
Pikes - many hairline
Halberds - countless hairline
Light Thrown - few jagged
Heavy Thrown - several jagged
Brawling - many jagged

Roleplaying verbs:

Peer, hug, poke, clean, tap, push.

Ornate Mirror:

Pros and Cons:

Pros – readings can be very specific

Cons – readings tend to be inaccurate, occurrence of curses is quite high (could be a pro)

Analysis:

Like all the other tools, there is an element in the vision the mirror shows you pertaining to the four aspects of a prediction. From what I read, most of the information the mirror shows you is fluff, so you’ll need to pick out the important parts. The status of the sky refers to the power level. The nicer (clearer) the sky is, the better the prediction. The duration of the prediction is determined by the size of an item in the prediction. Sometimes it is a flame or fire, sometimes a river, or perhaps other things. The larger that item, the longer the duration. The skill that the prediction targets can be seen by what the person in the mirror is doing. If they are looking blankly ahead, you failed to pinpoint the exact skill. Supposedly mirrors are sometimes difficult to pin down the exact skill with. The mood of the person reflects the success or failure of the position. There are a few different messages for good and bad with mirrors, so I can’t tell you exactly which ones are good or bad, but it’s fairly intuitive.

Here is a sample prediction and analysis:

You gaze into the mirror looking for insight into the future. From the colors swirling across the surface of the glass an image appears of a forbidding sky marked with a few puffy clouds over some rolling, grassy hills strewn with flowers. Laying next to a miniscule fire is a peaceful Elf man picking pockets.

Here we see a forbidding [sic] sky, indicating a weak prediction and a miniscule fire, indicating it will be fairly short as well. The peaceful Elf shows that it is a positive bonus however, and he is picking pockets, so it refers to the stealing skill.

Roleplaying Verbs:

Peer, observe, stare, wave, turn, raise, clean, and kiss.

Sandstone Bowl:

Pros and Cons:

Unknown

Analysis:

Bowls are pretty simple to interpret, but like prism require a list of results to consult for the skill. The warmth of the water determines prediction strength and duration seems to come from the length of time the water continues to ripple. Skill affected can be determined by consulting a list of which sigils pertain to which skill with regards for crafting celestial jewelry. A list of all the sigils can be found below. If the sigils flare white then it was a positive prediction and if they flare red then it was a curse.

Here is an example of a bowl prediction:

You gaze into the bowl, your hand moving around its lip until it completes a full circle. You dip your fingers gently into the lukewarm water and raise them above the bowl. As the drops fall from your fingertips, they cause ripples which play over the water. The ripples dance with each other for several seconds before disappearing. As you gaze into the water, it becomes illuminated by the white of the Owl and Yavash as their carvings glow steadily along the bowl's edge.

As you can see, the water was fairly warm and the ripples dance with each other for several seconds. This indicates that the prediction was pretty strong and will last for a decent length of time. The runes show Owl and Yavash, which correspond with the power perception skill, and they are white, so the prediction was a bonus.

Climbing - phoenix + lion

Evasion - phoenix + scorpion
Perception - phoenix + xibar
Stealing - phoenix + panther
Stalking - phoenix + cat
Hiding - phoenix + katamba
Lockpicking - phoenix + raven
Disarm Traps - phoenix + boar
First Aid - phoenix + unicorn
Escaping - phoenix + yavash

Foraging - phoenix + sun

Skinning - phoenix + ram
Swimming - phoenix + dolphin

Backstab - phoenix + ram + cobra

Scouting - phoenix + cat + ram

Leather Armor - phoenix + magpie
Light Chain - phoenix + weasel

Heavy Chain - phoenix + snake
Light Plate - phoenix + viper
Heavy Plate - phoenix + albatross
Shield Usage - phoenix + woverine

Bone Armor - phoenix + vulture

Cloth Armor - phoenix + archer

Scholarship - wren + wolf
Mechanical Lore - wren + raven
Appraisal - wren + xibar
Teaching - wren + cat

Musical Lore - wren + wren
Astrology - wren + wolf + phoenix
Percussion Instrument - wren + wren + katamba
Strings - wren + wren + xibar
Wind Instruments - wren + wren + yavash
Vocal Instrument - wren + wren + sun

Primary Magic - owl + katamba
Harness Ability - owl + xibar
Power Perception - owl + yavash
Magical Devices - owl + sun
Targeted Magic - owl + wolf

Parry Ability - coyote + cobra

Multi Opponent - coyote + scorpion
Light Edged - coyote + cat

Medium Edged - coyote + wolf
Heavy Edged - coyote + lion
Twohanded Edged - coyote + panther
Light Blunt - coyote + weasel
Medium Blunt - coyote + snake
Large Blunt - coyote + viper
Twohanded Blunt - coyote + shark
Slings - coyote + boar
Staff Sling - coyote + ox
Composite Bow - coyote + magpie
Short Bow - coyote + nightingale
Long Bow - coyote + albatross
Light Crossbow - coyote + dove
Heavy Crossbow - coyote + phoenix
Short Staff - coyote + dolphin
Quarter Staff - coyote + ram
Pikes - coyote + unicorn
Halberds - coyote + centaur
Light Thrown - coyote + wren
Heavy Thrown - coyote + raven
Brawling - coyote + wolverine

Offhand - coyote + heron

Roleplaying Verbs:

Hug is the only one I can find.

Vellum Charts:

Pros and Cons:

Pros – Frequently show the skill affected, easy to interpret

Cons – Seem to wear out quickly, not very accurate for hitting a skill

Analysis:

The skill you hit with vellum charts is fairly easy to determine, as well as whether it’s positive or negative. The duration portion of the message refers to a certain month. The later along in the year the charts show, the longer the prediction. A list of the months in order is below. The strength of the prediction seems to have to do with the amount of stars you observe moving. This range is fairly vague, however.

1st month of Akroeg the Ram (Days 0-39)

2nd month of Ka'len the Sea Drake (Days 40-79)

3rd month of Lirisa the Archer (Days 80-119)

4th month of Shorka the Cobra (Days 120-159)

5th month of Uthmor the Giant (Days 160-199)

6th month of Arhat the Fire Lion (Days 200-239)

7th month of Moliko the Balance (Days 240-279)

8th month of Skullcleaver the Dwarven Axe (Days 280-319)

9th month of Dolefaren the Brigantine (Days 320-359)

10th month of Nissa the Maiden (Days 360-399)

Here is a sample prediction using vellum charts with analysis:

You sort through your celestial charts and pull out a large sheaf filled with intricate diagrams and markings. Doing a few calculations in your head and referring to several other sheets, you are able to plot the course of most of a constellation into the early part of the month of Uthmor the Giant. On yet another chart, you determine that the relative positions of the planets indicates a positive influence on teaching.

This prediction turned out well. Obviously it’s a bonus to teaching, and with it reaching all the way until the early part of the month of Uthmor the Giant, it’s a fairly long prediction. It also included the course for most of a constellation, which indicates it was somewhat effective. More effective predictions show larger constellations.

Roleplaying Verbs:

Wave, trace, shake, turn, stare. Different messages rolled and unrolled.

Appendix II. Enchanting

Enchanting as a whole would warrant a guide in itself, and the specifics are available at a few of the links at the end, but here I’ll include a bit about how enchanting works and where you can go to get started. Again, if you want information about how to create specific enchantments, consult the links section for a web page that explains them.

Enchanting Theory – I’m going to keep it real basic at this point (partially because my knowledge only goes so far!) Lunar enchanting is based off of what we call sigils. For a moon mage, a sigil is a direct representation of a constellation. When stored on scrolls, they are a two dimensional depiction of the three dimensional constellation through the use of shadows, and when scribed on items magically, they are drawn around the target. By placing these sigils on items, moon mages can instill them with various magical properties known as enchantments.

The enchanting process consists of both type and order of sigils placed on an item, and often requires some other component, be it spell or material. In order for any of these to be placed on most items, however, the item must be imbued with a magical structure via the imbue spell (imaginatively named.) Some sigils occasionally can replace this function, but generally enchantments require both sigils and an imbue spell.

Learning Enchanting – At present, you need around 120 ranks of magical devices and power perception, 80 ranks of astrology, and 70 ranks of perception and mech lore in order to pass the enchanting test.

In addition to the skill requirements, there are a number of additional requirements that make learning to enchant rather challenging. You’ll need an angiswaerd tooth to finish the quest, which requires upwards of 150 skinning to acquire. You also need around 100 ranks of climbing (give or take) to get into the area with the person you need to talk to to finish the quest. That means if you plan on learning to enchant early on in your career, you’d be advised to find someone with good skinning skills who can kill a marbled angiswaerd and also someone who can gate you to the contact to finish the quest.

If you have the skills or the help, you can start the enchanting quest by talking to the man in the back room of the enchanting shop in Throne City. After you complete his task, involving getting an angiswaerd tooth and giving it to a certain man who can be found in a rather dangerous area of Throne City, he will let you take the “test” to see if you’re good enough. If you lack the skill requirements, you can come back at any time to test again without having to redo the quest.

Getting Down to Business – The actual work of enchanting tends to be fairly costly and time consuming if you’re attempting to produce a variety of goods or a large quantity of a single good, but even if you’re just using it to practice you’re going to need a few basic items. You’ll want to either buy or make some burins, and pick up good amount of scrolls eventually. The scrolls serve three functions: they allow you to store sigils for when they’re out of season, they let you have easy access to a difficult to acquire sigil, and they let you learn lore skills like mad.

If you’re using this guide to learn about enchanting, then I will assume you may be at the lower range of skills and will primarily be using enchanting as a training tool. If you know imbue, the best way to do this is pick up random little items, imbue them, and scribe whatever sigils you can on them, activate them with shadows or dazzle, and focus on them twice to bind the sigil. You can put up to three sigils on each item generally. If you don’t know imbue, then you’re relegated to enchantments that can be created without it. Burins are a good start. If you can’t forage the oak limbs we need to make burins, I’d advise killing zombie kobolds down by the moor in shard and using their ribs. They are very easy to carve and make excellent burins. They are very heavy before you finish making them however.

If you can learn magic devices on your own, there’s no need to actually enchant anything to practice however. Simply buy about 10 of the velvet scrolls (easiest to read) and scribe any sigil you can on them. Preferably you’d want to scribe useful sigils on them so that you can use them later to make items, but anything will do. Then unroll them and read them all. More is better, obviously. I currently use around 25 or 30, which seems to work quite nicely. This will teach you appraisal, scholarship, and astrology.

Another good way to put enchanting to use is to practice carving divination bones. This teaches great mech lore and astrology. Simply kill some boars, study the ram, and scribe the sigil on the tusks. Then get out a knife and carve the tusk, then bones, repeatedly. This requires the ram to be in the sky, of course, or that you have a scroll.

One last thing an enchanter can put to their advantage these days is a sigilbook. Sigilbooks are available from Baravor’s wagon right outside the enchanting shop. They contain 10 pages with 50 uses on each page. From a cost per use perspective, this is an incredible value. The drawback is that they are exceedingly difficult to study. This makes them ineffective from a practicing standpoint and mostly used just to store large volumes of sigils.

Appendix III. Useful links

A lot of times people will ask me for information, as if I somehow magically know things that other people can't find on their own. While this is flattering, or perhaps just more convenient for them, 9 times out of 10 I just consult some web page or another and tell them where such and such shop is, where they can buy some item, what the appraisal on some sword is, or where to forage yelith root in zoluren. Putting this list here is giving away my "big secret" so to speak, as this is the list of web pages I most frequently access to answer questions and find information for myself. I hope you find it as useful as I do!

Note that much of the information found below can also be found in the resources section of www.drplat.com.

Moon Mage Links:

JJ information and list –

http://members.tripod.com/cervanntes/DragonRealms/id4.htm

Sky chart, prediction info, additional misc. info –

http://members.cox.net/eldrad/Eldrads.html

List of what various runes/charms do –

http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Realm/9390/runes.html

Enchanting instructions –

http://members.aol.com/masterm05/dragonrealms/enchanting1.html

A page with riaka’s star chart and elanthia’s coordinate map available to download –

http://home.comcast.net/~heroiklim/drfiles.html [no longer active - drrrr]

The oft-mis-quoted post on contested spells –

The original site is no longer available, but Renwulf has copied onto his site at http://www.drplat.com/ - choose “plat resources” and then “Save resist post by Rigby.”

Other useful links:

TOG WARES LIST –

Alas, my link is no longer active. To be continued…

Maps of everything –

http://www.rangerrawb.com/ranik/

Foraging and Alchemy information –

http://drkyth.freeservers.com/index.html

Shopping guide –

http://elanthia.theflightline.net/

Weapons appraisal list –

http://myweb.cableone.net/kthompson123/weapon.html

Armor and shield appraisal lists –

http://www.heromachine.com/drealms/armorguide.php

Instrument difficulty list –

http://bardroses.tripod.com/advice/difficulty.html

Basic StormFront scripting guide –

http://www.play.net/playdotnet/play/stormfront_scripting.asp

Useful collection of statistics (not entirely up to date any longer) –

http://arthedale.com/olvi/soimstats.html

Verb list –

http://free.prohosting.com/~verbreal/html/vframe.html

Origami calculator –

http://www.drveii.com/

Good pages with information about all kinds of things:

http://www.drplat.com/ - very useful site with a collection of Plat specific and general information.

http://www.zairius.com/ - some easy to use circle and tdp calculators

http://www.olwydd.org/ - circle calcs, all manner of crafting, origami listing, basic info on many guilds, and more!

http://www.arcanewolf.com/main.html - circle calcs and basic info on all guilds