3.4.3 Spell Effects List

Alteration controls natural law and the mundane physical world. Since most of its spells involve defying those rules, they tend not to have negative-magnitude effects, as in many cases it would simply be "causing normality." Alterationists are extremely versatile mages, whose spells can apply to almost any situation and assist most abilities and schools.

*Alteration: Bending
-Alter Weight: Increases or decreases the effect of gravity on the target object. The caster can pull the magnitude bar into either positive or negative ranges to create both results from the same spell type. Increased weight on a living target will spread a general effect to their body and items, burdening them and penalizing their speed and fatigue, though the spell can also be cast to effect specific items. High weight also impairs swimming ability and increases falling speed/damage. Powerful mages capable of casting with very high magnitudes can immobilize and injure targets by crushing them under their own weight. The effect is not completely negative; very strong warriors can employ burden spells to make themselves harder to knock over, or specifically target their weapons to increase their momentum. Reducing weight increases speed slightly, with high magnitudes increasing it beyond normal by reducing body weight. Extremely light targets may float away at the mercy of the wind.
-Jump: Subtly different from Alter Weight, modifies gravity in a bubble around the target to let them leap great distances. Also reduces the impact from falls. Jump spells can be more easily cast on allies than effects like levitation or teleportation, allowing groups to easily and suddenly leap into areas.
-Slowfall: Cuts the target’s inertia, reducing the speed and impact of falls. Aside from making travel (willing or unwilling) safer, Slowfall can be cast on flying enemies to hinder their ability to attack you, or cast on the ground in an area effect to greatly slow projectiles that enter the radius.
-Shape Golem: Condenses a large amount of material into a vaguely humanoid form. Though theoretically such constructs could take any shape, golems are animated entirely by the caster’s will, and as such must take similar shapes as the caster so that they can control its limbs with ease without drawing attention from their own body. A golem can be formed from almost any base material, but exorbitant amounts are generally required. More durable or transient materials are more difficult to shape, but the reward is a truly exotic servant. Much of a golem’s physical stats depend on the quality of its shell, and the material it’s made from. Even a material such as fire may be used, though gathering enough of it in one spot is difficult and holding it in a shape requires a greater strain of magicka. Non-solid materials typically require specific components to be held together, such as highly conductive minerals used to form a golem from lightning. Casting the spell on self checks for required materials in the character's inventory, while casting on target uses all of the specified material type within the radius. While a golem may not actively use equipment, some items can be implemented into its construction, and it’s considered standard practice to use a soul gem as the “core,” to provide the constant magic to keep it intact.
-Animate Golem: While the body may be built through manual labor, a golem can only be moved through magic. A mortal-created golem is not a living or independent being, and is controlled at all times by the caster’s will; maintaining even one of any kind is a trying task, and attempting to control several is increasingly difficult. The default function of a golem is to defend its creator. The caster may give one order to a golem, something basic they can hold in the back of their head, else the effort of organizing two separate thought processes in their head becomes too much and risks collapsing the golem. Often this is a task such as guarding a door, to keep intruders out of the mage’s home. The caster may choose to possess their golem through a ritual, completely transferring their consciousness and leaving their body in a trance. While controlled the golem is only capable of very simple tasks, such as attacking. Though their fingers are not nimble enough for managing packs and inventory, they may lift individual items, provided the golem is made of a solid and non-destructive material. Mages may choose to possess their golem for something as mundane as physical labor in moving large objects, or as dramatic as keeping themselves from harm while invading a guarded chamber to steal an object. The trance is ended if the golem is destroyed or the caster’s body is attacked. Most golems are very difficult to “kill” through physical damage, but may be undone through dispelling or other destruction of the magic sustaining them. While similar in form, daedric golems, known as atronachs, are created through far more sophisticated and powerful magic, and are essentially living/intelligent things, and may be communicated with when summoned as with other daedra. While Shape Golem is used to create the body, Animate Golem is essentially the command spell, letting the caster activate, deactivate, destroy, or change the orders of a golem. When cast on self, the caster is given these options from any distance, as well as to remotely possess it.
-Elemental Pull: Causes the spell to draw power from relevant forces in the environment. For the most part, this only applies to the basic elements of Fire, Frost, Shock and Kinetic, as other spell effects are not generally naturally-occurring. Combined with the Kinetic Damage spell, any objects in motion are turned toward the source, harming them if the magnitude is high enough and otherwise impeding them. In normal circumstances, it may also draw upon powerful winds. A Fire Damage spell with an Elemental Pull effect, for example, can draw on ambient torches to very slightly increase power/decrease magicka cost. The higher the magnitude the greater the pull on ambient forces; a massive Elemental Pull toward the Shock effect (the target element is chosen during spell design) can be used during a thunderstorm to call lightning bolts from the sky, but will have little use at other times. Used as an enchantment or cast on targets to the side, Elemental Pull can be an effective defense for a mage against Destruction magic without needing such spells of their own. Enchanting a torch with a powerful Elemental Pull effect, for example, can allow the mage to brandish it and harmlessly draw in fire effects toward it. Negative magnitude causes a spell to repel the chosen effect. Though this power is too difficult to be used outright as a shield, powerful archmages skilled in both Alteration and Destruction can use it to effectively assert dominance, casting a freeze spell that not only negates an opponent's fire but obliterates it.
-Gravity Well: Twists gravitational forces to direct them toward a specific spot, creating a small black hole effect. Though powerful, the combination of high magnitude and large radius is very difficult. At higher levels the forces involved can cause injury, especially via collision with smaller objects being pulled toward the center with enough force to become projectiles. Magnitude can be reversed to repulse objects away from the center.

*Alteration: Reversal
-Lockswitch: Opens locked objects it’s cast on, while locking open ones. Effectiveness is reduced against more complex locks. Some magically sealed doors without locking mechanisms, such as stone slabs, may only be opened by a spell, while other magical wards can specifically block its effectiveness. Lockswitch spells can trigger many traps, as well as cause drawn bows and crossbows to spontaneously fire.
-Levitation: Switches the pull of gravity to make the target “fall up,” or in other directions, effectively allowing flight. A complex effect that’s difficult to cast, and hard to control at lower skill levels. As it must be constantly and actively controlled, a mage can give the effect to other targets, but cannot control more than one object at a time, such as themselves plus a rock. Levitation spells normally cast on an inanimate object have no effect even if the player is not under the power of one, but objects can be levitated via ritual, which transplants the player’s vision and leaves them vulnerable. Objects cannot be levitated outside the caster’s sight range without assistance from scrying spells.
-Kinetic Wall: Generates a small shield that reverses the momentum of objects that strike it; weapons bounce away, falling rocks fly up a short distance before gravity reclaims them, charging individuals fall backwards. The difficulty of casting a kinetic wall increases greatly with the size of the shield, and it can be broken before the duration runs out if the force thrown at it exceeds the caster’s skill and power.
-Passwall: Creates a space in a wall that objects can pass through, including the caster if the hole is large enough. The hole goes both ways, and anything nearby can see or move through. This spell does not create an actual hole in the sense that the wall is damaged, but instead alters and condenses its particles to stretch in unusual ways, creating an opening as if one were pulling apart a curtain. When the duration of the spell ends, the hole closes and the wall returns to normal. Area determines the size of the hole, weighed against magnitude, with harder substances more difficult to “open.” The width of the hole is always the exact width of the wall; the thicker it is, the higher the magnitude necessary. Magically warded walls are mostly immune to this effect, as the most powerful mages can only open small holes in a relatively weak defense.
-Reverse Entropy: Undoes fundamental changes to an object, such as “unburning” a piece of paper. Can also alter the nature of objects in their natural state, effectively changing what the game views them as. For example, in normal circumstances a fire spell might melt a block of ice, but if the ice is under the effects of Reverse Entropy it may be set ablaze and burn like a torch without melting. The larger the area being effected and the more severe the change, the more difficult the spell. Constant-effect spells, though not easy to cast, are sometimes the only way to completely undo some effects; normal Reverse Entropy spells will revert back to the original form after the duration runs out. A permanent change, despite the name, is a one-time effect, and a pile of ash that has been returned to paper is not protected from being burned again. Not all objects or effects can be reversed, notably including injury.
-Torrent: The caster rapidly changes liquid into gas and back again, creating rain from vapor in the air. This is typically done with a potion or other bottle of liquid, which is evaporated into the air and then rained down upon the area, effectively conjuring up a storm in a bottle. No one can dodge rain, making it a powerful method of applying a potion's effect over a large area. Rain poison upon a horde, a healing potion over your allies, or flammable liquid over the land. This magically-created rain is unnaturally forceful, potentially hindering movement (albeit briefly) like a huge storm. The original effect of the liquid is weakened by being dispersed over an area, but increased magnitude helps maintain its potence. Power and duration of the rain are raised by proximity to bodies of water, while existing storm conditions reduce the difficulty. If the caster doesn't use any bottles of liquid, the rain is ordinary water, which may have uses of its own.

*Alteration: Cancellation
-Shield: Protects the target from impact. When cast on armor it effectively adds supernatural durability, for example taking your 89/100 condition armor to 119/100. The increased hardness considerably reduces the odds of the armor being pierced. Shielded armor takes less damage, but still loses durability when struck. When cast otherwise, such as on self or from a constant effect on jewelry, the shield acts as a bubble of armor that equally covers the entire body. This carries several advantages over normal armor; it creates no impediment, is equally resistant to all physical damage types, and does not lose durability when pierced. However, excessive force can strain the caster’s magicka and even cause the shield to fail if the strain overwhelms the caster’s skill, dispelling can remove it suddenly, and only very powerful mages can create shields from nothing that compare to normal armor.
-Barrier Shape: Creates a small vacuum that forbids the entry of matter or energy, in a shape designated by the caster. In essence this acts as an alternative to Bound equipment with a force that is similar to a Shield spell, allowing the mage to create equipment by shaping barriers into a useful form. Options are limited, primarily to simple blunt weapons and shields, as complex shapes or sharp edges are too difficult for the mage to maintain. Compared to Bound equipment, Barrier Shape has a lower difficulty but higher magicka cost, and lacks the various special abilities of Bound items, simply increasing in basic hardness/durability with magnitude. Though “harder” than Shield spells and less likely to take major damage, being breached punctures the vacuum and instantly dispels the effect. Barrier Shape may either be cast on self or touch to create equipment for oneself or allies, or as a ranged spell with a radius to create a bubble that impedes passage until dispelled or broken.
-Elemental Shield: Protects the target from various forms of non-physical damage, selected when cast. Though primarily used to increase resistance to damage types, it can also protect against lesser environmental factors, such as a fire shield making a desert less oppressive. While sustaining a single shield is not especially difficult, it becomes vastly more so when trying to use several shields of different types at once. The vast majority of elemental shields are cast in the on-self bubble form, as item-specific shields do little to protect the rest of the body from a fireball. Some mages cast such small shields for specific purposes, such as casting a fire shield on a pair of gloves in order to grab something out of a fireplace. Unlike a physical shield that more or less creates a wall, elemental shields “unmake” the relevant force, and a fire shield cast in a radius will hinder things like fire breath from passing through, or from being generated at all within the radius.
-Environmental Shield: Creates a special thin shield over the body, converting an abnormal atmosphere that passes through it into a normal one. Most commonly it is used for water (incorporating the older Water Breathing effect), protecting the caster from pressure and allowing them to breathe. More severe environments require a higher magnitude. Additional environments include toxic gas, fatigue loss from thin air at high altitudes, and so on. The shield is too frail, at any magnitude, to offer protection from direct attack.
-Water Walking: Can be cast in two ways. The first allows the target to walk on the surface of bodies of water like land. The second allows the target to walk through water, effectively walking along the sea floor. Though highly effective for exploration, the latter option can be risky; the target still needs Environmental Shield to survive, and they cannot swim to leave the water while under the effect, instead needing to walk out from the shore.
-Spywall: Creates a tiny “hole” on the target, allowing light and sound to pass through. This does not actually drill a hole, but changes the nature of the object to allow some things to pass through that spot. The hole is small and easily missed by sight or detect magic. For the duration, the mage may see and hear through the space, typically using it for spying or to see what’s in a room on the other side. If used on an invalid target or wall with no “other side,” such as underground tunnels, it has no effect. The hole goes both ways, and if an NPC gets close enough to see it they are alerted to the caster’s presence, and any loud noises normally stopped by a wall can be heard on the other side.
-Void: Dismantles atmospheric molecules within the area of effect, basically making it impossible to breathe. Aside from the obvious dangers involved, many creatures will panic and/or flee when faced with suffocation. The caster is not immune to the effect, and must use caution. Obviously, creatures such as undead who do not need to breathe are not effected.

Conjuration is the magic of crossing supernatural borders, bringing or sending things through realms they would not naturally cross. The power of conjurers is dangerous and unpredictable, instantly bringing the unknown to hand and exerting tremendous influence without being directly involved. Most effects are specific and inflexible, but uniquely powerful.

*Conjuration: Summon
-Summon Daedra: Used to bring the desired type of daedra to the caster. These spells are difficult and often short-lived, but can be made easier through some means. Friendly relations are difficult to form as daedra typically have a very low opinion of mortals, but successfully doing so can make it much easier to call aid from that group, as they come willingly. It is also possible to summon a daedra by name rather than species, provided of course that you have such a name; this is usually used to conjure familiar individuals the caster has made past deals with. Named summoning is also used to attempt communication with Daedric Princes, though great care must be taken before doing so. Summoning multiple creatures becomes considerably more difficult if the caster is attempting to open doors to multiple planes of Oblivion. It’s easier to summon two daedroths, for example, than one daedroth and one golden saint. More powerful conjurers can attempt to permanently summon a daedra, but doing so is unwise without good relations with the target, otherwise the command spells in effect will eventually, inevitably, fade.
-Summon Bound Item: Pulls a daedric soul into the Mundus in the form of a weapon, rather than their natural form. These spells are easier to maintain than “live” daedra, which can more actively resist the summoner’s control, but still become more difficult when summoned in numbers, alongside daedra, or from disparate planes. The nature of the item varies depending on which realm of Oblivion it came from; some might be strong and weightless, while others inflict a unique damage type few creatures have defenses against. The spell can be cast on a target to equip them with the item, but this does not make it any easier, and it may end prematurely if the target wanders too far from the caster.
-Create Daedric Item: The source of most daedric equipment in the world, this process can provide powerful equipment but is very difficult. Creating a daedric item involves an advanced ritual and the materials needed to make the item, and the time of year effects results depending on the plane of Oblivion being accessed for the daedric soul. Only skilled mages can create such items at all, and only the most powerful archmages can make daedric equipment of comparable strength to the “pure,” temporary bound items. This process is not made easier by faction relations, and may even harm them. Likewise, the quality of the materials will affect the outcome.
-Pocket Dimension/Planar Travel: Allows the caster to create a small, separate realm in the borders of Oblivion, which the initial creation of requires a ritual. The power of the mage determines the size of the realm. If too small to be entered, the dimension acts like a container, allowing the mage to store items there. Objects stored in pocket dimensions may be conjured through summon spells. More powerful mages can create a dimension large enough for them to travel to. This act involves a teleportation minigame similar to mark/recall, but more difficult. The most powerful archmages can create a dimension the size of a room, and turn it into an isolated lair. Pocket dimensions are typically always permanent, and only one may exist at a time. Basically creating a “bubble” inside the barriers between planes, conjurers must be careful of the fact that the location makes it easy for daedra to reach them without being summoned, as it can be very dangerous to do so when one has made many daedric enemies.
-Wild Summon: The conjurer forgoes any attempt at control or specific targeting in favor of a massive summon, effectively transplanting a piece of an Oblivion plane. Results are completely unpredictable; daedra may or may not appear. Flora native to the target plane may grow rapidly and have various effects, such as constriction, hypnosis, or toxic spores. Released energies of the prince of that plane may ripple across the battlefield (such as power from Sheogorath's realm causing madness), or the land may change into magma or quicksand. The spell may combine multiple effects, or have seemingly none at all. Generally saved as a last resort, the chaos released by a Wild Summon over a large radius can greatly change the course of battle, or anything else.

*Conjuration: Dominate
-Command: Exerts the caster’s will onto another mind. One of the reasons that summoning non-bonded daedra is difficult is because the spell is actually one part summon and one part dominate, and skill in both areas is needed to effectively cast the spell. Commanding makes a temporary ally of the target, checking their intelligence and willpower against the spell’s magnitude. At the lowest degree, the target simply stops attacking for a moment, though being attacked will break this trance. In normal cases the target fights alongside the caster, but retains some free will and cannot be given orders. If the difference between the power of the spell and the target’s defenses is extreme, the caster can give them orders, even if the target is an animal or other creature that can’t be normally spoken due, as the command is implanted directly into its mind. Command spells typically result in a massive disposition drop with the target due to the robbing of free will, and is illegal to cast on people in many areas, considered akin to kidnapping or blackmail. They are generally ineffective against daedra outside of summoning, as others in the world are usually there by the will of another conjurer, and do not work against undead either for the same reason.
-Rebuke Spirit: Using a method similar to summoning daedra, the caster attempts to press their will upon a dead mind and send the spirit back to the outer realms. While the alien nature of a spirit’s thought processes prevent the conjurer from taking full control as with Command, they can prevent ghosts and wraiths from attacking, and if the difference in power is great enough, disperse them entirely. This skill is also used in fighting possession caused by the spirit’s own will; possessions invoked by other spellcasters or other means are another matter. Some undead can be effected by the spell, but typically only weak creatures made by novice necromancers are so easily broken.
-Aggression: Simpler than complete control, Aggression forces feelings of rage or calmness upon the target depending on whether the magnitude is positive or negative. At lower levels it makes a target more or less likely to attack, while higher levels may induce them to do so through just the power of the spell. Very powerful mages can completely blanket a mind with rage or calm, making the target either madly attack anything it can reach, or not even try to defend itself.
-Possess: Allows the caster to directly control the mind of another by summoning their entire consciousness overtop another. As opposed to Command, this spell literally puts the player in control of another body. The target must be somehow not in their right mind in order to be possessed; asleep, unconscious, entranced, etc. Possession requires a ritual to be cast, and naturally leaves the caster quite vulnerable, as their own body remains dormant. Possession is difficult, and becomes dramatically moreso the instant the target wakes, immediately ending the spell for all but the most powerful Conjurers. Taking control of a humanoid or other sentient being requires that the caster best them on an astral plane, a representation of their mind and resistances. This area is randomly generated based on the mental power and natural/magical protections of the target, anywhere from a single platform in the void to a complex, awkward maze that the caster is unable to navigate before their power expires. The strength of the caster’s avatar is based on their Conjuration: Dominate skill, not on physical abilities. If combat is not activated, the caster may also choose to speak with the target’s astral representation (see section 1.5.2 Astral projection). Possession cannot be used for easy misbehavior, as a possessed humanoid is easily distinguishable, and will not take the blame for things like theft or murder. As well, the link between caster and target is highly visible via detection magic, and dispelling can undo the effect. Naturally, unwilling possession is illegal. Possess spells are far more effective against allied, mindless creatures, such as golems or undead, as they do not require astral domination and do not resist the effect upon waking, allowing the spell the be sustained much more easily (hostile undead are controlled by another force, and must still be dominated). The mage does not have access to their spells while in another body, but can still perform basic functions such as attacking or interacting with objects, and may be able to use some abilities inherent to the target. Conversation is possible, but because so much of the mage’s concentration is occupied and the disturbing nature of the possessed being, they are treated as having low personality/speech skills regardless of the character’s ability. Possessed minions are often a preferred method of communication for especially reclusive wizards.
-Telepathic Bond: Allows the caster to form a mental link with another individual. For the spell to work the target must be willing (having the spell selected/readied causes it to appear as a dialogue option), which generally requires that they be an ally or have a high disposition toward the caster. In practical terms, telepathy basically lets the player open dialogue with someone without needing to be near them. Aside from normal communication, this can be helpful with teamwork, easily sending orders during an operation, communicating with minions while away from the home base, or contacting a spy or agent within an enemy group. Detect Magic reveals a “halo” of magic around the head of someone with a link. If used while the target is asleep, telepathy can allow for a more peaceful form of astral projection, which does not allow for possession-style conflict.
-Thought Steal: A fiendish spell that essentially summons brainwaves from one mind into the caster's. Causes no direct harm to the target, though high magnitudes can result in disorientation. A successful cast gives the conjurer information about the target's AI schedules; what they have done recently, what they plan to do soon, and how they would react to certain situations (such as what offensive and defensive spells a mage would use when threatened). During spell creation specific trains of thought can be chosen to exchange overall info for greater efficiency toward a single goal. The target's mental defenses considerably increase difficulty, while higher magnitudes increase how much information is gained. Unsurprisingly, being caught is generally an illegal offense, and many important officials have protections.

*Conjuration: Banish
-Reject Daedra: Attempts to forcefully close the gateway between realms used to summon daedra, effectively unsummoning those called by other spell casters, including bound items. If one conjurer is significantly more powerful than the other, summons can be banished outright. Less potent casts can shave time off of a summon’s duration or weaken the bond between caster and summon, making the daedra hesitate or even break free of control. At the furthest extreme, the effect can damage daedric equipment, even destroying it if the item’s durability is reduced to zero, leaving a mangled lump of ordinary metal.
-Seal/Dissolve Border: Strengthens or weakens the boundaries between realms in order to alter access to specific planes of oblivion, increasing/decreasing the failure rate and magicka costs of relevant spells within the area of effect. A fully weakened border can cause daedra to spontaneously appear within the area of effect, especially if they particularly hate an individual within, while if the gap between conjuration skills is large enough strengthening the border can completely block off a lesser mage from certain planes.
-Wavelength: Imparts a degree of the conjurer’s power to summons, allowing them to fight more effectively against daedra from specific planes of Oblivion. This spell is most efficient if cast as part of the initial summoning, as using it on target can be dispelled. The penalties the caster summons increase with magnitude, including reduced maximum magicka, slower regen, drained stats, and so on. As creatures of magic and energy daedra can easily utilize this power, though the exact nature of how (stat boost, more spell use, better equipment, etc) varies with the species targeted. Powerful Wavelength spells are risky if the target is not allied with the caster, as the shift in strength can tempt daedra to fight harder against their bonds.
-Mental Seal: Creates a barrier around the caster’s mind similar to those separating planes of Oblivion. Provides a degree of protection from mental influence such as possession or command, but also hinders the caster’s own ability to use such effects.
-Black Barrier: A more grandiose version of Mental Seal, the Black Barrier trades the specific targeting for size and power, effectively projecting an Oblivion-type border over a large area. Functionally, it acts as an alternative to warding spells offered by Mysticism. The barrier will effectively block “transitional/traveling” spells, such as teleportation, detection, scrying, possession, and so on. It takes its name from its appearance under Detect spells as a black wall, as it blocks the passage of detection. Those already inside the area of effect are not impeded by it, though applicable spells are unable to travel outside the barrier. Though very effective against the spell effects it blocks, the barrier is fairly easy to remove by other conjurers with the Dissolve Border effect.
-Emancipate: Attempts to remove a captured daedric soul from an enchanted item. While the gap is much smaller than the one between planes, it is also unique to each item, effectively meaning that the spell is easy but the task is difficult. The spell can be set to include several specifics or only one, such as type of daedra, which plane, enchantment type, and so on. If the spell is cast and does not meet requirements, the mage receives back an "echo" hinting at what needs to change. Successful emancipation releases the daedric soul, set against the difficulty of filling the requirements, the power of the enchantment, and any additional magical defenses the target has. While removing magic items from play and adding a new threat can dramatically tip the scales of combat, the daedra, enraged by its imprisonment, is unlikely to be any kinder toward the mage who cast the spell. Unlike flayed items, the enchantment remains intact, and the weapon will still be counted as magical for purposes of what it can damage. However, its charges are reduced to zero and will not regenerate until a new soul is used to restore it (foci can still recharge it, while unique items are immune). The spell is most effective for conjurers who carefully choose and research their opponents, and can know ahead of time what specifications to use.
-Blink: The conjurer manipulates the ripples in the Oblivion barriers that touch both themselves and summoned daedra to “fold” and link them, causing the caster to immediately teleport to the same location as one of their summons. At least one daedra must be summoned by the same caster for Blink to have any effect. If two or more are present, the target is chosen at random. Compared to Mark/Recall spells, Blink can be performed easily and almost instantly without any teleportation minigame, and has a very low magicka cost. However, the target daedra is unsummoned in the same instant.

Destruction is the magic of war, and is also heavily invested in the natural cycle. All physical things eventually cease to be, and destroyers can exploit and summon these elemental forces to prematurely end almost anything. Effects are generally not reversible, but can have creative results when applied to a target not damaged by that element or combined with other forces.

*Destruction: Damage
-Fire: Causes injury by creating flames. Fire is easy to manipulate but does modest damage. At high magnitudes, fire spells can damage flammable materials carried by the target such as paper, perishables, and light armor, and at the furthest extremes, even melt metal. Does balanced damage to most enemies, and can lower morale as well.
-Frost: Drastically reduces the temperature of the target area. Moderately difficult to shape, direct damage is initially low but climbs quickly at high levels of skill. Creatures vulnerable to cold are slowed by the effect and suffer fatigue damage. Higher magnitudes can shatter potions being carried by the target, and damage jumps considerably at the furthest extremes as blood freezes and ice crystals cause added non-elemental damage. Largely ineffective against incorporeal enemies, and most undead at lower magnitudes.
-Shock: Does high direct damage and is nearly impossible to dodge, but just as difficult to control. Shock damage discharges erratically on impact, and even direct hits are not guaranteed to do full damage. Increasing range or area is easier than with other elements, but widens the potentially random route the energy takes. Accuracy is increased by enemies wearing (or made of) metal, but may be decreased the same way by metal objects in the area. Higher magnitudes can stun and knock down targets, and at extreme levels may cause non-health injury (such as burns or broken bones) and stunted magicka even without a direct hit.
-Acid: Warps atmospheric water into a spray of corrosive liquid. Difficult to manipulate or cast at high magnitudes. Acidic spells do little to no damage to organic lifeforms, but are devastating to metals, quickly dissolving weapons, armor, or mineral-based enemies such as golems and skeletons. They are an effective way to force open locks without damaging the contents of the container, though a high magnitude is needed to destroy the lock instead of simply melting it and fusing the object shut. Disintegration speed increases with level, and at extreme magnitudes the projectile can burn through some walls and keep going. Acid spells are much easier to create with the use of a physical reagent.
-Kinetic: Strikes the target with pure, unshaped physical force. Damage is modest, spells are easy to cast and shape, and resistance is less common than to elements. However, unlike other magic projectiles it can be more easily blocked with shields and armor, is easily reduced by magical defenses like reflect and absorb, and rapidly loses effectiveness when spread into an area effect. Higher magnitudes can knock targets back, and at extremes may shatter buffing spells or other active effects. Damage is essentially pure momentum, with magnitude determining the “strength/weight” behind it.
-Sear: Condenses magicka without using it to create any destructive elements, instead using sheer power to damage targets. Searing damage is difficult to resist and does considerable harm to almost any target, but also consumes large amounts of magicka due to its inefficient form. Unlike elemental attacks, Sear does not cause secondary effects beyond simple devastation.
-Scour: Raw energy of a different form, scouring attempts to burn away the target’s magicka. Generally more difficult and costly than other types of damage, due to the effort of shaping magic into a force that destroys magic yet retains its own essence. Few beings have considerable resistance to scouring, but because the power holding it together is tenuous, it is easily stopped by magic shields. Along with damaging magicka outright, scouring can damage some non-shield spell effects, is dangerous to beings made of or powered by magic, and can lower spell success rates for its duration.

*Destruction: Decay
-Damage Attribute: Attacks the normal functions of the body to cripple its basic abilities. Extremely difficult to effectively apply to more than one target as a time, or with multiple effects at once, due to the natural variation of physical systems. Effects do not “wear off,” and are very slow to heal naturally without restoration. Few enemies can specifically resist attribute damage, but some are immune to various types of it. Skeletons, for example, are animated by magic and have no muscles to damage to reduce strength, but may still have their endurance lowered by making their bones more brittle. Cannot attack luck.
-Drain Attribute: Attacks the link between body and soul, reducing the very things that make a body alive. This creates an effect similar to attribute damage, without any lasting damage being caused. Though easier than Damage Attribute to cast thanks to much less refined and specific energies being targeted, Drain spells are also easier to remove and all effects vanish when the duration ends.
-Lower Resistance: Destroys the natural protections creatures have adapted to exist in a harsh world, making them far more vulnerable to additional spells or just the environment around them. Multiple spell effects active at once become increasingly difficult to cast, even at low magnitude. Not all types of resistance are accessible at once, as the character needs a basic understanding of a factor in order to work with it. For example, a mage can’t lower fire resistance if they can’t create a fire effect in the first place. Some effects may need to be taught, researched, or experienced, depending.
-Wither: Rapidly applies the ravages of time to a target all at once. Food rots, plants die, torches burn out. Creatures experience long durations without food, water, or rest all at once, severely damaging their stamina and fatigue. The magnitude of the spell determines how much instant time is applied to the target. Naturally, things that do not change over the normal passage of game time are not affected, such as landscape and immortal daedra. Moderately difficult to expand in area, very difficult to increase magnitude and duration. As magic does not “age” and spells are formed by direct will, Wither will not immediately end duration spells.
-Devitalize: Blocks the ability of the target to heal naturally. Bleeding injuries do not close, wounds become even more painful, healing spells have reduced effect, diseases advance more rapidly. A target that is not already injured in some way will take little effect, but will be more vulnerable to catching a disease.
-Blight: Magical forces are tailored to destroy stone and soil instead of flesh, collapsing the ground where it's cast into a mess of crushed rocks, mud, groundwater, and rotting plant matter. The exact form of the Blight varies with the environment, including quicksand, trapping mud, and crushing sinkholes. Though not usually directly damaging unless at high magnitudes, blights can quickly incapacitate enemies, and cause disease to those caught in them due to the rapid death and decay of plants and organisms once living in the soul. Even after wearing off a Blight will scar the ground, often wiping out most plant life in the area of effect and dramatically increasing the time needed to grow back.

*Destruction: Curse
-More complicated than most spells, curses are not easily separated into effects. Cursing is done through the activation of a ritual, at which point the character must “build” the spell. The target, conditions, and effects are separately chosen from lists of options. For example, the player might open the list of known NPC’s, choose a specific name, and designate that their luck be damaged by 1 every time they sleep. The player may choose whether the curse is cast secretly or not; whether the NPC detects the spell and reacts depends on player skill versus the power of the curse. If the target goes to a guard or healer about the curse, detect magic spells can trace it back to the player.
-Conditions and effects can be learned in various ways. Most spell effects the caster already knows can be incorporated into a curse, and many basic conditions such as upon performing a certain skill or common action, are initially available. More may be learned through study or rare books, or taught by other spellcasters. The desired factors of a curse will often change the items needed for the ritual; if the player doesn’t have them, they may get up and acquire them, with the ritual area remaining as-is and the chosen effects remembered for whenever the player returns to finish the spell. Some conditions may be more or less simple than they seem. Targeting an individual often requires you to have met them at some point; simply knowing a name is not enough, though personal items such as hair or clothing can be sufficient.
-Curses are not usually created once and then cast anytime like most spells, nor can they be easily made through the effort slider. Only very basic curses with limited effects can be cast spontaneously, and these still require an initial ritual to create and memorize the spell. This is often used for a “marking” curse, which is selectable as a condition for targeting. In this method a witch might curse a village that slighted her, marking the inhabitants and then later performing a more advanced ritual in her home, creating a more potent curse that selects the area of the marking curse as its target. Moderately powerful curses can be cast outside a ritual by first creating the spell and then sealing it inside a soul gem, giving it a one-time use similar to a scroll, to be used later or built into a trap.
-Rare and unusual effects can be accessed via cursing, such as luck damage or remote commands. Advanced curses can have virtually limitless durations, generally lasting for as long as the ritual area is intact, often requiring that perishable ingredients be periodically replaced. Such altars are not always easy to maintain; in the wilderness they may be vulnerable to wandering animals or weather, while in cities they’re easily spotted through detect magic and become points of suspicion for thieves and guards.

Enchantment deals with the complex process of weaving together the magical and mundane into one thing. Primarily used for creating magic items, powerful enchanters can manipulate these forces with enough skill to use the magical items they carry as extensions of their own body and power.

*Enchantment: Empower
-The Empower skill does not have many “effects” in the same sense of other magic skills, as it mainly governs the creation of magic items, the potential effects of which can be most anything the character has access to. Most empowering requires an altar, due to the intensity, complexity, and duration of the magic forces at work generally being beyond the standard casting ability of any mage. Items can be enchanted with either filled soul gems or a focus of sufficient power, but only soul gems can create items that naturally recharge over time, or have a permanent constant effect. When a focus is used in this manner the item constantly loses power over time, and must be periodically recharged. As a result, enchanters mostly use a focus for creating items that are only used briefly anyway, such as scrolls or magical reagents. Though empowering can be done without either item, this reduces the success rate and requires an enormous amount of power on the mage’s part, and is rarely done as it holds no advantages beyond being slightly cheaper.
-Empower: When not used at an altar to enchant an item, empowering may be cast as a spell effect. This uses foci or one’s own magicka to create very brief, small enchantments, such as giving a sword additional fire damage for just a few swings. It can also be used to more rapidly recharge a focus or enchanted item, though at great personal cost to magicka.
-Enchant Altar: The only separate effect of the Empower skill, allowing the mage to create their own Altar of Enchantment if they do not have access to, or do not wish to use, altars provided by others such as the Mage’s Guild. Though the spell itself is not extremely difficult, creation of an altar generally requires several expensive and/or rare components, as well as a powerful captive soul.

*Enchantment: Flay
-Burn Charge: Destroys the stored power in an enchanted item, depleting its charges. When cast over a small area, the effect is evenly spread to all magical items affected. The level of the Empower skill used to create an item determines its natural resistance to being burned, with mortal artifacts being especially resistant and daedric artifacts being immune. Items reduced to zero charges obviously lose all magical effects, but the base enchantment remains intact. Casting through a focus greatly increases the difficulty of the spell, but also greatly increases the power. Enhanced charge burning damages item durability based on the amount of energy destroyed at once, and normal magic items can have the base enchantment erased if the charges are reduced to zero. Mortal artifacts are damaged, but cannot have their enchantments removed. Daedric artifacts can have their charges lowered, but do not take damage or lose their enchantment.
-Burn Enchantment: Rapidly consumes and releases the energy of an enchanted item. All charges are lost, after which the enchantment is lost, and finally, if the discrepancy between item quality and enchantment power is large enough, the base item may be destroyed as well. This violent release of energy scraqes at lingering magicka, rapidly dispelling any magical effects on the individual carrying the enchanted item. While the effect lasts, they are heavily protected against additional duration-based spells (which are soon removed even if that land). The more power in the enchantment, the longer it takes to burn. A complex understanding of the item's workings is required, preventing use against enemies or on artifacts of any kind.
-Devour Charge: Combines a burning effect with an attempt to immediately absorb the sheared off magic. Difficult to cast, and as such is seldom used outside targeting a weapon or being cast in melee. Magnitude of the spell increases both the power lost by the target and the charges gained by the caster. Casting on a focus can increase the amount an item is charged by it at once, but with reduced efficiency and at a risk of damaging the focus.
-Sever Enchantment: Attempts to cut the magicka linking an enchantment to a physical object, temporarily removing its power. A magical item’s stats are reduced depending on the magnitude of the spell, and can be completely blocked to the point that the item functions the same as if it had no enchantment at all. When cast through a focus the spell can create an effect similar to Damage Attribute, causing weakness in the enchantment that lasts indefinitely until restored with the Empower effect. Daedric artifacts are not affected by either form.
-Scourge Magicka: Similar to the Scour effect of Destruction, scourging targets an area and shreds the streams of magicka that flow into it, slowing natural regeneration. Any foci possessed by someone within the area also suffer a loss in stored power, causing them to weigh further upon the mage. Foci and enchanted items cannot be recharged within a Scourge.
-Overload: Releases a charge of magicka that attempts to forcibly be absorbed into any focus worn by the target. There is some risk in using the spell, as a focus that is already depleted will simply be somewhat recharged. If the focus is full, it risks being destroyed by the overload, depending on the Empower skill used in its creation. Simple destruction ends in the focus cracking and becoming dormant, but the greater the amount of forced excess, the higher the odds that the focus will explode and potentially injure the bearer.

*Enchantment: Seal
-Block Charge: Prevents the charges of an enchanted item from being used by outside forces, which can provide several good or bad effects. Blocked items have a degree of protection from Flay spells, but also cannot be recharged. Powerful enchanters can block scrolls from being used and even daedric artifacts, but unlike severing enchantments a block does not weaken the inherent power and has little effect on constant effect items. One of the most impressive uses of this spell is to create an enduring area effect which greatly reduced the usability of magic items within its field.
-Channel Warp: Alters how much power can be drawn from an enchantment at once. Reduced access weakens the effect of the item, but allows it to be used more often. Increased access can cause items to quickly burn out with showy displays of excess power. Flaying items that have been warped can cause dangerous, explosive side effects for the one wearing them.
-Channel Shift: Pulls charges from one item and uses them to recharge another. Some energy is lost in this process, depending on the skill of the caster.
-Contain Effect: Difficult spells to maintain that prevent magic from escaping an object, condensing and pressurizing it into one spot. Enchanted items that do not use long-range effects become more powerful for the duration depending on magnitude, but the spell builds up a backlash that increases the longer it lasts, and at higher speeds with higher magnitude, damaging durability and charges, and even the wearer at higher levels. Powerful containing spells can often completely destroy the target item if its powers are attempted to be used. Careful but bold mages can use it as a desperate measure to temporarily boost their power or damage the arsenal of others while risking increased danger for a time, though the spell becomes even more difficult when cast on others. Containment spells can also target objects other than equipment, for purposes such as preventing magical traps from triggering or blocking altars from providing power to something else.
-Mundane Arc: A powerful but very difficult and dangerous spell effect. Attempts to “push” magical energy away from the caster and briefly seal it off from touching them. Dispels effects and temporarily causes spells and enchanted items to fail within a very small radius around the caster. Acts as an “equalizer” spell, preventing magic from being used by or touching the mage.
-Purge Effect: A weaker, ranged version of Mundane Arc, which creates an invisible bubble that quickly flies to and strikes the target, expanding and bursting outward, whose walls repel magic. The spell has no impact on live targets, and is used for attempting to remove lingering area effect spells by scattering them away. If the purge is not strong enough to outright destroy the area spell, it may still reduce its potency and duration.
-Repulse: The enchanter uses a large-scale version of the same powers used to contain magic within an item and control where it goes, creating a wall that reflects/redirects any magical projectiles that hit it. The wall is highly effective, generally requiring a large gap between the power of the enchanter and their attacker to fail, but lasts for only an extremely brief duration, and requires active effort and attention to be useful. Depending on where the wall is struck (from the center to the edges), the projectile will vary from bouncing back in a return path to a direct 90-degree change in direction.

Illusion spells are subtle powers that alter perception and thought without changing the actuality of what is. While some disregard the school as weak because of its lack of influence on the world, a skilled illusionist can essentially redefine reality around themselves. The school is the "thinking man's" magic, seemingly useless at times but capable of remarkable effect with clever application.

*Illusion: Visual
-Invisibility: Makes the target appear transparent depending on magnitude, with 100% being completely invisible. Magnitude changes after the initial cast depending on character circumstances; running reduces it moderately, fighting reduces it greatly, while holding still and/or keeping to shadows increases it. Other creatures are far more likely to spot an invisible character if they see them cast the spell. While most mages can effectively use invisibility to stay unseen as long as they don’t do anything foolish, only very powerful illusionists can effectively combine activity and invisibility. When cast on targets, individual objects can be made invisible, though maintaining the effect on multiple targets becomes increasingly difficult. Making an inanimate object invisible greatly reduces the odds of an NPC becoming “aware” of it, particularly useful if an area is being searched and you don’t want an item found. Note that the transparency is an illusion, bending light around an object, and it does not actually become see-through; as such, invisibility spells cannot be used for purposes such as seeing or hearing through walls.
-Light: Creates a glow in whatever spot it’s cast, with magnitude affecting brightness. Light spells can make it much easier to see, but also make the caster much easier to spot. Intense light spells may cause vampires of low intelligence to flee from the caster, though it does not actually harm them. Some creatures naturally avoid strong light, particularly nocturnal or cave-dwelling animals, while others receive a minor morale boost from dark places being lit. Reversing the spell magnitude darkens an area, also potentially changing NPC behavior.
-Sight: A personal version of the Light spell, Sight bends light toward or away the target's eyes. Most commonly used to either enhance nightvision or blind an enemy, though effects can be swapped for purposes such as shielding ones eyes from an enemy using blinding Light spells. Casting either form on a target is far more difficult than on self. The spell does not create or destroy light, and as such trying to improve vision in absolute darkness is pointless, but can be used in tandem with Light; a less skilled illusionist might combine partial darkness and blindness to incapacitate a target, while a powerful may defend their lair with blinding light spells while darkening their own vision to compensate.
-Mirage: Allows the caster to create an image of something, chosen from a list at spell creation. The caster must be familiar with an object before they can make a mirage of it, typically by having seen it up close before. Illustrations in books or paintings are not generally enough to create a realistic, lifelike image from, unless drawn by an extremely skilled artist. Potential objects can range from plants and rocks to people and creatures. The larger the image, the more difficult to create, with animate beings more difficult, though they can be made at touch or at a range with relatively equal ease. Mirages are fragile and disperse as soon as they are interacted with, via being attacked, attempted to talk to, and so on. How they are reacted to depends on the image, and what is looking at it. Goblins might flee from the sight of a daedroth, while guards might approach to attack it. Objects like a boulder generally don’t elicit a reaction, but as the mirage is not see-through they can be used to hide things, including the caster themselves. Whether a mirage is believed to be real mostly depends on caster skill, viewer intelligence and willpower, and whether it’s seen being created.
-Flatten Perception: Causes the target to lose their depth perception, making them unable to easily judge distances. Ineffective against creatures with unusual types of vision (such as having fewer or greater number of eyes) unless the creature is sufficiently known via Lore: Bestiary. Victims may stumble off ledges, swing at the air thinking they’re closer, or be slowed by colliding with objects.
-Duplicate: The caster marks the spot where they're standing, and once they move from it, a mirror image of themselves appears there. The duplicate will follow the caster and mimic whatever they do, but cannot actually attack, speak, or perform any real actions. If cast while unseen, others will not know which is real, and the illusionist may choose to further disguise themselves with other illusions, which do not apply to the copy. The duplicate can be “commanded” at any time to either stand in one spot or resume following the caster. If the duplicate is interacted with in any way it disappears.

*Illusion: Aural
-Sound: Generates a noise via subtle manipulation of perception. Sound spells cast directly on a target are heard only by the target, while spells cast on the ground are audible to anything with its range. The character has two options when casting sound spells; Distraction, as a general “loud noise” effect, or a more specific sound chosen from a list. Distractions cast on the ground typically make a noise that compels those nearby to look, while at high magnitudes the sudden, deafening sound can surprise and frighten, causing them to briefly flee. If an NPC is bound to a general area, like guards on patrol or monsters guarding a room, they are more difficult to distract, and may not be affected at all a second time if they look and find nothing. Generic sounds cast on a target cause them to react randomly to noises of various types coming from any direction that only they can hear, as if they were going mad. The caster has no specific control over this, though higher magnitudes are more effective. Creatures with high willpower are harder to effect in this way. Casting a specific sound is similar to Mirage, in that the caster must be familiar with a sound in order to duplicate it. As there is go guarantee as to how targets will react to certain noises, if at all, most mages don’t bother and stick with basic Sound spells. Devoted and tricky illusionists can still find uses, particularly in combination with other illusions like Mirage, adding a roar behind the image of a monster or the sound of footsteps to lure guards toward the image of a trespasser to more effectively manipulate events around them.
-Mute: Makes the target believe they are unable to speak. Primarily used to hinder the casting ability of other mages, though it can also have effects such as preventing NPC’s from speaking to each other, useful if you want to prevent the transmission of information. Though relatively safe and easy to cast, powerful minds can disbelieve the effect and know they can still speak, while mages with high skill in Manifestation: Cast can still use magic.
-Deafness: Makes the target believe they cannot hear. Primarily used to dampen a target’s range of awareness, though deafened creatures will usually be put on alert by the process. As with Mute powerful minds can resist the effect, and the sound still exists, so someone right next to the target will still hear. A popular use of deafness is to make it extremely easy to slip past sleeping NPC’s.
-Silence: More powerful than Mute/Deafness but less user friendly, actually disrupting sound waves to block it entirely. A being under its effect cannot make noise regardless of willpower, but all their other actions are silent as well. The victim is also deafened, as sound cannot enter the effect. A difficult but potent spell to cast, with various benefits and risks. Thieves might silence themselves to remove the sound of their footsteps, but can’t hear approaching guards. Silence is nearly impossible to dispel by anything within its range. Due to the complexity of the spell it cannot be made to “stick” to a target, and if the projectile is cast on something it merely creates the effect in the spot they were standing. Instead, it’s used to create eerie no-sound zones with area of effect. Silence particularly differs from Mute/Deafness in that because it doesn’t simply create the belief of no sound, it can be used on inanimate objects, blocking the squeak of a trap or clanking armor in an ambush.
-Vibration: Emits a severe, painful shockwave of sound. In close proximity and at high magnitude, may temporarily cause “real” deafness, which cannot be disbelieved but also alert everything in a large radius. Powerful shockwaves can shatter potions and other glass objects, shake apart objects with moving parts and knock over smaller objects, cause living beings to fall and/or drop items, and with large enough gaps between magnitude and the target’s willpower/sensitivity to sound, may cause unconsciousness.
-Commanding Voice: The caster enhances the voice of a target or themselves with magical authority, improving the effect of all spoken influence. This includes conversation, resistance to speech-hindering effects, ally reactions to orders, or for inhuman targets, even morale-dropping terrifying roars.

*Illusion: Mental
-Morale: Raises or lowers a target’s confidence depending on magnitude, by creating or vanquishing phantoms within their mind. Though the player cannot see a creature’s morale, it impacts their reactions to many things, and heavily changing it through magic can completely alter their behavior. Morale spells are very easy to cast subtly, often going unnoticed even by the victim, but very difficult to cast upon several targets at once due to thinking beings all having different, personal fears.
-Charm: Causes the target to view the caster more favorably, making them volunteer information, favors, and so on much more readily. Another subtle spell, charm is easy to cast secretly, but care must be taken in doing so. Though not illegal like Command, charm spells readily offend most people, as they’re seen as immoral, manipulative tricks. An NPC who’s aware of the charm spell may resist it entirely, forcing the caster to try and charm them without them ever noticing the spell. As well, if the duration wears off during conversation, the NPC is more likely to notice they had been charmed, resulting in sudden and dramatic loss of disposition. Only especially vulnerable targets have an automatic increase in opinion toward the caster; in most cases, it improves the effect of existing methods of altering disposition.
-Entrance: Fills the target’s mind with bizarre, dreamlike images of pleasure and confusion, creating an effect not unlike drug use. For the duration the victim generally stands still in a stupor, only partially aware of what goes on around them. Actions in their vicinity that would trigger a response can snap them out of, but the target will usually not remember what the event was. For example, you might pick a lock near an entranced guard. This will “wake them up“, but they will not arrest you for the crime, as they’re not sure it happened. Enemies can be momentarily stunned in this way, but as your mere presence in their sight triggers a response, the effect is brief. The likelihood that an event will end the trance, as well as the odds that the event will be remembered, vary with skill and magnitude against the target’s willpower and intelligence. Note that while the event may not be remembered, the target is aware that something has affected them, and will be on immediate alert, making them both much more resistant to repeat castings and very likely to notice if something is wrong. Illusionists primarily use it in combination with other illusion spells, to keep a target from noticing the casting of another spell if the mage is unable to do so secretly otherwise. Due to the complexity of the images being created, only one target may be Entranced at a time.
-Paralyze: Fools a creature into thinking it cannot move, causing it to collapse as though its entire body were numb. A very difficult spell because of the effort involved in tricking an entire nervous system, but also very effective, as the target is helpless and the effect cannot be broken as easily as other illusions. Injury reduces the spell’s duration, and it’s much harder to maintain paralysis on a target in poor condition, as the spell must work to overwhelm all of the associated pain in order to block the sense of touch. Lower magnitudes only slow the target, and though they are easier to maintain, they are also much easier for the target to resist entirely.
-Sleep: Bombards the target with feelings of exhaustion, attempting to make it feel inordinately tired and fall asleep. Targets only partially effected have the rate of their fatigue recovery decreased. Though mental strength can prevent the spell from taking effect as with most illusions, Sleep is more effective the lower the target’s fatigue is, with already tired creatures much easier to abruptly put to sleep, essentially knocking them out nonviolently. The illusionist must note that beings magically put to sleep wake as easily as ones who do so naturally, and that sleeping rapidly recovers fatigue and makes a second sleep spell much less likely to work if they awaken.
-Passion: Reminds the target of something they would rather be doing. In technical terms, the spell reshuffles the priority of the target’s behaviors; for example, an individual who uses skooma at home may leave work to do so, while a soldier may abandon their loyalty to a cause and switch to the winning side. The effectiveness of the spell depends on both standard mental defenses and the target’s devotion to their tasks. When used on the player, the experience gain rate of all skills is reduced (enforcing the “go do something else” effect).
-Puppeteer: Attempts to make a target believe they no longer have control over their motor functions, transferring that control to the caster. Unlike most illusions, the spell is much more effective if the victim IS aware of it being cast, creating the weakness in their mind that something has happened to them. If successful, the caster can move the target body as easily as if it were their own. However, as the act is not true possession they do not see through the victim's eyes, and instead have the awkward task of controlling a second party from their own position. Consequently, neither is a ritual or other advanced spellcasting required. If the caster is attacked or the target is removed from view, the spell ends. Though basic movement is controlled, the target still has control of their speech, possibly calling for help and otherwise unable to engage in normal conversation.
-Sleepwalk: Plants a manipulative dream into a sleeper's mind, causing them to unconsciously act it out. Once in effect a “ghost” version of the illusionist appears where the target is sleeping. For the duration of the spell the ghost can move about normally, but because it is a dream, their actions have no actual effect on the world (essentially a quicksave/rewind effect). The dream will end either with its duration, or manually at the caster's whim. Once it's completed, the sleepwalker will rise and attempt to carry out what the player performed. The sleepwalker's movement is slow, awkward, and inefficient; they may walk into a wall instead of through a door, stand still for random periods, or grasp at the air next to a key instead of taking it, then continue on as if they had it. Despite their odd movement the sleepwalker is treated normally by other NPC's unless approached closely. Requires a short ritual to be cast, mainly while the caster acts out the dream, and the target must be sleeping, not drugged or bludgeoned into unconsciousness. If the target is awakened the effect ends immediately, at which point they will probably return to bed (or wherever they started). The same NPC can only be affected with a Sleepwalk spell once every 12 in-game hours.

Mysticism is essentially "the magic of magic," dealing with the direct manipulation of magical forces instead of using magic to affect the physical world. While this leaves it largely ineffective for many more practical, immediate uses, a powerful mystic is often considered a step above "normal" mages, able to easily wield the forces that others only barely understand. Spells are powerful and versatile, but often of limited use away from the world of the exotic.

*Mysticism: Deform
-Dispel: While not easy to cast due its dual nature as a spell designed to unmake spells, Dispel is widely used and highly beneficial for any mage. The main equation in whether a spell is ended is the power of the dispel against the skill of the mage who cast the target, though some spells are inherently harder/easier than others to dispel. Not all effects are vulnerable to dispel, and may further change the odds by their nature. For example, dispel is frequently ineffective against a spell being generated by an altar, as targeting the result instead of the source is like trying to make someone dry as they stand under a waterfall. Similarly, spells that put a constant drain on a mage are more easily dispelled by targeting the mage instead of the area of the spell’s effect, while others that are simply cast and set on a duration may be dispelled directly. Some spells are weakened by a dispel that doesn’t destroy them outright, taking losses from duration and magnitude, or having their inherent skill level lowered. The caster may choose to cast a specific Dispel tailored to a particular spell effect, far more effective against that type but nearly useless against others. This is generally only recommended for intelligent and skillful mages, as aside from a basic understanding of a spell effect being needed to counter it, the caster must be able to recognize the subtle differences in patterns of magicka to know what they’re looking at, lest they waste all their energy trying different dispels on one target. While some spells must be simply waited out, the caster has the option of choosing their own spells from the list of specific types, in order to easily remove various magical effects they no longer want active.
-Reflect: Creates a unique shield that doesn’t simply block an attack, but throws it back. Like catching an arrow, it’s simple in concept but near impossible in application. Most mages can create a very weak reflection shield, but the skill and magicka required climb dramatically with magnitude. The power of the shield governs three things; amount blocked, amount reflected, and cohesion of the reflection. The energy that the shield blocks is the same energy that it uses to counterattack, and as such its defensive and offensive abilities mirror each other. Cohesion determines the form of the counterattack. A weaker shield may simply shatter the magical projectile, causing small spurts of energy in random directions, while a stronger one throws back a relatively intact projectile that is hurled in the relative direction of the attacker. The higher the spell’s power, the closer to “perfect” the counterattack gets, toward the ultimate goal of bouncing the exact spell it received back down the same path it traveled. Due to the highly difficult and poorly understood forces involved, reflection shields can only be built to reflect the most common forms of attack, specifically, either the elemental attacks of Destruction or physical assault. To defend against both requires two different shields, beyond the ability of most mages. The raw kinetic force of a weapon’s strike is what physical reflection shields react to, violently rejecting as much as it can catch, reducing the force of impact and flinging invisible shards of force at the attacker. Though melee combatants cannot dodge this reflection, the power of the shield still dictates accuracy, and not all of the energy may fly in the direction it came from. Wielders of ranged weapons are mostly safe from reflection shields, as long as they keep their distance. Due to the touchy and volatile nature of reflection shields, they tend to be unpredictable and hard to control, being highly prone to more explosive failure when casting and breaking down violently if overwhelmed.
-Mystic Shroud: Very popular with mages of any type, this power has many applicable uses at any magnitude. The spell creates a magical “fog” of sorts composed of frayed, chaotic energy, kept condensed within an area. It is not difficult for the mage to maintain, as the fog is not intentionally shaped or made intense like shields, akin more to a magical equivalent of breaking glass and keeping it swept in a pile. Though the effected area does not contain enough power to stop attacks, by its jagged nature the fog wears at the delicate structure of spells, breaking them down and particularly ruining the efforts of spells that require intense concentration. In basic terms, the shroud reduces the potency of magical status effects that enter its radius, such as mental illusions and attribute damage. It is also a major form of ward against “indirect” spells, blocking the access of scrying, curses (though it does not stop the effects of a curse already in place), teleportation, and similar. The fog is invisible to the naked eye, but presents as a thick cloud with detect magic, effectively also blocking detection within its radius. Wealthy persons and powerful mages will often invest in the creation of constant-effect items enchanted with a mystic shroud to leave in vaults or personal quarters, preventing unwanted magical access, or leaving high magnitude spells with a small radius on containers to protect them from things like lockswitch spells. Strong dispels can remove a mystic shroud that has been cast by a mage, but for persistent wards, the source item must be dealt with. While some spells can “fight” the shroud, such as someone trying to forcefully scry past a ward, it’s always easier for the shroud to block access than for the spell to gain it, making shrouds cast by powerful mages nearly impossible to breach by such means.
-Inversion: Twists the natural flow of magicka into living things, causing energy to pour out of the body instead. Can only be cast on self. Stored magicka is rapidly drained, faster than it can be naturally regenerated, though the higher the character's regeneration the more it blunts this effect, and the character becomes resistant to magicka restoring effects. During this time, all spells have reduced cost and difficulty rate to cast. Durations are considerably drawn out, becoming almost permanent while the effect lasts. Any such spells currently in effect will benefit from the boost. The mage must be careful to dispel the effect before magicka runs out, else the rest of their energy will continue to leave them in the form of stamina, until they finally lose consciousness and the spell ends with nothing left to burn. Has no set duration, ending only when dispelled or when the caster is drained. Magnitude determines both the draining speed and the bonus to spell efficacy.
-Psychic Crystal: Empties a portion of the caster’s magicka into a gem-like object, itself made from magic, which appears in the mage’s hand as a strange, transparent crystal partially filled with liquid. The crystal may be either placed into inventory or thrown, the latter causing it to shatter and explode on impact, dealing purely-magical damage to targets in its radius. Because the blast is not physical, it does no damage to objects such as doors or armor. Targets must have at least some personal magicka to be harmed, including most living things and undead, which are held together by magic. Inanimate objects or purely artificial animate ones such as dwemer centurions are not harmed. Magnitude determines what percentage of magicka is poured into the crystal, with larger amounts creating stronger blasts, and duration effecting how long the crystal lasts before it decays and vanishes. If placed into inventory it is treated as an item, potentially used for later or given to allies to be thrown.
-Infusion: Changes the magicka inherent in the caster's body with spell power without it actually leaving the body, instead being expelled with their blood. Every time the caster is hit with any attack, the chosen spell effect is automatically released, the power of which depends on skill in both Mysticism and the relevant school of the effect. Though more limited than other spells and obviously putting the caster at risk, infused magic cannot be dispelled, reflected, or otherwise interfered with by outside forces due to its complicated, hidden, and unique-per-person nature. The effect may be dispersed by the caster at any time, or selected and cast like a normal “outside” spell, also ending the effect.

*Mysticism: Bind
-Soul Trap: Used to fill soul gems, which have a variety of uses. Upon casting the spell, the target creature is “marked” by the effect. This part of the spell is relatively simple for any mage to create and maintain. If the creature is killed while the spell is in effect, the magic attempts to claim their soul before it departs and seal it within a soul gem. When this happens a spell failure % is checked; the more powerful the soul, the higher the skill the mage needs to trap it. If the caster fails the attempt or doesn’t possess any viable soul gems, the spell fades and the soul is lost. If successful, the soul is placed in a soul gem indefinitely, and will not escape or fade over time. The player may designate a specific gem in their inventory to take priority, otherwise the soul will inhabit the smallest gem available that can hold it.
-Spell Trap: Creates a magical shield or “net,” which lasts for only a very short time. If the shield is strong enough, any projectile-based spell that touches it is caught and trapped within a soul gem. Only one spell can be caught, at which point the shield disappears. The trapped spell may be released for the player’s benefit at any time as if they had cast it, even if they are normally unable to cast such a spell, or used for most basic functions of a charged soul gem.
-Telekinesis: Forms an unnatural magical connection between the caster and an object, allowing them to move it through the air with their mind. Unlike Levitation, which alters natural laws to make floating the “normal” state of an object, Telekinesis manipulates the magic around the object as if it were a part of the caster’s own body, creating an effect which is less powerful, but more controlled. The more inherent magic in an object, the harder it is to move with Telekinesis. Living things are rife with natural magicka and as such nearly impossible to move thus, though with enough power they can be “shoved” with the spell. The mage can choose to build up the magic gripping the object all in one space in order to launch it as a projectile, traveling a great distance and likely injuring any in its path, but doing so breaks the spell and the object has to be found and the spell recast for it to be moved again. Some purely magical structures, such as Mark spells and long-lasting area effects, can be moved with telekinesis. However, they can only be targeted or moved if made visible with a detect magic spell, and the combined effort of using both effects along with moving a construction made by another mage’s will makes this a very difficult process, often draining a great deal of magicka to only slightly move the target. Opposite to throwing it, the caster may choose to bring an item to them to and place it in their inventory directly. This may also be attempted with magical effects seen through a detect spell. Doing so traps an intact piece of the spell in a viable soul gem in the player’s possession, and has no effect if they don’t have one. Doing so does not damage or effect the target, and may fail depending on skill differences. This is mainly done for use with the Divine Source spell.
-Telekinetic Grip: An alternate and specific use of Telekinesis. Instead of distant and complicated manipulation of objects, they remain near the caster's hands, allowing easier and stronger control as if they were being physically held. In essence, this allows the caster to use equipment while using their magic-based stats and skills instead of physical strength, although the relevant weapon skill is still needed to use them effectively. Because the spell forgoes weight and flexibility limits, or the need for a solid grip, less feasible weapons can be wielded or dual-wielded as long as the mage's telekinetic power is capable of swinging them, even physically impossible pairings such as two longbows. The spell itself is fairly easy to cast and maintain, however, because of the added complexity of magically mimicking hands (which are typically involved in spellcasting), the difficulty rate of casting all other spells is increased for the duration (though reduced with Manifestation: Cast).
-Mark/Recall: Treated as one spell effect, whether the spell is a Mark or a Recall depends on setting the magnitude to positive or negative. Mark, aptly, marks a location with a magical signature. These marks are permanent unless removed by the caster, though it is possible for other mages to move or dispel them if they are made visible by detect magic. The number of active marks a caster can have at once depends on skill; the failure rate increases with each additional cast unless older marks are replaced. Recall teleports the target to a Mark of the caster’s choice. When teleporting, the caster enters a short minigame in which they must endure the Aetherius for a few seconds. The longer the trip, the longer and harder the “fight” to get there. Failure in this either leaves the caster where they started with wasted magicka, or randomly drops them somewhere between the start and destination. Assigning Recall to be On Touch or Target allows the caster to teleport items, which requires no minigame. Willing living things may be teleported, but this is more difficult than self teleportation. Unconscious targets may also be teleported, but this is especially difficult. Mark and Recall have other, more unusual uses for mages who think creatively. Casting them on containers can allow the teleportation of items between them, while casting Mark on an object can create a mobile destination. Agents can use this to enter forbidden areas, secretly marking supplies or documents scheduled to be brought in and then teleporting later, though this is risky as detection spells can catch both effects. Mages may choose to scry upon Marks, letting them spy on specific locations.
-Brand: Creates a small invisible "tattoo" upon the target for future reference. These marks are almost unnoticeable normally, but are easily found with a Detect Magic spell. Being easy to cast, Brands can last a long time, but standard On Target spells will eventually fade. A permanent Brand on an item can be done via enchantment (Constant Effect), while putting one on a living thing requires a small ritual. Naturally, if the target is unwilling, they must be restrained in some way so as not to ruin the spell. The use for a Brand comes into effect when joined with Detect spells. A mage can use a custom spell to detect their own Brands at any time. These detection spells are unique, as their range is almost indefinite. Any noticed Brand will appear on the map and create a marker on the compass. While active the spell will gradually drain magicka based on the number of detected Brands and their distance from the caster. The character can open their map and select/deselect specific ones, if they're only interested in one or want to reduce clutter. As well, the player can "name" a Brand at the time of casting if they choose, in order to create categories that can be separately detected. A mage can remove any permanent Brand they have cast, though they must be present (or skilled at projection) to do so. Removing a foreign Brand requires a specific reagent, as well as significant skill in Mysticism. Brands have various uses; it can be cast on a fleeing thief to aid the chase, enchanted upon a single coin in a treasure chest in order to track down stolen goods, applied to keep track of slaves, and so on.
-Inscribe/Activate Rune: As with Mark/Recall, this is two effects that rely on each other. An extremely versatile spell, as well as one that leans primarily on player ingenuity. Inscribing a rune is done on an object, essentially imbedding a pre-made spell into it. By default, a rune spell counts as “On Target” for the object; for example, a fire spell inscribed onto a door functions as though you had cast a fire spell AT the door, when activated. Depending on the situation, other options may be chosen. Almost any spell that the player can cast normally can be inscribed, though the inscription is more difficult than the cast, and ritual spells cannot be applied. Runes are dormant until Activated. Activate Rune is a universal spell, triggering any runes it’s cast upon, though the player may only trigger their own. This works partially as a shortcut, letting the character cast frequently used spells in their home without having to select them, and partially as a method of creating unique effects. For example, a mage might have a boulder blocking and hiding access to their tower. By inscribing a Kinetic Wall rune on the ground beneath it and a negative Weight rune on the boulder, both with 5 second durations, the mage can cast a small area effect Activate Rune spell and cause the boulder to briefly fly into the air, allowing access. Activate Rune may also be inscribed, and set to go off under specific conditions, making almost limitless magical traps and effects possible, from as grand as fireballs from the ceiling to as simple as triggering a Recall on a container if a Lockswitch spell is cast on it, transporting your valuables to a safe location if a thief gets into them. Runes may be dispelled and are visible to both the naked eye and detect magic, though are small and easily missed in both cases. Inscribing runes that can be fired more than once is very difficult, and becomes more so the more that are active, for balance reasons.
-Glyph: The other most common form of ward alongside Mystic Shroud, glyphs achieve a similar effect in a very different way. Rather than a spell-burning fog, a glyph carefully and painstakingly weaves magicka into a dense, rigid structure, effectively creating a wall of magic that is impenetrable to many spells. The time and difficulty involved in creating a self-sustaining spell prevent mages from spontaneously casting glyphs as a form of defense; rather, they are almost always cast into objects. A common practice is for powerful mages to cast glyphs upon the walls of their chambers to prevent interference from other mages. The key difference between glyphs and shrouds is the method of their protection. A shroud “clogs” an area, hindering magic within that space, while the glyph focuses on a specific spot, such as a wall or container. While shrouds may be pierced with difficulty, a glyph is nearly impossible to penetrate, but if one can find a hole in the defense there is no protection extended to the room beyond. The glyph is a self-sustaining spell, meaning it is extremely difficult to dispel, as it repairs damage done to itself. The downside to this is that it does not discriminate, and a mage trying to use remote spells from within a warded room will make little progress. In function glyphs are similar to runes, and to remove them the caster must locate the spot where it was inscribed. For this reason, it is generally unwise to ward a room from the outside. Worth noting is that because the glyph is focused on itself, it acts only to prevent the passage of magic, and does nothing to prevent damage to the object itself. A glyphed container may still be bashed, and armor still pierced. On that note, glyphs are generally a poor defense for armor, as mobility requires the piece to have many holes that magic can still get through. The pinnacle of a glyph spell is for a powerful mage to create one with a large area of effect on a small object, such as a gem, placed in the center of the room. This creates a sphere-shaped shield with no obvious holes, requiring a mage to physically enter to penetrate the space.
-Siphon: The mystic creates a link between themselves and the natural flow of magicka into a living being, leeching some of their magicka regeneration to speed up their own while reducing that of the target. Though a Siphon can be cast upon an enemy, it is far more effective when used with a willing assistant. While siphoning is in effect magicka regeneration will increase, but so too will spellcasting failure rates (especially catastrophic failures), as the rapid flow of magicka is difficult to control. An arrogant mage may have a group of followers linked to him, only to blow himself up with the next spell. As well, the range of the link is limited, and if the beings bound to the caster roam too far the spell is broken prematurely.

*Mysticism: Convert
-Spell Absorption: Creates a unique shield that attempts to both dismantle spells and turn them into basic energies that the mage can easily use to replenish their own. This effect is very complicated, and though more stable than reflection shields, casting it at the highest magnitudes is generally beyond even the most powerful mages. The magnitude of the spell effects how much of the incoming spell is absorbed. All spell types apply, unlike Reflection. In some cases the spell is weakened but still makes contact; the larger the discrepancy between the power of the spell and the power of the shield, the higher the chance that the incoming spell will be completely absorbed. The more different spell effects being dealt with at once, the more difficulty the shield has absorbing the spell. The amount of magicka given to the caster is generally very small, as most of it goes to maintaining the shield. Though powerful, the structures of magic involved are very specific and delicate, and absorption shields are easily dispelled.
-Detect: A versatile spell that allows the caster to see and recognize a wide number of magical signatures. Area determines how far the caster’s additional sense ranges, and magnitude determines how “refined” the effect is. For example, a low-powered detect magic spell might see an enchanted sword as a vague, purplish splotch, while a more powerful spell sees the magic as bright and sword-shaped. The limits of mortal comprehension mean that only one detection spell can be active at once; stacking effects makes the vision more specific, not more encompassing. A spell that detects both iron and magic will only pick up objects that fit both categories, in this case typically enchanted iron equipment. On their own, a caster can detect basic factors that they can inherently comprehend; detect life, heat, magic, movement. If holding a relevant object, the caster may channel magic through it to access new effects. For example, they might hold up several coins in their hand in order to cast Detect Gold, or a metal object to Detect Iron. Particularly small items or enchantments may not be visible with lower magnitude detection spells, or distinguishable from larger blobs of color near them. To detect items such as keys, a mage will typically carry the material they suspect the key to be made of and cast a detection spell with a very small radius and large magnitude, to search one room at a time. Detecting magic can brighten many visible effects and reveal many invisible ones, and some mages will choose to detect only a single school of magic to avoid being overwhelmed. Many spells will leave a lingering effect for a time after being cast, and criminals must take note that most relatively well-established towns employ mages to be aware of magics active in the area. Spells like curses and teleportation can be tracked to their source; you. Areas with high security will often be regularly searched for magic, making them no easier to infiltrate for a powerful mage than a skilled thief.
-Remove Curse: Attempts to unravel the forces behind a curse. Because curses typically rewrite the threads of magicka flowing through the world instead of simply creating an effect on top of them, more complicated curses cannot be dispelled. To remove a curse, it must first be made visible with detect magic (casters removing their own curse don’t need to “see” the effect, but must still have detect magic active before casting the Remove Curse effect On Self). The Remove Curse spell must then be cast and maintained for a certain duration; the more powerful the curse, the higher the magnitude and duration necessary. Both effects must be maintained, and if the detection spell ends before the curse is removed, the spell is broken and must be started over. Especially powerful curses may require that the altar sustaining them be destroyed before the curse can be removed. The caster of the curse is notified whenever a removal is being attempted; if they’re powerful enough and have quick enough reflexes, they may be able to use scrying to interfere with the process. The process of removal is disorienting to the target, and as such it is always easier to remove a curse from someone else than from yourself.
-Scry: Imprints the caster’s awareness onto the magical forces in the world, allowing their vision to leave their body. Scrying is activated through a minor ritual that puts the caster into a trance. Though their body remains in place, their vision becomes mobile, similar to a levitation effect. The further they range with their vision, the higher the strain on magicka. Scry effects are invisible unless detect magic is active, in which case they may be targeted with a dispel. Magnitude effects speed and ability to pierce mystic shrouds, though doing so is always difficult. When within a shroud, the speed of the scry is greatly reduced, vision is fogged, and the more time spent within it the higher the difficulty level of the spell, increasing the odds that the scry will spontaneously fail. The difference between the power of the scry and the power of the shroud determines the severity of all three effects, but even at the furthest extremes of power difference the spell will be hampered. At the start of the ritual the caster may opt for the scry to appear at a certain location instead of where they are. Locations include names from the list of known locations such as “____ City” and wilderness areas, though the player must have been there before; simply knowing the name is not enough. They may also choose to scry to locations where they have some power, including Mark spells and active curses. It is possible to cast some spell effects from a scry, though doing so is very difficult, primarily based on the Manifestation: Cast skill. This is often used for remote targeting, to place a curse from a distance or create Marks to teleport to locations the player hasn’t been to. The scry can be ended prematurely if the spell or the caster are hit with a dispel, or if the caster’s meditating body is injured.
-Divine Source: Tracks the threads of magicka attached to an object to their point of origin. Similar to scrying in some ways, but with several unique uses. In technical terms, the spell gives the player a brief vision of where in the game world an item was “created.” For example, if a sword is placed within a dungeon during world creation, the spell will reveal that spot within the dungeon regardless of the sword’s current location, while an apple might give you the image of a tree. However, the main use of this spell is in tracking magic. If the residue of a magical effect is tied to a soul gem by telekinesis, casting Divine Source on the gem will give a brief image of the caster. Doing so identifies the target regardless of whether you know their name; once the magic has been identified, a sample may be used to target the source with a curse, scry, or other remote spell. Magical divination is easily blocked by wards and shrouds. As with other spells, difference in caster level determines the difficulty of getting through, but it’s always inordinately difficult. The spell may be cast with or without a ritual; without, it’s defense-piercing ability is weaker, and the item being used may be destroyed (particularly soul gems). The spell may also be effectively used in the hunting of many other things. If, say, the caster wants to know where someone gets their many jewels, they can steal one, divine its source, and quickly cast a Mark spell through a scry to be able to teleport into the person’s secret mine. The rapid use of all three spells is difficult, but effective. More illegally inclined mages must be aware that Divine Source is used in the investigation of most crimes, and that magics such as invisibility and mark/recall are not a free ride to easy thievery, as being connected to energies found at the scene is highly incriminating evidence.
-Alert: A very small and easy to cast ward, with a simple use. Upon casting, an area effect is created, which may be named by the player like a map notice. The area is set with a condition to activate it, usually motion other than the caster within its radius. When an alert is triggered, a brief sound and visual effect enters the screen, informing the player. This creates a small icon in the character’s status screen that, when hovered over, gives a notice such as Alert “Tower Bedroom” breached. The player may click this icon to remove it at any time. Along with basic security uses, it is common for mages to cast alerts around themselves and sit in the center before performing a trance-inducing ritual such as scrying, to inform them of impending danger so that they can cancel the spell and protect themselves before their defenseless body is attacked.
-Mystic Regrowth: Simultaneously releases and transmutes the life force within an occupied soul gem, converting it into part of the target. The spirit from a daedra could restore damaged daedric equipment, a reptilian creature could heal an Argonian. How effective it is depends on both Mysticism skill and the power of the soul. If the soul used is incompatible with the target, the gem is still spent and subsequently wasted.

Necromancy is a school focused on the unique transition from life to death, and back again. A simple instant that transforms the miracle of life into a completely different existence, leaving the Mundus entirely, that border between life and death holds amazing power. However, to meddle with it is to defy the natural order, an act despised by many (and not helped by the repulsive nature of the undead), though necromancers can be as kind and selfless as anyone else can be vile.

*Necromancy: Revivification
-Revive: The signature skill of necromancy, pulling a spirit from the outer realms and forcibly placing it into a waiting corpse to act as its body. Though it resembles summoning, the skills involved are completely different, and talent at one does nothing to improve the other. Daedra cannot die, while spirits are the remains of a thing that is dead, and the two are almost polar opposites when it comes to magically manipulating their essence. As many ghosts have only partial consciousness and in general much weaker willpower than daedra, it is not necessary to further complicate the effort with binding Command magics; the caster’s will alone is enough. As well, since the caster isn’t temporarily forcing openings in powerful borders that separate Oblivion from the Mundus, spirits may be held for much longer periods. The caster’s Revivification skill dictates the difficulty level of animating a corpse. Novice necromancers are initially only able to animate fresh, intact bodies. As skill increases, in a method resembling how trapped souls are used to fuel the magic in items, the necromancer is able to manipulate the spirit to simulate missing ligaments and tissues, animating skeletons and incomplete bodies The pinnacle of reviving magic is the ability to animate monstrosities cobbled together from separate species. Servants created through reviving can last indefinitely without becoming “unsummoned,” with the failure rate of additional servants climbing the more that the necromancer has, including spirits. The normal method of reviving involves a ritual including the creation and/or preparation of the body. However, in tight situations, the necromancer may directly cast the spell on the bodies of the recently fallen to immediately reinforce their position. Though fast, this method creates a servant that is weaker, short-lived, and applied with a much lower skill level; it takes a more powerful necromancer just to instantly animate even fresh, intact corpses. As well, this damages the body against future use. Almost any previously-living thing that leaves a corpse can be revived or contribute parts to the process.
-Bind Spirit: Pulls a ghost into the world and chains it to the necromancer’s will as with Revive, but leaves it in its incorporeal state instead of sealing it within a corpse. Spirits are far less dangerous than daedra, but easier to maintain. Failure rates climb the more spirits that are summoned at once, and revived undead are included in this equation. Spirits can be given commands as through the necromancer’s Instruction skill. With targeted spells the caster can attempt to take control over free-roaming ghosts, allowing the same commands as with summoned spirits.
-Outer Inquiry: Sends a portion of the necromancer’s consciousness into the outer realms, directly communicating with more intelligent spirits instead of controlling them. Such conversations are more difficult to maintain than normal speech, are further limited by the magical rules of spell failure and magicka drain, and may be confusingly vague or bizarre. However, they can also be a source of rare or unusual information not normally gleaned from the living world. If specific information is needed, the necromancer may select a name to attempt to reach a certain person’s spirit. With a soul gem, the necromancer can attempt to trap the called spirit, and use it to revive the individual’s preserved and restored body, potentially returning them to true life, one of the most difficult and impressive powers of necromancy. Requires a ritual to be cast.
-Necrotic Virus: Raises a virus, one of the simplest types of life, into an undead form. Being dead, the virus cannot multiply and is no longer contagious. However, the body’s natural defenses can no longer destroy it, considerably increasing both its severity and the difficulty of removing it. Rebuke Spirit spells may slow its advancement or remove weaker viruses, but more potent infections may require special treatment, such as medicines containing shavings of enchanted silver. Viruses are maintained within a sample of dead flesh possessed by the necromancer, and the easiest way to spread them is by using the sample as the reagent for a Poison spell.
-Necrotic Organ: The necromancer attempts to raise parts of themselves as undead, allowing them to continue functioning. Though painful, dangerous, and difficult, it allows the caster to openly defy death. The spell has two functions; to negate an injury, and to protect an organ. The former requires that the caster be injured in some way, such as with a broken bone or damaged eye. Upon choosing the target and casting the spell the injury vanishes and that body part is considered undead, and is more difficult to injure a second time. A re-injured organ can be revived again, but this stacks, and is more difficult each time. Protecting the body requires that the spell be cast before combat, and will automatically revive an organ if it is struck. The more times a part is revived, the more it is considered undead. When undead organs are struck the character takes less damage depending on how advanced the state is, to the point that certain locations essentially cause no damage. However, the necromancer must maintain their own life, and the living portions of their body become ever more valuable. Vital areas take more damage the less of them there are, and fatigue/magicka regeneration slowly decrease. Undead organs will not naturally heal, and must be repaired with restoration magic, potions, or other supernatural means to be returned to life. The most powerful and dangerous use of the spell is to protect the heart beforehand; upon death the caster will collapse briefly and enemies will turn away, before the heart is revived and the caster stands with a small amount of health restored. However, this effect is temporary (duration depending on skill level), and if the heart isn't restored to life before then the necromancer will completely die. The Necrotic Organ effect has no use for entirely undead targets (including if the necromancer becomes a lich).
-Cannibalize Dead: Allows the caster to utilize dead flesh to heal wounds. Unlike the Necrotic Organ effect, it does not create undeath or alter living tissue, but instead uses dead tissue to replace destroyed flesh and then uses necromancy to blur the lines between living and dead, letting the replacements heal and become "normal" tissue. The spell must either target a corpse as the source or the caster must have flesh in their inventory. Though it restores health less effectively than restoration spells, and is not instant (the health regenerates more slowly), it allows healing within the necromancer's chosen field. Because it transmits solid matter, higher ranges increase spell difficulty dramatically, working best with On Touch. The spell loses efficiency the further the race of the target corpse is from the caster, with other humanoids being second best, followed by animals, then exotic monsters, and so on. Casts consume flesh according to magnitude, and smaller corpses can be quickly stripped. When health is otherwise full the spell can restore undead organs, but requires large amounts of "meat" as entire parts are being replaced, and healing is another degree slower. With material in inventory the necromancer can cast the spell on target; this is most effective for undead servants, who don't need the tissue to heal, and as such are recovered by it just as effectively as one casting restoration on themselves. Undead servants can be created capable of this effect, and will literally consume the dead to heal themselves.
-Forbidding: Prevents spirits that leave a body from pursuing their normal afterlife, effectively causing ghosts to spawn from the newly dead. Once the duration runs out there is a chance that lingering ghosts will disperse, depending on the skill of the caster (higher skill makes them more likely to remain in the physical world). Can be cast on a target or in an area, effecting any who die within its radius. Spirits created in this way don't have any specific allegiance, and may wander away, attack anything nearby, attempt to resume what they were doing in life, attack the one who killed them, and so on. Very powerful necromancers can combine a Forbidding effect with Bind Spirit, potentially creating a small army.
-Animate Item: A very simple form of undeath is induced into equipment made from organic components, such as bone, leather, or carapace. This allows them to “heal” from damage, essentially repairing material types that are often the most difficult to fully restore with normal means. Likewise, a negative version can be cast on enemies wearing items of the same material, degrading their equipment.

*Necromancy: Instruction
-Does not have normal spell effects. Rather, this skill governs the complexity of the orders a necromancer may give their servants. Both undead and spirits may be given orders, but only those created by the caster, as even those not hostile to the player are controlled by another necromancer. For the most part, the order system works the same as with leadership skills and the Request dialogue function, but falls under a different skill as it represents direct mental commands and not spoken orders. All servants can be called to defend the caster at any skill level, and when given this order supercedes all other instructions. Sets of orders may be copied if the caster wishes all of their servants to behave the same way, and may also be written into spellbooks as part of a ritual, to create undead with specific behaviors already built in. "Instruction" itself is cast as a low-cost spell, which brings up a command menu and existing servants, and may be used any time.
-Hematic Script: The necromancer is capable of using blood to invoke necromantic power through writing. Essentially, by enscribing runes in blood they can enchant scrolls and books without using the Enchantment skill or a soul gem. Instruction skill determines the magnitude of power that the writing can hold. However, because dead blood is being used to power necromantic magic, only Necromancy skill effects can be written in this way. Hematic Script is a highly personalized type of magic, and anyone other than the writer or their servants trying to use such an item has a higher difficulty penalty. As well, using such items at all requires comparable skill in Instruction, with higher rates of disastrous failure for those not meeting the requirements. If someone not a necromancer finds and attempts to use a necromantic spellbook written in Hematic Script, they are likely to kill themselves. More exotic or inherently magical types of blood can boost effects, or be used for highly specialized spells; for example, a scroll to animate someone's corpse written in their blood. If the necromancer chooses to grant this ability to an undead servant, they become capable of activating their creator's Hematic Script even if they can't read anything else.

*Necromancy: Design
-This skill, along with other effects, governs the necromancer’s ability to build and maintain corpses, including stitching, preservation, reinforcing, mummification, and so on. Improved skill increases the stats of servants in many ways, and raises the necromancer’s talent at reconnecting parts. Failure to properly maintain or attach pieces of corpses can drastically weaken the servant, prevent the spell from succeeding at all, or damage the corpse. While experienced necromancers favor composite undead to create more powerful servants, when preserving the original form of a corpse higher design skill can allow it to retain some of the skills it had in life. Bound spirits do not benefit from the Design skill.
-Poison: Rapidly speeds up the decomposition process, turning flesh into a toxic, putrefied mess. This can be directed toward enemies in two forms; gas or liquid. The ease of spreading it makes gas the preferred form of magical poison, and though not as instantly dangerous as other forms of poison it can lead to suffocation and disease over time, as well as crippling those caught within the cloud, sometimes simply from sheer revulsion. Liquid poison is much more dangerous, but harder to apply, often requiring that the target already be wounded, so that the substance has an entry point. Magical creation of poison requires an organic reagent, typically flesh of some kind, with its potency varying by skill and choice of reagent. Either form can be placed into a sealed container for later use, but may lose effect over time.
-Bone Shape: Utilizes the necromancer's skill in physical corpse maintenance and combines it with the same magical connections that replace tendons and muscle to create equipment. The spell can only be cast on self, upon which it opens a page listing bones in inventory and items that can be made from them. Quality depends on skill level and bone type (ogre bones are stronger than human, etc). Though items are of lesser quality and variety than normally crafted equipment, they can be made relatively quickly and easily at any time. At higher skill levels undead servants can be made to use the spell; a powerful servant can kill an enemy, eat its flesh to heal itself, then use the bones to improve its equipment.
-Reawaken: Attempts to modify dead flesh so that magicka once again naturally flows through it. Failure can damage and weaken the target material. This effect must be incorporated into overall revival of high-grade undead in order for them to be capable of using magic. A Reawakened corpse that has not been revived essentially becomes a necromantic power source in a certain radius around it, such as a focus or soul gem. However, the effect is very inefficient by comparison, and the amounts of dead flesh the average necromancer may carry with them cannot provide a substantial bonus, often requiring entire bodies. These corpses are frequently positioned around the necromancer's primary place of work, improving their abilities. When invoked through the Hematic Script ability, Reawaken can draw additional power from the blood writing, trading some of the overall potency of the script in exchange for the ability to use non-necromantic spell effects. Because of the very weak power involved, this is usually done for small effects, such as a symbol in blood that locks a secret door.

Restoration is the magic of biology, a difficult practice that combines the complexity of magic with the just as precise and multifaceted nature of the body, such as temperature, hormones, vitamins, proteins, bacteria, and so on. Most use the school for healing and are well liked above other mages, but it can also enhance and alter the body, or be used against it to wreak havoc. Masters of Restoration who use it as a weapon are rare, but rightly feared for the terrible agony and disfigurement their spells can cause.

*Restoration: Heal
-Restore Health: One of the most common spells, beloved by warriors and mages everywhere, but seldom mastered. The spell speeds up the natural healing process immeasurably, closing wounds in moments, but doing so puts an immense strain on the body. Many healing spells are meant to be cast between battles, as the higher the magnitude the greater the side effects of fatigue loss, nausea, and stunning. Because of the tremendous complexity of the body’s natural processes, only masters of healing can cast spells that promptly close wounds with minimal drawbacks. While Restore Health is effective against unusual allies, such as undead or golems, the caster must simulate entire bodily processes instead of enhancing them, and thus the effect is greatly reduced. When the magnitude is set to negative the spell causes cancerous growths, which are treated by the game as injuries such as broken bones/burns. These become more severe with higher magnitudes or repeat casts, potentially crippling the target if the growths collide with organs.
-Healing Light: A powerful and dangerous form of health restoration magic, Healing Light attempts to draw the needed energy from an outside source instead of the target's own body and magicka, taking its name from the visible excess of energy producing a glow from the target, even appearing to ignite them in ethereal flame at extreme magnitudes. Despite its name Healing Light spells are often shunned and even feared by most healers. Some form of selected energy source is required, such as a focus or soul gem, whose use requires skill in an additional school of magic alongside Restoration. For the duration, the light heals injury more quickly than, and without the exhausting side effects of, Restore Health. However, two different spell difficulty equations are checked at this time; if either fails, the spell becomes unstable, and the remaining energy will inflict severe internal and external burns. Particularly feared from the Healing Light spell is its ability to function with the sole requirement of skill in Restoration. As long as they are bound or otherwise unable to move or fight back, a living entity can be chosen as the power source, rapidly consuming their body.
-Restore Fatigue: Directly converts magicka into bodily energy. While this refills the fatigue bar by simulating the energy used by muscles, it does not replace the physical proteins and acids needed by a body to rebuild itself, and as such does not refill the daily stamina bar. Restoring fatigue is much easier than restoring health, but because it directly converts magical energy into physical, its magicka cost is inordinately high. With the magnitude set to negative the spell causes brief anemic symptoms in the target, leading to poor concentration (higher failure rates for difficult tasks like spellcasting or lockpicking), slow reaction time, and eventually fainting spells at higher severity.
-Restore Attribute: Focused healing that involves repairing the damage done “between the lines,” so to speak, renewing the subtle network of magics that helps hold the body together after being damaged by Decay spells. As these forces are just as complicated and even more delicate than those of the body, Restore Attribute spells are difficult to cast, but lack the physical side effects of other restoration spells.
-Cure Disease: Sends magicka into the bloodstream to restore the natural processes attacked by viruses. Some diseases are more potent than others, requiring a higher magnitude to remove. While Cure Disease is a relatively easy spell to cast, care must be taken not to rely on it. Whenever the caster cures a disease within themselves, a portion of the spell lingers in their body as a harmless residue; the more frequently it’s cast and the higher the magnitude, the larger this buildup. If the caster is infected again the disease adapts to this residue, and becomes more resistant to being cured with magic. This buildup fades over time. If the caster has used Procure Sample to obtain a portion of the disease in their inventory, the magnitude can be set to negative in order to use it as a reagent in spreading the disease. A cast of any magnitude will consume the sample, with higher skill levels able to spread it further at once. The sample will state disease info, including how it's spread (airborne, waterborne, etc), and the caster will generally need to target it properly for maximum effect.
-Cure Poison: Similar to Cure Disease, magicka is sent into the bloodstream to eradicate harmful foreign materials. Because poisons are not living things that can be attacked and killed like viruses, they cannot adapt to built up magic, but are also much harder to cure. Some especially vile toxins inhibit the mage’s ability to cast spells, making it extremely difficult to self-cure the poison with magic. Eradicating a poison is much easier if the caster possesses a sample. As with Cure Disease samples can also be used to poison an individual. Unlike a virus this can only target a single individual. If the target has no cuts, their mouth/eyes are protected, or otherwise has no clear "openings" in the body, the poison will have no effect unless it can be specifically absorbed through the skin.

*Restoration: Aid
-Resistance: Bolsters the body’s natural ability to withstand various elements. Though not very difficult to maintain at lower magnitudes, high-powered resistance spells can actually alter the natural state of the target; the human body is not naturally built to be fireproof. Because of this, very powerful resistance spells often cause side effects such as constant fatigue drain or partially stunted magicka, and reckless wizards trying to make themselves invincible may accidentally cripple themselves. Increased resistance is fundamentally different from a spell such as Elemental Shield, and increased fire resistance enchanted onto an item will actually make the item more resistant to fire, not the caster. As a result, the spell will not function exactly the same between items and creatures (armor does not suffer from fatigue drain, obviously), and raising resistances with an area effect is exceedingly difficult.
-Procure Sample: At the cost of a small portion of stamina loss, the caster “herds” a portion of the disease or poison in their body to a single spot and draws it out through a small amount of blood. A vial is necessary in order to store the sample, else the spell is wasted. The caster may only draw a single substance at a time, and must choose when casting the spell if they or the target is afflicted with several. Doing so does not weaken the severity of the condition. While samples have multiple side uses, particularly in alchemy, in magic they are usually used as reagents to aid in the curing process. Casting a cure spell through a reagent greatly improves the odds of neutralizing the target illness, and is needed in order to create a temporary immunity. Samples do not last long outside of the body under normal circumstances; increased magnitude simulates the environment of the living body within the vial, increasing the amount of time it will last.
-Immunity: Using a sample as a base, the healer creates a magical counter to a specific disease or poison, becoming completely immune to being re-infected for a period of time. Immunization lasts a relatively long time, but is somewhat difficult to cast, and the magicka poured through it destroys the sample in the process. Because of the immensely complicated process of building counters to hundreds of specific chemicals and elements, immunities cannot be cast from memory, and require another sample to cast the same spell again. Reversing the magnitude, the caster uses the sample to specifically attack the target's ability to fight that particular illness. The victim must already be afflicted with the chosen sample, or the spell has no effect. This lets the harmful substance spread unhindered and dramatically worsens it, instantly advancing it to a far more developed state.
-Hinder Curse: Attempts to stabilize the balance of the body’s more mystical energies, keeping them from being damaged by curses and similar indirect attacks. This spell is easier than removing a curse, but while it can reduce the symptoms of one or prevent weaker ones from taking hold, it does nothing to actually unmake the curse, which will resume once the spell wears off. This protection will also reduce the effect of attribute damage spells cast on the target for its duration, but will not restore damage that’s already there. Hinder Curse cast at sufficiently high magnitudes can, however, remove and block the effects of Drain spells.
-Control Pain: Dulls nerve receptors, reducing the severity of the pain experienced by the target. Fairly easy to cast, but does nothing to actually heal the problem, though in the case of the caster removing pain will make it easier to heal oneself. Reversing spell magnitude lets the caster inflict terrible agony upon the target. While this does not cause any damage itself it can cripple the victim's ability to function, or be used as a form of magical torture.
-Harmony: Creates a peaceful balance of energy within the body. Harmony functions similarly to a boost in Luck, providing a very slight increase to success odds of all actions, and more specifically causes a more substantial drop in the odds of catastrophic failure. Harmony does not have a set duration, instead fading with every action the target takes. Disharmony, resulting from reversed magnitude, will cause opposite effects (increased failure and catastrophic failure), and will also gradually fade with action as the victim “regains themselves”.

*Restoration: Enhance
-Fortify Attribute: Applying similar fundamentals as restoring attributes or increasing resistances, the natural capabilities of the body are pushed to higher limits. Though these spells are potent and not especially difficult to cast, mages must take extreme care in using them. Spell failure when trying to go beyond one’s limits can have painful, crippling side effects, actually causing injury and attribute damage to the target. This is rarely attempted offensively, as at higher levels of difficulty the spell is more likely to fail entirely, and at lower levels is just as likely to strengthen the enemy. Even when safely cast, fortified attributes cause a brief backlash when they end that varies with the specific attribute, as empowering sensations flood out of the body. This effect can be reduced with higher levels of skill, and the higher the ability being fortified already is, the smaller the backlash. When the magnitude is reversed this is basically a "cause injury" spell, in which the caster attempts to overload and rupture an organ to cause injuries separate from health damage. The magnitude of the spell is checked against the target's constitution and general durability, having no effect aside from temporary pain if unsuccessful.
-Fortify Aptitude: Attempts to increase the target’s natural ability to perform certain tasks, basically acting as a Fortify Skill effect. As the mage cannot actually conjure knowledge and experience into their own mind, the spell actually dramatically alters the body to make it better at the chosen task than it is naturally able, mimicking or simulating what is essentially an artificial racial advantage. Depending on the chosen skill, the caster may look physically different; sprouting claws (or enhancing existing ones) to improve hand to hand damage, webbed fingers and toes to enhance swimming, or gecko-like pads on their hands to improve climbing ability. Lesser changes may include prominent veins or nerves along one’s arms, as blood flow and reflexes are improved to enhance skill with a weapon. Although Fortify Aptitude effects tend to have a long duration (manually cancelable) as transformed anatomy does not simply “snap back,” it is very difficult to initially cast. As well, though the effect can be powerful, it carries several drawbacks. Such spells are very difficult to obtain and cast, and due to the strain on the body drain fatigue and stamina both when being cast and when ending. Because the nature of the body has changed, other Restoration spells become more difficult to cast on oneself while Fortify Aptitude is in effect.
-Absorb Attribute: Using a similar theory to fortification, absorption recognizes the magicka patterns that strengthen and sustain the body, but instead of duplicating or reinforcing them, attempts to pull them from another body, like stealing bricks from a building. As this boost is more superficial than direct fortification, it does not carry the same risks of injury, though the ending of the spell still carries a degree of backlash. While the sudden discrepancy in physical ability is powerful, there is a constant pull on the stolen energies, and the effect is difficult to maintain for long. The further the caster ranges from the target, the more the duration of the spell is strained. Even if the target dies, their soul retains its pull on the stolen energies, and the spell promptly ends.
-Absorb Life: Attempts to steal health, magicka, or fatigue from the target. Though mostly indistinguishable from attribute absorption, the targeted energies are the very forces that normally pull on the stolen attributes, and as such they are not returned to the victim. One could look at this spell as akin to a Restore Soul effect, replenishing the base energies that make something alive, but as such a thing is beyond the power of mortal casters, energy is leeched from another soul instead. Most unusual to this effect is the power of Absorb/Restore Magicka, one of the most coveted abilities to any mage. Though known to exist, this is nearly useless in spell form, as the caster must spend magic to gain magic, and has little function beyond wanting to drain another mage’s supply of magicka, which other spells are more efficient at. Mages that are extremely skilled in restoration can offset this slightly with their ability to improve the spell’s efficiency, making them capable of very minor magicka absorption spells. Even rarer and more desired is the effect of Restore Magicka as a constant effect on an item; this is actually an Absorb Magicka spell that pulls from the ambient energy surrounding the mage. All restoration spells are particularly difficult to enchant due to the problem of creating a spell not sustained by the caster capable of dealing with the widely underestimated complexity of life. Though theoretically possible, such items would require a wizard who has achieved mastery in both Restoration and Enchantment to create.
-Speed Metabolism: Forces the normal cycles of the body into high gear. Increases speed of fatigue regeneration, natural healing of wounds, and ability to fight diseases, but drains stamina, reduces duration of potions and medicines, increases the speed of poison/disease development, and makes additional Restoration spells cast on self more difficult. Switching the magnitude to negative reverses the effects and slows metabolism.
-Flourish: Pours bolstering, life-giving magics into plant life, which is better at effectively storing and using it. This both speeds its growth and increases its output (produce or flowers). A plant may normally take a month to grow back and produce five tomatoes, but may reappear in two weeks with ten, for example. The magnitude of the spell determines how large the boosts are. However, because the rapid growth saps nutrients from the ground, it will take longer for new growth to appear in that spot if the first plant dies or is picked, Flourish or no. When set to negative magnitude the spell stunts plant growth, potentially to the point that its life cycle finishes and it dies without ever producing anything. Because the plant stores the simple energy instead of a complex spell it cannot be dispelled; a Flourish spell must be canceled out or reversed with another Flourish of opposite magnitude.
-Nourish: Enhances the nutritious value of foods, increasing their bonus to stamina/fatigue, and at high magnitudes even carrying temporary immune system boosts. The spell is only as good as what it has to work with, and if the food gets old and decays, the bonus will decay as well. Reverse magnitudes sap consumables of their value, and at higher power may cause sickness and food poisoning.

Manifestation is the art of manipulating the form of magical forces. Destruction lets you create fire, but has nothing to do with what shapes and movements that fire takes. While all mages must learn Manifestation to cast spells, its universal application causes many to take it for granted, and few ever master it. Destruction can create a fireball of great intensity; a master of Manifestation can use scrying to create that fireball a mile away, guide it around corners, and hurl it into a group of people while harming only the intended targets.

*Manifestation: Shape
-On Self: Targets a spell to effect the caster. One of the easiest forms of casting, as the mage must only shape magicka into the desired effect without also shaping a form of delivery.
-On Touch: Transmits the spell effect directly into whatever they reach forward and touch. More difficult than Self but almost imperceptibly so, as the only difference is merely pushing the magic out through the body. Touch spells of equal magnitude to other shapes have a somewhat higher ability to penetrate shields.
-On Target: Possibly the most common spell form, in which the spell is essentially “thrown,” though no actual physical effort is involved. Difficulty is moderately increased, but quickly becomes a relative non-factor for most effects as skill improves. Some effects are easier to target than others. The speed and accuracy of the projectile varies with spell magnitude, skill in relevant schools, and skill in Shaping, with spells that push the limits of ability more prone to drifting off course. The maximum range of the projectile is influenced by willpower, and the Shape and Intensity skills of the caster. The appearance of the projectile varies with the spell effects it carries, but becomes less visible as the Shape skill increases, making it harder to dodge. Though always visible to the caster, the attacks of powerful mages may appear as ripples in the air, sparks of energy along the ground, and other telltale signs. Some effects are less visible than others (Telekinesis simply appears as a flying item to others at any level), and higher magnitudes are harder to conceal. Detect magic makes all effects visible.
-Area Effect: Causes the spell to “explode” on impact, spreading its effects in a wide radius. Considerably increases cast difficulty, as the mage attempts to exponentially increase the area of the spell without losing power. Increased skill reduces the difficulty and magnitude loss further from the center, and increases the speed of the spread. Area spells have an increased chance of more violent failure. Some spell effects spread more easily than others.
-Friendly Fire: Casting a spell as ally-friendly does not increase the difficulty of the initial cast, but instead increases the spell failure mid-flight depending on how much evasion must be done. A simple target spell that hits an ally in the back is relatively easy to make fizzle harmlessly, while a large area effect that encompasses several friends and enemies is vastly more difficult. The more difficulty a spell encounters in friendly fire, the greater the odds of it ending prematurely, being weaker on impact, and failing to avoid injuring allies. In general, the higher the magnitude of a spell, the harder it is to shape safely. All spells are considered “self-friendly” by default. This is a factor in spell failure, and novice mages may unexpectedly char themselves with fireballs that are difficult for them to cast. As friendly fire is strained and becomes increasingly more likely to fail, risk to the caster increases as well. Higher skill can allow the mage to specify only a specific type of target as vulnerable.
-Aura: Whereas standard target/area effect spells instantly apply the contained spell effects for the set duration, auras continuously apply an effect for as long as something is within their radius. All aura spells must have a radius and a duration longer than 1 second; ideally they are cast as constant effect. When setting an aura spell the difficulty rate of area and magnitude greatly increases, while the difficulty of increased duration greatly decreases. The result is a spell that creates a “fog” in a small area, usually around the caster. The duration of the aura applies only to the entire effect. Spell effects assigned to the aura, such as damage or status, are applied for every second a viable target is within the aura, and instantly end once they step out. Aura spells may be cast at a ranged target, but the duration difficulty is considerably increased for doing so, and increases the further the caster moves from them. They will “stick” to a target as the duration of a normal area spell will; an aura cast at a target will remain at the area of impact. Auras cast from a scry are considered at proximity from the spell effect, not the caster’s body. In general, aura spells are not difficult cast, but not difficult to dispel either.
-Nova: Functions much like an area effect spell targeted on Self. Because the area effect is emanating from the caster’s body without the target effect ever being involved, magnitude is easier to increase than in normal area spells. However, because the caster is the center of an explosion, the spell is more volatile and more likely to end in injury when it fails, and is very difficult to add a friendly fire effect to. Novas are somewhat harder to increase the range of than targeted spells due to the dual effort of self-preservation, but cast quickly and spread to fill their area much faster than targeted areas.
-Lob: Gives a spell projectile artificial weight, making it rise and fall in an arc like a thrown object. Range is still set to determine how far it goes. Though a fairly easy shape to cast, knowing where the throw will land can be difficult.
-Spell Guidance: If the caster has released the button to cast a targeted spell but clicks and holds *before* the casting animation has finished, they retain some control over the projectile and may try to guide it. As the projectile flies further from the caster, it becomes harder to control. With low Shape skill the caster can do little more than nudge the spell, but skilled mages can effectively guide them toward moving targets. Though this can obviously make a cast more effective, the mage cannot take other actions while guiding the projectile. While releasing the button ends the control, right clicking during guidance will remotely “impact” the spell, causing it to explode midair if it has an area effect. An easier version can be performed by selecting a certain enemy as the target, and letting the spell automatically seek them out. The same restrictions apply, in that the mage must remain focused on the task. Higher skill improves both the projectile's ability to follow, and to avoid obstacles while doing so.
-Energy Gauntlet: Creates a sheath of magic over the caster's hands in order to enhance their unarmed combat abilities. The spell exists in two parts; the creation of the "gauntlets," and the type of energy used. Manifestation: Shape governs the first part, determining how long the spell lasts, how severe any drawbacks are, and how efficiently the energy is transferred to the target. The magnitude and difficulty of the energy type depends on skill in whichever school of magic the effect is being drawn from. The effect's potency is typically less than a pure cast (a fireball will cause more direct fire damage than a Fire Gauntlet), though high skill in the relevant source can narrow this difference. Typically the spell is used to add a unique extra effect to hand strikes, such as Dispel to physically tear down magical defenses or Kinetic to let attacks more easily shatter bones. Though the spell has no impact on combat ability, the form of hand-to-hand attack used will change how the effect is applied, with punches delivering it in blasts and grabs having a slow "burning" effect. Only spells which can be cast with offensive intent can be used (you can't punch daedra summons and water breathing into people). Whether the user is actually wearing physical gauntlets or not does not affect the spell.

*Manifestation: Intensity
-Duration: How long a spell effect lasts. This may be thought of as the spell actually consisting of a 1-second effect, re-applied every second for the duration. While this has no noticeable effect for spells like levitation or shield, a damage spell with a 3-second duration is three times as powerful. For the most part, increasing duration greatly increases the difficulty of a spell, though some spell effects are more or less difficult to extend. Glyphs, for example, are relatively easy to cast with extremely long durations. A normally cast spell expends its required magicka at the moment of casting, and the spell will run out its duration without further influence from the caster. Note that the set duration when creating a spell is under ideal circumstances, and numerous effects can alter the duration of a spell, such as caster proximity, partial spell failure, spells being broken, or a dispel weakening its effect. As the caster cannot see the duration of a spell, they must use their best judgement in these cases.
-Constant Effect: Sets a spell’s duration as essentially limitless, for as long as its power source lasts. Well known in enchanted items, when a spell is cast as constant effect it creates a constant drain on the caster’s magicka, the severity of which depends on how difficult it would be to increase its duration. Constant effect spells are extremely difficult to end with a dispel, as the destroyed effect is immediately replaced. The caster may end the effect from their status screen at any time. Experienced mages often use this as a badge, taking a spell with a relatively low duration cost such as an aura and making it constant effect. If the mage is powerful enough their magicka regeneration is faster than the drain, making the spell permanent until they choose to end it. In general, constant effect is more difficult to maintain than duration, but for some spells it’s considered the default form, such as scrying.
-Magnitude: Measures the power of a spell. Different spell effects measure magnitude in different ways, with some allowing negatives to create opposite effects, and others giving exact amounts of power to a spell. The most common form of magnitude is as a percentage, representing the amount of effort the mage is putting into the spell. 100% is the absolute maximum power the mage is capable, and as such is extremely difficult to cast at all. Novice mages are generally not able to put full power into a spell, and face spell failure if they attempt it. As skill increases, both the success rate and effect of high magnitude increase; a more powerful mage will cast much more effective fireballs than a novice, even if both are at 30%. Especially complex spells like Reflect or Absorb Life increase in difficulty much more quickly at higher magnitudes.
-Wave: Somewhat combines the effects of Target and Area Effect. Rather than taking the form of a projectile that impacts with a target, the spell is released in a vaguely cone-shaped burst of energy. The wave is not stopped by smaller objects like humanoid NPC’s and hits everything in its path to the end of its range. Width and range of the stream may both be changed. Waves take longer to initially cast and cannot be overcast; instead, the normal form of using them is to hold down the cast button, releasing a constant surge of power. Adding multiple effects to waves greatly increases their difficulty, but they are often the most powerful raw applications of magic available, as the steady stream removes the gap between normal casts and applies the effect much more rapidly. Not all spell effects can be applied in wave form, specifically spells such as levitation or summoning for which there would be no point, and the drain on magicka is often very high. If the spell fails at any point the wave is stopped and must be recast, and as such mages tend to use low magnitudes for wave spells.
-Overcast: Most normal spells can be overcast, done by holding down the cast button instead of tapping it. When overcasting, the spell is “charged,” rapidly building up additional energy before being released. This increases its parameters such as range and magnitude, but is done as a gamble. The caster cannot see the level of the held spell, and with the increase in power comes an increase in spell failure. Failing an overcast comes with a much higher chance of more dangerous, dramatic failure. Though the spell might fail on release, if held too long the spell will fail automatically, with even higher rates of backlash effects. The overcast increases the power of the spell by a percentage, meaning that more powerful spells are increased dramatically. Though for most mages overcasting is done infrequently as a desperate measure, for archmages who have the highest level of control, it can be the source of the most powerful of spells.
-Multi-Spell: Attempts to cast several spells at once, basically combining their effects into a single spell. Casting time and difficulty are higher but not the sum of their parts, making it more efficient in that case, but magicka consumption is significantly higher. Ideal for situations in which the mage is caught off guard and must quickly apply several buffing spells at once, or create a powerful distracting effect that lets them escape.

*Manifestation: Cast
-Armored: Heavy armor is well known to be a hindrance to most mages, but with practice they can learn to minimize the gestures involved in casting spells, reducing the need to use their hands and subsequently the penalties of casting in armor or while otherwise physically impaired.
-Secrecy: Spells cast in secret, regardless of whether the character is considered hidden, are attempted to be cast stealthily. This is separate from simple detection, in which someone can’t see where a spell came from. Stealth casting attempts to place a spell on someone without their knowing. Some spell effects cannot be secretly cast, particularly damage spells, or illusions whose point is to be noticed. While many mages consider it unnecessary, the skill can be invaluable for a variety of situations, such as charming someone right in front of them, or individually reducing the resistances of a group before blasting them.
-Scrying: While some magic can be cast through a scry, the process is difficult, and often requires more magicka as the caster must “send it through the tunnel.” Increased casting skill reduces both penalties, allowing powerful wizards to meditate and perform tasks in distant places through astral projection.
-Silence: While someone can write with their eyes closed, the result is often gibberish without practice. In a similar sense, while many novice mages think of gags and silence spells as rendering a rival harmless, the spell ultimately comes only from will, and a practiced mage can cast simple spells even without the words.
-Ritual: Some spells require a ritual, some cannot use one, and some can be cast with either method. The processes involved in casting a spell through ritual are often completely different, but through practice and experience a mage can reduce the difficulty and material requirements of such spells.
-Remote Spell: Instead of triggering on impact, a spell is cast normally and then marks the target, effectively attaching the spell do them. As long as it doesn't wear off or get dispelled, the mage can trigger the spell at any time for an instant and unavoidable effect. This can be used to set traps or rapidly take advantage of changes in a battle, such setting a remote explosive fireball on a target and waiting for it to return to a group, or triggering a heavy burden spell as an enemy steps into water. Multiple remote spells become increasingly difficulty to maintain.