For a long time, very few people believed in magic. Later, when most started to know about it, it was believed to be evil, it is thought to be useless for any standard purpose and most people fear its users. In order to regulate this lack of confidence in magic by the general population, the emperor of Thardferr created a law which restricts magical use to those willing to register in one of the largest Academy ever created. This Academy was called the Imperial Mage Academy and was primarly used by the emperor to know who was using magic and to be able to call them if it was ever needed. However, as time passed, the Academy became more powerful and its goals expended, it was no longer what it used to be. Now, only a few were accepted among the Academy rank and the magical laws started to be more and more strict. Because of this, many mages decided they would not register and became illegal mages. They had to hide from the Academy which was now chasing them, they had to fear denunciation from their friend to the emperor, but they were able to master the art of magic, they were able to become more powerful than most other registered mages who were forced to respect the Academy rules. As time passed more and more mages became illegal and they developped networks to be able to survive. However, right after the last Great War, their situation changed: almost all legal mages having fought for the Emperor and died during their duty, only the illegal ones, those who had been hiding had the power of magic in their hands. Still feared by the general population, but now the only hope of success for the rebuilding kingdoms, they were recruited by many regents to teach their art in private schools and to rebuild a fighting force for the different suzerain. Their mastery was no longer hated, it was now loved, desired and important for the rebuilding realm that is Thardferr.

Magic is a very important advantage most kingdoms should use as much as they can. It can provide additional resources, help you in fighting your enemies and help your land grow faster.

When you try to cast a spell, your success will mostly depend on the number of wizards you decide to use in order to cast the spell, the number of land you have as well as the number of schools built on your land. There are some recommanded wizards numbers given to you a little down the page along with spell descriptions, but these number are entirely up to you as more wizards will be most successful in spell casting and less will have lower chance of success, but will allow more spells to be cast. The number of schools recommanded is always one per land, but having more gives huge spell casting advantage and allow you to considerabely decrease the number of wizards required to successfully cast a spell, but this will prevent you from holding other buildings on your land, it will be up to you to place your priorities. On the other hand, land reduces spell casting success as more land require more wizards to succeed in spellcating, the reason behind this is very simple, more land means more territory to cover with the spell and hence requires more power.

The major problem with spell casting in that it is really energy demanding and drains most of the power out of your wizards, therefore after casting a spell wizards enter a rest phase in which the will not be able to cast spells for you. Wizards rest at a rate of 3 per 2 school per day (or 2 per school per day with Insight technoloy).

Offensive spells work a little differently, again, the success of a spell depends on the number of wizards used to cast it, but also on the number of opposing wizards trying to counter the spell as well as the schools you control and your opponent controls. It will come to be very handy to have huge armies of wizards to counter enemy spells cast on you. Another difference is that resting wizards will be able to help in counterspelling a spell, but only at half of their normal (rested state) efficiency.

Obviously, all races do not have the same ability to cast spells and many will have great advantage over other when it come to this kind of specialty. In fact elves dominate any form of spell casting in the world of Thardferr which gives them a 15% bonus to their spell success. The second most efficient race are humans (0% bonus), followed by orcs (-15% malus), gnomes (-37.5% malus) and dwarves (-50% malus). This unfortunately makes spell casting almost impossible for dwarves as they have very low chances of success. At first sight it may seem that dwarves and gnomes are ver vulnerable to magic, but this is not the case as they each have a special resistance to magic which can come to be very handy in defense. In fact, dwarves have a 40% magic resistance and gnomes have a 35% magic resistance which give them greatly increased chances of counterspelling any spell attempt against them even if they have no wizards.

Here is a list of the spells found in Thardferr along with the suggested number of wizards per land ratio used to cast the spell and the spell technology level required to have the spell:

¹ This is the suggested number of wizards used to cast the spell based on a one school per land ratio, 75% success casting rate.

Also, if you are an elf, you will be able to research new spells from the technology menu. These spells, unlike normal ones, will be cast by your wizards instead of by your mages. They still require your units to rest, but it is possible to cast spells more often because each unit kind has its own rest time. However, keep in mind that if your mages are resting, they will be less efficient in combat. The mage casting spells are identified by an * in the spell menu.

A Shadow Hall spell affecting a kingdom.

These new elven spells are:

Next Chapter.