Holy · Blood · Dark

Magic

Magic here has a body. It is thrown down, written out and paid for.

How casting works

The Relief

Throw the Relief

A board-like object is thrown to the ground ahead of you. It grows and projects an aura around itself.

Stand in its aura

You can only cast from within the aura of your own tradition. Only one Relief of each tradition can lie in the world at a time.

Write the word

Casting is physical. The spell’s word is written across the board letter by letter, in the open, where anyone can watch.

Release

Cost and cooldown are paid only when the last letter lands. Interrupt the writing and nothing is spent.

Three traditions

What will you give up?

Preservation, restoration, restraint.

The disciplined tradition. Holy magic mends, shields and holds, and it asks for the one thing a fighter can least afford to give away in the middle of a fight: breath. Its keepers believe power should be restrained by the person who carries it.

Pays with: Endurance
Resource: Spends stamina
Found: Taught in the Hidden Village.

**Development build capture.** A Holy Relief laid down in a development build. Cultists nearby have witnessed it.

1Lesser HealH.E.L.P.
A pulse from the Relief restores a fifth of your health. Refused when you are already whole.
15 staminaCooldown 8 s
2Greater HealH.E.L.P. M.E.
A deeper restoration: nearly half your health.
30 staminaCooldown 25 s
3Holy ArmorK.E.E.P. M.E.
A ward of light that hardens you against blows for twenty seconds.
25 staminaCooldown 30 s
4Binding LightH.O.L.D.
A wedge of light sweeps outward and roots enemies in place. They can still strike what is within reach.
25 staminaCooldown 15 s
UltDivine RenewalS.A.V.E. M.E.
An aura that heals over time. The Holy ultimate.
50 staminaCooldown 90 s

Alternate ultimate: Old Man's Blessing B.L.E.S.S. M.E.
An alternate Holy ultimate, learned from a teacher in the world rather than found in the skill tree.

Vitality, sacrifice, power through the body.

The honest tradition: nothing is free and the price is paid in blood you can see leaving you. Blood magic hits hard and heals through harm, but a careless caster can open themselves faster than any enemy could.

Pays with: Vitality
Resource: Spends stamina and your own health
Found: Practised by the Kingdom’s court mage, and found in the wild places where the wilderness has gone wrong.

**Development build capture.** Blood Offering at the moment of impact, captured in a development build.

1Blood OfferingM.I.N.E.
Give blood now; take it back over thirty seconds with strength and armor to spare.
20 stamina + 15% healthCooldown 45 s
2Blood SiphonG.I.V.E. M.E.
Tethers drain nearby enemies for five seconds and feed you what they lose.
25 stamina + 5% healthCooldown 30 s
3Blood RushF.A.S.T.E.R.
A surge of speed that carries you through a fight or out of one.
15 stamina + 5% healthCooldown 30 s
4Blood RuptureB.L.E.E.D.
An aimed lane of the ground erupts. Damage scales with your attack power.
25 stamina + 8% healthCooldown 15 s
UltSummon DemonD.E.M.O.N.
A demon crawls up through the Relief and fights beside you for forty-five seconds. It never harms its summoner.
40 stamina + 25% healthCooldown 120 s

Alternate ultimate: Blood Barrier N.O.T. Y.E.T.
An alternate Blood ultimate: a long window of near invulnerability for half your health.

Power from beyond ordinary existence.

The dangerous tradition. Dark magic costs no stamina and no blood; it takes something that does not grow back. Every casting adds to a permanent corruption, and past a threshold there is no way back.

Pays with: Humanity
Resource: Adds corruption
Found: Its power is feared by every other tradition.

**Development build capture.** Dark magic in a development build.

1InvisibilityB.Y.E.
Vanish from your enemies’ sight for ten seconds.
+1 corruptionCooldown 25 s
2Void PulseA.W.A.Y.
A shockwave hurls enemies away and knocks them down.
+2 corruptionCooldown 20 s
3FearR.U.N.
Enemies in the aura break and flee for several seconds.
+3 corruptionCooldown 30 s
4CurseR.O.T.
A chosen target within the aura withers, taking damage every second for ten seconds.
+5 corruptionCooldown 35 s
UltVoid StasisS.T.O.P.
A dark orb rises, falls, and freezes everything caught in a vast field for five seconds.
+10 corruptionCooldown 45 s

Alternate ultimate: Dark Ascension R.I.S.E.
An alternate Dark ultimate that only the fully corrupted can learn: twenty seconds hovering above the ground, raining heavy dark bolts.

Costs and cooldowns are development values and will be tuned before release. Keyboard and controller inputs are listed on the combat page.

The cost of the dark

Corruption is permanent

Dark spells need no stamina and no blood. They add Dark Points instead, and those do not wear off. At a hundred, the caster is corrupted for good: the Holy Relief refuses them, their health and stamina fall by a tenth, and their Dark magic comes faster and hits harder.

There is a way to turn corruption into power, and it is not offered to anyone else.

Corruption in the archive

Beyond the school

Each ultimate has a rival

Every tradition has a default ultimate in slot five, and an alternate that can only be learned from someone in the world. The Old Man teaches one. The Kingdom’s court mage is associated with another. A fully corrupted player can learn a third.

The schools are not classes. A player can learn from all three and pay all three prices.