The simplest possible incantation consists of an Element paired with a Manifestation. Let's begin with a Fire (hi) Projectile (jan):
hi + [zuru] + jan = hi jan
This produces a starting Fire Magic spell called Fire Bolt, which has the following characteristics:
Fire Bolt
Incantation: hi jan
One-Handed. Fires one unguided projectile at the target.
Minimum Skill: 0
MP: 47
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Base Effect: Deals 45 to 75 base Fire damage
In the absence of an Effect Phrase, the effect for non-restorative spells defaults to Direct Elemental Damage, as if the Effect Phrase had been zuru. Thus the following incantation produces the same result as the basic Fire Bolt spell listed above, but takes longer to say: hikke zuru jan
The omission of phrases which have an assumed default spellword like this is called ellipsis; words omitted in this way are marked in this guide using square brackets.
Omitting the Effect Phrase from an incantation with the Recovery Manifestation yasun produces a default effect of Direct Healing (chaz). Thus the following basic self-healing spell which is gained by anyone who learns the Water Magic skill:
zu + [chaz] + yasun = zu yasun
Heal Self
Incantation: zu yasun
One-Handed. Heals the caster.
Minimum Skill: 0
MP: 40
Cooldown: 5 seconds
Base Effect: Heals 15 to 50 base HP
Note that since the Target Phrase has also been omitted from the incantation, the default target for a Recovery effect is assumed to be the caster themselves.
Unguided projectiles, although cheap and efficient, can actually end up being wasteful if the player is facing a quick opponent or lacks the ability to aim effectively with their fingers. Let's make our incantation a Homing (vethleka) projectile:
hi + [zuru] + vethleka + jan = hi vethleka jan
This produces Homing Fire Bolt, a spell first gained when a character's Fire Magic skill reaches 75. It has the following characteristics:
Homing Fire Bolt
Incantation: hi vethleka jan
One-Handed. Produces a guided Fire projectile originating from the caster's free hand, which homes in on a focused target.
Minimum Skill: 75
MP: 127
Cooldown: 10 seconds Base Effect: Deals 45 to 75 base Fire damage
Notice that the +80 MP modifier associated with the vethleka Targeting spellword means that the homing version of this spell costs just a little over three times as much as the unguided version, and the +5s cooldown modifier has effectively doubled the cooldown period for this effect.
Similarly, let's add a target to our basic heal spell. We'll use shaja, which applies the spell effect to the first target touched by the caster.
zu + [chaz] + shaja + yasun = zu shaja yasun
This produces the other basic healing spell gained with the Water Magic skill:
Healing Touch
Incantation: zu shaja yasun
One-Handed. Heals the first target touched by the caster.
Minimum Skill: 0
MP: 40
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Base Effect: Heals 15 to 50 base HP
Because shaja only adds one second of cooldown without altering the required skill or MP cost, that is the only difference in requirements between this spell and Heal Self: a slightly longer cooldown time. However, because both spells use the verb chaz (through ellipsis) combined with the yasun Manifestation, they share the same cooldown timer--that is, whenever one is on cooldown, they both will be.
As a character's associated magic skill increases, they gain the ability to amplify existing spells with increased Magnitude--and gain access to new effects which have a minimum Magnitude requirement. Let's assume our caster has increased their Fire Magic skill to 175, and add a Magnitude phrase to our incantation:
hi + (to) kachi + [zuru] + vethleka + jan = hitto kachi vethleka jan
We're specifying a Magnitude now, and the Magnitude Phrase must be preceded by the conjunction to. Because hi ends in a vowel sound, the to undergoes gemination and becomes tto, in the process shifting from the beginning of the Magnitude Phrase to the end of the Element Phrase and producing hitto.
This produces Homing Fire Bolt M1, which has the following characteristics:
Homing Fire Bolt M1
Incantation: hitto kachi vethleka jan
One-Handed. Produces a guided Fire projectile originating from the caster's free hand, which homes in on a focused target.
Minimum Skill: 175
MP: 191
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Base Effect: Deals 90 to 150 base Fire damage
Note that the MP cost and cooldown have increased by around 50%. The damage will have also increased, both because of the caster's increased Fire Magic skill (not accounted for here) and the increased Magnitude.
Now let's add an Effect Phrase to our incantation. We'll use mejuru, the verb that indicates a Damage Over Time effect.
hi + (to) kachi + (ke) mejuru + vethleka + jan = hitto kachikke mejuru vethleka jan
Like the Magnitude Phrase, the Effect Phrase must be preceded by a conjunction--in this case, the Effect conjunction ke. Since kachi ends with a vowel sound, ke undergoes gemination and becomes kke, then shifts to the end of the preceding phrase.
This produces Homing Fire DOT M1:
Homing Fire DOT M1
Incantation: hitto kachikke mejuru vethleka jan
One-Handed. Produces a guided Fire projectile originating from the caster's free hand, which homes in on a focused target.
Minimum Skill: 225
MP: 206
Cooldown: 18 seconds
Duration: 7.5 seconds Base Effect: Deals 135 to 225 base Fire damage over the full duration (18 to 30 per second)
Note that the incantation now requires a minimum Fire Magic skill of 225. A character first gains the ability to cast Magnitude 2 spells at a skill of 200, but because of mejuru's +50 modifier to the required skill level combined with the +75 from vethleka, a character wouldn't be able to cast the Magnitude 2 version of this spell without a Fire Magic skill of 325.
Before we added the Effect Phrase, it was assumed by ellipsis to be the verb zuru--Direct Damage. By specifying mejuru, we changed that to a Damage Over Time effect, which spreads the spell's damage over a specified duration. Now let's add the Direct Damage back in:
hi + (to) kachi + (ke) zuru + mejuru + vethleka + jan = hitto kachikke zure mejuru vethleka jan
Since we're combining effects, we've inflected zuru into its Concatenative Form zure. This simultaneously deals Direct Damage and applies a DOT. Since this is not a pre-defined incantation, it would appear in the caster's spellbook after its first use like so:
Homing Fire Damage Effects M1
Incantation: hitto kachikke zure mejuru vethleka jan
One-Handed. Produces a guided Fire projectile originating from the caster's free hand, which homes in on a focused target and deals Direct Damage + DOT.
Minimum Skill: 225
MP: 220
Cooldown: 18 seconds
Duration (DOT): 7.5 seconds Base Effect: Deals 90 to 150 base Fire damage immediately, plus an additional 135 to 225 base Fire damage over the full duration (18 to 30 per second)
This is where the true power of the ability to compose one's own custom spells starts to become apparent. For an increase of only 14 in the MP cost and no additional cooldown, this spell has almost doubled its damage and front-loaded most of it. Note that a given effect can only be applied once per incantation--the following is ungrammatical: *hitto kachikke zure zure zure zuru vethleka jan
Concatenation causes two or more effects to be applied simultaneously. Sometimes it is desirable to have them occur in sequence instead. Instead of the Concatenative Form, let's use the Sequential Form--and change the order of the verbs, now that the order is significant.
hi + (to) kachi + (ke) mejuru + zuru + vethleka + jan = hitto kachikke mejuri zuru vethleka jan
Since effects are applied in the order incanted, we've switched the order of the verbs so that the DOT is applied first, and inflected it from mejuru to mejuri. Since zuru is now at the end of the Effect Phrase, it is inflected back to its Invocative Form. This produces the following spell:
Homing Fire Damage Effects M1
Incantation: hitto kachikke mejuri zuru vethleka jan
One-Handed. Produces a guided Fire projectile originating from the caster's free hand, which homes in on a focused target and applies a DOT followed by Direct Damage.
Minimum Skill: 225
MP: 220
Cooldown: 18 seconds
Duration (DOT): 7.5 seconds Base Effect: Deals 135 to 225 base Fire damage over the full duration (18 to 30 per second), then 90 to 150 base Fire damage.
Note that because the essential components of the incantation haven't changed--only their order and inflection--the requirements and stats of the spell haven't changed either. What is different now is the behavior: the spell first applies a Fire DOT, and then--once the DOT is no longer in effect--applies a burst of Direct Damage. One possible use for this would be to bait an enemy healer into using a heal spell to counter the DOT, only to suffer the burst of Direct Damage at the end while that heal is still in cooldown.
Now let's ramp up the power a bit. We're going to drop the DOT from the incantation and increase the Magnitude--and the number of projectiles.
hi + (to) zabu + [zuru] + vethleka + cha (za) jan = hitto zabu vethleka chazajan
Here we've used the spellwordzabu instead of kachi to increase the spell to Magnitude 3, which allows the Manifestation cha~jan to produce up to three projectiles. We've incanted the Manifestation as chazajan to use the maximum number of projectiles for Magnitude 3. Note that because we are no longer specifying an Effect, it has once again defaulted through ellipsis to Direct Damage. This results in a spell gained when a player reaches a Fire Magic skill of 395:
Homing Multi-Fire Bolt M3
Incantation: hitto zabu vethleka chaza jan
Two-Handed. Produces three guided Fire projectiles originating from the caster's free hand in rapid succession, which home in on a single focused target. Each deals 60% normal damage.
Minimum Skill: 395
MP: 840
Cooldown: 62.5 seconds
Base Effect: Each projectile deals 216 to 360 base Fire damage
The biggest change here aside from requiring two hands to cast is from the Magnitude, which among other things increases the multipliers for the MP cost and cooldown. A smart player will notice that three projectiles equal 180% (1.8x) damage if they all hit, which at first might not seem as good as the custom DOT + Direct Damage spell we previously composed--until you account for the increase in Magnitude. With Fire, the Direct Damage effect has an average base damage of 60. At Magnitude 1, the kachi effect multiplier of x2 would result in total ABD of 120. Combined with mejuru, which deals 150% of base damage, the spell would deal 120 + an additional 180 over 7.5 seconds, for a total of 300 damage at the cost of 220 MP and a 18 second cooldown, a damage:cost ratio of 1.36:1 and a DPS of 11.76.
Now let's take the Multiple Projectile spell we just composed. At Magnitude 3, the effect multiplier for zabu is x8, making each projectile deals 480 damage. However, because cha~jan reduces the power of each projectile to 60% normal damage, the final damage for each projectile is 288. But there are three of them, and if they all hit they will deal a total of 864 damage for 840 MP and a 62.5 second cooldown, a damage:cost ratio of 1.02:1 and a DPS of 13.82. You pay a bit more for the damage and have to wait longer for the cooldown, but do more damage on average. Additionally, because cha~jan is a different manifestation than jan, it is on a different cooldown timer, making it possible to use both spells.
By default, all AOE (Area Of Effect) spells affect a spherical area centered on the effect's point of origin. Sometimes it may be desirable to alter the shape of the AOE. This is done using a class of Auxiliary Verbs called Shaping Verbs.
This effect is most commonly seen in elemental Barriers, for which there are a number of predefined spells in the normal skill progression using Shaping Verbs. Note: because of the potential complexity and math involved in correctly constructing many such spells, the incantations are best worked out in advance rather than attempting to think them up on the fly.
To begin, let's construct an incantation for a basic Earth Barrier. Since this is a Utility effect manifesting from a specific point in the world, we will use the kwedan, or "Point" manifestation, and use shippura and tepnaga, respectively, to indicate that the spell is targeted by Focus and has an AOE effect:
do + (to) zabu + (ke) plemalth + shippura + tepnaga + kwedan = dotto zabukke plemalth shippura tepnaga kwedan
This would produce the following custom spell:
Focused Earth Barrier Effect M5
Incantation: dotto mezal keplemalth shippura tepnaga dweren
Two-Handed. Creates an indestructible spherical volume of elemental Earth 9.6m in diameter, centered on the caster's point of Focus.
Minimum Skill: 495
MP: 880
Cooldown: 62.5 seconds
Duration: 30 seconds
The problem with this basic spell--and the reason why it doesn't exist as a predefined spell in this form--should be immediately obvious: just how useful is a sphere of Earth? The boundaries of temporary elemental barriers like these stop when they encounter world geometry, so a caster could certainly plug up a passageway with this for a short time. But out in the open it would be far less useful. Let's turn it into a wall instead. The simplest way to do this is with the Shaping Verbralth, which manifests a wall two meters high between two points indicated by the index fingers of the caster's hands.
do + (to) zabu + (ke) plemalth + ralth + tepnaga + kwedan = dotto mezal keplemalthe ralth tepnaga dweren
This creates the first Earth Wall spell granted to a player when their Earth Magic skill reaches 505:
Linear Earth Wall M3
Incantation: dotto mezal keplemalthe ralth shippura tepnaga kwedan
Two-Handed. Creates an indestructible wall of elemental Earth 4m in height and 2m in depth, stretched between two points indicated by the caster's index fingers. The maximum length of this wall is 57.9m.
Minimum Skill:505
MP: 900
Cooldown: 62.5 seconds
Duration: 30 seconds
Of course, since the endpoints of this wall are targeted on where the player points with both hands, it gets progressively harder to be precise the longer the wall gets. This spell is best used for quickly throwing up a durable barrier. With a few tweaks, however, it can be used to temporarily but very effectively isolate a group of enemies:
do + (to) mezal + (ke) plemalth + lezha (yo) cho (ka) vacho (me) ralth + shippura + tepnaga + kwedan = dotto mezal keplemalthe lezhayo vachome ralth shippura tepnaga dweren
The key to this is the lezha compound prefix to the Shaping Verb ralth. Lezha reshapes the AOE into a ring with a height in meters defined after lezha, a depth (thickness of the ring) defined after cho, and an inner radius defined after vacho. The resulting volume cannot exceed the original spherical volume of the AOE. So the above construction--lezhayo choka vachome ralth--would create the following custom spell:
Ring of Earth M3
Incantation: dotto mezal keplemalthe lezhayo choka vachome ralth shippura tepnaga dweren
Two-handed. Creates an indestructible ring of elemental Earth 4m in height and 1m thick with an inner radius of 5m, centered on the caster's point of Focus.
Minimum Skill:525
MP: 920
Cooldown: 62.5 seconds
Duration: 30 seconds
Think about that for a moment. When this spell takes effect, it immediately creates an impenetrable ring of Earth--an «Immortal Object»--centered on the caster's point of Focus. Any enemies within five meters of that point who could not fly out of it would be trapped within that ring for a full minute, isolating them from the battle completely. If this was a Malign spell, such as a Barrier Hazard, you wouldn't be able to do this--Focus cannot target Malign effects within one meter of any entity--but because this is simply a non-harmful Utility effect, this limitation does not exist. The potential of this combination for griefing is balanced by the high requirements of the spell and the fact that the cooldown is longer than its duration, but it should still be no surprise that this is not a standard predefined spell.
The inner radius of the ring could be a bit smaller, but then you would run the risk of someone or something straying into the spell's area of effect before the incantation was finished--an elemental barrier cannot manifest in a space already occupied by any living entity (PC, NPC or mob), and the spell would fail.
If a player lacks the MP or magic skill to cast a spell that they desperately need to cast, there is an auxiliary verb which allows them to lower the required skill level by paying half of the spell's MP cost out of their own HP. Consider the basic Raise Fallen spell available to all Water mages:
zu + (to) famudrog + (ke) + fletaz + shaja + yasun = zutto famudrokke fletaz shaja yasun
Raise Fallen M6
Incantation: zutto famudrokke fletaz shaja yasun
Two-Handed. Revives a player from their Remain Light at 1HP and 1 MP.
Minimum Skill: 700
MP: 1950
Cooldown: 100 seconds
A required skill level of 700 is very high--it might take a player months of uninterrupted grinding to get that far. Fortunately, Raise Fallen is not the first rez spell a non-Undine Water mage gains--this is:
zu + (to) famudrog + (ke) + fletaz + nibralth + shaja + yasun = zutto famudrokke fletaze nibralth shaja yasun
Saint's Lament M6
Incantation: zutto famudrokke fletaze nibralth shaja yasun
Two-Handed. Revives a player from their Remain Light at 1HP and 1 MP. Spell cost is split evenly between caster's HP and MP.
Minimum Skill: 600
HP: 975
MP: 975
Cooldown: 200 seconds
The Sacrifice effect nibralth doubles the total cooldown time of the spell, but reduces its total skill level requirement by 100 and divides the total MP cost of the spell evenly between the caster's HP and MP. It must be the last verb in the Effect Phrase, and because it is an Auxiliary Verb it must be suffixed to the previous verb using the Concatenative Form.
By default, Malign effects will affect any Hostile and Neutral targets (and cannot affect Allies), while Recovery effects will affect any Allied and Neutral targets (and cannot affect Hostiles). However, this default behavior can be overriden using a class of Auxilliary Verbs which restrict or change the scope of an effect. Consider this AOE healing spell:
zu + (to) zabu + [chaz] + tepnaga + yasun = zutto zabu tepnaga yasun
Heal Party M3
Incantation: zutto zabu tepnaga yasun
One-Handed. Heals all non-Hostile targets within area of effect around caster.
Minimum Skill: 400
MP: 560
Cooldown: 37.5 seconds
Radius: 8m
Base Effect: Heals 120 to 400 base HP
But what if you only wanted to heal party members within the effect radius, rather than anyone with a green or yellow cursor? The answer is the Auxilliary Verb prelth:
zu + (to) zabu + (ke) chaz + prelth + tepnaga + yasun = zutto zabukke chaze prelth tepnaga yasun
Heal Party M3
Incantation: zutto zabukke chaze prelth tepnaga yasun
One-Handed. Heals all party members within area of effect around caster.
Minimum Skill: 375
MP: 360
Cooldown: 50 seconds
Radius: 8m
Base Effect: Heals 120 to 400 base HP
Note that because the scope of the spell is more limited than the original, the required skill and MP are actually a little bit lower. However, the cooldown has increased slightly. In general, players will learn the party-only versions of AOE spells before the more general versions.