Spellcraft

A spell is just the runes on your Cord, read from left to right. There are no fixed spells to unlock. You pick the runes and their order, and the Cord screen tells you what you’ve made before you cast it.

Looking for a rune? In game, open the Rune Catalog from your Cord screen with Ctrl+B. Every rune, sorted the way the Codex sorts them, is on the Rune Codex page, and the farming, fishing, mining, exploring and support runes are gathered on Everyday Rune Packs.

The rules at a glance

• Wear a Cord in the Cord slot, just above your offhand. Without one you can’t cast.
• A Cord holds spells. Each spell is a row of sockets. A better Cord has more sockets, more spells and takes stronger runes.
• Learn runes by using a rune item. A learned rune can go in any spell, as often as you like.
• Runes come in four families. Shapes (teal) say where the spell goes. Effects (their element’s colour) say what happens. Modifiers (gold) change the rune to their left. Links (violet) make the rest of the spell happen later.
• Spells cost mana, then recharge: about a second for every 20 mana, from half a second to twenty seconds.
• Tap R to cast at once, or hold it to charge for up to 40% more power.
• Friendly fire is off. Harmful effects never touch you, your party, your pets or your team. Helpful effects only touch you and those allies.
• You grow stronger by forming Heart Circles, now up to Circle XX, and by absorbing Mana Crystals, up to 100 of them.

The pages

Building and casting

Page	What’s in it
Cords	The four Cords, their recipes and the Cord enchantments.
The Cord Screen	Where you build spells: the Codex, threading runes, the readout, names, codes and the Grimoire.
Rune Catalog	Browse every rune by family, element and use, and see what goes well with each one (Ctrl+B).
How a Spell Is Read	Groups, modifiers, links, cost and cooldown, with worked examples.
Builds to Try	Ready-made spells to copy and learn from.
Casting	Tapping, charging, overchannelling, rhythm, switching spells and the HUD.
Magic Circles	Reading any spell, or a monster’s attack, from its circle.
Passive Spells	Always-on spells that cost mana every second.
Loadouts	Save your whole Cord under a name and swap setups.
Spell Mastery	Ranks, traits, sigils and spoken names for the spells you use most.

Combat magic

Page	What’s in it
Shields and Parrying	Shield’s layered circles, what breaks them, and parrying a spell.
Element Reactions	The right element on the right mark.
Creature Affinities and Climate	Weaknesses, resistances, the Bestiary and how the place you fight in changes each element.
Imbuing and Glyphs	Storing a spell in a weapon, armour or a block.
Overcasting and Wild Magic	Casting past your mana, and what a surge can do.
Circle Disciplines	Twelve circle runes that trade radius, speed, duration or power.
Physical Magic	Real walls, steps and thrown water, their fusions, and weaving many effects.

Secrets and lore

Page	What’s in it
Secret Spells	Exact rune sequences that become something grander.
Harmonies and Reading Runes	Your world’s own harmonies and quirks, and how a rune goes from a hint to understood.
Reading Life Magic	What Life spells do to wounds, gardens and wards.
Living Materials	Reading Life spells through seeds, leaves, sap and thorns.
Shadow Materials	Reading Void spells through folds, shells and shades.

Lesson spells

Lesson spells are learned from a book or study, not a rune item. Each needs its lesson, an Echo Cord and a set number of active Heart Circles, and uses exactly the runes the lesson names. Your Grimoire keeps every lesson you’ve copied.

Page	What’s in it
Relay Circle	The Archive’s Circle VIII lesson: place a focus, move, then send a warned ray through it.
Ebb Ledger and Reweave	Lay a small Harm field, then redraw it once into a lane.
Excise	Cut an enemy Zone at its core so it stops pulsing.
Tollgate, Lifeline and Conduit	Three lessons for Circles X, XIV and XVIII.

Shared and world magic

Page	What’s in it
Camp Concord	A private camp warning and a willing, lossy mana gift.
Basinfill	Fill a small enclosed hole with lasting water.
Root Carry	Move a young root between soil patches without resetting its growth.

Words used everywhere

Word	Means
Socket	One place for a rune on a spell’s row. Twine Cords have 3 per spell, Echo Cords 12.
Codex	Every rune you’ve learned, listed in the Cord screen.
Group	A shape and the effects after it. A spell can have several groups.
Segment	The part of a spell between two links. Each link starts a new segment that fires later.
Readout	The plain-English explanation of a spell at the bottom of the Cord screen.
Tier	How strong a rune is, I to IV. A Cord only fires runes up to its own tier.
Quiet	A rune that’s threaded but won’t fire right now. It’s kept, not lost.
Power	How hard an effect lands. Amplify, charging and Heart Circles raise it.
Cooldown	How long a spell takes to be ready again. Each spell has its own.
Upkeep	What a passive spell costs in mana every second.
Loadout	Your whole Cord saved under a name, to load again later.