Secret Spells
What it is
Hidden among all the spells you can thread are ten secret spells. Each is one exact sequence of runes. Cast it and, instead of the ordinary spell, you get a set piece with its own name, look and sound.
The ten are the same in every world. Nothing in the game lists them, and neither does this wiki. Your world also has its own harmonies.
 |
 |
|---|---|
| Glacial Lance | Tectonic Rise |
How to get it
Experiment, or follow the riddles on Torn Pages.
- Exact order, nothing else. Nothing before, between or after the runes.
- A near guess is still a normal spell, and never tells you how close you were.
- Your Cord must hold it: enough sockets and a high enough tier. No secret is longer than four runes.
Torn Pages
Use a Torn Page to read it. It gives the riddle of a secret you haven’t found yet, or sometimes of one of your world’s harmonies. The riddle names each rune, in order, in a line of verse, and waits in your Grimoire until you solve it. In the Overworld the page also points toward the nearest Archive. If there’s nothing new on it, you keep the page.
| Where | Chance |
|---|---|
| Stronghold library chests | 45% |
| Ancient city and woodland mansion chests | 25% |
| Trial chamber vaults (rare rewards) | 15% |
| Dungeon and desert pyramid chests | 12% |
| Chests in Wildercord’s dungeons, such as the Archive and the Ember Sanctum | often |
| Runebound slain by a player | 6% (Adepts 20%) |
| The Cinder Warden, Star-Eater, Tide Scribe, Root Guardian and Storm Conductor | always one |
| The Archivist | always two |
| A Runesmith | for sale at Journeyman and Expert |
When the Archivist casts his own secret spell, everyone within 40 blocks learns its riddle.
How to use it
The first time you cast a secret spell, its name fills your screen, it goes in your Grimoire, and it gives 400 mana toward your next Heart Circle. From then on the Cord screen and spell panel show its real name, price and cooldown.
- It costs more: 1.1 to 1.5 times the ordinary spell’s mana, depending on the secret. The cast that finds it costs only the ordinary price.
- Its cooldown is half as long again.
- It weighs its full price against a Shield.
- It’s boosted like any spell by your Heart Circles, Cord, charging and rhythm.
- Wild magic never turns it into Element or Grand.
- On a Spell Scroll it goes off as the secret for whoever reads it, but that doesn’t count as finding it.
| Secrets found | Needed for |
|---|---|
| 2 | the 7th Heart Circle |
| 4 | the 8th Heart Circle |
| 5 | the 11th Heart Circle |
| 7 | the 15th Heart Circle |
| 9 | the 19th Heart Circle |
| All 10 | the 20th Heart Circle |
Your first secret earns the hidden Hidden Words advancement, and all ten earn Nothing Left Unsaid.
Tips and counterplay
- Think in sentences: a shape, then what it does, then how it’s changed.
- Keep it short. Four runes at most.
- Keep your riddles. They wait in the Grimoire, so there’s no need to write them down.
- Give spare pages away. A page with nothing new for you may help a friend.