Magic
 |
Spell casting is dynamic and inventive.
Rune Stone Types
- Main article: Runic Alphabet
"Collect magical runes bristling with power. Learn to combine them to surprising effect."
There are a number of usable rune stones in the game, plus two runes which can only be found branded on wands.
Only a subset of the runes (ᛒᛖᚺᛃᚲᛗᚾᚱᚦᛏᚢᛇᛉ) can be found as runes for casting spells in the Stygian Abyss. A couple of other runes (ᚠᛚ) can be found etched on wands.
Runes are of various types:
Effect Runes (5)
| Rune | Name | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| ᛒ | Berkanan | Create |
| ᛖ | Ehwaz | Move |
| ᚾ | Nauthiz | Bind |
| ᚦ | Thurisaz | Harm/Destroy |
| ᚢ | Uruz | Strengthen |
Effect runes are called by the developers the "verbs" of the spell phrase, determining what the spell does.
Target Runes (6)
| Rune | Name | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| ᚺ | Hagalaz | Air |
| ᛃ | Jera | Plant |
| ᚲ | Kenaz | Fire |
| ᛗ | Mannaz | Person |
| ᛏ | Tîwaz | Spirit/Mind |
| ᛇ | Eiwaz | Earth |
Aiming Runes (2)
| Rune | Name | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| ᚱ | Raido | Sense |
| ᛉ | Algiz | Protect |
Power Runes (2)
These runes control the power of a spell. Note that both of these are also Effect Runes.
| Rune | Name | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| ᛒ | Berkanan | Most |
| ᚢ | Uruz | Much |
Wand Runes (2)
These runes can only be found on wands. Those wands are the only way to cast their spells, which cannot otherwise be cast without runes.
| Rune | Name | Purpose | Wand |
|---|---|---|---|
| ᚠ | Fehu | Beast | Hidemender |
| ᛇ | Laguz | Water | Earthpatch |
Spell Types
"Discover potent spells like Charm Creature, Hailstones, and Clairvoyant Eye. Experiment to customize and improve their effects."[1]
There are two types of spell: custom and generic.
Custom spells are individual runic sequences, which do not relate to each other.
Guessing them is a matter of guesswork based on the meaning of the runes, or following in-game clues.
They cannot usually be modified with Power or Aiming runes, though there may be a more powerful version of the spell which includes those runes.
Generic spells are standardized, allowing many spells to created just by following a recipe.
Spell Names
Spell names are also of two types.
Idiomatic spells are spells which have a custom name which does not say anything about how to create the spell. "Cloud of Flies" is a Custom spell with an Idiomatic name, and "Giant Fist" is a Generic spell with an Idiomatic name.
Rune Formulas are spell names from which the spell recipe can be predicted. "Bind Plant", "Create Plant", "Harm Plant", and so forth. These use standard names for the runes, listed here as their "Purpose". These seem mostly to be Generic spells.
Custom Spells
ᛒ Summoning spells
ᛒᛒ - lvl 1 Creates a random weapon/item in front of you. ᛒᛉ - lvl 1 "Summon Shield" Floating semitransparent shield in your off hand that you can position to block blows) ᛒᚱ - lvl 2 "Wall of Illusion" perhaps? Summons a glowing wall at the targeted spot. Walking into the wall makes it disappear. ᛒᚲᛖ = 4 "Cloud Walk" Creates cloud platforms under your feet at highest point of jump, so can jump upwards indefinitely.
ᚢ Healing spells
ᛖ Movement spells
ᛖᚾ 3 "Gravitate" Katamari Damacy with crates! Wand says "Levitates and assembles objects into useful shapes that can be placed". ᛖᚱ 2 "Remote Sight" Flying camera view. Bugged? Usually just gives message "Something has obscured your magic eye. Press 'jump' to return to your body". ᛖᛖᛖ 2 "Teleport" Teleports you to a targeted patch of ground, anywhere you could hit with an arrow. Really useful. ᛖᚦᛗ 1 "Flutter" Effectively a feather-fall spell. Largely useless if you have decent jump skills.
ᚦ Damage spells
ᚦᛒ - 1 "Magic Fist" Targetable, low damage. This is the missile attack used by Animuses. ᚢᚦᛒ - 2 "Giant Fist" Targetable, medium damage. ᛒᚦᛒ - 4 "Titanic Fist" Targetable, maximum damage.
ᚾ Binding spells
ᚾᛖ - 3 As a wand, "Prolong: Slows time & adds velocity to items while moving." Known elsewhere as "Slow Time".
Generic Spells
Generic spells are entirely predictable, and are build using the following recipe:
(Effect)(Target)(Power)(Aiming)
Effect is what the spell does - any of the "Effect" runes.
Target is what the spell affects - any of the "Target" runes.
Power is how strong it is - either of the "Power" runes, which may require the Runic Mastery skill, or no rune:
- (no rune) normal, level 1 spell.
- (ᚢ) More: medium, level 3 spell.
- (ᛒ) Most: strong, level 5 spell.
Aiming is how you aim the spell - either of the "Aiming" runes, which may require the Runic Mastery skill, or no rune:
- (no rune) Cast on yourself if the spell is "targets self": otherwise, something you can touch.
- (ᚱ) That: Slow-moving missile casting spell on impact, either near you or the impact, depends on spell.
- (ᛉ) Adds 1 to the spell's level. A rune trap, casting spell on collision with character or missile.
- (ᚦ) This: Not known to have any effect or even to be valid as an aiming rune, but documented on their internal development notes as This. [2]
The Target rune can be at any position in the spell.
The Aiming and Power runes must both come after the Effect rune, but may be in any order.
The Aiming rune will be ignored if it comes before the Effect rune, which is a good way to get a low-level 4-rune spell like the level-1 ᛉᛒᛃᚱ. This has been confirmed as a bug and may be fixed in future patches!
Your spell list will recognize all these variations as being the same spell, and won't create multiple "New Spell" entries for all variations of ᛒᛉᚢᛏ, ᛒᛉᛏᚢ, ᛒᛏᛉᚢ, ᛏᛒᛉᚢ, ᛒᚢᛉᛏ, ᛒᚢᛏᛉ, ᛒᛏᚢᛉ, ᛏᛒᚢᛉ.
In the following lists of generic spells, we list Effect, Target and Power runes, but not Aiming, since that always has the same effect and would triple the length.
ᛒ Summoning spells
These spells spawn a monster, person or thing. If you use an Aiming rune to create a missile, spawned items will appear at the point of impact, but spawned monsters appear in front of you.
On death, spawned creatures disappear in a smoke-puff and do not drop loot. If you walk into a rune trap that spawns a creature, you may kill them immediately if you have certain passive combat skills.
The targeting rune effects here are:
- ᛒᛏ "Spiritcaller" Friendly headless skeleton.
- ᛒᚢᛏ skeleton with scythe.
- ᛒᛒᛏ armored skeleton with sword.
- ᛒᛃ wood ball.
- ᛒᚢᛃ crate.
- ᛒᛒᛃ spinning club trap.
- ᛒᚲ "Flaming Orb", draggable floating fireball.
- ᛒᚢᚲ and ᛒᛒᚲ no obvious difference from ᛒᚲ.
- ᛒᛗ Friendly outcast.
- ᛒᚢᛗ no obvious difference from ᛒᛗ.
- ᛒᛒᛗ friendly Cthonian.
ᚢ Healing spells
- ᚢᛏ
- ᚢᛃ "heals all wooden objects, including weapons (broken wooden maces, etc). The spell actually heals the door's health, but this is not apparent because the wood chips that fall off the door do not return to the door. We'll see if this is something we can adjust to make things more obvious, or if we can arrange a different workaround with regards to the door."[3].
- ᚢᚲ makes firelight brighter, does not work on flaming orbs.
- ᚢᛗ "Heal person" Targets self.
- ᚢᚠ "Hidemender"
- ᚢᛇ "Earthpatch"
ᛖ Movement spells
- ᛖᛃ "Move Wood" Wand says: "Cast once to pull wooden objects towards you; twice to repel them away."
- ᛖᚲ Similar to the burning orb spell, this lets you pull the fire off a burning object, as a burning transparent sphere. The object is doused, and you can carry the sphere around. It will not burn out, but cannot be picked up once put down.
- ᛖᛗ
- ᛖᛏ Knockback on skeletons? ᛖᛏᚢ "Create Air" Knockdown on skeletons?
ᚦ Damage spells
The three levels of damage are generally called "weaken", "harm" and "slay". If you kill something with one of these spells, you will gain the "Deadly Sorcerer" achievement/feat. The Baleful Backstabber blade description says "This wicked knife smites any foe hit with the Backstab skill (you cast a linked ᚦ rune spell.) +25% to Adroit damage" There is, of course, no ᚦ spell on its own, so I presume that is either a typo, or the blade applies the appropriate target type when it hits something.
- ᚦᛏ "Bewilderment" Targets self. Disrupts vision. May also harm undead?
Blade of Bewilderment says: "This confounding knife triggers a confusion spell when you use it to feint (Skill-linked ᚦᛏ spell that even affects the [i]minds[/i] of undead)" Mace of Disruption says: "Savage maneuvers with this bludgeon are especially so vs. the undead (linked ᚦᚢᛏ spell)."
- ᚦᛃ "Weaken Plant" Damages Reapers, crates, baskets, wood doors, and walls.
- ᚦᚲ Douses a flame, but not a flaming orb.
- ᚦᛗ Targets self. Harms and poisons. Higher levels do more damage. Sword of Chernobog says: "Though without special properties against monsters, this sword smites persons when used with the Deft Maneuvers skill (ᚦᚢᛗ spell trigger)."
ᚾ Binding spells
Generally these spells make magical chains appear for a short time, locking the object in place but allowing it to still rotate.
- ᚾᛏ "Root Spirit".
- ᚾᛗ Targets self by default - seems to slow you.
- ᚾᚲ Douses a flame.
- ᚾᛃ "Bind Plant": Holds a crate or wooden object in space. Wand says: "to use the bind plant wand: cast (left mouse) to fasten a wooden object in place."
Previous Appearances
- The Runic Magic differs from the traditional spellcasting used in the Ultima series, but was used throughout both Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds. Runic magic is a common arcane system on a number of worlds, it only functions in Britannia at places where the inter-dimensional barriers are worn thin, allowing the etheric properties of other planes to bleed through.