Eight circles of power, a bag full of herbs and a pointy hat. The mage answers almost every problem in Britannia, provided somebody remembered to buy the mandrake root.
A mage trades toughness for options. You deal damage at range, summon creatures to fight for you, heal and cure, turn invisible, paralyse a room, and — the one everybody actually cares about — travel instantly. Recall and Gate Travel make you the person everyone in the family messages when they're stranded in a dungeon.
Spells cost mana and reagents: eight little herbs and minerals you buy by the hundred from any mage shop. Mana comes back through Meditation, and here is the rule that catches every new mage — Meditation does not work in metal armour. A mage wears cloth, leather or magic robes. If you put on plate because it looked protective, you have switched your own engine off.
The weakness is honest: you are made of paper. A monster that reaches you will hurt you badly, and a caster who gets paralysed or interrupted is a spectator. That's what Resisting Spells and Wrestling are for, and it's why most mages learn to run first and cast second.
You get 700 skill points in total, which is seven skills at 100 (Grandmaster). Here is a sheet that works, and why each line is on it. You can load this exact spread on the hero sheet in the magazine and slide the numbers around.
| Skill | Points | Why it's here |
|---|---|---|
| Magery | 100 | All eight circles. The whole profession lives here. |
| Evaluating Intelligence | 100 | Raises the damage of every attack spell you cast. Non-negotiable for a combat mage. |
| Meditation | 100 | Mana regeneration. Without it you cast four spells and sit down. Wear no metal. |
| Resisting Spells | 100 | Shrugs off enemy magic, and crucially reduces how long paralyse holds you. |
| Wrestling | 100 | Your melee defence. A mage can't use weapons well, so this is what stops you being free hits when something closes in. |
| Inscription | 100 | Write your own scrolls and spellbooks, and a Grandmaster scribe's spells hit harder. Quietly one of the best mage skills. |
| Alchemy | 100 | Your own heal, cure, refresh and explosion potions. Potions work when you're interrupted; spells don't. |
| Total | 700 | of 700 |
Meditation is blocked by metal. So is a chunk of your mana pool. Cloth and leather only — or the Magic Reflection and Protection spells, which don't care what you're wearing.
Scribing gives a Grandmaster a real spell-damage bonus on top of Eval Int, and lets you stockpile scrolls that cast spells above your skill level. If you drop anything from this sheet, don't drop this.
Skills go up by using them, and they go up fastest on a task that is just barely hard for you. Climb the rungs in order — each one stops paying off, and that's your cue to move up.
NPC mages will train Magery, Eval Int and Meditation to 30. Then buy a sack of reagents and loop the cheap first-circle spells — Clumsy, Feeblemind, Weaken — on anything, including yourself. One reagent each, gains every cast.
Move up as soon as your success rate is comfortable. The rule for all magery training: cast the highest circle you can reliably cast. Casting spells that are too easy wastes reagents; casting spells that keep failing wastes more.
Around 50 you unlock the travel spells, and your life changes. Mark runes at the bank, your house and the dungeons, build a runebook, and never walk anywhere again. Start fighting properly with Fireball and Lightning — Eval Int trains only when you cast at something.
Energy Bolt, Mind Blast, and the summoning spells. Summons are the mage's answer to being fragile: let a daemon hold the monster's attention while you cast from behind it. Meditation climbs naturally as you keep draining your mana pool.
The eighth circle is expensive in reagents and the last ten Magery points are slow. Train them somewhere profitable — Deceit, Fire dungeon, a champion spawn with the family — so the loot funds the mandrake.
A mage's startup cost is higher than a fighter's, and nearly all of it is reagents. Buy in bulk; you will burn through them faster than you expect.
| What | Where | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| A spellbook | Any mage shop | Buy a filled one if you can afford it — it saves transcribing every scroll by hand. |
| 500 of each reagent | Mage shop | Black Pearl, Blood Moss, Garlic, Ginseng, Mandrake Root, Nightshade, Spider's Silk, Sulfurous Ash. Buy more than feels sensible. |
| A runebook and blank runes | Mage shop, or a tinker | The single best quality-of-life purchase in the game. Mark everywhere you go twice. |
| Cloth robes, NOT armour | Tailor | Metal armour blocks Meditation. Dress like a wizard; it's mechanically correct as well as stylish. |
| A mortar and pestle | Alchemist | For Alchemy. Explosion potions are a mage's best friend when a fight goes wrong. |
| A scribe's pen and blank scrolls | Mage shop | For Inscription. Scrolls also let you cast above your skill, which covers you while training. |
The right room makes training three times faster. These are the spots worth a rune.
The mage city, home of the Lycaeum. Best reagent supply and mage trainers in the realm.
Central, next to the bank, and a short walk from everything. Where most mages do their actual shopping.
Safe, quiet, and you can leave a sack of reagents on the floor. The best place to grind low-circle spells.
Where the 70-to-100 grind pays for itself. Undead and fire creatures both die well to magic.
The most common new-mage mistake by a mile. If your mana isn't regenerating, look at what you're wearing before you look at anything else.
That's the whole training strategy, at every level. Too easy means no gains; too hard means burnt reagents and nothing to show. Move up the moment your success rate feels safe.
A fragile caster with a summoned daemon in front of them is a completely different character from one standing in the open. Summon first, then fight.
Something freezes you, then everything else in the room walks over. Resisting Spells shortens it and a cure or trapped pouch breaks it. Carry an answer.
Britannia runs on favours. These are the people you want in your party and on your friends list.