Emberlight is the realm’s magic, counted like coin. It flows every season: +1 from your own hearth, +2 from every Ember Spire (+2 more on an ember-site), +1 from an untapped ember-site, +1 per company of Adepts, +2 per Magus at your court, and whatever old relics kindle.
Learning: the Rites
A Rite is a working learned slowly. Start one, then pledge Emberlight season by season until the full price is paid. Up to three Rites are on offer at any time, leaning toward your creed’s teachings. Standing circles you rule cut every Rite’s price by 15% each, two circles at most.
Battle-magic
Battle spells cast themselves: when your army fields casters and your reserves can pay, the strongest affordable working weaves into the fight. Both sides, same rule. The odds preview names the spell and its price before you commit. You never pay for magic you did not see coming.
Battle: your side fights +12% stronger. Auto-woven when you field casters and can pay.
The first spell every adept learns, and the last thing many enemies do.
Battle: your side takes 25% fewer casualties.
The Ash teaches this one first.
Ash remembers being wood, and wood remembers standing.
Battle: the enemy fights 10% weaker.
The Umbra teaches this one first.
It says nothing in particular. That is what makes it unanswerable.
Battle: +6% strength and 15% fewer casualties.
A curtain of warm light between your people and the arrows.
Battle: your side fights +10% stronger.
The Flame teaches this one first.
It does not make soldiers braver. It reminds them they already were.
Battle: enemy −5%, and their charges and ambushes fail.
The Ash teaches this one first.
The ground grows opinions about anyone moving quickly across it.
Battle: your side fights +20% stronger. The heaviest battle-magic known.
The Flame teaches this one first.
For one breath, noon. Wherever you point it.
Battle: the enemy fights 15% weaker.
The Umbra teaches this one first.
Every soldier owns a private dark. This merely opens all of them at once.
Realm workings
These you cast yourself, from the Magic screen (m), most of them onto a province. A working on cooldown returns after the listed number of your seasons.
Reveal a province and its neighbors, and report every company standing there.
The smoke shows what is. Interpretation, as ever, is extra.
A province of yours gains +6 gold and +3 order each season, for 3 seasons.
The wheat stands taller. The tithe-reeve smiles. Suspicion drops to a five-year low.
An enemy province suffers −6 order each season for 3 seasons.
The Umbra teaches this one first.
Three rumors, one forged letter, and a shortage of good ale. Kingdoms have fallen to less.
A province of yours defends +20% for 3 seasons.
Attackers describe a heat-shimmer, a wrongness, a strong preference for being elsewhere.
One of your armies that has already marched may march again this season.
The Flame teaches this one first.
Light the high fires and the road walks with you.
Raise two companies of Barrow Revenants at a barrow province you rule.
The Umbra teaches this one first.
The old dead ask only two questions: who, and how many.
A private report: every rival’s treasury, income, armies, and heroes, as they stand today.
Stare into the flame long enough and it starts doing the accounting for you.
A province of yours gains +15 order at once, and forgets it was recently conquered.
The Ash teaches this one first.
A small grey spirit that drinks grudges. It is always full and never satisfied.
Convert 40 gold into 10 Emberlight.
Gold burns badly, but it burns.
For 2 seasons, every province you rule is +8% harder to attack (confusion in the dark).
The Umbra teaches this one first.
The realm does not vanish. It simply stops answering to its name.
Discounts. A frugal lord or hero cuts spell prices. Only the single best discount applies, they do not stack.