How magic paths work

The ten magic paths, which gems go with them, what a path level lets a mage do, how a mage gets a new path, and a few spells to look at for each.

verified 6.37updated 2026-10-02 · Jake9 min read

A magic path is a kind of magic. Every mage has a skill level in some of them, and every spell names the paths and levels it needs. A magic school, covered on How magic schools work, decides which spells your nation has learned. To cast a spell you need both, and for many spells you also need gems or blood slaves.

The paths index draws all ten, and the page for each path lists its spells, items and nations from the Inspector’s data. This page explains how paths work. Everything below is the manual’s account unless it names the Inspector. We have not re-measured any of it.

The ten paths

The manual counts nine paths and treats priests separately. The wiki lists Holy as a tenth because the spell data does, and because a priest’s Holy skill does the job for divine spells that a path skill does for the others.

• Elemental: Fire (F), Air (A), Water (W) and Earth (E).
• Sorcery: Astral (S), Death (D), Nature (N) and Glamour (G).
• Blood (B): neither elemental nor sorcery, and different in one important way. It is the only one of the nine with no gems.
• Holy (H): the priest’s skill, used for divine magic.

The letters are what spell lists and pretender screens use to show a requirement. A spell shown as F2 A1 needs Fire 2 and Air 1 in the same mage.

Gems and blood slaves

There are eight kinds of magic gem, one for each path from Fire to Glamour. Blood has no gem. Blood magic is paid for with blood slaves, which the manual says come only from blood hunting. A spell that needs several paths takes gems of the first path it lists. Magic gems explains how gems are made, stored and spent, and How magic sites work covers where they come from.

The manual adds one rule in its spell charts. A spell that costs 100 fatigue or more needs a gem of its main path, and one more for each further full 100.

What a path level does

A path level does three separate things.

It gates casting. A mage must meet every path requirement a spell lists, and the nation must have the school. The two ladders are separate: a late school level can still ask for very little skill. The manual’s case in point is Will o’ the Wisp, deep in Conjuration but needing only Fire 1, so a novice fire mage can cast it the moment your nation has that research.

It cuts fatigue. For each level above the spell’s minimum, the manual says the mage pays a smaller share of the listed fatigue: one extra level halves it, two make it a third, three a quarter, and so on. Only the first path in the requirement counts for this. Armour and the caster’s own encumbrance add fatigue that skill cannot reduce. The wider rules are on Fatigue.

It gives indirect magic. The manual’s name for the side benefits a mage gets just from knowing a path is indirect magic. It applies to every unit with any magic skill, pretenders included. Below is the manual’s table, one line per path. Level 1 gives the first set of benefits, and levels 3 and 4 add the others.

• Fire: leadership and magic leadership, each 10 per level, and a shorter life. Fire resistance 5 at level 3 and again at level 4.
• Air: magic leadership 10 per level. Shock resistance 5 at level 3 and at level 4.
• Water: magic leadership 10 per level. Cold resistance 5 at level 3 and at level 4.
• Earth: magic leadership 10 per level. Natural protection 3 at level 3, affliction resistance 1 at level 4.
• Astral: magic leadership 20 per level. Magic resistance 1 at level 4.
• Death: undead leadership 50 per level. Rarely dies of old age at level 3, morale 10 at level 4.
• Nature: magic leadership 10 per level, supplies 10 per level and a longer life. Poison resistance 5 at level 3 and at level 4.
• Glamour: magic leadership 10 per level. False damage regeneration at level 3, which heals one point of false damage a round, and true sight at level 4.
• Blood: undead leadership 10 and magic leadership 10 per level. 5 hit points at level 3 and at level 4.

The manual works one example through for a pretender spread over five paths, and sums the leadership, cold resistance, protection and affliction resistance that follow from them. The table does not say whether a resistance listed under both level 3 and level 4 adds up to 10, and the example does not test it.

Path skill also feeds bless points and divine spells. The manual gives a pretender one bless point for each level above 1 in any path, and a pretender with a path at level 4 or more can change what Banishment and Smite are for its priests. Both are on Pretender design.

Getting a path, and raising it

Path skill is mostly fixed. At design time a pretender can buy levels, and the manual’s cost table starts at 8 for the first level you add to a path and rises by 8 for each one after. The first level in a path the form does not already have costs the form’s own new-path price instead. The full table is on Pretender design. Recruited commanders come with the paths their unit type lists, and some unit types draw a path at random.

Empowerment is the one way a mage gains a path he does not have, and it also raises levels he does have. It costs magic gems of that path: 50 for the first level of a new path, and 15 times the target level for each increase after that. Magic items that boost a path only work when the wearer already has at least level 1 in it, and so do battlefield spells that give a path bonus, such as Power of the Spheres. A booster can therefore never be your only source of a path. Items and their effects are on the items table.

Alchemy and the paths

A commander with any magic skill can swap gems between paths, in a province with a friendly laboratory. The manual says the rate is 2 old gems for 1 new one, and the conversion goes into Astral or out of Astral. Going from one path to another through Astral in a single turn works out at 4 to 1. A few rituals of the Earth and Fire paths, in the Alteration school, turn gems into gold instead.

Combining paths

A spell that names more than one path needs every one of them at its level. Freezing Mist, which asks for Water 3 and Air 1, is one. Curse, which asks for Glamour 1 and Astral 1, is another. A few national spells name Holy beside another path and need both.

Holy

Holy is not a path of research. Divine spells need no research and no gems. The caster needs only the Holy level the spell lists, and every divine spell is battlefield magic. Every common divine spell is known to every nation from the start, and the spell’s Holy level is the priest level needed to cast it. The Inspector files these spells in a Divine school at level 0, and the Divine page lists them.

A few spells to look at, by path

These examples come from the Inspector’s data, written as school and level, then the path requirement. The page for each path lists all of its spells.

• Fire: Fire Darts (Evocation 1, Fire 1), Flame Bolt (Evocation 1, Fire 2), Will o’ the Wisp (Conjuration 5, Fire 1, one Fire gem), Dome of Flaming Death (Enchantment 7, Fire 4, eight Fire gems).
• Air: Lightning Bolt (Evocation 2, Air 2), Storm (Alteration 5, Air 4, one Air gem), Fog Warriors (Alteration 7, Air 4, one Air gem).
• Water: Rain (Evocation 3, Water 3, one Water gem), Freezing Mist (Evocation 3, Water 3 and Air 1), Falling Frost (Evocation 5, Water 3).
• Earth: Earth Grip (Alteration 1, Earth 1), Alchemical Transmutation (Alteration 2, Earth 1, ten Earth gems), Earthquake (Evocation 5, Earth 4, three Earth gems).
• Astral: Communion Master (Thaumaturgy 1, Astral 1), Power of the Spheres (Conjuration 3, Astral 1, one Astral gem), Astral Window (Thaumaturgy 4, Astral 2, three Astral gems), Acashic Knowledge (Conjuration 6, Astral 3, 25 Astral gems).
• Death: Animate Skeleton (Enchantment 1, Death 1), Raise Dead (Enchantment 4, Death 2).
• Nature: Barkskin (Alteration 3, Nature 1), Heal (Enchantment 3, Nature 1), Creeping Doom (Alteration 7, Nature 3, one Nature gem).
• Glamour: Mirror Image (Alteration 2, Glamour 1), Curse (Thaumaturgy 1, Glamour 1 and Astral 1), Charm (Thaumaturgy 7, Glamour 3).
• Blood: Blood Heal (Blood school 1, Blood 1, Blood cost 1), Bind Fiend (Blood school 2, Blood 2, Blood cost 3), Bloodletting (Blood school 5, Blood 4, Blood cost 4).
• Holy: Blessing (Holy 1), Sermon of Courage (Holy 2), Smite (Holy 3).

The Inspector stores a Blood spell’s cost in the same field it uses for gems. We read that as blood slaves, following the manual, and have not tested it.

What the manual leaves open

• Its text counts nine paths, but its own key to the spell charts lists H for Holy beside the nine, which is why the wiki counts ten.
• It gives no description of what each path is about. This page says only what a table, a spell or a bonus states.
• It does not say whether the level 3 and level 4 resistances in the indirect magic table add up.