Spell research

How a nation's mages turn research orders into school levels, what sets a mage's research points, and what the top level of a school is.

verified 6.37updated 2026-10-02 · Jake7 min read

Research is how a nation earns the right to cast. Being a mage is not enough: a spell needs the magic school it belongs to researched far enough, a mage who has the right magic path skill, and any gems or blood slaves it costs. Path skill is the mage; research is the nation. This page covers the second half of that sentence.

Everything here is the manual’s account. We have not re-measured it.

Schools and levels

Research is split into seven schools. Conjuration and Evocation are two of them, and the rest are Alteration, Enchantment, Thaumaturgy, Construction and Blood Magic. Do not confuse the Blood school with the Blood path; they are related but separate. Every school keeps its own bar and its own level. Once a school reaches a spell’s level, your mages can cast that spell, provided they also have the path skill. A higher level does not always mean a harder path requirement. The manual points to a level 5 Conjuration spell that asks for just one point of Fire.

Since the schools advance separately, where you put your mages’ time shapes what kind of magic your nation ends up with. Construction decides which magic items you may forge, Blood Magic unlocks every spell that spends blood, and the Divine spells that priests cast need no research at all. The full spell list is on the spells table, and each school has its own page under schools.

Where research happens

To research, give a mage the Research order. The order appears only where your nation has a laboratory, since that is where the tomes are kept. Research is the second thing the turn does. Because of that, a researcher who is assassinated during the turn has already handed in his points for the month.

The research screen shows the progress bar for each school and, below it, the research speed. That speed is the sum of the points of every commander ordered to research that turn.

What a mage contributes

Normally only a commander with magic skill can research, and the mage’s own points are shown beside a book symbol on his card. The manual gives the rule as five points, plus two for each magic level the mage has, with a bonus or penalty added on top. Two limits go with it: the total can never fall below 1, and the affliction Dementia halves it. The manual does not say whether “magic levels” means each path counted once or every level of every path added together.

Other sources of points:

• Scales. The Magic scale gives friendly mages one extra point per step in a province and fifty extra points of starting research, and the Drain scale takes both away from every mage. At neutral Magic and Drain the starting research is 150 points. The detail is on Dominion, which also records that a strong Order scale of 4 or more subtracts from research.
• Commanders with a Research value. Many commanders have a Research number in their stats, and veteran levels raise it. Some can research with no magic skill at all. Philosophers do this, in Arcoscephale and in Therodoros. So does any commander with the Divine Insights ability. The manual names two such units: monks from Man, and cloistered ladies from Feminie.
• Divine Insights limits. Only as many divinely inspired researchers can work in one lab as the dominion strength in that province. Any beyond that contribute nothing.
• Philosophers. A Sloth scale helps them, because lazing about and thinking suits their way of life by the manual’s account. Magic and Drain scales leave them alone, since their insight is of a more basic kind than magic.
• Trinities. The three bodies of a trinity each research at a reduced rate, but all three can research in the same turn.
• Pretenders. The god is a commander and can research like any other.

Items that add points

Some magic items carry a Research bonus for the commander who holds them. The manual’s lists give, among others, the Owl Quill with +6, the Imp Familiar with +3, the Homunculus with +11, the Dreamstone with +9, the Lightless Lantern with +12 and the Skull Mentor with +14. Several of these are marked cursed or tainted, and the Dreamstone is restricted to glamour mages who sleep, so check the item’s own page before relying on one. Items are forged with the Construction school; see gems for the cost and the items table for the full list.

Sites matter less. The manual describes sites that supply gems and special recruits, and it mentions a Library that lets you recruit sages once you own a laboratory, but its text names no site that adds research points directly. Because the table of magic sites is built from the Inspector’s data, a site that does add research would show in its record.

Level 9 and legendary spells

Level 9 is different from the rest. In every school but Construction, level 9 holds the legendary spells, which the manual calls very powerful or more cost-effective than lesser spells. When you reach it you choose a single spell to research. The others in that level can be researched too, but one at a time, and the manual warns that taking them all is very expensive.

A game setting called limited legendary research rate is on by default. It makes level 9 an epic level where you get one spell out of everything available, and the manual adds that you may research level 9 more than once to collect the rest.

Construction is the exception: its level 9 holds the artifacts. Each artifact is unique, so no game can contain two of the same one, and an artifact that already exists cannot be forged again. By default a nation may forge only one artifact per turn, which gives slower researchers a fair chance at them.

The manual adds that an artifact can start to yearn for creation once it looks within reach, and a yearning artifact costs half the usual price. Four events push the chance up, each by 50 per cent of a monthly roll. They are: any nation reaching Construction level 9, the Forge of the Ancients being cast, the Throne of Creation being claimed, and the Throne of the Artificer being claimed. With one event in play, an artifact has a 50 per cent chance each month. New yearnings are decided in step 62 of the turn.

Game setup

The manual’s command-line list includes a research difficulty setting from 0 to 4, with 2 as the default, and a switch to turn off random starting research. The game setup screen also lets a host raise magic site frequency or research strength. The manual’s advice is that raising them hurts nations with weak magic to start with, because magic-focused nations reach strong spells sooner.

What the manual leaves out

• It never says how many research points each level of a school costs, how a nation’s points are split among schools, or what the research difficulty setting changes.
• It does not define “magic levels” in the formula for a mage’s research points.
• It gives Divine Insights researchers “a few” points without a number.
• It does not say whether researching level 9 a second time asks for a fresh choice, or whether it costs more than the first time.
• It describes the Magic scale’s effect on research loosely in the Magic chapter and precisely only in the scales table.