RuneScape Forum Archive | Khaine's Magic Guide

heretic hary

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This thread is about a single topic in roleplay: magic! Although a bit dated (and consequently under revision), this guide will teach you magic in a way that you won't hear someone calling ''godmod'' or ''lorebreak'' when you roleplay, unless they're wrong.

If you want to read from beginning to end in one sitting, do so at your own risk. That'd be like reading an (abridged) encyclopedia.

Each branch of magic has an “Introduction and Information” section which gives a brief summary of the sort of magic that’s being explained in that section, and some of the ways you could have your character learn that sort of magic.

On sections directly related to parts of that branch of magic, the first part will explain what it’s like to be the caster of the spell and how the spell is used. A second paragraph will be included for combat spells for the defender, so you can know how to defend yourself against such spells at the same time. However, for some of the less combat-oriented spells parts of this won’t be included.

Table of Contents

Magic: What is Magic? (1.3)

Magic: Charging Spells (1.4)

Magic: Using Runes (1.6)

Magic: How to Train your Magic Ability (1.6)

Magic: Your abilities as a Magician (1.7)

22-Jul-2012 21:00:38 - Last edited on 17-Oct-2014 02:56:18 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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Magic: Basic Defense against Spells (1.8)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Introduction and Information (1.8)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Wind (1.9)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Water (1.9)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Earth (1.10)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Fire (2.1)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Introduction and Information (2.2)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Smoke (2.3)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Gale (2.4)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Shadow (2.5)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Rock (2.6)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Blood (2.8)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Bloodfire (2.9)

Magic: Ancient Magicks: Ice (2.10)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Introduction and Information (3.1)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Curing and Healing Spells (3.2)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Agricultural Spells (3.3)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Industrial Spells (3.4)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Combat Spells (3.4)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Knowledge Spells (3.6)

Magic: Lunar Magic: Group Teleportation (3.6)

Magic: Godspells: Introduction and Information (3.6)

Magic: Godspells: Divine Storm (3.9)

Magic: Godspells: Flames of Zamorak (3.10)

Magic: Godspells: Claws of Guthix (4.1)

Magic: Godspells: Saradomin Strike (4.2)

Magic: Godspells: What about Storm of Armadyl? (4.3)

Magic: Necromancy: Introduction and Information (4.4)

Magic: Necromancy: Speaking with the Dead (4.4)

Magic: Necromancy: Summoning the Undead (4.5)

Magic: Necromancy: Reanimation (4.8)

Magic: Necromancy: Shapeshifting (4.8)

Magic: Necromancy: Healing (4.9)

Magic: Necromancy: Full Revival (4.10)

Magic: Necromancy: Life Extension (5.1)

Magic: Necromancy: Becoming a Lich (5.2)

Magic: Necromancy: The Phylactery (5.2)

Magic: Necromancy: Miasma (5.3)

Magic: Teleportation: Introduction and Information (5.4)

Magic: Teleportation: Preset Standard Locations (5.5)

Magic: Teleportation: Teleport Other (Teleother) (5.6)

Magic: Teleportation: Group Teleports (5.6)

22-Jul-2012 21:00:59 - Last edited on 26-Apr-2014 15:30:15 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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Magic: Teleportation: Teleport Block (Teleblock) (5.7)

Magic: Teleportation: Close-range Teleportation (5.7)

Magic: Teleportation: “Slow* Teleportation (5.8)

Magic: Demonology: Introduction and Information (5.8)

Magic: Demonology: Obtaining Visions from a Demon (5.9)

Magic: Demonology: Summoning a Demon (5.10)

Magic: Curse Magic: Introduction and Information (5.10)

Magic: Curse Magic: Defensive Reduction Spells (5.10)

Magic: Curse Magic: Offensive Reduction Spells (6.1)

Magic: Curse Magic: Constriction Spells (6.1)

Magic: Telekinesis: Introduction and Information (6.2)

Magic: Telekinesis: Telekinetic Push (6.3)

Magic: Telekinesis: Telekinetic Pull (Telegrab) (6.3)

Magic: Enchantment: Introduction and Information (6.4)

Magic: Enchantment: Elemental Enchantment (6.4)

Magic: Enchantment: Gemstone Enchantment (6.5)

Magic: Alchemy: Introduction and Information (6.6)

Magic: Chaos Magic: Introduction and Information (6.7)

Magic: Chaos Magic: Mind Control (6.7)

Magic: Gnome Magic: Introduction and Information (6.8)

Magic: Gnome Magic: Illusory Magic (6.9)

Magic: Gnome Magic: Transfiguration Magic (6.9)

Magic: Light Magic: Introduction and Information (6.10)

Magic: Darkness Magic: Introduction and Information (7.1)

Magic: What is Magic?
Magic is one of the three main combat styles, the other two being Melee and Ranged. Magic is used to “bend” the preexisting laws of nature, and perform otherwise impossible feats. One such example is teleportation. Normally, you should never be able to move from Ardougne to Varrock almost instantly, but thanks to a teleport spell, you can do just that.--

22-Jul-2012 21:01:23 - Last edited on 17-Oct-2014 11:57:48 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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--You shouldn’t be able to make fire appear with no sources or ways to make fire nearby, but with magic, you can do that as well. Many different types of magic exist, with those who use magic being called a “magician”, or a “mage” for short. Other names for a magic user will apply depending on what magic they cast.

Magic: Charging Spells
For casting spells, you generally need to charge the spell before you cast the spell. While charging a spell, you aren’t busy running and so on, you’re standing in place, trying to focus a concentration of magic energy into what you’ve been training to make it do. The longer you charge a spell, the stronger it becomes, although it should be noted that if you charge a spell to the point of it becoming stronger than what you can cast, you will die. In one of the books written by *.*. Church, a magician tries casting a fire surge, which is beyond his normal ability. The strain of attempting to cast such a spell kills the magician, his dead body falling to the ground. (The books have been confirmed as lore by the Jagex staff, meaning they do apply.) As result, keep in mind that you can’t just stand in place for an hour charging a spell, and then go run off and attack someone with it. You’d more likely than not have died before the first ten seconds. Why? A “surge” spell doesn’t take a minute to charge, and charging a spell for an hour would be so far beyond the “surge” level you’d probably die.

Charging spells, as you probably know, is about charge time. Newer roleplayers will generally give their spell one “turn” of charging before firing it, and if they don’t quite heed the advice of the Roleplay Help & Guide, “Charges a wind surge” might be the way they describe their spells. More advanced roleplayers will acknowledge that their spells will need more charge time for the higher-level spells and might follow a guideline that looks like this:

22-Jul-2012 21:01:43 - Last edited on 26-Apr-2014 16:35:42 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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2 seconds : the spell is meant for distraction purposes. You probably won’t be killing anyone with it, unless you hit them a whole lot of times or land an attack on one of their vitals.
3 seconds : weak, but better than a 2-second charge. You could actually visibly hurt someone with this, and it won’t mean spamming or lucky hits in order to kill someone.
4 seconds : a normal-strength spell, one capable of killing far more easily than its predecessors. The best part is, spells at this point will be crippling to enemies with large amounts of metal.
5 seconds : a spell with the strong/normal strength and approaching the point of being able to have a head-on hit kill someone rather easily.
6 seconds : a strong spell, lethal and/or crippling to those it hits. You could say at this point, the spell reaches the Barrage/Surge stage.
7+ seconds : at this point, you’d have to be really darned powerful to cast spells of this sort. You could say this would be a very strong spell.

Following this, you would have extra turns of charging. However, this also means that you have more turns to describe the spell’s development, as more runes are involved in stronger spells. As a result, you need to focus more runes into the spell. You could describe the magic energy from the runes, as well as drawing on their power, on the first “turn” and describe the forming of its shape on the “second.” Simply add more details about the spell when it charges, and after releasing the spell at someone, be sure to describe the minimal damage it would inflict for your intended hit, not the hit itself as that would be an autohit. This also prevents underplaying an attack into nonexistence, such as “The flames would simply move by Timmy’s plate armor, while Timmy laughed at the attack.”

22-Jul-2012 21:02:06 - Last edited on 26-Apr-2014 16:37:04 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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Magic: Using Runes
In Runescape Roleplay on w42, it used to be thought that you would crush runes to use them, and then use your mind, will and magic core to dictate what the magic energy from your magic core and the runes would become. While there were some problems like the chance of crushing your entire rune supply at once, the majority of people accepted this. However, that has recently changed as the books by *.*. Church show a different account, which involves a select amount of runes having their drawn upon by liquefying them and then muttering a variety of words that appear to change “languages* (Latin, for example, is used in Necromancy while Italian is seen being used for Demonology) depending on the sort of magic. This shows that not only is a magician focused on liquefying the runes to conform their shape, but they need to know certain words for each kind of spell as well. (No, you don’t need to yell “Fire Surge!” for casting a Fire spell of that strength.) However, it isn’t mandatory that you have your character speak the right words in the chat box for every spell, as the far majority of the wordings for spells are entirely unknown to the roleplay community.

Magic: How to train your magic ability
If you like to start your character from the ground up, you’re probably wondering just how you’re supposed to actually start training your character. First, you’ll need something that can provide guidance or instruction. A book can suffice, although having an instructor present will help greatly. For many races, magic can be cast through the aid of runes.

With this, you should start by having your character learn to tap into their magic core, so that they can then use the runes (assuming your character needs runes for the kind of magic they’re learning) to help decide just how the magic is going to turn out.--

22-Jul-2012 21:03:00 - Last edited on 17-Oct-2014 11:58:25 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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--By increasing your ability to focus, as well as repeatedly pushing yourself to your limits (but not passing them unless you want to die) you can exert yourself to newer peaks of concentration and focus, and be able to use your magic core more effectively. The more you use your magic core, the easier it becomes to use. It doesn’t grow “stronger”, “bigger”, or “weaker”, it just becomes easier to use.

Magic: Your abilities as a Magician
Magic-users will have more than one thing they can do with magic besides casting spells in what they’ve trained in. Because magicians use their magic core to help fuel spells, they also can use their magic core for some other unique tricks.

-The magic core of a magic-user emits a continuous, magical pulse that acts as a beacon to other magic users. The stronger your magic core, the bigger the area that another magician can sense you in is. Magic branches such as necromancy and Astropathy have a noticeably dark tint they give to this outgoing pulse, telling other magicians that you are someone who doesn’t mind delving into the darker forms of magic.

-You can sense the magical pulse that comes from the magic cores of others. Just as a pulse is given off by you, you can detect the pulse of others, and use that to determine if they’re way beyond your level or not.

Everyone has a different magic core, so you could easily tell if another magical friend was nearby or not. Some necromancers won’t emit a pulse but rather a continuous amount of magic that could be sensed from a large distance. The largest (and strongest) that I’ve seen is from Lorelei Amaranth, an elven necromancer who’s magic core would literally radiate a death (but not in a way your character would die) up to a mile away. Some magicians are able to determine someone’* exact location through this, although such level of talent is unusually rare.

22-Jul-2012 21:03:19 - Last edited on 26-Apr-2014 16:38:00 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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Magic: Basic Defense against Spells
In plate armor, you’ll mostly want to have a shield with you for blocking some of the oncoming spells. However, some spells will still affect you, such as earth spells, ice spells, and other spells that simply demand contact with your person. Otherwise, you can just go for evading the spell. The general rule is that if you’re able to see the magician begin to release the spell, you’ll have time to evade it.

If you’re lightweight with a shield and able to move easily, then fighting a magic user shouldn’t be too hard. While the magician is charging a spell, move towards them in a zigzag motion, keeping the magician guessing to where you are going to be next, as you can change movement paths at any time. If they choose to hold onto the spell once it’s charged and you reach them, raise your shield and go in for a shield crush. A point-blank spell is going to result in at least some of it reflecting back onto the magician, quite possibly to the point of it hurting them just as much as you.

A ranger, provided they weren’t using a crossbow due to their lengthy reload time, would be able to take advantage of being able to fire more projectiles than a magician could fire spells, and simply shoot the magician with a storm of arrows as the magician is charging a spell, and laugh as rivulets of blood cascade from the magician’s body.

Magic: Elemental Magic: Introduction and Information
The four most commonly used kinds of magic: Wind, Water, Earth, and Fire. These are probably some of the easiest for standard magicians and other people to learn about and train in. Knowledge of these spells can be taught at places such as the Wizard’s Tower, or the local town magician if they’re the more generous sort. Those who are extremely proficient in these elements can even create elementals, beings made of the chosen element.--

22-Jul-2012 21:03:39 - Last edited on 26-Apr-2014 16:38:21 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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--(Fun fact: some of the ancient civilizations once classified wind, water, earth and fire as the four main elements, although we now have far, far more as shown by the Periodic Table.)

Magic: Elemental Magic: Wind
Wind is dismissed by some of the newer role players as being weak for its low in-game damage. But, as a more experienced role player will know, in-game damage doesn’t dictate the In-Character strength. Wind is great for knocking an enemy back or down, which then gives your melee-wielding friend (or you, if you’re a melee-magic hybrid) a chance to rush in for the kill. Against a plate-wearing enemy, knocking them down gives you a whole lot more time to finish the job, getting up in that with full battle gear isn’t the easiest.

If you’re being attacked by a wind spell while wearing plate, dodge to the best of your ability. If not, crouch down, raise your shield, plant it in the ground, and concentrate your weight to hold yourself down. Heavy things don’t move easily, and doing this should make it harder for you to be moved. Don’t forget that a spell becomes more intense upon contact with metal, meaning the spell becomes stronger. To be safe, you could assume that the spell’s power could almost double when you’re wearing full plate. In short, the element would have even more knockback power.

If you’re not wearing plate, then simply go for a dodge of the spell. Chances are, you’ll be lightweight enough to dodge it easily. If you could see the spell being cast towards you, watching the magician send it from them to you, then you generally have enough time to dodge it. If you can** dodge, take a hint from aerodynamics and simply make yourself as aerodynamic as possible to reduce the overall knockback.

Magic: Elemental Magic: Water
Water is obviously the counter-element to fire.--

22-Jul-2012 21:06:36 - Last edited on 17-Oct-2014 11:59:08 by heretic hary

heretic hary

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--It also is related to the Ice element of the Ancient Magicks, and can rapidly erode earth spells into mud, reducing the lethality and speed of an Earth spell even further. Water has slightly weaker knockback properties than wind, and retains an important portion of the force of an earth spell. This leaves a knocked-down opponent in pain, with some of the stronger water spells even capable of knocking them down with enough force to dislocate a bone. A lightweight opponent who*s prepared for the impact can survive the collision without much adverse effect, meaning its best saved for heavier opponents.

If you’re being attacked by a water spell while wearing plate, then do your best to dodge. Due to the extra force of water compared to wind, and the fact that magic is coming into contact with metal that you’re wearing, it’s best advised that you dodge the spell. If not, follow the same procedure for wind: plant your shield on the ground and hunker down, but have your shield at an angle so the spell will deflect upwards. For spells with more force behind them, avoid a head-on collision at all costs. For those who aren’t wearing armor, and you don’t have time to evade the attack, turn your body so that the side is facing the water, and throw yourself the same direction of the water’s movement to minimize damage. If your head is facing the right direction, you could even laugh before turning around and then charging at the caster as they charge their next spell.

Magic: Elemental Magic: Earth
Earth spells could be described as a counter-element to fire and wind. While water does erode it and effectively reduce it to mud, this spell is one where if a strong earth attack gets a head-on hit, you can effectively say that it’s over. They may as well be hit with a massive maul, a crushing weapon which effectively annihilates a shield. The drawback is that earth spells are slow.--

22-Jul-2012 21:09:14 - Last edited on 17-Oct-2014 11:59:40 by heretic hary

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Khaine's Magic Guide