Enchantment

Use the enchantment spell to increase the effectiveness of armor, shields, and weapons. Each successful enchantment enhances the effectiveness of the item by a +5 measure. Enchanting the same item a second time will increase its effectiveness by another +5 measure, but each successive enchantment on an item is more difficult to achieve than the previous.

Items made of magical metals are naturally enchanted at the time of their purchase. Wizards can enchant these metals further, but it is as if the item were previously enchanted by a wizard one or more times. An item with a single wizard enchantment or an equivalent magic metal ability is said to be a 1x item. That is, enchanted one time.

Mithral items are 1x items. Ora items are 2x items. Imflass items are often called 2.5x items because they carry a natural +12. Mein items are naturally 3x and vultite items are 4x. Other merchant items may have natural abilities as well.

In order to enchant a vultite item one time, the difficulty level is as if the item were to be raised to 5x. In fact, a once-enchanted vultite item is called a 5x item rather than a 1x.

Armor purchased from normal merchants is not enchanted at all. Rarely will an enchanted item turn up on a beastie other than during an invasion. Normal items are 0x.

Before enchanting an item, the item must first be tempered with one of a few special potions. Rhonuru potion is the cheapest of these and it is very effective for enchanting armor. It can be purchased from an alchemist, or from certain magic shops. It can cost 20,000 silver in the landing. More cost efficient it is to travel to the Vornavis Caravansary and purchase from the dwarf in the tent for 10,000.

Tempering can take anywhere from two hours to a few days. This is real time. Leaving and returning to the lands does not affect the time when the tempering process will complete. Two days is two days whether you are in the lands or not. Place the potion in your right hand and the item in your left hand. Pour the potion on the item. This will take a few seconds of time. If the temper is successful, you will get a good idea as to when the tempering process will be complete. Log this time so that you will know when you can cast the enchant. Allow plenty of time for the temper.

A tempered item is not a usable item in its tempered state. You must either enchant the item or remove the temper with a potion from the alchemist in order for the item to be useful again. A temper can last a few weeks at least.

After you are confident that the tempering wait time is over, go to a magical workshop. There are a few in the lands. Most or all of the group houses in the lands have their own workshop, but you must be a member of the house in order to use it. Public workshops include the one at wolves den and the one at the abandoned inn. There were two public workshops in Ice Mule Trace at one time, but they are now destroyed. You must often wait your turn in order to use a public workshop.

Once inside the workshop, use the 'sense' verb to sense the mana in the pool. If you are young, all you will detect is whether or not you are in the presence of a mana pool. If you do not sense a mana pool, then you are not really in a magical workshop.

The enchantment spell pulls all mana from the surrounding area into the tempered item. If there is not enough mana in the pool, it will become self evident as you begin to cast the spell. You will abandon your effort to cast the spell before actually using the mana. The mana which you intended for the spell will remain in tact.

There are a lot of rumors regarding enchantment. They may all be superstition. It is rumored to be helpful if the caster have no blemishes, cuts or scars, or spells on his person when he casts the spell. It is rumored that a caster should be standing. I know these are not clear-cut, because I've had successful minor enchantments with blemishes and with spells on. Still, I try not to tempt the fates.

The enchanter infuses mana into the pool using the "infuse" verb. It is best if any other persons assisting the enchanter send the mana to the enchanter for that purpose. Anyone can infuse, but the enchanter should meticulously log all amounts of mana infused, and for that reason it is generally a courtesy to send the mana directly to the enchanter.

Always infuse mana in even numbers. This is because in actuality, all mana which is infused is cut in half and any fractions are lost. It is easier, however, to think in terms of whole amounts of mana. So for that reason, the numbers presented here are actually double what needs to be in the mana pool. They reflect the amount of mana to infuse rather than the amount of mana which are physically inside the mana pool. All mana is infused at 50% for all mana-shares which are at or above 100%. Lower mana shares infuse lower amounts.

Best I can tell, within one mana pool the mana to be infused is:

But it is not quite that bad. There is a second mana pool from which one draws simultaneously. This is the mana pool of the surrounding area. All workshops within a broad area are affected by the same outside mana pool. But 1000 mana in the outer pool will reduce the amount that needs to be inside the workshop by 1x. 5000 mana outside the workshop will reduce the mana requirement inside the workshop by a 2x enchant off the top. So that 25,000 mana inside the workshop and 5,000 mana outside the workshop can be sufficient for a 5x enchant. That's 30,000 mana total, as opposed to 625,000 mana in a single pool.

The catch to using two pools is that any enchanter in the area can draw upon the mana outside the workshop, so it must be infused and used quickly before it gets stolen by another enchanter.

After casting an enchantment, mana is removed for the top level enchantment proportioned between the inside and outside pools. Mana for lesser-level enchantments remains, although one of the pools may need some infusion to bring it back over a certain threshhold in order to do the next lower level of enchanting. So with all of the infusion for a 5x enchantment, you are actually able to enchant five different items to different levels, 5x to 1x.

Keep careful logs of the items you enchant, the success of the enchant, the location of the item, etc. As you get involved in the process, you will have several projects each with different levels of enchantments.

Enchanting Parties

Secret societarians can infuse a headful of mana, and then expend spirit in order to get their heads filled up again. Then they must regain spirit before they can do that again. A trick to regaining spirit quickly is that clerics have a spell which will allow them to share their spirit with another person. Empaths have the ability to steal that spell away from a cleric, thereby sharing the empath's spirit with another person.

So in an enchanting party, all of the Poobah's minions of the secret society are infusing and wracking as spirit becomes available. The oldest person from the secret society is the key. When this person's spirit is spent, a cleric will share his spirit with them. But the Well of Life 308 spell is very debilitating for the cleric so he must rest for a long time before casting it again, often longer than it takes for his spirit to regenerate.

So there should be one high-ranking member of the secret society and at very least, one cleric in an infusing party. Many clerics and empaths can share spirit with the one wracker, as long as the empaths are high enough level that they can prevent the cleric from automatically warding against them stealing his or her Well of Life spell. The wrackers and the cleric all must be careful not to expend too much spirit or they will die a very costly death.

Volners also can generate mana reasonably quickly with the symbol of dreams. The symbol of dreams allows a person to regain mana and spirit in about half the time that is normal at a node. If a person wants to cut the symbol short and wake up early, the symbol pays about 3/4 of a nodal pulse during the first dream mana pulse. So if a Volner does not mind using lots of favor, they can very significantly increase their mana production.

Volners also have a symbol of mana, which uses one or two deeds to refill the head very quickly, rather than the wracker's spirit. This is an expensive symbol to use. The only time when it might be prudent to do that is when you are infusing mana outside the workshop quickly so that it will not be stolen. Still it is a costly gamble. I wouldn't be caught dead without my deeds.