More information on QDS/Dungeon magic.
Spellbooks count as
magical items for purposes of
read magic,
lesser wish,
wish, but not as
magic items for purposes of
detect magic,
dispel magic.
lesser wish can't produce even just magical items;
wish can produce even actually magic items.
teleport and
controlled teleport can target either self or other, one target only in either case, but anything the target's carrying/wearing/wielding goes with, including other creatures. When targeting other, ray effect (require line of sight and effect: must be able to see target, camera/screens don't count; also no even transparent obstructions in straight line between caster and target)
comprehend language lasts 5 minutes x max mp.
shape metal works kind of like angel magic except it only works on metal and can only change the shape, not the substance or amount. Fast and doesn't require tools, but does require some degree of competence.
summon animal,
summon person: A summon isn't completely real. Pieces separated from the body disappears, if it takes lethal damage it disappears, and if the spell duration runs out it disappears. When you summon a person, you actually create a temporary quasireal copy of them; the original is continuously aware of everything the summon experiences, but not vice versa. A summon isn't illusory, though; it can do real damage, open doors, etc., and the effects of what it does persist nonmagically (as with instantaneous effects) even after it vanishes.
dimensional anchor will prevent a daeva from taking summons, but not from being dismissed. It won't interfere with afterlife access; the spell breaks if the target dies. It also breaks if the target changes planes by any means, so if you want to block a daeva from taking summons, you have to cast while they're on their home plane, not during a summon. And the caster has to be on the same plane as the target and within a shortish range.
Permanency can make almost any temporary spell permanent, but consumes zorkmids roughly in proportion to how useful/powerful it is to make the particular spell permanent. The cost is fixed/consistent for a given spell regardless of how much utility you manage to actually get out of it.
mending and
shape metal don't count as temporary for this purpose.
"Permanent", whether it comes with the spell for free or added on with permanency, always means "until/unless dispelled".
read magic: temporary
light: permanent
detect magic: temporary
mage hand: temporary
mending: temporary/instantaneous; it takes a few seconds to do its thing, but once it's done the effects persist nonmagically.
color spray: instantaneous
magic missile: instantaneous
protection: temporary
grease: temporary
alarm: permanent until triggered; once it triggers once, it's discharged and ends
web: temporary
identify: inst
lightning bolt: inst
knock: inst
confusion: temp
create food and water: inst
remove curse: inst
fireball: inst
fly: temp
invisibility: temp
sunlight: temp
water breathing: temp
shape metal: like mending
scry: inst
freedom of movement: temp
ethereal jaunt: temp
lesser/greater enchant weapon/armor: inst
[controlled] teleport: inst
dig: inst
permanency: perm
dispel magic: inst
turn undead: temp
chain lightning: inst
plane shift: inst (so you have to cast again to get home)
[lesser] wish: inst
acid splash: inst
ray of frost: inst
lesser/greater healing: inst
detect monsters: inst
comprehend language: temp
[greater] search: inst
clairvoyance [as nethack]: inst
create monster: inst
summon animal: temp
ray of sleep: temp
feather fall: temp
jump: temp
hold portal: temp
fire/cold/acid/lightning resistance: temp
slow digestion: temp
secret page: perm
poison cloud: temp
explosive runes: permanent until discharged
[lesser/greater] polymorph:
temp inst
sanctuary: temp
slow: temp
haste: temp, super expensive to permanency
dimension door: inst
levitation: perm
dimensional anchor: temp
detect treasure: inst
hold monster: temp
transmute stone to flesh: inst
transmute flesh to stone: inst (but transmute stone to flesh can undo)
temporal stasis: temp
trap the soul: perm
summon person: temp
prestidigitation: temp
planar message: temp, can't permanency
gentle repose: temp
animate dead: temp
magic trap: permanent until discharged
gate: temp
time stop: temp, can't permanency
mass time stop: temp, can't permanency
create demiplane: perm
There's probably a language barrier for the textbook, Introduction to Spellcasting. Spellbooks are not language-dependent.
Information contained in the textbook (the book does not actually use the Earth-based analogies and comparisons that I'm using):
Casting spells requires mana. Each person has a maximum and current mana. Current mana can be increased (up to a maximum of your maximum mana) through meditation; an appropriate meditation technique is outlined in the book. Maximum mana can be slowly increased with considerable effort, similar in kind and amount/difficulty to acquiring a new complex skill or field of knowledge; with a full-time dedicated effort, useful gains will take several weeks to months depending on intelligence and work ethic.
Casting spells depletes current mana, and more powerful spells use more mana. Before you can cast a spell, you must learn it. A person either knows a spell or not, unlike with ordinary knowledge. There are two ways to learn a spell: from a spellbook, or through independent research. Independent research basically means inventing the spell from scratch and is about as hard as developing a software application: several months to a couple years, depending on how powerful the spell is and the caster-researcher's intelligence and work ethic. Learning a spell from a spellbook expends the spellbook. Creating a spellbook requires knowing the spell to be put in the book, and knowing and casting the scribe magic spell. Additionally, creating a spellbook is moderately expensive in materials (costs about half as much as the listed prices) and laborious (takes several days to a couple weeks depending on spell power and work ethic, but not intelligence).
Learning a spell from a spellbook is a magical act, like casting a spell or sensing a binding or minting a wishcoin. If you have a spellbook and you're trying to learn the spell from it, it'll be pretty intuitive. You can learn a spell without having enough max mp to cast it.
The textbook does give enough information to invent spells. You probably can't invent a spell that's completely identical to an existing one, but you could invent something similar, like how you probably can't write an exact duplicate of an existing software program but could probably write one that provides basically the same features. There's somewhat less room for variation in spells than in software; even if your version isn't identical, it could be generally comparable for most practical purposes, in the same way that different word processors accomplish basically the same functions. You don't need a particular exact version of
scribe magic to make spellbooks; you could make
a scribe magic that works fine.
(Part of this paragraph paraphrased from a PM by Andrew.)Spellbooks don't register as magical to the detect magic spell, but there is no known way to shortcut the process of creating one. Spellbooks cannot be usefully copied by mundane scribes in the way that ordinary books can, and a person creating several copies of a spellbook does not enjoy any economies of scale.
Read magic is not required to use spellbooks; its function is more general. If you cast it on a spellbook, you get a detailed understanding of what the spell does, how much mana it costs, and other information of that type; basically, the spell description. It doesn't cause you to learn the spell, or expend the spellbook. It can also be used on other types of magical writing.
For someone who's just starting out, the most likely maximum mana is zero. Experience with using (not just interacting with) other forms of magic or meditation might count towards this, though. As a general guideline, useful types of magic involve intent/will. Summoning no, accepting summons maybe, parlor tricks yes, angel magic maybe, demon magic probably not (because it's pretty much instantaneous and effortless), demon magic creating something gradually to split apart a stone wall maybe, minting a wishcoin yes and slightly more so if you're choosing where it appears, enforcing an Visitor-fairy order maybe, Elspeth just talking no, Elspeth summary-at-range yes.
Mana to cast a spell is approximately (
spell level + 1) squared. (Spells aren't clustered into ten discrete levels like they are in D&D, but D&D spell levels provide a pretty good guideline for the range of power.)
Mana
is discrete: your maximum and current mana are always nonnegative integers. Increasing your maximum mana by one point probably takes about a month at the monk-in-the-wilderness or boot-camp level of dedication, two months at the diligent-fulltime-college-student level, or four months at the enthusiastic-hobbyist-with-a-day-job level.
Gaining mana can be significantly shortcutted by experiencing genuinely lifethreatening emergencies (not training or mock combat). A single serious fight could earn you 3-6 max mp, escaping a burning building might get you 1-2 (or none if the fire alarm went off in plenty of time), and going into a burning building to save someone else could be worth 2-3.
The textbook explains about the usefulness of danger. It talks in terms of "earning experience", assumes that the danger will come from combat and dungeon-delving, and has a brief sidebar in which it philosophizes that crisis tempers the soul like a steel blade in the heat of a forge.
The existence of an afterlife doesn't necessarily block fasttracking, but you only get the boost if you win. You have to
alieve that you're in danger of something thoroughly catastrophic, like dying or someone you care about a lot dying; it won't work if on a fundamental level you feel like failing would be basically okay. If Andrew has thoroughly internalized the idea that dying isn't really dying, then that might interfere, but for most humans the in-the-moment panic overrides that sort of rational knowledge. It would be very difficult for a daeva to fasttrack as long as they expect their indestructibility to hold, but it might be possible if they're in danger of being trapped in a black hole or tortured or something. The threat has to be such that there's a strong instinctual nope, separate from rational risk evaluation. A phobia could be a workable substitute for death as a threat. It has to be something that you wouldn't intentionally accept without a damn good reason. It's about emotional reactions, not rational knowledge.
minor planar ally is used to deliver orders and collect payment: the target (customer) will be aware that the caster (an employee at the company behind the QDS account) is attempting to contact you with an offer/request, what is being requested (a certain number of zorkmids), what is being offered as payment (the stuff you ordered), that the spell will ensure that the deal is made fairly if you accept, and that you must either accept or refuse within six seconds (you must have the payment "in your inventory" (carried on your person somehow -- in a hand, in a pocket, in a worn backpack, etc. Wearing a backpack that's then actually resting on a table will work.) in order to accept). It may also be possible to examine this information using your own world's magic, if applicable.
(Also,
fly and
levitate allow you to carry arbitrary amounts of weight without being crushed, though the weight will still slow you down if you want to move around.
In general, the definition of "in your inventory" is more forgiving for things enclosed in a container you're wearing. Having the container open doesn't interfere; having the thing stick out of the container might, especially if it's being partially supported by a part that's outside the container. A good rule of thumb is "if I walked off (assuming I was strong enough to do that), would it come with me?".)
A sleeping target might be woken up if they're a light sleeper; otherwise, the spell will fail, similarly to if the deal is refused but the caster can tell the difference. (More specifically, the caster can distinguish between the failure categories "target does not exist", "target is unavailable", "offer was refused". A sleeping target counts as unavailable.)
Some spells depend on zorkmids (I think I marked them as something like "material requirements"). Generally, in the worlds where this is from, things have "official" values as a matter of the laws of nature, and market prices in practice tend due to ordinary supply and demand not to stray too far from those values; zorkmids are therefore more like a useful commodity than a fiat currency.
The magic should
probably work for you. (Say, 75% confidence.) Copying spellbooks by non-Dungeon magic might or might not work; copying them by hand or machine should visibly fail in bizarre ways. It is not possible to have something that is magically inert but otherwise indistinguishable from a spellbook. (Used spellbooks are visibly consumed somehow -- burst into flames? pages become blank? become blackened as though charred or ink-stained? I dunno, might even be different each time. If you have a confident hypothesis (including "it's just random every time"), it's wrong; assume that magic is at least as mysterious as macroeconomics.) Maybe the spellbooks are actually magic; maybe there's ambient magic in some universes that cares about certain patterns of information; maybe the information itself is magic. (I like that last one best, I think.)
There are certainly at least a minority of universes in which the magic won't work, if only because local forces actively suppress it.