Moon Mage new player guide

This is a page for the Moon Mage specific page for the Newbie Help Guide. Whenever possible, overlap with the general guide should be minimized.

For details, rules, and the other pages involved, see Category:Newbie Guide Contest.

The Moon Mage guild is a diverse collection of magic users unified by their use of Lunar Magic and prophetic ability.

Start

Introduction

Welcome to the Moon Mage guild. Here, you’ll find elegance, cleverness, a connection with something greater than the mere antics of a small world in a vast cosmos. If you want to make your foes explode in a shower of fire and ice, this guild isn’t for you. If you want to rely on the power of fickle Immortals, this guild isn’t for you. If you want to bludgeon your enemies to death with a clumsy weapon of steel, this guild isn’t for you. If, on the other hand, you want to twist the very fabric of fate to your advantange, pick apart the subtle insecurities in your foes subconscious, and bend time and space to your very whim, then oh yes, you have come to the right place.

The path of the Moon Mage is not one of blood and glory and conquest, but rather of careful study, precise deliberation, and decisive action. We are the purveyors of the stars, of immense and ancient forces, predictable with enough study, but never controllable. Your power will wax with the rising of the three moons of Elanthia, and will wane with their setting. As you grow in power, you will learn to read the skies to your benefit and your enemy’s detriment, to cross the entire breadth of the lands in a moment. Welcome to being a Moon Mage.

Roleplaying your Moon Mage

The Moon Mage guild was originally founded by six groups, or sects, of magic users that were unified by their prophetic ability and use of lunar magic during en event known as the Lunar Accord. Each sect had a unique philosophic approach to the use of these abilities, and many of these differences persist to the present at least in part to the relatively recent re-emergence of the original sects. Although not every (or even most) students choose to join one of the sects, studying the philosophy of at least one is an excellent way to explore ones' own relationship with fate.

The Current Sects Are:

• The Celestial Compact is a group of astrologers and politicians who seek to shape Kermoria with their knowledge of the future.
• The Followers of Fortunes Path are often carefree, but occasionally fatalistic, wanderers who strive to follow the whims of fate.
• The Monks of the Crystal Hand are stoic and ascetic seekers of transcendence.
• The Nomads of the Arid Steppe are an association of tribesmen who seek guidance from the stars and their ancestors.
• The Projent of Tezirah are masters of both shadow magic and backroom politics.
• The Prophets of G'nar Peth are seekers of Esoteric knowledge who many believe are afflicted with madness.
• Heritage House is an emergent sect that strives to unify the divergent perspective of the guild into a single coherent philosophy.

Getting Started

Take a look at the guild circling requirements. You’ll notice it’s pretty much all magic, all the way down. While you only need four magics trained up to 10th circle, you’ll quickly start needing additional magic skills. To this end, it is recommended that you select spells that will allow you to train each of the magic skills, Augmentation, Debiliation, Targeted, Utility, and Warding. Since training Astrology is somewhat slow going at first, it is also recommended that you learn the spell Piercing Gaze to facilitate observations in cloudy weather.

Moon Mages are Magic Primary, Survival and Lore Secondary, and Weapon and Armor Tertiary. To that end, Magic will always be your strongest tool, while Weapons and Armor your weakest. You may of course train whatever you want, but it is advisable to focus on lighter faster weapons and less hindering armors.

Magic Skills

This is what you will excel at. Your ability with Targeted and Debilitation magics will always be better than your ability to swing a sword, and the Wards you create will be more potent than any armor. Train your magics, and train them hard. We'll talk more about spell selection later, but as an overview, some very potent and unique spells within the Moon Mage arsenal to look at are, in no particular order, Starlight Sphere, Mind Shout, Moonblade, Telekinetic Storm, Mental Blast, Moongate, and Invocation of the Spheres.

Survival Skills

Moon Mages are Survival Secondary, so have a definite Survival requirement for their training. If you plan on hunting, Skinning, Stealth, Evasion, and maybe Locksmithing all represent good choices to focus on. If you don’t plan on hunting (a possible, though unadvisable path), Athletics, Outdoorsmanship, Perception, and First Aid will be your focus. Keep in mind that after 10th circle you will have a fifth survival skill requirement, so will likely have to participate in combat, or choose to learn at least one skill from classes.

Lore Skills

Being Lore secondary, you'll want to use combat Tactics to your advantage. You'll also probably want to pick up a craft. Forging isn’t a bad choice, as it will improve the power of your Moonblade if you choose to use it, though Enchanting, a currently unreleased craft, will likely be a better choice for Moon Mages. Scholarship can be earned from classes and studying star charts, Performance can be learned while playing instruments, and Appraisal can be learned either by APPRAISEing creatures or gear.

Weapons and Armor

Being tertiary, these are much trickier to move effectively for a Moon Mage than the other skillsets. In fact, many Moon Mages choose not to rely on physical weapons and armors, training them only for the TDPs. Being tertiary, it is quite easy to keep a large number of these skills moving at once, so depending on your training goals, may be a skillset that you simply use as a hobby.

A good starting focus for Moon Mages is a Small Edged, Small Blunt, Light Thrown, Bow, and Leather or Cloth armor (Light Armor), and swapping in Chain or even Brigandine armor. Since you’ll want to use Stealth if you’re hunting, make sure you’re in Leather gear when you hide on your foes.

Later on, you’ll be able to summon a Shadow Servant, which will allow you to hold a much greater number of objects, and keeping extra weapons and armor for training becomes much easier. But make no mistake, in a fight, relying on your weapons is relying on your weakest skillset.

Signature Guild Abilities

Moon Mages can travel throughout the realms easiest of any guild. With sufficient skill, a Moon Mage can Locate any player under an open sky and either teleport to them, summon them to the Moon Mages location, or open a Moon Gate, a portal that allows anyone to travel between.

Around 40th circle, Moon Mages will learn to Walk the Ways, utilizing powerful Lunar artifacts scattered around Elanthia as a sort of fast transit system, similar to a subway that allows a rider to travel around a city at great speed. At 100th circle, Moon Mages will learn how to enter the Ways from any location, similar to… a completely insane person who jumps the tracks and hops on a fast moving train.

It is worth pointing out that all of a Moon Mages mobility tools are fraught with peril and extreme risk of life and limb to the Moon Mage, and even in some cases to bystanders. The inexperienced Moon Mage that isn’t paying attention to the forces they are attempting to utilize will quickly find themselves vaporized, their bodies becoming but a smear of blood and bone.

Additionally, Moon Mages have the power of Prediction. As they observe the cosmos, they gain a deeper understanding of the turning of Fate. By utilizing this knowledge, a Moon Mage can enhance their ability in a single skill. As a Moon Mage gains a deeper understanding Fate, they will have an easier time manipulating it, even being able to curse their foes.

Astrology is also tied to Moon Mage Enchanting, which is not to be confused with the not yet implemented crafting skill Enchanting. This system involves studying celestial bodies and inscribing their sigils upon various objects in a certain order to create various effects. The system is currently somewhat in flux, though many Lunar Enchantments still exist.

Training Astrology

The guild skill is Astrology, which is trained by observing the cosmos and making predictions. You can start by OBSERVE SKY, which will show you all the celestial objects you can perceive. As you circle, your guild leader will teach you how to understand more and more celestial objects. If you OBSERVE a constellation you have been taught, you may learn something about it.

Each of celestial object governs a skillset, Defense, Event, Lore, Magic, Offense, Survival and All. Each time you observe an object, it adds a bit of knowledge to a prediction pool of that skillset. If you PREDICT STATE LORE, you will see how much you have learned about the Lore skillset from observing the heavens. Once a prediction pool is sufficiently filled, you can ALIGN to a given skillset or even a specific skill, and then PREDICT FUTURE <person>. This will give you a vision about the prediction, which may look something like this;

You look inside yourself in an attempt to see beyond the now. After a few moments, the mists of time begin to part. You see the midday sun warming you under its soft face. You see a young boy taking his vows of apprenticeship. A man stands in darkness clad in plate armor. A shiver runs through your spine. Roundtime: 10 sec.

Evaluating visions is a tricky business, but there’s some method to the madness. Read a bit about prediction. At 10th circle you can start Event Prediction, a handy way of training Astrology without running the risk of cursing someone, and also a means of telling what is going on in the realms and what is to come. If you STUDY SKY, you’ll start filling your Event prediction pool. When you have studied the sky sufficiently, you can PREDICT FUTURE EVENT, which will give you a vision, and teach Astrology.

Soon, you’ll want to pick up a divining tool, like a set of bones to cast, or starcharts to study, etc. Each of these tools are affiliated with a type of Moon Mage, which is a primarily role playing choice, though there are some differences.

Now What?

Holder

Starting Spell Choices

Choosing starting spells for a Moon mage can be a rather daunting task, especially considering that the sheer volume of paths one can take and that the number of prerequisite spells is large compared to other guilds. One first needs to make the decision if you are going to learn towards or away from combat, since Moon mages can be successful anywhere on the spectrum since they have no actual combat skill requirements. A neutral approach can also be successful and each has their own benefits and issues to deal with.

For the combat leaning Moon mage, the most common choice for a first spell would be Telekinetic Throw to start gaining ranks in Targeted Magic skill. However, Shadows is also good for those who wish to be more physical in combat and want to train stealth.

For the non-combat leaning Moon mage, the common choice of spell is Clear Vision, though every Moon mage should learn this spell at some point due to its necessity in casting Locate as well as the bonus provided to perception which will help train your Astrology skill. It is also a good idea to pick up Piercing Gaze as well to allow you to train your Astrology skill even when clouds obscure the heavens.

Progressing further you will want to pick up Focus Moonbeam as this is required for several different later spells such as Moonblade, Moongate, Distant Gaze and Shadewatch Mirror. In addition to this the spell Shift Moonbeam will allow you greater manipulation of your moonbeam allowing you to send it to other locations and facilitate easy movement through Teleport and Moongate.

Starting Gear

What weapons and armor you train is up to you, but initially sticking to lighter choices would be optimal. Small Edged and Small Blunt, Light Thrown and Bows all make good choices. The obvious choice for stealth and low hindrance armor is Cloth or Leather, though you can swap Chain or even Brigandine if you're not training stealth at the moment. It might be worth mentioning that Moonblade can be shaped into a Small Edge, Heavy Edge, Two handed Edge, and Quarterstaff weapon, so if you enjoy using Moonweapons, training those weapons from the start is a good idea, though you'll probably want to pick up lightened versions of the heavier weapons.

You’ll want to find some starting magical items to train with, preferably a small cambrinth, like a shard or a ring.

Stat Training

For stats, a good first goal is getting everything to 30. This will give you a good base. Next, you'll probably want to keep Reflex high, as dodging enemies will be easier than surviving getting hit and let you stay in combat longer. Discipline will improve your ability to hide and your ability to target spells, as well as help in your Debilitation contests. Don't let any stat fall too far behind at first, until you have a better understanding of what they all do.

All your debilitations are Mind vs something, so keeping your mentals high is important. Additionally, many Moon Mage abilities require high Concentration, so keep Discipline high. Basically, Moon Mages are the archetypal magical intellectual. Do not neglect your mentals.

(more to come)