As part of the game's major overhaul, one of the systems that is being completely reworked is the Spell system. Since the start of the game's development, spells have always been kind of clunky to use. The spell scroll system really isn't that intuitive, and there was no way to upgrade spells once you learned them, which quickly made them useless once you proceeded to higher zones. Additionally, spell scrolls could disappear from shops in later zones, making it impossible to learn them if you didn't get them beforehand!

The rework addresses all of these problems. Under the new system, all playable races will receive a pre-selected pool of spells that they can learn from over the course of the game, and spells can be learned and upgraded using the new resource Arcane Energy. Arcane Energy accumulates through using spells, killing enemies with spells, leveling up, as well as a few other ways. Spells can be upgraded a minimum of two times, with most spells having a max level of 4 or 5. The spell upgrade screen looks like this:

As you can see, the cost of the spell will go up, but the effect will be substantially better to compensate.

Another neat feature of the new system is that the different playable races in the game have different lists of spells they can learn, which greatly changes the play style of these characters over the course of time! The Spellborn will receive the largest number of spells, the combat-focused Orc will receive the fewest, and all the other races will receive various amounts in-between. This change will make the decision of which race to play much more consequential than before!

Included with these changes are items designed to take advantage of this new mechanic, all of which can be purchased at the magic shop. All spell scrolls will be replaced with these new items. Spell Power will still exist as a mechanic and function just as before, but upgrading it will be more difficult than before. With these new changes, it will not be handed out as easily as it once was.

In total, nine new spells have been added into the game, one of which was formerly a Feat. These new spells are as follows:

-Celerity

-Flame Gout

-Neurotoxin

-Absolute Zero

-Dolorous Rot

-Vampiric Aura

-Corrosive Fog

-Soul Decay

-Summon Companion

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This is not necessarily the full list of new spells, but all nine of these will be included within the upcoming 0.30 update. I've also included some new Feats to take advantage of these new changes, so stay tuned for more information on Feat changes!

Stay tuned for future 0.30 updates - this patch will be transformative and completely change the experience of the game so far. I'll be coming out with more devlogs in the weeks to come illustrating these changes.