Spells
Magic on PetalMC is cast from a staff. You learn a working once, from somebody who knows it, and it is yours permanently. After that you bind it to a staff and cast it, spending Soul Dust each time.
This page covers how the system works. For the list of every working, what each one does and where to learn it, see the Spell Book.
What you need
| You need | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| A bindable staff | Rowan, during the Guild induction. Others are sold or found later. |
| A working you have learned | Taught by Guild members, bought as tomes, or earned from quests |
| Enough levels | Every working has a level written on it |
| Soul Dust | Dropped by naturally spawned hostile mobs |
| An enchanting table | Where you open the spell book and bind |
The two kinds of staff
Not every staff is a spellcasting staff. There are two kinds, and they work differently.
| Novelty staves | Bindable staves | |
|---|---|---|
| What it casts | One fixed effect, built in | Whatever working you bind to it |
| Can you change it? | No | Yes, as often as you like |
| Cost to cast | Free | Soul Dust, per cast |
| Where they turn up | Drops, vendors, quest rewards | Rowan, the Enchantress, Guild vendors, rare drops |
Novelty staves are the nine that already existed. Each one does a single thing, that thing never changes, and casting it costs nothing. They are useful for one effect or for a quest that asks for it, and they are not part of the Guild’s system at all. If you have one you like, keep using it.
Bindable staves are the new kind, and they arrive with the Mage’s Guild. A bindable staff has no magic of its own. It casts whatever you have put into it.
One working per staff
A staff holds one working at a time. That is the rule the whole system turns on, and it is worth understanding before you plan a build.
If you want two workings ready to cast, you need two staves, both on your hotbar, each bound to one of them. Three workings means three staves. Swapping which working a staff holds takes an enchanting table, so it is something you do while preparing, not something you do mid-fight.
In practice most players settle on a small set: something to open with, something to heal or escape with, and a staff kept free for whatever the trip needs. A mage’s hotbar looks like a row of staves, and that is intended.
Learning a working
Learning is permanent and it happens once. Once somebody has taught you a working, you know it for good: it does not sit in an item, it cannot be lost, and nobody can take it. It is yours across every staff you will ever own.
Two things have to be true before you can cast one:
- You have been taught it.
- You are high enough level for it.
Levels are checked at the moment you cast, not when you bind, so you can bind a working you have outgrown the requirement for and grow into it.
Workings are taught by Guild members after their errands, sold as tomes by Maudra the Tomekeeper, and earned from quest chains. The Spell Book page lists where each one comes from.
Binding
Right-click an enchanting table while holding a bindable staff to open the spell book. Everything there is to learn is listed. The workings you know are shown in full and can be clicked; the ones you do not know are present but blank, so you can see there is more without seeing what.
Click a working to bind it. The staff’s icon then wears that working’s sigil, so a bag of staves reads at a glance.
Binding lives on the staff, not on you. A staff you drop keeps its working, and a staff you hand to a friend keeps it too. But casting checks the person holding it: they need to know the working themselves, meet its level, and be carrying the dust. A borrowed staff is not a shortcut past any of that.
Some workings need something pointed at. Look at it and press F, the swap-hands key, which a bindable staff borrows while you hold it. A rune appears over your mark that only you can see. Press F at nothing to let it go. It also slips if the target dies, moves out of range, or after thirty seconds.
Soul Dust
Soul Dust is the only thing a working costs. It drops from naturally spawned hostile mobs, never from spawners or farms, and it cannot be crafted from anything else. If you want dust, you go and fight for it.
It can be pressed. Four grains in a two-by-two crafting grid make one Dense Soul Dust, and a dense grain splits back into four. Costs run on a ladder of 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 16 and 32, so anything from four up is whole dense grains: a 16-dust working is four dense.
A working that costs four or more spends your dense grains first and makes up the rest in loose. The cheap ones never touch your dense at all, so carrying a stack of each is the sensible way to travel.
Joining the Mage’s Guild
You cannot learn workings until the Guild has admitted you, and the Guild does not advertise. Admission opens at level 12, and the whole route through to your first working can be walked at that level.
Start at the Rusty Spoon, the village restaurant. Take the path that runs alongside Dryma’s Sanctum and follow it along the side of the island. Beneath the stairway there is a room, and somebody in it who handles admissions. Speak to her.
From there:
- The trials. She sets a short chain of tests before she will put your name forward. They are the Guild deciding whether it wants you.
- The initiation. Passing sends you into the Mage’s Guild induction: your own private copy of the Guild, opening with a cinematic. It runs a few minutes and does not like being interrupted, so set the time aside and do it in one sitting.
- Rowan’s quest. Rowan the staffwright meets you on the other side, hands you your first bindable staff, teaches you your first working, and sets the induction’s own chain of tasks. Finishing it is what graduates you.
- Afterwards. Once you have graduated you are a member, and the Guild hall is open to you permanently. Speak to the Porter by the village spawn and he will take you there whenever you like. The same Porter stands on the Guild’s side to bring you home.
The Porter is the only way in and out. There is no command for it.
What the Guild gives you
Membership is the whole magic system, and it keeps opening for a long time after the induction:
- Rowan replaces a lost staff and upgrades the Guild’s issue staff.
- Jupiter, by the Academy, teaches Gale Step and Lesser Mage Armor through her errands, and shows you how to press dust.
- Maudra the Tomekeeper sells workings as tomes, from 900 gold upward.
- Anastasia the Robewright sells mage robes and two more staves, priced in standing with the Guild rather than gold alone.
- The Enchantress upgrades staves and sage armour.
- Higher workings come from Archmage Xarath, Corvin and Ysolde, and the Guild’s own quest chains, most of them well past level 30.
Your standing with the Guild rises as you work for it, and some of what is
listed above stays behind that standing until you have earned it. Check where
you stand at any time with /reputation.