Congratulations. By finding this guide, you've put yourself in the group of people who strive to improve their sorcery, or you're about to partake in this magical practice. First, let me just state..I never claim to know all there is to know about sorcery in the world of Elanthia, but I try to search out those with more knowledge than I. I'd also like to thank Sorcerers before me, who had the generousity to share their knowledge with all of us.

To start, you'll have to begin in the character manager. Always go with the full generation. Although this method will take longer, its very important that you gain an advantage early, and keep rolling till you get some decent rolls to place in your stat columns. Stats, or statistics, are 10 numbers in 10 areas, which define you as an individual and determine what your strengths and weaknesses are. In the full generator, ten numbers are "rolled" at random full generation enables you to "roll" a set of 10 numbers over and over until you find the highest possible set of numbers you can. Out of a possible total of 700, make sure you start with a stat total between 620-640. Of those 10 numbers, the first 3 numbers will be between 50 and 90, the second three numbers will be between 40 and 60, and the third three numbers will be between 20 and 50. The last number will be between 20 and 100. From here, we go to where to place your starting rolls.

Roll placement is also a crucial step, and where you place your rolls at this point will have an impact on your characters life when he's 50, when he's 100, or when he's 150 for that matter. A sorcerers prime statistics are aura and wisdom, and most would assume you'd want to place your highest stats in these categories, but that's just not the case. One thing you have to plan for is stat growth. Each profession has stats assigned to it that will grow faster than the others, and this is the case for sorcerers with their aura and wisdom. Thus, you'll want to keep some decent rolls here, but not one's that will max out too early in your life. So...where do I place my rolls?

Different stats are used to calculate mental and physical development points. However, the Discipline and aura are used to calculate both. Therefore you want to place some high rolls in discipline and aura. Aura is also used for calculating our mana, the source of our magical power, so we want this very high. Keep in mind though that sorcerers get plus 10 to aura and wisdom, so it would be a waste to place a roll over 90 in either of these stats, as the extra points there would be wasted. I recommend putting your highest roll in discipline and your next in aura.

Your other rolls, you have many choices. Keep in mind when placing these though that as a sorcerer, your mental abilities will increase at a faster rate than any physical abilites, and try to plan for the future as much as possible. Generally most sorcerers place their third highest in wisdom, then the middle rolls between dexterity, reflex, strength, intelligence, etc...and dumping the lowest roll in charisma.

Here is basically what each statistic will do for you:

Constitution (CO): Determines the amount of damage a hit will do to you and how you respond to diseases and poison. It also determines how much health you start out with, along with strength.

Discipline (DI): Used in calculations in your training points – how many points you have to use for training in different skills each level.

Reflex (RE): Determines your starting natural defense (DS).

Charisma (CH): This stat simply makes merchants like you. If getting a 5% discount at the stores in town is important to you, you can always train later in Trading. Always place your lowest number here.

Strength (ST): Determines your attack (AS) and calculates your beginning health along with constitution. This also figures into your base DS, reduces your roundtime when you move, and lets you carry/wear more things.

Wisdom (WI):Factors into your casting strength It also helps you to find traps on boxes.

Logic (LO): Determines how fast we absorb experience, from fried to clear as a bell. It also figures into the calculation for our mental training points.

Aura (AU): Determines your starting spirit points, and factors into your casting strength, and how much mana you'll have.

Dexterity (DE): Helps in waving AS based wands, such as blue, silver, metal, etc, as well as how well you swing a sword and helps you avoid maneuver attacks.

Intelligence (IN): Determines the amount of experience your head can hold before you have to rest.

After placing your stats in the proper places, you now are ready to determine your race. Each race has its on benefits. Some have bonuses as far as how fast they regain spirit, how fast they regain health, how resistant they are to magic, and some weild magic better than others. Dark elves are the most common race for a sorcerer, as they have a casting strength bonus that surpasses the other races. At a maximum though, it will only give them a 13 cs bonus over other races. Basically, how to figure it out is as such: Take your races aura and wisdom bonuses..divide this number in half. This number will be added to your cs. A dark elf has a maximum aura and wisdom bonus of 65, and as a half elf my maximum aura and wisdom bonuses are 50. Divide this by half, and a dark elf has added to his cs 32, while i have added to mine 25. Therefor, a dark elf will see a cs of 7 better than mine. This may be noticeable at an early age, but when your titled, and depending on your training, you wont be able to notice this at all. Choose the race that you feel most comfortable with, and that you can see yourself becoming a successful roleplayer with, and you'll have made the right decision.

I'm assuming you've now named your character, and given him a description, so now we're at the next step: Training.
When training, remember not to get stressed out. Each sorcerer is his own person, and what you decide to stray from the general training on will not necessarily be right or wrong. Also, lest anyone tell you different, very few people have never made any training "mistakes"...so, that being said.....

Always learn two spells per level. At level two, you should have the first two spells in each of the three circles (spirit, elemental, and sorcerer). During this time, look into the two minor circles. You'll always want to train in a sorcerer spell, because unlike the other two, sorcerer spells will raise your cs 1point each time you train in one, and the other two will only raise your cs .5 points. But which minor circle should you take your second spell in? That's really up to you, and its one thing that will make you your own person. Most suggest training in the minor elemental circle until you get 414 (elemental guards 3). By doing this, you'll get some great defensive spells. Then the suggestion is you train in minor spiritual until you gain 107, a nice warding spell. And then, at this point, going back to minor elemental until you gain 430. Doing this will gain you the power to imbed magical items, a spell that will boost your cs (425 elemental targetting), and a great defensive spell (430 elemental barrier).

Other skills to train in:

Shield use: Increases your physical defenses. Most sorcerers train in this 40 times in their lives, for when you start gaining only 1 point increases...its just not worth the training points. In your early years, however, the gains are great, and you'll need the defense.

Physical Training: You need to increase your health points! When you are maxed out (different races having different maximums) keep studying as the excess helps increase the rate at which health points are recovered.

Edged or blunt weapons : Choose one style weapon and train in it again till approximately 40 ranks in it. At this point, you wont be gaining much advantage from it, but as your young, you'll need the weapon to kill, and you'll get some defensive advantages by being proficient in your weapon.

Mana Sharing: This skill is actually used by at least two sorcerer spells, and the command. Always train in this at least once. Never stop training in it. The higher the better. As well as being useful in your dark catalyst spell and imbedding spell, it is also useful being able to share mana with others.

Scroll Reading: Very useful. Can be skipped every now and then but generally try train in this once per level.

Item use: Activates things like wands and rods! Goes hand in hand with spell aiming. This can also be occasionally skipped. Once you find you can easily activate any wand or item in the game, you may want to consider stopping.

Spell aiming: Used to be only trained in if you wanted to use non sorcerer wands (sorcerer wands being twisted wands and slate wands). But with the aimed versions of maelstrom and implosion due, this is a very useful training area.

Other:

Armor: Try to train in this four times, and then pretty much stop. You need four trainings in it to wear full leather without any disadvantages, and most sorcerers will wear full leather for their entire life. It has only a 4%spell hindrance, and it provides decent protection.

Perception: Try to train once every other level. This skill has a variety of uses from searching and finding secret doors to telling when someones picking your pocket.

Climbing: As much as you can spare. Some areas of the game require some training to enter. There is no agreement on what the minimum recommended training is amongst players. Try to train in it about 4 times every 20 levels.

Swimming: Same comment as climbing

First Aid: Useful for a few things, such as skinning critters and tending your wounds. But truthfully, skins arent worth that much, and there are plenty of empaths around for the wounds.

Just a few odds and ends now: Diversify and add character to your sorcerer. Want to occasionally pop boxes when your older..better learn disarming eventually. Want to hide when you're hurt? Want to learn a third spell to increase your casting strength? Better save up those extra training points then, because it's costly. I gave you the basics...you now have to fill your own needs.

The joy of being a Sorcerer is in our unique spells. Deadly and destructive, and a joy to watch, our spells can be truly devestating. More than that, they have character to them.
One of our major assets is our to hunt with our spells at stance guarded. This simply means we can keep our defenses high, while we work our magic. Lets take a look at some of the spells at our disposal. Keep in mind also, that if the spell is 701, it cost one mana point to cast, if its 702, it cost two mana, and so on.

Sorcerer Circle:

701: Blood burst: on a warding failure, the critter will begin to bleed from a lacerated neck, and the more you cast it, the more the "bloodgates" will open, eventually leading the critter to blead to death. Therefor, wont work on undead.

702:Mana disrupt, also known as touch of death: A sorcerers main dish for many years. Causes great impact damage to the critter, and all for only two mana points.

703:Forget: The 15 second duration is to small to be of any general use. Also has a drop down effect on critters, so its harder for them to resist than other spells.

704:Phase: . You can only phase through a door or portal if it can be opened by any player (using the OPEN and CLOSE verbs). Having a lock on the door (regardless of whether the door is unlocked or not) will prevent phase from working. This spell can also be cast at a chest, and if you don't leave your hand inside there is a small chance you may pull out something. Careful, though, sorcerers have been known to lose hands this way.

705:Breaklimb: Causes a level 2 bleeding wound on the critter. Otherwise similar to BB.

706:Mind Jolt: Causes a short duration stun determined by the amount the targets CS roll was failed by.

707:Eye Spy: just type cast, and you'll have an eyeball to do your bidding. It is very limited in it's abilities, but can be used to cast the level 17 Evil Eye Spell at range. Remember to always have the eye return to you before the spell duration wears off or you'll have a missing eye.

708: Pain Infliction: Causes a temporary, non-cumulative, 25% health point loss in the target. Lasts about two minutes.

709:Quake: An Illusion of an earthquake. If succesful, will cause critters to fall down, lowering their defenses for your sword weilding friends.

710:Energy Maelstrom: Causes a raging storm in the room, effecting everything in the room except the caster and those joined to him. The focused version can be aimed, so it's going to be found to be more useful.

711:Limb Disruption: Causes a level 3 bleeding wound. Otherwise similar to BB.

712:Throes of Pain: Causes a permanent 25% loss of a critters currently existing hit points, and its cumulative.

713:Nightmare: Great roleplaying spell, causing the critter or player to suffer his worst nightmare. Want to know what yours is?

714:Life Burst: Unimplemented

715:Curse: Actually several spells in one. The effect depends on the caster's stance. However, in an offensive stance, and cast at a critter, it will always lower the critters warding ability, no save allowed.

716:Disease: Another great roleplaying spell. Can be quite effective if the target fails it's roll by a substantial amount.

717:Evil Eye: Basically similar to the fear spell used by many undead critters. When cast at a critter it has several possibilites from stunning him to killing him outright from fear. To use with a floating eye, do the following: prep 707. Cast. Then send the eye where you want it to be. prep 717. Cast. It will then cause everyone, critters and players in that room, to make a warding roll.

718:Torment: Will kill the target if it doesn't kill you first. This spell seems to get quite a bit of usage. It is however, very hazardous to the casters health. One tip, casting forget on yourself will cause the spell to terminate.

719:Dark Catalyst: At older levels, this spell will take the place in your hunting repetoire over mana disrupt. This spell converts a portion of a targets mana into an attack and sends some mana back to the caster as well. The casters mana sharing skill is a very important factor. Sorcerers can benefit from having their mana sharing skill over 100 when using this spell.

720:Implosion: A black void which opens in the room, doing vacuum crits to all in the room not joined to the caster. Try countering it with 102 or 417 should you run into a room and see one. Aimed version will make it possible to be more friendly to other players.

725:Demonic Summoning: unimplemented, will someday summon a demon.

What to hunt with your spells (over the years, you'll find you'll reach ages where the hunting is great and you love a certain area...at other years, you'll find you just cant win. Be patient, and you'll work your way out of these tough times....they don't last.)

levels 1-4: Start out getting acquainted with the town your born in. Type dir, and you'll see all the areas in town that are necessary to a young player. Visit each of these, and you'll find that when you type exp, your experience you've gotten is quietly accumulating. Soon you'll have enough to train to level one, and you'll need to find the local Inn and check in for that. From level two to four, i'd recommend either finding the local town hall clerk, and deliver messages for him, or i'd find an area such as rats or ants to do a little hunting. Keep in mind, though, you'll have to spend some time getting deeds, very important if you want to keep your character after a death. How to get deeds is a bit of a puzzle you'll need to solve on your own, but there's always a friendly face about where you could get some advice.

level 4-9: now you'll want to be outside of town for the most part, hunting near the town gates for either kobolds, goblins, lesser orcs, or if in Icemule, squirrels and wolves. Level 8 is a big step for sorcerers, as you'll now be able to cast mana disrupt with no prep time. Towards level 9, you might even want to venture into manticores, thraks and such. Most of these you'll be hunting with mana disrupt.

level 10-16: you'll find a wide variet of hunting area options, from hill trolls and war trolls, then towards cave trolls and crystal golems.

level 17-20: Here you might enjoy titans, frost giants, and even steel golems up in glatoph. Again, mana disrupt, and when you obtain dark catalyst try it out on steel golems, nice area for this spell.

level 20-28: I enjoyed the spider temple and stone giant area during these levels. You'll find that stone giants go down great with a dark catalyst, while a mana disrupt will still work great on the spider temple priests.

level 29-35: I'd try the monastary, using mostly mana disrupt. You also might want to start experimenting with darkstone castle. The banshee's and sentinels in there can be hunted well with a dark catalyst, but be wary of the roa'ters on the way in, they have a nasty maneuver attack. And the sentinels have a dangerous maneuver attack of their own. Make sure you have a nice warding strength going in, as the banshees cast some strong fear spells.

level 35-up: Try Darkstone or Teras and you'll find good hunting in both areas. Teras has a banshee only area in the mausuleum, or you could stay in Darkstone and hunt the sentinels and work towards moving up to troll kings and harbingers. On the troll kings i'd recommend using evil eye, as dark catalyst will cause limbs to explode, causing the troll king to regenerate non-experience gaining troll kings. On the harbingers, use dark catalyst, as they take a ton of damage.

Part III: Role Playing the Sorcerer

Some would say that to roleplay a sorcerer you have to be evil, a follower of an evil deity, and a menace to Elanthia as a whole. That's true of a lot of sorcerer's, but as with any profession, you still have choices. I personally follow Lumnis, known as a light god, and deity over knowlege. What spells i've been allowed by Lumnis to learn just happen to be sorcerer spells, and i'll use what spells i'm given as well as possible. Most important rules to follow in roleplaying is to be consistent, stay in character, and never talk of other worldly things in anything but whispers.

Outstanding role-playing may even occasionally earn you an experience award or such, and though these are few and far between, gaining one will greatly increase the speed at which you'll be absorbing experience. Flesh out your character and give your sorcerer a personality, whatever that may be. It won't be easy as sorcerers generally make lousy group companions, due to the nature of their spells. Also, due to the fact that sorcerers aren't as strong at younger ages, the going may be tough at first. But treat others with respect, keep in character, and keep up the hard work...you're on your way to a rich and rewarding profession. That's my guide, hope you find it as enjoyable as i've found researching it, and may it help to make your time in Elanthia all the more enjoying.