The goal of the mod is to introduce as much 'magic' into the game as I can given the constraints of modding.
This is not the low-magic-is-it-really-magic-at-all feel of the base game, so I'm sure it's not to everyone's tastes.
The current version (1.2) consists of three menus and some build additions. Make sure you download 1.2. I'm leaving 1.1 attached because, selfishly, I like seeing the number of downloads!
OVERVIEW:
The first thing to do in the mod is to use the Incantations menu to make sacrifices of various food items to the spirits. This allows you to build up 'favor points' with spirits, which can then be used to perform other actions.
As you start to explore the other options under Incantations, you'll find that most require a Shrine to work. Three exceptions exist: "Wound Treatment Poultice - No Shrine", "Feather Tree Token - No Shrine", and "Magic Barkskin". These are three early-game magic options that let you do things from early on.
For everything else, you'll need to construct a Shrine. This is not an easy task. Most challenging is the requirement for 0.1 pounds of bronze and 0.02 pounds of silver, which you'll have to obtain through trade. If you are playing a game that involves avoiding places that might have bronze or silver, it's easy enough to change the recipe. I would suggest, if you remove the bronze/silver requirement, increasing the favor required to at least 500.
The Shrine, and other "buildings", are found under the Buildings > Kota menu. It is not possible to create a new sub-menu through modding, so I used the Kota menu to allow enough space for the appropriate actions.
Note also the Incant Weapon and Incant Skill menus. The former uses a Weapon Enchanting Rune to create a slightly more potent version of mundane weapons. The latter uses a Skill Training Rune to provide a good chance (but not a guarantee) of increasing a given skill.
All weapon enchantments require a shrine, 50 favor, 2 bear teeth, 5 feathers, and a bone.
"Knife for battle" uses a Kaumo Knife, Skramasaksi, or Northern Knife, and spits out something a bit better than any of them. "Staff" uses either a Hard Staff or Staff, "Trident" uses either a wide trident or trident, "Bow" uses a Northern Bow, Longbow or Hunting Bow, and "Crossbow" uses either type of crossbow. These compressions were done due to menu space limitations.
Because an enchanted weapon is more powerful than its base component, it may do damage to hides more often, note. So an enchanted club may be less effective at preserving hides.
Weapon enchantments use the WEATHERLORE skill due to the unfortunate loss of the RITUAL skill. According to my testing, using COMMON makes it impossible to get a masterwork result, even with %50% or more parameter. Enchanting weapons and using other incantations will increase the WEATHERLORE skill, allowing more reliably good enchanted weapons. Aspire to the 'masterwork enchanted X' weapon. It should be a long time coming, at least that's my intent.
Spoiler: "Exceptions to Enchanted Weapons Rule" show
As stated, most enchanted weapons have their numerical values increased by 1 (unless they are 0 for a damage type). Here are the exceptions:
* Battleaxe already has the maximum edge value of 9, so in place of that I reduced its one-handed penalty slightly.
* The three combat knives in the game all become an "enchanted battle knife", which is 1 better than the best of the three knives in each area. The result is on par with an enchanted shortsword.
* The enchanted trident uses the best aspects of trident and wide trident to determine what to improve on. The result is comparable to the enchanted spears.
* The enchanted staff improves upon the hard staff numbers, regardless of which type of staff is used.
* The Roundshield already had the maximum possible defense value (6), so I halved its weight instead.
* The point value of bows (the wiki tells me) is a stand in for its "power". Hopefully that is correct, meaning that the enchanted bow has a power of 9, one better than the longbow or northern bow, and two better than the hunting bow, though any of the three can be used.
* The enchanted crossbow combined the loading speed of the small crossbow with the power of the heavy crossbow. It's still probably inferior to an enchanted bow, though, since the heavy crossbow already has the maximum power value it can't be improved on.
Using these options provides a good chance, but not a guarantee, of increasing the chosen skill. Weatherlore is not included, as that is the "magic" skill used for all recipes in this mod. Two skills are commented out due to space limitations, Unarmed and Crossbow. The recipes are in the file, though, so any player could easily comment out two different skills if they wanted to use a skill ritual for unarmed or crossbow.
I'll run through the menu items in Incantations, and explain what each does. See "MagicMenu1.jpg".
The first four items allow different forms of sacrifice to obtain favor from the spirit. Meat and fish provide the most favor per pound, while grain provides the least.
Magic wound poultice duplicates the effect of burdock leaves, so useful for cleaning a wound. The version that uses a shrine requires less favor to create.
Magic Feather Tree Token similarly uses less favor if created at a shrine. The token, once created, allows you to use the "Feather Tree" option to transform a Tree Trunk into a feather tree weighing only 25 pounds. This can then be turned back into a regular tree trunk using the next menu option. The point, of course, is to be able to easily transfer tree trunks long distances.
Magic Tree Seed creates an item that can then be used to quickly cause a full-grown tree to sprout from the ground. The trees can be found under Building > Kota menu.
Magic Stone Seed creates an item that can be used to create an impenetrable wall of earth in one space. Found under Building > Kota.
Magic Well Seed creates an item that can be used to create a 'rapids' tile icon, representing a magical well. Found under Building > Kota.
Magic Feather Weight Charm is arguably the most powerful invocations. It creates an item that has a weight of -10. This requires 200 favor and 100 feathers to create, but will reduce your overall carry weight. WARNING: reducing your carried weight below 0 won't crash the game, but it will have strange effects on fatigue.
Magic Collapsible Punt creates a magical version of a Punt that weighs only 5 pounds.
The next five items all create magical armors that cover your entire body. As is in the description of the recipes, you are only intended to use one at a time. When you activate any one of them, you should immediately equip it, removing and destroying any other that you have on.
The difference between Magic Furskin, and Magic Furskin, Greater, is that the first is generic fur, and the latter inherits the superior protection values from specific fur types.
Skill Training Rune and Weapon Enchanting Rune are each required to use the other two menus.
Finally, Token of the Shaman turns 20 favor with the spirits into a small tradeable item worth 4 arrows/squirrel skins. This is intended to represent you helping out a village with your shamanistic connection to the spirits, and getting material goods in return.
The Build Menu
Spoiler: "Limitations of the Mod" show * Because the mod allows you to build trees and rapids, it also lets you deconstruct them. There is no way around this. Simply put: don't. Deconstructing trees and rapids is unbalanced for the mod, and not intended behavior.
* The enchanted battle knife uses the optional tag to allow the use of any one of the three knives. Technically you can skip all three; this is not intended behavior. Use at least one.
So! Please let me know what you think of the idea or use of it. I welcome feedback on the balance or any other aspects, or future ideas.
Mod is attached, of course!