Spell
Spells are both a way to communicate with the otherwordly beings such as spirits, and to affect to the mundane environment with magical means. There are spells to seek favour in hunting and fishing, sacrificies to keep the nature spirits pleased, means to follow in order to assure ones livelihood, and so on. The ways how the unseen can affect the tangible world are numerous and varied.
Spells and magic means, sometimes referred to as rituals, allow players to keep supernatural guardians of the spirit world satisfied and to influence their odds at succeeding in many tasks.
All characters start the game with knowledge to perform a general sacrifice, as well as knowledge of the bear skull rite in addition to two other spells. Characters are also capable of many rites and magic means even if they are not listed in the Spells and magic means interface, and characters are always affected by their standing with spirits even when performing mundane tasks and generally living their life. Magic is not a separate element of Unreal World, but intricately part of it.
Most spells and magic means are taught by people in the Unreal World as reward for assisting them in quests. Some spells are made available to the player only during specific quests, and a few spells can only be used effectively as part of a quest.
Spells and magic means
Spells and magic means interface can be opened by pressing the F4 key and provides the player with list of all known spells. All players begin the game with knowledge of general sacrifice, bear skull rite, and two additional spells available to their culture, decided randomly during character creation.
The names of spells in the interface are given with either green or yellow text. Spells listed in green colour consist of immediate invocations or rituals that may or may not have their own dialogues such as choosing an appropriate item when performing general sacrifice.
Spells listed with yellow colour are performed through mundane simple or complex actions and items, such as pushing a bear's skull to lone pine tree to ensure proper circulation of its spirit to the afterlife or wearing specific type of mittens for improved effectiveness during hunting. Most of these spells can be practiced or performed even when the character has no knowledge of them.
List of invocations
These invocations can be initiated from the interface and are available at all times, even when their use would be inappropriate.
- General sacrifice – increases standing with spirits by sacrificing an edible item, available to everyone at character creation
- Persuading the forest with a bread – after leaving a loaf of flat bread at a spruce tree, this incantation encourages the forest to not hide its thingies
- Greeting the earth upon going to sleep – incantation to ensure better rest in wilderness
- Blood-staunching prayer – incantation to stop bleeding
List of magic means
These are the spells performed with mundane actions and circumstances. Some magic means are only available or needed during specific quests. Successfully performing these spells generally has no negative outcomes, but there are some exceptions.
- Bear skull rite – instructions to ensure a bear's passing into the afterlife, available to every at character creation
- Bear trapping – instructions to set the bait in deadfall bear trap while completely naked to improve the trap's chance of success
- Carrying bear teeth to find hares and birds – a hunter carrying bear's teeth is blessed with bear's skill and luck in tracking small game
- Fisherman's springtime sacrifice – leave boiled fish or fish soup alone at the beach for spirits of water to have first taste of open water season catch of lake fish
- Gaining fisherman's luck – when using a punt to fish, it should be entered and launched to water by facing backwards
- Going rod fishing – a fishing rod should be thrown into the water before beginning fishing
- Making foxes to come at the bait – baiting of paw-board fox trap should be done at sunset
- Making a squirrel stay still in a tree – facing away and kicking a tree behind your back will make the squirrel stay still
- Mittens for bear hunting – mittens made from dog fur are especially useful when fighting a bear
- Setting snares for hares – loop snare traps can be made favorable by wearing woollen mittens when setting them
- Meeting the spirit of the forest – to meet a powerful spirit of the forest, a sacrifice of silver and specific rituals are to be observed
- Meeting the water folk – instructions to meet the spirits of water, during and after the appropriate quest
- Net favorableness – a net can be made favorable by having a sheep walk over it
- Preventing a lynx from escaping – makes an escaping lynx fatigued by using capercaillie feather
- Releasing animal from the forest cover – used during a quest to return lost animal from the forest cover
- Rod fisherman's sacrifice – another way to please spirits of water is to simply throw your first rod fishing catch of open water season back into the water
- The origin of iron – Unlisted spell described during Advanced adventures game course that involves sacrificing iron weapon in a bog, which is the source of its synty.
Legacy rituals
In older versions of the game, Ritual was a skill available to player character, and many existing spells were available as "rituals" in addition to the unlisted magic means.
