====== Water ======= 

{{:misc:magic:water.png?nolink}} **Water** is one of the eight paths of [[magic]], and one of the four elemental paths alongside [[Earth]], [[Fire]] and [[Air]]. 

A lot of water magic is either stronger or only available in [[underwater]] provinces, making many of its applications fairly niche. It's also closely associated to cold, with effects like [[chill]] and [[cold damage]]. 


==== Important themes ====

  * Winning [[underwater]] fights
    * A lot of magic derived from other paths, such as throwing fireballs around, doesn't work under water. That by itself makes Water magic the default best way to support underwater armies. 
    * Elementals are useful in general, but ??Summon Water Elemental?? and ??Summon Lesser Water Elemental?? are especially strong in underwater battles, where the ??Water Elemental?? gains bonus [[regeneration]]. 
    * ??Shark Attack?? is an effective underwater-only ??Howl?? that will pile on more and more sharks as battles drag on.

  * Attacking [[fatigue]]
    * Association with coldness and dehydration gives Water a focus on trying to fatigue out your opponents, through spells like ??Desiccation?? or ??Grip of Winter??. 

  * Speed
    * Water has many spells for altering Combat Speed and the capabilities of units; ??Quickness?? is the standout example, but there are also slowing spells such as ??Slow??, ??Slime??, and ??Quagmire??. Most of these also impact combat prowess.

  * Sending demons back home
    * Water has a number of tools to counter [[demon]] and [[undead]], from crafting ??Demon Bane??, throwing some ??Cleansing Water?? at them, or casting ??Demon Cleansing?? to make them take extra damage. 

  * Turning stuff into Water
    * Water can even turn units into Liquid. This capability is used defensively in ??Liquid Body?? and ??Wave Warriors??, making units weaker (in terms of [[Strength]]) but better at taking melee hits, and offensively to melt foes from the legs up with ??Liquify??.

  * **Water** items
    * Crafting items such as ??Ring of Water Breathing?? or ??Sea King's Goblet?? will give otherwise landlocked nations options to conquer and contest [[underwater]] provinces. 
    * ??Frost Brand?? is a quintessential [[thug]] item: a cheap weapon with an area of effect attack that allows a single combattant to dispatch large amount of [[chaff]] quickly. 
    * ??Coral Blade?? is a rare way of raising the [[health points]] of any commander, possibly making them safe from things like ??Flames from the Skies??. 
    * A ??Bottle of Living Water?? will give its carrier a free big ??Water Elemental?? at the start of every fight. Generally powerful, they're a particularly good way of winning [[assassination]] battles, as a victim or perpetrator. 

  * Diversification of gem economy
    * ??Voice of Tiamat?? is a rare way to remotely site search for multiple paths, with a faster return on investment than other similar spells, but it's restricted to underwater provinces. 
    * Similarly, ??Maelstrom??, the gem-generating **Water** global enchantment, will give you a little bit of everything for your gem economy. 

  * At {{path>W3}}, ??Summon Bishop Fish?? will get you a {{path>H3}} priest, the only generic way of obtaining one. The ??Bishop Fish?? is able to claim [[thrones]] and can be used as part of a throne rush, or to bless your entire army at once through ??Divine Blessing??. 

==== Damaging Spells ====

Water has a fair amount of variety with //how// it can hurt foes; it can drown them with ??Sailors' Death??, ice them with ??Frozen Heart?? and other Cold spells, cut them on shards of ice with ??Ice Strike??, and even turn them into goo with ??Liquify??. Each of these spells has either limited scope or more than one rather-hard counter, however; for example, many of the direct-damaging ice spells can be reduced or even ignored with simple Protection, while the non-ice spells are blocked by [[Magic Resistance]] and certain traits. The spells with multiple counters tend to have higher areas-of-effect (AOEs) than comparable spells of other paths, probably to make up for this.

Water does possess a significant attack Ritual, with ??Murdering Winter?? tending to hit a higher percentage of units in its target province than any of the others; its performance scales with the [[Temperature]] of that province.

==== Crosspaths ====
FIXME

=====Notable Items=====

====Water Boosters====

^  {{:items:robe_of_the_sea.png?nolink}}  | **??Robe of the Sea??**                                                                                                                          | {{path>W3}} • {{gems>15W}}  | Construction 4  |
| :::                                     | These Robes prevent any sort of oxygen deprivation, somehow. How nice of them! \\ **PROT 3, Water Breathing, Air Breathing, {{path>W1}} boost**                                                |||
^  {{:items:water_bracelet.png?nolink}}   | **??Water Bracelet??**                                                                                                                           | {{path>W1}} • {{gems>5W}}   | Construction 6  |
| :::                                     | No, the water is not frozen. \\ **{{path>W1}} boost**                                                                                                                                          |||

{{template>magicindex}}
{{tag>spell Magic-Path }}