Communions are a way for a mage to increase their magic paths during a battle and significantly reduce fatigue casting spells. The mage accomplishes this by enlisting / conscripting communion slaves, and drawing on their power to boost paths and share out fatigue.

Access to higher level magic paths allows mages to both cast spells that they otherwise might not be able to, such as Fog Warriors; and overcast spells, thereby reducing fatigue.

Being able to share fatigue out amongst slaves permits many more spells to be cast and, with the right setup, endless spell casting.

There are several paths a mage can utilise to enter a communion, either as a master or a slave. There is only one communion per side (attacker or defender). All Masters on a side use all slaves on the same side to aid in spell casting. So blood mages who cast Sabbath Slave can be drained by mages who cast Communion Master etc.

Notes:

* If a Chorus Slave "fatigues out", they cease to contribute to the spell singing, and drop out of a communion. All other slaves remain in the communion even unto death, unless all masters are disconnected (see Exiting Communions).

* Holy magic is boosted by communions, but only if the master is also a mage. I.e. the master must have non-holy magic paths for their holy power to be boosted (11 for example). One can't simply equip a priest with a Crystal Matrix and receive a holy spell casting boost.

* Some commanders have a communion master trait, and some commanders and units have a communion slave trait. These traits automatically include a mage in communions at the very start of the battle (before any other spells are cast).

* Items that convey master or slave traits also operate similarly - i.e. the mage is included in the communion immediately on the commencement of battle.

* Players should take into account the casting time of entry spells when planning communion scripting. In particular, a master who enters using a trait or item (at the start of combat), could find that the blood slaves (150% casting time) aren't all online when they cast their first spell. Items that reduce spell casting time like the Crown of the Magi also affect calculations.

* The Sabbath Slave and Sabbath Master spells inherently cost 100 fatigue due to requiring one blood slave each. This can be significant as it can make a master unable to cast further spells immediately in provinces without magic scales.

A communion master gains n extra levels in each of his or her known magic paths for every 2ⁿ slaves in the communion. This is true for each communion master in the communion. Note that the maximum path boost from communions is 6.

Whenever a communion mage casts a spell, the fatigue from that spell is equally distributed among the communion slaves and the master, with each taking an equal share before any extra fatigue from a difference in paths is calculated.

Fatigue for spells is always reduced according to what degree the spell is overcast by. For example, a D3 mage casting a D2 spell will only receive half the listed fatigue. Whenever the communion master casts a spell, they use their caster level AFTER the communion boost, so the same mage boosted from D3 to D5 now casts at 1/4 the listed fatigue, and that is the value which gets distributed to slaves. The distribution is equal among slaves, so if the fatigue would be 50 and there are 4 slaves, the master would gain 10 fatigue and each slave gains 10 fatigue.

The slave caster level does have an impact on how much fatigue they receive, after previously described calculations have occurred. If a D2 mage is a communion slave for our caster who casts a D2 spell, then that D2 slave gets no bonus fatigue. This means that if our comm master would distribute 10 fatigue to each slave, then this slave receives 10 fatigue. If our comm slave would be able to overcast the spell, for example if the slave is D3 or higher, then the slave will receive half the fatigue, which in this example would be 5. Additional levels will not further reduce the fatigue gain. If the comm slave is 1 level lower, for example a D1 mage, then the fatigue is doubled. In this case, that means 20 fatigue. If the slave is 2+ levels lower or does not have the correct path at all, then fatigue will be quadrupled, so a slave who has only S1 in this communion would receive 40 fatigue.

The above information is slightly incorrect…

(The correct version of the fatigue calculations is centered around the following 4 conditions).

• Caster level/2 > Slave level (if this condition is fulfilled, the slaves will get quadruple fatigue).
• Caster level > Slave level (If the above condition is not fulfilled but the caster level is higher than the slave level, then the fatigue is doubled).
• Caster level = Slave level (Fatigue is normal).
• Caster level < Slave level (Fatigue is halved).

NOTICE : The Caster level/2 is actually rounded down for odd numbers of caster levels. This means that master of path one will have the calculations 1/2 = 0.5 ~= 0. And 0 is not higher than 0, so slaves with no paths will only get double fatigue from path one masters, not quadruple.

Communion slaves tend to be valuable, so it is important to consider fatigue distributions inn order to avoid killing the communion slaves. Chorus slaves are in general at no risk of dying because they will leave the communion if unconscious, however it is still necessary to calculate fatigue so as to maintain the chorus for as long as possible.

Fatigue over 200 will damage your communion slaves and eventually kill them, at a rate 1 damage per 50 fatigue, with an additional guaranteed 1 damage per cast. However, if the slave has a very high hp pool and regeneration, then it becomes possible to shrug off the damage, thus allowing the communion masters to safely casts many more spells than would otherwise be possible. This particular approach to using communions is called using "turbo communions," and the comm slaves in this case are referred to as "batteries."

The most classic example of this is in Niefelheim/Jotunheim. These nations can recruit mages called Skratti, which can shapeshift into werewolves with very high hp and natural regeneration. They also get access to blood, which means they can cast the sabbath master spell. Any communion master or mage with an arcane matrix can then benefit from this. The Jotun's own Gygja mage can enter these communions as a comm or sabbath master, and the AI spellcasting will lead them to cast Horde of Skeletons once they have finished their script, ensuring that a constant stream of skeletons is summoned to fight the enemy for the duration of the battle.

Once a communion slave has entered a communion, they become helpless to take any actions for the rest of the fight. The exception is the chorus slave, who will leave the chorus once they are fatigued out, and will not rejoin it once they awaken unless scripted to. The communion otherwise lasts for as long as there is at least 1 communion slave and 1 communion master. Whenever the last communion master dies–thus ending the communion– each slave becomes freed to act on their own again, however they immediately take 3d50 fatigue damage–that is, a number between 3 and 150 which centers around 75– and are stunned for one round. This is due to the "psychic feedback" of exiting a communion in this way.

An additional effect of communions is that any spell cast by a communion master with the "self" target in the spell description will additionally be cast on each communion slave. Spells like Personal Regeneration, Summon Earthpower, Air Shield, and Personal Luck are common ways to make use of this and keep the communion slaves alive for longer. However, the most notorious use of this feature is with the Reinvigoration spell, available to Blood 1 mages at Blood 1. It removes all fatigue from the caster. This effect is very useful for communion slaves, as they often accrue high levels of fatigue very quickly from the comm masters. It is a common tactic for blood nations to have a sabbath master cast this spell one or more times in their script, just to cure the fatigue of the slaves. Be advised that these casters may deviate from the script if they are fatigue-neutral after spell-casting encumbrance; they won't want to use a blood slave if their own fatigue is zero.

Ways to keep your slaves from dying because of their masters' spell-casting include:

• Personal Regeneration
• Soul Vortex to siphon HP from regenerating body guards.
• Summon Earthpower for reinvigoration
• Reinvigoration to remove fatigue
• Enlarge for more HP
• Using more slaves to divide fatigue.
• Path-boosting spells in case your slaves have paths in the spells cast.
• Cold/heat resistance spells to preserve fatigue when fighting in extreme temperatures.
• Relief
• Life after Death
• Giving your masters a bow to shoot with after their script is finished, so they don't drop high-fatigue or out-of-path spells off-script