Magic is a key component of Dominions. It is one of the main articles of differentiation between nations, and is crucial to success beyond the early game. It is powerful, varied, and pervasive.

Dominions 6 has ten magic paths. Nine of these are arcane magic, thus requiring Research into new spells but also enabling that Research, while the tenth is divine magic and merely requires priestly authority. Pretender Gods and Disciples cannot use divine magic, but they can freely purchase levels in the other nine paths. Eight of the arcane paths are closely-knit, though separated into two broad categories:

Each of those paths contains many spells, divided into seven schools of magic:

• Conjuration
• Alteration
• Evocation
• Construction
• Enchantment
• Thaumaturgy
• Blood Magic

The other two paths are considered separate, and have their own spell schools:

Blood ← Practitioners are Blood Mages, and get their spells through Research in Blood Magic.

Holy ← Practitioners are Priests, and use Divine Magic. Most do not gain Research ability from their Holy levels.

Each school has nine levels; mages set to research will allocate their research points to the schools you choose, and eventually unlock higher levels of magic.

For instance, the spell Blade Wind is an Evocation 4 spell that requires Earth 3 to cast. Once your nation has reached Evocation 4 research, any mage with at least 3 levels in the Earth path can cast Blade Wind.

There are also Holy spells, which have their own path (Priest levels) and school (the Divine school), and are exceptions to most general rules.

Additionally as a new addition in Dominions 6 there are Legendary Spells they are generally powerfull, but can only be researched one at a time.

Gems are the magical currency required for performing rituals and forging magic items. They can also be used to perform more potent combat magic, as well as reduce spellcasting fatigue in combat and cast spells with a higher path requirement than a mage might normally be able to. In practice, they are a critical resource for leveraging research into actual progress in a game.

Magic is the heart of Dominions, and the player who uses their nation's mages most effectively has a large advantage. Mages are required to research higher-level spells and to cast spells in combat, so mage count determines both a nation's current and future power. Typically in any successful Dominions game a player will:

• Recruit a great many mages, typically one per fort per turn if gold allows
• Identify key schools to research that contain strong spells of your nation's paths (Fire nations like Summon Fire Elemental at Conjuration 5 for example)
• Use these recruitable mages in combat to win battles; an army without magical support will generally be crushed by one with it
• Search for sites to increase gem income
• Forge booster items which increase mages' levels in their paths, unlocking access to more powerful items and spells
• Use these boosted mages to cast the most powerful rituals and battlefield spells

Since a nation's pretender will likely be a very powerful mage in its own right, a high-path pretender can often cast spells unavailable to a nation's mages. (Consider that the strongest spells require 6 to 9 levels in a path, but no nation can reasonably recruit mages with more than 4 in a path, and most nations don't even have these). Typically the most powerful spells and the most versatile booster items are cast and forged by pretenders, with a few exceptions.