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 5 and its predecessors have eight paths of magic, subdivided into the four Elemental paths (the first four) and the four paths of Sorcery (the last four):

Mages will have certain levels of skill in one or more paths; for instance, a Marignon Witch Hunter has Fire 2 Astral 1, while a lich has Death 4. To cast a spell, a mage must have sufficient skill in all of its required paths to cast it. Thus the Marignon Witch Hunter could cast Fireball (requiring Fire 2), but not Astral Fires (requiring Fire 1 Astral 3).

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

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

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.

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 5, 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.

Additionally, empowerment is an option to increase a single mage's paths, however due to its high gem cost it is generally an inferior option to forging or trading for booster items.

An individual mage's access to magic depends on his paths. He will have one or more paths each at a given level, and all spells require a certain level in at least one path.

Having a path which exceeds the one required by the spell will decrease the fatigue necessary to cast a spell in combat, and may cause other aspects of the spell to increase, depending on the spell in question.

Indirect Magic represents the arcane knowledge a mage possesses about any magic path in which he has skill, which lets him gain side effects just from being knowledgeable in that type of magic. Each path has a small effect on the stats of the unit in addition to access to magic.

	Fire Resistance +5 at 3 and +2 for every additional level, Leadership +5, Magic Leadership +5, Reduced Max Age
	Shock Resistance +5 at 3 and +2 for every additional level, Magic Leadership +5
	Cold Resistance +5 at 3 and +2 for every additional level, Magic Leadership +5
	Protection +3 at 3 and +1 for every additional level, Magic Leadership +5
	Magic Leadership +10
	Undead Leadership +30, +1 to existing fear (pretender gains fear 5 if they have 5)
	Poison Resistance +5 at 3 and +2 for every additional level, Magic Leadership +5, Supply Bonus +10, Increased Max Age
	Undead Leadership +5, Magic Leadership +5

For example, a pretender with 45 will gain +4 Protection, +20 Magic Leadership, +5 Fear, and +150 Undead Leadership (in addition to whatever bless effects they have).

Some of these matter more than others. Of particular note, the undead provided by death magic is a key component of undead armies, and the protection provided by earth magic can be used to create an awake expander.

Max age changes are done in 50% increments of the default max age, and depend on the type of creature: undead are affected by Death magic, inanimate creatures by Earth magic, demons by Blood magic and all others by Nature magic, in that order of priority. If your age is affected by Nature magic, every point in Fire magic reduces your max age by 5%.

A breakdown of the magical paths available to each nation, and the number of nations with access in a magical path (in parenthesis a number of nations with a maximum access of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5).

These lists do not account for summonable units, event units, heroes, or levels that a Mage has a less-than-10% chance of having.