Arcana

**Arcana** is a gameplay mechanic specific to the Ardent Mages faction which provides a number of abilities in the form of Pillars and Spells at the cost of Dust .

## Arcana Levels

The power and cost of of Pillars and Spells increases with their Arcana level; both Pillars and Spells start at an Arcana level of 1, which can be increased up to 5 from technologies that are either researched or obtained as faction quest rewards.

If you play with the Endless Legend Community Patch, there are some changes for smooth out the Spells progression.

The following technologies increase Arcana level:

## Pillars

Pillars are temporary structures that provide bonuses in an area around where they are placed for 10 turns. All Pillars start with a range of 1, affecting the tile they are placed on and the 6 adjacent, but this can be upgraded as the Arcana level of pillars is increased. While they may be placed outside regions you own, they cannot be placed on:

* Districts (including districts under construction)
* Villages
* Ruins
* Sea or Lake tiles
* Ridges
* Wasteland
* Any tile where you do not have vision

Pillars also affect Fungal Blooms, Converted Villages and Cities of other empires.

Additionally, active Pillars will block the ability to build Districts where they have been placed, so it is important to plan Pillar placement around City expansion.

There are a total of five types of pillars, each providing a different bonus and obtained from a different technology. Be aware that the actual effect of each Pillar depends on its Arcana level, and can be found in full detail on their pages.

The cost to place a pillar depends on the Arcana level of the Pillars as well as the total number of Pillars already in place. With "N" being the number of pillars already placed and "A" being the Arcana level of pillars, the cost to place a pillar is:

Cost = 20A(N+1) + 5A2 + 15(N+1)2

To simplify this somewhat, here is a table containing the cost equation for each level of Arcana, where "N" is the number of pillars already placed:

At Fast game speed the cost is reduced by 50%.

If you play with the Endless Legend Community Patch, that there is following changes:

* All Pillar cost no longer scales with game speed. The old vanilla "Fast" gamespeed cost is the new default. Since Pillar duration is fixed (10 turns , except for Pillar of Speed), their value dropped rapidly the slower the game speed was, this change makes them equally valuable at all gamespeed settings. In practice this means: no change on fast speed, sizeable buff on all other speed settings.
* Pillar of Speed only lasts 2 turns  but cost got reduced by 70%, because in most situations a short duration cheaper speed boost is preferable.

## Spells

Spells - also called Incantations - are immediate effects that can be used in battle to provide buffs or debuffs in an area for up to two rounds. Upon using any spell there is a cooldown of two rounds before you may use another one.

Unlike Pillars, which have restrictions to where they can be used, spells can be placed anywhere, including on tiles outside the battlefield you have no vision on; however, it should be noted that placing a spell outside the battlefield will still be counted as using it, costing Dust and enacting the spell cooldown. Additionally, while it is possible to place a spell from one active battlefield onto a different one, the spell will not affect units that are not part of the battle it originated from.

There are a total of five spells, each providing a different effect and obtained from a different technology. Be aware that the actual effect of each spell depends on its Arcana level, and can be found in full detail on their pages.

If you play with the Endless Legend Community Patch, there is reworked Ardent Mage Spells in order to make the useless ones (all except stun, i.e. Incantation of Enervation) more useful and vice versa:

* Arcana of Renewal is an Era 1 tech (down from Era 4) and is unlocked from the beginning in place of Arcana of Agility.
* All Spells can now hit allied and enemy targets, so watch your aim!
* Reduced the baseline cost of all spells from 30 to 25 dust  per Level.
* The Initiative order is calculated after Spell have been cast.
* Each Spell can only by used **once per battle**.
* The cooldown of all spells (time before OTHER spells can be used) is 1 turn . Except stun (i.e. Incantation of Enervation) which has a unqiue cooldown. Unlike the vanilla game version, where cooldown used to be 2 turns  for all spells.
* Note: After Incantation of Restoration is cast, the game sometimes displays a floating damage number additionally to the healing numbers. This is a visual bug only.

Other changes are shown in the table below.