Leveling and Progression

In regards to character progression, Librum primarily takes inspiration from AD&D and the Dragon Age series of games. The core point here is, the type of adventure you go on changes as you become more and more powerful – while you may just be hunting wildlife and running errands at low levels, you progress to the point where you can go into certain dungeons and abandoned forts, and next to the point where you can handle more fantastical opponents: for instance, automata, undead, or otherworldly beings. After that point, the player starts doing really crazy stuff: going to planes of Oblivion, traveling outside of Skyrim, and truly saving the world.

• Good gear is vital, but will only take you so far, especially at first.
• You likely won’t get any perk points for a while, and that’s okay.
• Don’t forget that you have to sleep a full eight hours to level up. Even without perk points, the extra health/stamina/magicka is important.
• Your skills will still increase without sleeping to actually level up, albeit at half the speed of vanilla, and scale higher.
• Dungeons and the like show their level, but they’re more like guidelines for what it takes to clear the whole area. For example, with a good party and good tactics (and a whole lot of luck), a level 5 character still can clear a level 8 - 20 dungeon.

Spell Research

Librum is inherently a low-magic setting, so there is a lot working against you as a mage. However, if you can discover the secrets of controlling magic, there is much more power available to you than in vanilla Skyrim. Many of the new spell “schools” or “archetypes” are described in the Readme, so we focus here on how to start out.

First things first, you need to acquire your first spell. Races no longer start out with any spells, so you will need to acquire a spell elsewhere. Here are some important points on this front:

• Spell tomes are exceedingly rare. Merchants do not sell them, they cannot be found in containers or on creatures, and only a few hand-placed ones exist in various dungeons.
• You cannot read spell tomes above your skill level. For instance, if your Destruction skill is lower than 25, you cannot use an Apprentice tome.
• Don’t bother trying to enter the College of Winterhold on your new character’s first day. Faralda will no longer grant you one at the gate, and you will have to research the one she asks you to cast.
• You can (and usually must) research your own spell without having one to begin with. Continue reading for more info on research.

Prioritize finding a research journal, alembic, and tongs.

• For a research journal, you will need to either find somewhere to purchase one (can be hard to find), or to craft one at a tanning rack.
• Use an alembic to dissolve alchemy reagents or potions, then analyze the resulting solutions. This will grant you research experience and unlock new archetypes.
• Loot any rolls of paper, charcoal, inkwells, or quills that you come across!
• In particular, find the solution that is used to make paper and ink! Select “mix solutions” in the alembic and find what ingredients you need.
• When you spend a lot of time studying, you will become mentally exhausted. Rest at least eight hours to recover.
• Hold on to poisons and ingredients with weakness/aversion affects, as these are used to fuel a cauldron. You can dissolve bulk quantities of reagents and get huge amounts of solutions in a cauldron, as opposed to an alembic which can only do a few at a time. The cauldron is very heavy though.
• If you find any strange items like “enchanted axe-head” analyze them (which is what the tongs are for) to get LOTS of experience.
• Once you have unlocked various archetypes you can compose theses using the research journal.
• You can combine several theses to try unlocking a spell. For novice rank only some xp in each archetype is enough, but xp costs increase very quickly for stronger spells!
• Duplicates can be used to boost the success chance - especially important when you are missing certain archetypes. Each spell has several archetypes associated with it, such as its level, whether it targets self or other, an element, and so on. You do not need to match every single archetype to craft a spell! Because of that, you can research spells in one school to discover other schools of magic too.
• Once you have at least one spell, you can do “spell research” using the journal to study that particular spell. Analyzing the spell will tell you which archetypes it uses.
• When you have LOTS of experience you can throw in a single thesis and still get success, but don’t count on that early on. As you become familiar with the various archetypes, you can get better at guessing which ones you would need to make a particular spell.
• Note that this is a long, arduous process! You have to earn your magic in Librum. You should expect potentially hours of real time to become a novice mage, much less a master wizard. You may need followers to carry you as you start!

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