The skill of crafting totems hones the druid carving abilities in the medium easiest to work with: wood. These wooden totems are magical items that can be held. Carving and creating a totem allows you to bind some qualities of type of animal to the totem.

The procedure for carving a totem is as follows:

1. Gather a piece of wood from outdoors. This will serve as the base for your totem.


2. Create the totem by typing 'carve totem create <type>', or 'carve totem create <type> [person] if you wish to carve a totem for someone else. Use 'carve totem list' to see a list of totem choices.


3. Use 'carve totem <object>' to continue carving on the totem. Totems can take a long time to carve, and high level totems may take many carving sessions.


4. Finish the totem using carve totem finish <object>', sealing the magic in it and making it usable.

The type of totems available are:

elephant	strength and movement
fox	intelligence and movement
dragon	intelligence and mana
monkey	intelligence and dexterity
owl	wisdom and mana
ferret	dexterity and movement
troll	constitution, hitpoint regen, and hitpoints
lion	charisma and hitpoints
ogre	damroll and hitpoints
tiger	damroll and hitroll
bobcat	hitroll and damroll
wolf	hitroll and movement
bear	hitpoints
unicorn	mana
horse	movement

This skill is required in order to add runes to leather/hide items.

The skill allows a druid to use bone as a medium for 'carve runes' and 'spellstaff'.

This skill allows a druid to carve runes on most types of rock, glass, and crystal, and it is also the prerequisite skill for the 'suncatcher' subgroup.

With this skill, a druid can carve gathered wood into servicable yet temporary weapons. A druid can choose to carve a one-handed cudgel or two-handed staff.

A druid can empower an object with additional effects by carving magic runes on it. Wood is the easiest material to carve on and requires no additional skill. Leather and hide items can be branded with runes if one knows the 'firebrand' skill. It is also possible to carve on bone objects if you know the art of 'scrimshaw', as well as most types of rock, glass, and crystal if you know the 'petroglyph' skill.

'Carve rune <object>' is the syntax for binding runes to an object. Carving runes is a lengthy process and consumes a great deal of mana. Once completed, a random rune is then embedded into the item, and the object will offer an additional effect when worn based on the kind of rune carved into it. The runes are permanent.

Totems created by 'carve totem' can have runes carved on them, as can weapons created with 'carve weapon' and staves created by the 'spellstaff' skill.

More information about runic symbols can be found here.

A spellstaff is a runed staff created by druids. These staves hold charges of a druidic spell and can be easily recharged.

Once you know this skills, you can use 'carve spellstaff create <item>' to make a new spellstaff. A spellstaff can be made from gathered wood, or, if you know the 'scrimshaw' skill, from a length of bone of sufficient length. A bone spellstaff can be somewhat more powerful than a wooden one.

'Carve spellstaff <spell>' sets the spell for the spellstaff. To finish the spellstaff, type 'carve spellstaff finish'. You can then charge the spellstaff by casting the appropiate spell on it.

Most druid spells can be used for a spellstaff. For a list of valid spells, use the 'carve spellstaff list' command.

This skill represents the pinnacle of druidic runecraft. It allows a high level druid to add runes to any item, giving it new effects or enhancing existing ones. Exceedingly powerful items can be made this way.

As with the 'carve runes' skill, the runes are randomly chosen and are permanent.

Suncatchers are special vessels created by druids to capture and store sunlight. You must be acquainted with the 'petroglyph' skill in order to carve and use suncatchers.

Create a suncatcher by typing 'carve suncatcher'. After carving your suncatcher, you must 'hide suncatcher' so that it can gather sunlight. The suncatchers must be placed somewhere the sun shines in order to capture sunlight.

In order to retrieve your suncatcher, use the 'gather suncatcher' in the place where you hid it. For maximum effect, you should hide it at dawn and gather it at dusk, but suncatchers can also be safely left out overnight. If you need a reminder of where you hid your suncatchers, try 'gather suncatcher list'.

Suncatchers glow brightly and can be used as light sources.

'Release sunlight' is an area effect spell used to gradually release stored sunlight from a suncatcher bottle and suffuse the room with light. It lights up even the most pitch black darkness brighter than daylight at noon.

So bright and powerful is this spell that many undead are slowly burned away, and ethereal forms gradually lose their shape and are dispersed. 'Darken' spells are invariably dispelled.

A liveoak is an enchanted tree fueled by sunlight. To create a liveoak, deep runes are carved into the tree, then activated using liquid sunlight from a suncatcher. The liveoak then serves as your minion until destroyed or released.

If there are no trees nearby, it's possible to create a liveoak from an acorn by using 'cast liveoak acorn'. Additional sunlight is needed to force-grow the acorn beforing transforming it into a liveoak.

Acorns are special items which can be harvested in most locales. In addition to being used for this spells, acorns serve as the ammunition for the 'thunder seeds' spell. You can see how many acorns you have with the 'show acorns' command.

The 'solar flare' spell allows a druid to emit stored sunlight from a suncatcher into a concentrated fiery beam to scorch and burn a single target.

The 'sunblind' spell is an area effect spells used to escape disaster and get away from enemies. The spell shatters a suncatcher bottle, releasing all of the stored sunlight at once. This typically creates a blinding mass of light nearby, one so bright that combat or even identifying an enemy is nearly impossible.

The sunlight is also bright and hot enough to cause substantial damage if you're exposed to it for too long.