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Arcane Magick is magick that has been recorded in an ancient, near-forgotten language that holds great power over the natural world. To cast an Arcane spell, it must be studied and prepared beforehand and then kept in a prepared state until the Wizard wishes to use the spell. To keep a spell prepared in her mind, a Wizard must pay some attention to it at all times, making sure not to loose the delicate and complex structure of the spell to random and unstructured thoughts. It is because of this that Wizards tend to be stoic, logical, and intelligent.
A Wizard's spells are typically tightly controlled, mathematical and very precise in design. A Wizard would use a spell like Chain Lightning or Shield of Force where a Sorcerer would use Mana Blast and Burning Aura. The Wizard's spells are structured compared to the sorcerers, but each is equally powerful.
The chaotic thoughts and images of sleep will cause a Wizard to loose prepared spells, so she must spend time each day preparing spells to use. The time it takes to prepare a given spell is the spell level * 30 minutes. Note that magickal sleep does not cause a spell to loose preparation because it is more an imprisonment in unconciousness than true sleep.
A Wizard must purchase new additions to her tome from Wizard's guilds or Magick shops in towns. High-level spells or rare spells are either very expensive or very dangerous to acquire and should not be persued. Many Wizards spend hundreds of years searching for a single, rare, spell. Spells are rarely kept as a scroll, for it is easily damaged in that form, instead they are kept in thin folder-like cases. Spells are valuable, and it takes great resources to create new spells or even copy old ones. When a spell is purchased a Wizard usually adds it to her tome of spells. Many of the oldest Wizards have tomes thousands of pages long, containing spells few men besides themselves have seen. If a Wizard is killed all her spells become property of the victor, assuming the tome does not have a magickal lock.
A Wizard may prepare a total number of levels equal to the result of twice a Spellcraft roll. For instance, Bink, our stereotypical mage, rolled a 3 for Spellcraft. He can prepare (3*2=) 6 levels, so he could prepare six level-one spells, three level-two spells, one-level six spell, etc. He could also prepare one level-three spell and three level one spells, as long as the total does not exceed twice the Spellcraft roll. The Spellcraft skill for Arcane Magick is a Forign Language check in the language of the spell. Most spells are written in ancient languages like Quam-Hu-Ran, Guarti, For'tha, or Kiithtzin.
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