Mind Over Magic - Basic mechanic explanation

This is a basic explanation of various game mechanics on a fairly broad level. It's intended to help folks learn about the game and get up to speed if they've returned after a long time away and have missed various updates.

Wands and Wand Tiers

Wands are crafted using Nature at the wand crafting station. They require wood and various other ingredients, with higher tier wands requiring more work and more esoteric ingredients.

When you start the game, your starting staff have tier I wands. Whenever you summon a student, you summon them with a tier I wand. Each wand has an element, and mages start with a max level of 3 in their wand's element, plus two other elements at 2, and the remaining elements at 1. Mages start with one level in their wand's element and zero in the rest; they have to train to learn each element and raise them to their respective level caps.

You can give a mage a tier II wand of the same element as their tier I wand at the wand transfigurator. This gives them +1 max level in their wand's element and one other random element (which may or may not be an element they had +1 to from their tier I wand). This also increases their maximum character level, as shown in the top left of the mage view screen, and they gain a Gold trial to complete for a chunk of XP. You'll have to clear some of the underschool to find the wand transfigurator where you make that upgrade; it's at the end of a leg of the stone ruins.

You can give a mage with a tier II wand a tier III wand of the same element using another wand transfigurator. This again gives them +1 max level of their wand's element, but this time it gives another +1 to two other random elements. Again, it's random if those increases go into the same or different elements as their previous increases. This again increases their max character level and gives a Platinum trial to complete. Again, you have to find the tier III transfigurator deeper in the underschool, still in the stone ruins.

When a mage becomes an apprentice (more on that later), and again when they are hired as staff (if you hire them), their character level cap multiplies. Upgrading their wand after promoting them means they miss out on the multiplier to that level increase. So, for maximum effect, you want to do the wand upgrades while the mage is still an Initiate, if possible.

Apprentices

Once you have an apprentice station of the desired element, you can promote Initiates to Apprentices, at the cost of some Gnosis Shards. You can choose any element, but the effects will vary depending on what element you chose. You can see those effects by hovering over the apprentice element you’re considering on the lower left of the mage’s page. An initiate must be Fully Trained (have reached their character level cap and the level cap for each element) to become an Apprentice.

Mancer: If you choose to apprentice a mage in their wand element, they get +3 to the level cap of that element and can use their ultimate skill one extra time per day (if they reach skill level 8)
Conjurer: If you apprentice a mage in an element adjacent to their wand’s element (so if a Fire mage apprentices in Lightning, for example), they’ll gain +2 to the level cap of both elements.
Arcanist: If you apprentice a mage in an element two away from their wand’s element (so if a Fire mage apprentices in ), they’ll gain +1 to the level cap of their wand element, +2 to the apprentice element, -1 to two opposing elements, and gain a relic slot of their apprentice element. If they already have a relic slot of that element, they’ll gain a random rare relic slot instead.
Sorcerer: If you apprentice a mage in an element three away from their wand’s element (so if a Fire mage apprentices in Water), they’ll gain +1 to the level cap of their wand element, +2 to the apprentice element, -1 to two opposing elements, and gain a special combat passive based on their wand & apprentice schools; see the latest patch notes for a full list.

As said above, when a mage becomes an apprentice, their character level cap multiplies, becoming twice what it was as an initiate. When an apprentice is hired as staff, it adds another multiple, becoming three times what it was as an initiate (if you didn’t upgrade their wand as an apprentice).

Apprentices cannot learn at a basic Learning Stone; they can only learn at a relevant Apprentice station. So, you’ll want an apprentice station of their wand element and of their apprentice element. (Likewise, Initiates cannot learn at apprentice stations; they can only learn at a basic learning stone. So, you need both, or you need to be able to shrink one and swap it out for the other.)

Training & Trials

Summoned students start with two Bronze and one Silver trial - tasks to complete to reward XP. As said above, when you give a student (initiate or apprentice) a tier II wand, they'll also get a Gold trial; give a student a tier III wand, and they'll get a Platinum trial. Higher tier trials are longer or more difficult to complete, but they reward substantially more XP.

When an initiate becomes an apprentice, they gain all the XP from their completed trials again, and likewise when a mage is hired as staff or graduated.

So, the ideal order to produce maximum quality staff is:

Summon a gifted student (they get a random extra relic slot)
Upgrade them to wand tier II and then III and equip any relics you want XP on (more info on relics below)
Use a Learning Stone to train to max character level and element levels and do all their trials
Then upgrade to apprentice
Use Apprentice Stations to train to max character & element levels again
And finally, hire them as staff.

Relics

Relics are items that provide various benefits when equipped to individual mages or displayed on a plinth in your Archive room. Relics attuned to a specific mage can boost their HP/mana/speed/power, increase the speed of a specific type of task, increase the cap of a given element's level, and more! Relics displayed on a plinth can allow you to summon initiates of a specific species, increase the XP given from completing trials, or even give bonus gnosis shards when a mage levels up an element! Relics can also be pulverized into gnosis shards, a critical part of your shard economy. Overall, relics can be very powerful, and they are worth paying attention to.

Whenever you promote an initiate to apprentice, hire a mage as staff, graduate an initiate or apprentice, or retire staff, they will produce a relic aligned with one of their relic slots. Relics generally start at level one and have a max level based on the mage’s wand tier, their rank (initiate/apprentice/staff), and how many trials they’ve completed. Some fights also reward relics. You do not get a relic for expelling a student or dismissing staff!

In the beginning, you’ll have relics with max level of 5-8, but as you get access to higher tier wands, apprentice stations, and the resources to complete more difficult trials, you can get relics as high as max level 25.

Each relic has one effect when equipped by a mage, specific to that mage, and a different school-wide effect when displayed on a relic plinth in an Archive room. The effects generally increase with the relic’s level at breakpoints specific to the effect; you can see this on the relics page.

Each mage has one relic slot for their species, another for their wand’s element, and a random third slot of another species, element, or “rare” trait. Gifted mages have an additional random slot. As said above, some apprentices will gain an additional relic slot, for a potential maximum of five.

Relics gain XP whenever the mage equipping them gains XP (even if the mage is already at max character level), including when the mage completes a trial or gets trial XP from being apprenticed/graduated/hired/retired.

To equip a relic, a mage generally needs to have a slot of a matching type and be of equal or higher level than the relic. However, the two relic attunement rooms allow mages to equip relics above their level. Equipping a relic requires the mage to spend a long time attuning to it; the two rooms I mentioned speed this process up significantly.

You can summon a student of a specific species with a matching species-type relic equipped and attuned by making use of a species affinity relic on display in an Archive room. Doing that requires the relic on display to be of equal or higher level than the relic you’re equipping to the summoned student, allowing the summoned student to equip a higher-level relic.

Relics you no longer need can be pulverized into gnosis shards, and this is a major source of gnosis shards. The higher level the relic, the more shards you get.

So, you want to level relics up to use their effects on individual mages and/or by displaying them in your Archive(s), but you also want to level relics up to pulverize into shards.