Spell books are the items you’ll use to make and cast every spell in Ars Nouveau, and you’ll want to craft one as soon as you’ve got some Iron. There are three of them to work through, the 
Novice Spell Book, the 
Mage’s Spell Book and the 
Archmage Spell Book, with each one letting you use stronger glyphs than the last.
All of your spells are kept inside the book, which holds up to ten of them at a time. Upgrading it later on won’t lose any of them either, as every spell you’ve made is carried over into the new book.
The Spell Builder lets you plan a spell for any of the three books before you craft the glyphs for it, with the Mana cost worked out as you go.
Crafting the Novice Spell Book
The Novice Spell Book is crafted from a 
Book along with an 
Iron Shovel, an 
Iron Pickaxe, an 
Iron Axe and an 
Iron Sword, and it’s a shapeless recipe, so they can go anywhere in the grid. If you’ve already got the 
Tattered Tome (the mod’s guide book), you’re able to use that in place of the Book as well.
The book will already have five glyphs in it the first time you open it, which are 
Projectile, 
Touch, 
Self, 
Break and 
Harm. These are enough to make a basic mining spell or an attack spell straight away, and every other glyph has to be crafted at the 
Scribe’s Table before it’ll show up in the book.
Making a Spell
To make a spell, you’ll need to hold your spell book and press C, which opens the book’s crafting screen. Every spell has to start with a form, which decides how it’s cast, and it needs at least one effect after that.
Augments can then be added after a form or an effect to change how that part of the spell works, like making it stronger or hitting a bigger area. They only affect the glyph right before them, so the order you put things in matters quite a lot.
Each spell can hold up to ten glyphs, and it can be given a name before it’s saved to one of the book’s ten slots. The Mana cost is shown at the bottom while you’re making it, and the book will warn you if two glyphs can’t be used together, or if one of them needs a better spell book than the one you’re holding.
There are a few shortcuts in the crafting screen that make this a lot quicker. Middle clicking a glyph that’s already in the spell adds an empty space to the left of it, and pressing a number key while hovering over a glyph puts it straight into that slot.
You’re also able to copy a whole spell with Ctrl and C, then paste it into another slot or another book with Ctrl and V, though this only works if you know every glyph in it. It’s handy for moving spells between books, or for passing a spell to a friend who’s learned the same glyphs.
The Familiars Tab
The crafting screen is also where your familiars are kept, in their own tab at the top. Once you’ve bound one with the 
Ritual of Binding, it can be summoned from that tab whenever you want, though this gives you Familiar Sickness for a short time, which stops you from summoning another one straight away.
Casting Spells
To cast a spell, you’ll just need to hold the book and right click, which uses whichever spell is selected at the time. The selected spell is shown above your Mana bar, and you’re able to move to the next one with X or back to the previous one with Z.
Pressing V opens a radial menu instead, which shows all ten spells around your cursor so you can pick one without scrolling through them. There are also ten Quick Cast keys in the controls menu, one for each slot, which aren’t bound to anything at first, so it’s worth setting a few of them if you’re switching spells a lot in a fight.
If a spell doesn’t cast, it’s usually for one of two reasons. Either you don’t have enough Mana for it, or the spell doesn’t start with a form and have at least one effect after it, as the book won’t cast a spell that’s missing either of those.
Upgrading Your Spell Book
Each spell book can only use glyphs up to a certain tier, which is why you’ll need to upgrade it as you go. The Novice Spell Book is limited to Tier 1 glyphs, the Mage’s Spell Book adds Tier 2 glyphs, and the Archmage Spell Book is needed for the Tier 3 glyphs, like Blink.
| Spell Book | Glyph Tiers | Bonus Max Mana | Bonus Mana Regen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Novice Spell Book | Tier 1 | 50 | 1 per second |
| Mage’s Spell Book | Tier 1 and 2 | 100 | 2 per second |
| Archmage Spell Book | Tier 1, 2 and 3 | 150 | 3 per second |
The Mage’s Spell Book is crafted from the Novice Spell Book with an 
Obsidian block, three 
Diamonds, two 
Blocks of Quartz and two 
Blaze Rods. None of these need any Source, so you’ll be able to make it as soon as you’ve been to the Nether for the Blaze Rods.
The Archmage Spell Book takes a lot more, as it’s crafted from the Mage’s Spell Book with three 
Ender Pearls, two 
Emeralds, a 
Totem of Undying, a 
Nether Star and a 
Wilden Tribute. The Wilden Tribute is only dropped by the Wilden Chimera, and the Nether Star means beating the Wither too, so this is usually one of the last things you’ll craft.
Both upgrades keep everything that was on the old book, including every spell, its name and the book’s colour. So there’s no need to write anything down before you upgrade, as the new book will have the same spells in the same slots.
Spell Books and Mana
Your spell book also adds to your Mana, which is easy to miss. The highest tier of book you’ve ever used gives you an extra 50 max Mana and 1 Mana regen per second for each tier, so an Archmage Spell Book adds 150 max Mana and 3 regen on top of everything else.
This bonus stays with you even if you go back to using an older book, as it’s based on the best book you’ve used rather than the one in your hand. So you’re able to keep an old book around for a few simple spells, like a mining spell, without losing any of the bonus.
The same goes for glyphs, which add 15 max Mana each, though the book only checks how many glyphs you know when you use it. So if your Mana hasn’t gone up after learning a new glyph, right clicking with your book will update it, as that’s when the new glyph gets counted.
Dyeing Your Spell Book
Spell books are purple when they’re crafted, but you’re able to change the colour by crafting the book with any dye. This works on every tier of book, and it can be done as many times as you like, which helps if you’re carrying more than one book and want to tell them apart.
The colour is only cosmetic, so it won’t change anything about the spells inside. It’s carried over when you upgrade, too, so a book you’ve dyed red will stay red when it becomes a Mage’s Spell Book.
The Creative Spell Book
The 
Creative Spell Book can’t be crafted, as it’s only found in the creative menu. It’s able to use glyphs from every tier, and it has every glyph in the mod already unlocked, so there’s no need to craft any of them at the Scribe’s Table first.
It doesn’t make spells free though, as they’ll still use your Mana as normal unless you’re in creative mode. It also doesn’t add anything to your Mana the way the other books do, so it’s really only meant for testing spells or building maps.
Sharing Glyphs with the Annotated Codex
The 
Annotated Codex is used to share the glyphs you know with another player, and it’s crafted from a 
Blank Parchment and a piece of 
Leather. When you use it, every glyph you know is written into the codex, which costs around 10 experience for each glyph.
Once another player uses the codex, they’ll learn every glyph in it that they didn’t already know, without paying any items or experience for them. The codex is used up when this happens, though it’s only used up if it actually taught them something. If you learn more glyphs later on, using your own codex again adds the new ones, and you’ll only pay for the glyphs it didn’t have before.
This makes it a lot quicker for a group to get going on a server, as only one player needs to craft each glyph at the Scribe’s Table. You’ll still need a high enough tier of spell book to use the glyphs you’ve learned though, as the codex doesn’t change that.
Frequently Asked Questions
The Novice Spell Book is crafted from a Book, an Iron Shovel, an Iron Pickaxe, an Iron Axe and an Iron Sword in any order. It comes with five glyphs already in it, so you’re able to make your first spells straight away.
The Mage’s Spell Book is crafted from the Novice book with Obsidian, three Diamonds, two Blocks of Quartz and two Blaze Rods. Then the Archmage Spell Book needs the Mage’s book, three Ender Pearls, two Emeralds, a Totem of Undying, a Nether Star and a Wilden Tribute, and both upgrades keep all of your spells.
You’ll need to press C while holding the book, then pick a form, at least one effect and any augments you want. The spell can then be named and saved to one of the ten slots, and you’re able to switch between them with X, Z or the radial menu on V.
It’s usually because you don’t have enough Mana, or because the spell doesn’t start with a form glyph and have an effect after it. A glyph that’s too high a tier for your book can’t be added at all, so you’ll need the Mage’s Spell Book for Tier 2 and the Archmage Spell Book for Tier 3.
