Magic

Magic in Dawn of Embers comes in four schools: Fire, Water, Earth and Lightning. Magic reaches the battlefield in two ways: through mage units, and through the Pillars (Points of Power) that mages charge.

The four schools

Each school has its own mage unit and its own kind of Pillar.

School	Mage unit	Pillar effect (summary)
Fire	Fire Mage	A barrage on enemy buildings that leaves them Burning
Lightning	Lightning Mage	A barrage on enemy units that leaves them Paralysed
Earth	Earth Mage	A protective ward on all your units and buildings
Water	Water Mage	A healing blessing on all your units

For each mage's statistics, see the unit pages.

Mages

All four mages are trained at the Wizards Training Grounds.
All four belong to one unit role, Mage. The school is the kind of damage their attack does.
Mages attack from range and hit one target per attack, like other units. See Combat.
Mages are the only units that can charge a Pillar. Every mage counts the same, whatever its school. See Pillars#Charging.
The Mystic Calling makes mage attacks 20% stronger.
Out of combat, a mage carries its staff as a walking stick; in combat it takes it up as a weapon.

Does the school matter in combat?

In the current build, a mage's school does not change how much damage it deals to a given target. The game records each attack's damage type (Fire, Water, Earth, Lightning, and also Melee, Ranged and Siege), but no counter system uses it yet. Today it decides only which attack icon the unit panel shows. See Planned below.

Status effects

A status effect is a temporary condition on a unit or building. Today they come from Pillars and from the Captain.

The unit panel shows an icon for each active effect. Its tooltip gives the effect's name and description.
When an effect lands on your units, you get a short notice, at most once every 20 seconds per effect. Some effects, such as auras that flicker on and off, are never announced.
Re-applying an effect from the same source refreshes its timer; it does not stack. The same effect from different sources (for example, two nearby warded units) does stack.
Damage-over-time effects deal their damage through the normal damage rules, so armour and Disciplines reduce it, and a kill is credited to whoever caused it.
All damage-dealt and damage-taken changes from status effects combine by multiplication. The combined total is kept between 10% and 1000% of normal.

Effect	Source	What it does	Duration
Burning	Fire Pillar strike	Loses 0.4% of its maximum health every second.	5 minutes, refreshed by each strike
Paralysed	Lightning Pillar strike	Deals 30% less damage and takes 25% more damage.	5 minutes, refreshed by each strike
Earthen Ward	Earth Pillar	Takes 15% less damage. Enemies who press close are Stonebitten. Applies to units and buildings.	5 minutes
Stonebitten	An Earthen Ward nearby (about 2.5 m)	Takes 2 damage per second for each warded unit or building next to it.	While it stays close
Blessing of Water	Water Pillar	Regenerates 1.5 health per second. Allies close by are Renewed. Units only.	5 minutes
Renewed	A blessed unit nearby (about 2.5 m)	Regenerates 1 health per second for each blessed unit next to it.	While it stays close
Captain's Command	Near the Captain (about 8 m)	Deals 10% more damage and takes 10% less damage.	While near the Captain

Notes:

Paralysed does not stop a unit from moving or attacking. It only weakens its attacks and its defence.
Burning on a unit with armour is reduced by that armour, but every tick deals at least a small amount of damage.
Status-effect names and descriptions come from the game's data. The texts above are the current in-game wording where one exists.

Planned

A counter system (damage type against armour class) is described in the code as a future feature. It is not active: every damage type deals normal damage to every target.
Area-damage spells for mages are mentioned in the code as planned. Mage attacks currently hit a single target.