Cantrips

                      Cantrips
                      --------

 Cantrips were originally "minor" spells, often with an
 effect that could be fun but not very useful in
 general. Floating letters is a good example of this. Some
 were specialized, and only useful for a small amount of
 people, ex. Return home. Later on, cantrips "evolved" into
 its own branch of spells. Most are still pretty much as the
 name originally implied, but some cantrips can be quite
 useful and there are even rumours of some that do a not
 insubstantial amount of damage to the target. These more
 powerful cantrips are very rare though, and few know who
 teaches them (and they do not readily share their
 information). But as said, the vast majority of cantrips are
 still of the original "pretty but not much use" -variant.

 The biggest difference between cantrips and ordinary spells
 these days are that cantrips are not ordinarily taught in a
 guild, but rather learned from individual persons who are
 willing to teach others. The only way to find out who these
 are is to try talking to them and see if they reveal that
 they can teach you something. It is not hard to find
 teachers who teach the more simple and not-very-useful
 cantrips, but the location of those who teach the more
 useful or even dangerous cantrips are closely guarded
 secrets, so you might have to search around for a while. The
 command for actually studying cantrips is:
                "study <cantrip> from <teacher>"

 Almost anyone can learn some cantrips, but the cost for
 studying and the chance of success depends on what
 background one is, how intelligent one is etc. Obviously,
 people with magical background and high intelligence are
 better at casting cantrips than peasants with more brawn
 than brains.

 One cannot see the actual help for a cantrip before one has
 studied it at least 1%. The person teaching the cantrip
 should be able to give more information about it, so that
 one can decide if it's worth studying or not. Try asking the
 teacher about the cantrip.

Also see: help talents.