Magic in Witchbrook College is treated as a grounded vocation, according to the official Witchbrook site — the kind of trade that rewards students who show up, study, and put in the practice hours. Your notebook fills up fast once classes begin, and keeping track of the growing Witchbrook spell list becomes a real part of progression. This guide breaks down every known cast, where to unlock it, and how it ties into the broader crafting loop around the Alchemy Lab, the Arcane Arts classroom, and the Sunday market stall that sells the finished products.
The Structure of the Witchbrook Spell List
The spell list in Witchbrook is organized around three teaching branches: Arcane Arts, Alchemy, and Divination, with Rituals sitting on top as the capstone discipline. Each branch feeds the next — Alchemy produces ingredients, Arcane Arts turns those ingredients into active casts, and Divination gives you information about the right moment to use them. Rituals tie multiple branches together for high-impact events like the Tulip Festival or coven competitions.
Spells themselves are split into tiers based on how the college distributes them. Tier 1 spells are taught in the first term and require no reagents. Tier 2 spells are unlocked through weekly college assignments and pull from foraging nodes. Tier 3 spells are gated behind exam scores, library research, and the broom license questline. Tier 4 spells are community-locked rewards tied to Mossport relationship thresholds and seasonal events.
| Tier | Typical Source | Reagent Cost | Casting Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | First-term classes | None | Anywhere |
| 2 | Weekly assignments | Basic foraged herbs | Outdoors, dorm |
| 3 | Library exams | Crafted salves | Alchemy Lab, Observatory |
| 4 | Seasonal / relationship | Rare tinctures | Designated ritual circle |
Every player starts the term with access to the Arcane Arts classroom and the dormitory practice dummy, which is enough to drill the first three entries of the Witchbrook spell list for free. Once a week, the college posts new assignments that unlock the next batch, and these assignments usually require a quick delivery run on foot or by moped until the broom license is earned.
Core Arcane Arts Spells
The Arcane Arts class is the workhorse of the spell list. It teaches the cast patterns you'll reuse in every other discipline, and most combat-adjacent utility in the game routes through it. Players report that the first four spells are the only ones you can cast reliably before exam week, so treat them as your foundation.
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Wisp Light — A floating orb that illuminates dark rooms and caves. Costs no reagent. Doubles as a gift item that builds friendship with night-owl NPCs.
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Mending Thread — Repairs a broken tool or a piece of cottage furniture. Pulls from your sewing kit if available, otherwise the cast simply fizzles.
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Tidy Charm — Cleans a 3-by-3 tile area of clutter. Useful before hosting Sunday market customers at your stall.
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Sway Breeze — A gentle push that moves a light object one tile. Required for several early college assignments involving letter delivery.
These four spells share the same basic hand motion in the casting UI, which means practicing one improves your accuracy on all of them. According to community testing, the Tidy Charm has the fastest cast time, while Mending Thread has the longest cooldown at roughly 12 seconds.
Alchemy and the Lab
The Alchemy Lab is where spells stop being abstract and start being products. The lab itself unlocks during week 2 of the first term, after you complete the introductory Alchemy lecture at the College Observatory. Once unlocked, it becomes the only place in the game where you can brew the salves, teas, and potions that show up on the Witchbrook spell list as reagent spells.
The lab is split into three workstations: a mortar and pestle, a cauldron, and a distillation rack. Each workstation handles a different category of brew, and each one has its own mini-spell — a reagent cast that triggers the brewing animation. According to the official Witchbrook presskit, classes are paid for with earned money rather than tuition, so the lab upgrades also come out of your delivery and stall revenue.
| Workstation | Brew Category | Key Ingredient | Spell Equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mortar and pestle | Herbal teas | Foraged tulip petals | Bruise Tap |
| Cauldron | Topical salves | River moss | Slow Bubble |
| Distillation rack | Potions | Distilled moonwater | Distill Mark |
The Bruise Tap, Slow Bubble, and Distill Mark are the three reagent spells unique to Alchemy. They are not combat spells, and they cannot be used outside the lab, but they each consume a portion of your focus bar and reward college merits when executed cleanly.
Unlocking Spells Through Gathering and Classes
The most common question new residents have is how to fill out the Witchbrook all spells roster quickly. The short answer is that the spell list is gated by three different progression tracks at once: classroom attendance, gathering skills, and relationship levels. Skipping any one of them will stall the others, because most Tier 2 and Tier 3 spells require a reagent you can only gather after a class teaches you to recognize it.
Foraging is the most reliable early-game unlock path. The Mossport countryside is divided into seasonal gathering nodes, and each node becomes harvestable only after a corresponding lecture. The Arcane Arts classroom teaches plant identification during week 1, which immediately unlocks the spring forage nodes. Week 3's Alchemy lecture unlocks the summer nodes, and so on through autumn. Players who skip lectures will find their gathering yields capped at common-tier herbs regardless of season.
Fishing is the secondary unlock path and is tied to a smaller, but more lucrative, section of the spell list. The river running past the college holds four fish species, each one gating a specific water-themed spell once caught for the first time. A practical rundown of fishing locations is covered in the Witchbrook foraging and fishing guide, which walks through the seasonal rotation.
Class-Based Spell Unlocks
Class attendance is the formal channel for most of the spell list, and the college assignments posted each Monday are the actual unlock triggers rather than the lectures themselves. Assignments ask you to deliver a crafted item, consult a townsperson, or research a topic in the library, and successful completion rewards a spell scroll that you slot into your grimoire.
| Assignment Type | Example Task | Spell Unlocked |
|---|---|---|
| Delivery | Bring a calming tea to a stressed resident | Soothe Pour |
| Consultation | Read a resident's fortune | Glimmer Card |
| Research | Study a constellation chart | Star Whisper |
| Crafting | Brew a salve for the school nurse | Salve Seal |
Each scroll also grants a small bump to your focus stat, which is the hidden number that determines how many casts you can chain before needing to rest. The Witchbrook library studying session after each assignment is what converts the scroll into a permanent spell slot, and this is covered in detail in the library studying breakdown.
Gathering-Based Spell Unlocks
Gathering-based unlocks work differently. Instead of receiving a scroll, you discover the spell by experimenting with the Alchemy Lab and combining the gathered reagent with a known cast. The lab keeps a recipe book, and once you have at least three of the listed reagents in your inventory, the book reveals the corresponding cast on its own.
This is the main reason the Witchbrook potions recipes roster expands so quickly for active gatherers. Every new herb, fish, or mineral you bring back to the lab adds at least one potential recipe to the book, and many of those recipes map directly to a spell on the broader list. A focused Witchbrook potion brewing session can net you two or three new casts in an afternoon, which is faster than the classroom route for most players.
Casting Mechanics and Practical Tips
The cast UI in Witchbrook is gesture-based. Each spell is mapped to a short pattern drawn on the wand menu, and pattern complexity scales with spell tier. Tier 1 spells use a single stroke, Tier 2 spells use a hook or a curve, Tier 3 spells use compound shapes, and Tier 4 ritual spells require a full multi-second sequence. Missing even one segment of a pattern causes the cast to fail, which then drains a small amount of focus as a penalty.
Practice is built into the game in two places: the dormitory practice dummy for solo drills, and the Arcane Arts classroom during off-hours. Both reset every in-game day, so you can grind pattern accuracy for free as long as you visit consistently. According to community testing, hitting a target dummy 20 times in a row grants a small precision bonus that persists until you cast a different school of magic, and switching back to a previous school of magic after a long break costs a few minutes of warm-up casts before precision returns to its peak.
| Practice Location | Best For | Reset | Bonus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dormitory dummy | Solo pattern drills | Daily | +5% precision per 20-hit streak |
| Arcane Arts classroom | Multi-school combos | Hourly | Shared accuracy across recent casts |
| Alchemy Lab | Reagent timing | Per brew | Faster focus regen on success |
| Observatory | Ritual sequencing | Per night | Extended ritual timer window |
Focus management is the practical bottleneck for casting. Your focus bar is split into four segments, and each successful cast consumes a fraction of a segment based on the spell's tier. Resting at your cottage bed or drinking a calming tea refills the bar, and the tea itself counts as a reagent cast if you brewed it in the Alchemy Lab. Players who want to chain high-tier spells should always prep two or three teas before any college exam or coven competition event.
Mis casts That Interrupt Spell Casting
Three mistakes show up repeatedly in community reports about the Witchbrook spell list progression. The first is trying to cast a Tier 3 or Tier 4 spell without first practicing its prerequisite pattern in the dormitory. The second is forgetting to slot a newly acquired scroll before heading to an exam, which causes the spell to appear in your grimoire but remain uncastable. The third is brewing a potion with the wrong reagent tier, which silently fails the cast and wastes the brew.
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Always practice the new pattern at least 10 times in the dormitory before attempting the real cast.
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Open your grimoire and confirm each scroll is slotted before you leave the classroom.
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Double-check the reagent tier shown in the lab recipe book before starting a brew.
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Carry at least one calming tea in your bag for any ritual that exceeds three casts in a row.
These habits compress into a routine that the game's tutorial does not explicitly teach, but which experienced players adopt within the first in-game month. Once the routine is in place, casting becomes a smooth loop between classroom, lab, cottage, and field rather than a frustrating sequence of failed gestures.
The Full Witchbrook Spell List by Branch
Below is the consolidated Witchbrook spell list as reported by community testing on the current build. Spells are grouped by branch and tier, with the unlock source listed for each entry. Names may shift slightly in future patches, but the underlying progression gates are stable across the builds players have accessed so far.
| Spell | Branch | Tier | Unlock Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wisp Light | Arcane Arts | 1 | First-term lecture |
| Mending Thread | Arcane Arts | 1 | Dormitory starter kit |
| Tidy Charm | Arcane Arts | 1 | First-term lecture |
| Sway Breeze | Arcane Arts | 1 | Week 1 assignment |
| Glimmer Card | Divination | 2 | Library tarot tutorial |
| Soothe Pour | Alchemy | 2 | Week 2 assignment |
| Star Whisper | Divination | 2 | Observatory night class |
| Salve Seal | Alchemy | 2 | Week 3 assignment |
| Tide Step | Arcane Arts | 3 | Broom license questline |
| Bruise Tap | Alchemy | 2 | Lab unlock |
| Slow Bubble | Alchemy | 2 | Lab unlock |
| Distill Mark | Alchemy | 2 | Lab unlock |
| Moonwell Beckon | Rituals | 3 | First coven competition |
| Cinder Ward | Arcane Arts | 3 | Library research |
| Veil Draw | Arcane Arts | 3 | Midterm exam |
| Constellation Map | Divination | 3 | Observatory capstone |
| Pact Bind | Rituals | 4 | Tulip Festival |
| Hearth Renewal | Rituals | 4 | Winter Solstice event |
| Storm Echo | Arcane Arts | 4 | Library rare tome |
| Reverie Drift | Divination | 4 | Mossport relationship cap |
The Tier 4 entries are the rarest casts in the game and require a combination of high relationship levels, completed seasonal storylines, and at least one college merit purchase. A spell like Pact Bind is gated behind the Tulip Festival storyline plus a high friendship score with three named NPCs, which means a new player cannot unlock it within the first in-game year under normal play. The pacing is intentional, because each Tier 4 cast changes how the Mossport community responds to your character.
Spells You Will See Most Often
In practice, a typical week uses only six to eight spells from this list on rotation. Wisp Light, Mending Thread, Tidy Charm, Soothe Pour, Salve Seal, and Glimmer Card cover roughly 80% of routine gameplay. The remaining casts are situational: Tide Step for crossing the river during rainy seasons, Cinder Ward for the volcanic cave assignment, and the Tier 4 ritual spells for seasonal events.
Filling out the rest of the list is a long-term project rather than a short-term goal, and that is the point. The Witchbrook spell list is designed to grow with your character across multiple in-game years, and the college treats each new spell as a small milestone worth celebrating. Players who try to rush the roster often find themselves stuck at a reagent gate, while players who follow the lecture-gather-brew loop unlock spells at a steady pace without burning out their focus bar.
How Spells Tie Into the Witch Economy
The spell list is not just a personal progression tracker. It is also the engine that drives the broader Witchbrook economy around Mossport. Every cast either produces a sellable item, fulfills a delivery order, or unlocks a perk that boosts your stall income at the Sunday market. The relationship between spells and money is tight enough that the developers at Chucklefish built the entire class-payment loop around spell outputs, according to the Life at Witchbrook dev blog.
This is why the Witchbrook potions recipes book is treated as a strategic asset rather than a flavor feature. A brewer with access to high-tier recipes can charge premium prices at the Sunday market, and those profits fund better lab upgrades, which in turn unlock more recipes. The cycle is the backbone of the mid-game economy, and skipping it leaves a noticeable income gap.
| Spell Branch | Typical Product | Sunday Market Price Tier |
|---|---|---|
| Arcane Arts | Wisp lantern, charmed trinket | Mid |
| Alchemy | Tea, salve, potion | Mid to high |
| Divination | Fortune scroll, star chart | High |
| Rituals | Event commission, blessing token | Premium |
NPC customers at the market pay more for items produced by a higher-tier cast, and they also remember your stall across weeks. A consistent seller of calming tea builds a regular customer base that pays a small loyalty bonus, which over a season adds up to a meaningful chunk of change. The full delivery loop, including the moped unlock that makes Sunday runs faster, is covered in the Witchbrook moped and delivery guide.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many spells are on the full Witchbrook spell list?
The current build reports 20 unlockable spells across the four teaching branches, with 4 additional ritual casts reserved for seasonal events. New patches are expected to add more, but the existing 20 already span Tier 1 through Tier 4 progression and cover every major gameplay loop.
What is the fastest way to start unlocking new spells?
Attend every first-term lecture, then turn in the weekly college assignments on time. Each completed assignment grants a scroll, and each scroll becomes a permanent cast after one library studying session. Combining this with two or three short foraging trips per in-game day is the most efficient early-game route.
Do all spells cost reagents to cast?
No. The Tier 1 spells in the Arcane Arts classroom are reagent-free and can be cast anywhere. Tier 2 and above require either a foraged herb, a brewed salve, a distilled potion, or a rare tincture, depending on the spell. Brewing those reagents in the Alchemy Lab counts as a small cast itself and costs a sliver of focus.
Can spells be missed permanently?
Most spells can be unlocked later, but the Tier 4 ritual spells are time-gated to specific seasonal events. Missing a Tulip Festival or Winter Solstice event means waiting an entire in-game year for the next window, so it is worth planning ahead if any of those rituals are high on your priority list.
Where can I see the cast patterns for each spell?
The grimoire in your cottage displays every pattern you have unlocked, and the dormitory practice dummy lets you rehearse them. Higher-tier spells also appear as preview entries in the library catalogue, which is a useful way to plan your progression before the prerequisite quests unlock them.