A House is not a Home without some Magic.
House in banner belongs to Finnigan Strider. Drawing of house done by my friend Drako (ID: 751742156930154546)
When in Doubt, Buy a House
Housing has been around ever since the mid-2009 and it has evolved! We've had all sorts of new things added to the world of Castle and Lands like Castle Magic, Advance Movement, Castle Blocks, Interactive Housing, etc. With over 4000 housing items to choose from and 65 houses total, where does a wizard even begin? When you reach level 2, you can go to the Furniture and Housing shop located right by Elik's Edge in the Shopping District and talk to Buxley Turtleton and buy your own house for as cheap as 8000 Gold! That's the price of 8 Empowers at 1000 and 4 Empowers at 2000! I recommend going to Aubert Quickhammer, the Furniture Shop Keeper, and buying yourself a Music Player and a Backpack Butler then with whatever gold you have left over, head to the bazaar and buy yourself a Music Scroll (you can thank me later).
Supercenter? I hardly know her
The Bazaar is probably one of the most beloved places in all of the spiral when it was added a month after Castle and Lands. The bazaar offers all sorts of goodies that wizards sell to Elik. The housing section is where majority of wizards get their housing items! If you wanted to buy a White Rook Chesspiece for your chess set, buy it at the Bazaar! Instead of paying Neville Cobblestone in Marlybone 250 Gold, you can buy it for 200 Gold at the bazaar! The reason why it is 200 compared to the 250 is because there is 100 Rooks in his inventory.
The more items Elik has, the cheaper it is. This becomes very handy when you want to buy items like Castle Magic Items, Crowns Pack Housing Items, or even Crafted Items. Keep in mind if there is only 1 item in stock the price will usually double and you will have to pay a lot! A very handy way to find items with low stock is to press the # button located between Name and Cost.
Leave a little sparkle where ever you go
Now that you have bought your house from Buxely and House Items from Elik, time to use some magic and make it into a home. Baggage Basset came to Marleybone in late 2016 and he brought a whole new side to the housing community. Castle Magic added all sorts of wonders and new possibilities into the game! There are 2 main things that make Castle Magic: Magical Items and Castle Magic Treasure Cards. If you break down the type of Castle Magic Cards you have Action, Effect, Utility and Computer spells. There is a lot BUT I am here to help you! Magical Items are things like the Magical Leaver and Magic Reflector while Castle Magic Treasure Cards are Make Larger, Dog’s Bark, Disallow Mount, Add Signal 1, and PIGSIE. Make Larger is an Action Spell and this makes an item larger by 25%. Action Spells make a regular house item either move, grow or shrink anyway you want.
Dog’s Bark and Pigsie is an Effect Spell meaning it can create sounds like the bark or summons spells that you would use in battle into your castle like Pigsie. Disallow Mounts is a Utility Spell and when you enter an item like Magic Room Detector your Mount will be unequip. Utility Spells are used on Castle Magic Items and change or activate the functions of either House Items or Magical Items. Lastly, Computer Spells are used on Magic Computers and take spells like Add Signal 1 TCs.
Is that Magic in your house or are you just happy to see me?
NOW what can you do with these spells now that you know all this stuff? You can make amazing creations like this!
Using Castle Magic can be a hard thing at first to grasp; Understanding what each object does can make your brain hurt. Luckly the game helps you along the way. Babbage Basset gives a quest called "Strange Charms" that teaches you the very basics. At the end of the quest, you will receive a Castle Magic Help Tome which tells all about the other Magical Items!
Always be planning in Advance
Advance Movement was added in early 2020 allowing players to move objects without using rugs to glitch. The power to move Castle Blocks across the room and glitch out onto the air was amazing. The possibilities of fine tuning a house to make it a home became a reality. The tables shown below show what simple Advance Movement can do without having to use rugs to glitch it.
Take it from the Locals!
I asked some of the local people in the community of Gamma Trading Post a question on how castle magic made housing better? The question was "How has castle magic improved or created a better experience when it came to decorating or creating houses in Wizard101?"
"I personally really enjoy castle magic; I haven’t dived into it super far into it just yet but there’s so much you can do with it to really bring your castles to the next level and make yours stand out from others. It brings in the ability to be super creative with your build and it helps you immerse the visitors into the environment you’ve created." - Reflect
"It spiced up the atmosphere for housing; it added a new fun and more enjoyable way to bring the house to life and more magical. I can totally say without a doubt, decorating is a hobby that's very fun to me and many more people. Hoping to see guilds or something with housing come out where people can be on teams and brainstorm something magnificent together." - classifiedkitten
In Conclusion…
If you just throw your 50 mounts into your Royal Playhouse or use your Red Barn Farm for your 69 Couch Potato plot then I hope now you will start decorating those empty, random junk-filled houses with all sorts of goodies and Castle Magic! Remember you can turn a house into a home with just some Magic. The feeling of people going "OOOO" and "AHHH" over something you worked really hard on is an amazing feeling, a feeling of accomplishment. People also can use your houses to roleplay or use for parties if you have them up in Castle Tours. If you do so well and reach the top 100 in a category you will receive a badge!
If you enjoyed this article, please leave a comment below telling me what your favorite part was! I was very excited to write about housing and the great gifts you can create with Castle Magic. I would also love to dive into topics like free housing items, glitching and how its evolved, Castle Blocks, etc. If you really like this topic and want me to dive and break up what each Magical Item is and how to use it, please let me know!
All housing photos are either from Finnigan Strider or myself. All right reserved to the taking of these photos.
Devin! As a whole I absolutely loved the structure of the article and the fact you targeted both new and old players alike, considering both the fact if they are housing legends, amateur decorators, or just use their humble abode as a storage space for extra One Shot Gauntlets, failed pets, mounts, whatever else. From the start relating it to GTP in the trading sense was noticed at the first mention of empowers and giving them relation. Then, about the Bazaar – not everyone knows the way things work; players may understand the basics of differing buy and sell costs… Read more »
Honestly, I’ve never been into housing that much other than placing important items in the bank and for gardening and other such practical purposes, but this article portrays housing magic in a different light. It would be interesting as Merlin said if there could be an easier transition into housing through a video or a full-fledged tutorial. Perhaps I’ll try it sometime soon!