All Skill Manual Locations: Sword & Witchcraft

Swordmastery and Witchcraft abilities do not unlock with skill points alone - every rank wants its manual first. There are 49 manuals scattered across Vale Sangora, and they come in two flavors with very different hunting rules: ability manuals, which have fixed locations and can be planned around, and rank manuals, which drop semi-randomly from camps and occult sites and are simply a matter of volume. This guide covers the fixed routes, every trainer worth visiting, and the acquisition logic that keeps a build on schedule. (Vampirism, notably, uses no manuals at all - it gates on Corruption instead.)

The Drop Logic First

Understanding where manuals come from makes the hunt systematic rather than random:

• Bandit Camps and Soldier Camps reliably yield Swordmastery manuals - almost every cleared camp coughs up one or two.
• Ancient Circles and Haunted Sites reliably yield Witchcraft manuals, and Pilgrimage of Power quests reward them directly.
• Rank-up manuals rotate - which specific manual a chest yields depends on what you already own, so duplicates thin out as collections fill. Dedicated farmers still report gaps (one guide never saw a rank-4 Vigour manual until the final dungeon), which is what the trainers below are for.
• Quest rewards and fixed chests hold the ability manuals - the ones that actually gate your build.

Swordmastery Ability Manuals (Fixed Routes)

There are seven Swordmastery abilities; Dirty Trick comes unlocked, and the other six have fixed first-copy locations:

Ability	First manual location
Charge	Prologue reward for completing Like Father, Like Son (after Withering Away); backup copy in the Soldier Camp chest east of Parlita in Boar’s Back
Broad Swing	Bandit Camp chest east up the hill from Laslea, near the Outlaw’s Gorge shrine
Swiftness	Bandit Camp chest in the forest northwest of Stoneward Post in Briar Sloughs
Adrenaline Rush	Bandit Camp chest in the far south of Maragir Wealds, past the blood cellar southeast of Eerie Knoll shrine
Artery Strike	Soldier Camp chest in north St. Tyna’s Grove, on the road toward the convent
Walking Fortress	Soldier Camp chest in St. Tyna’s Grove, south of the Stuga Marshes shrine

Note the geography: nearly everything is in the starting regions south and east of Laslea, so a single early sweep of St. Tyna’s Grove and the Briar Sloughs collects most of the kit. Walking Fortress in particular is a build-defining pickup - perfect blocks restore activation charges, and the charges economy runs on exactly that refund.

Witchcraft Ability Manuals (Fixed Routes)

Ten Witchcraft abilities exist, and four arrive free from Anca at the end of the prologue: Compel Soul, Astral Communion, Burning Blood, and Mercurial Fervour. The remaining six want manuals:

Ability	First manual location
Ravenous Flock	Complete Pilgrimage of Power: Bear Trouble, west across the river from Laslea Gate shrine
Cycle of Ruin	Complete the Ancient Circle at the west end of the Cursed Chasm in Briar Sloughs (northwest descent from Coward’s Path shrine - grab Durandal while down there)
Soul Reaping	Complete the Ancient Circle in the forest east of Maragir, Maragir Wealds
Unholy Vitality	Complete the Haunted Site of Crucifixion atop Eerie Knoll, south of Maragir
Soul Stigma	Complete the Ancient Circle in northeast St. Tyna’s Grove, near the region tower shrine
Life Lock	Unlocked automatically during Who Pulls the Strings in the Manumit questline

Every Trainer and Manual Vendor

When RNG stalls a rank, trainers are the pressure valve - each stocks a deep selection for their school:

Trainer	School	Unlock condition
Ursul	Swordmastery	Complete Ambrus Prisoners: Lucky Crossing north of Svartrau, spare him, win his sparring match at his forest camp
Ocha	Swordmastery	Complete The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants at the Altenmarkt tavern in Svartrau
Drogos	Swordmastery	Join the Manumits (The Firebrand → Where Loyalty Lies → What Moves the Dead); becomes unavailable after Who Pulls the Strings
Constantin	Swordmastery	Clear the Rockfalls bandit camp and spare the robber baron when he surrenders
Anca	Witchcraft	Vendor at the Crossroads Inn in St. Tyna’s Grove after Echoes of Silenced Bells - see her character page
Vera	Witchcraft	Her hut in the Briar Sloughs swamp, day only; lost permanently if you complete The Bittersweet Toast
Mevasser	Witchcraft	A house by the stone archway in Neustadt, Svartrau (met during What Moves the Dead)
Uriash Matriarch	Witchcraft	Accessible through Lacra’s Song of the Mountain chain
Sanzhana merchant	Witchcraft	The Sanzhana chain: Gone Home → Letters to Lunka → Pearly and Precious

Two warnings. First, blacksmiths and armorers sell a thin sprinkling of Swordmastery books - convenient, never sufficient. Second, most of these people can be killed, often by accident at night when hunger meets low health; a dead trainer is a closed shop for the rest of the save, so keep the feeding urge away from anyone on this list.

Collection Discipline

• Read manuals the moment they drop - reading removes the lock; the paper then sells with the junk (see the junk guide).
• Never sell an unread manual - this is the one inventory mistake with no recovery, since points and manuals are both permanent.
• Plan shrine visits in batches: a manual unlocks nothing until a shrine visit pays the point and time cost, so fold unlocks into the same stop that banks loot and spends points.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are manual drops random? Ability manuals are fixed; rank manuals are semi-random from their source type (camps for Swordmastery, occult sites for Witchcraft), weighted against what you already own.

How many manuals are in the game? Community trackers count 49 skill and ability manuals in total.

What if I miss the prologue Charge manual? The Soldier Camp chest east of Parlita in Boar’s Back holds a second copy - no ability is locked behind the prologue.

Do manuals remove the skill point cost? No - reading only unlocks the node. You still pay the skill point (and any time cost) at a shrine, which is why early points deserve a plan from the build guide.