Some time before the new addon "Wrath of the Lich King" hit the shelves, Blizzard had introduced a new profession called "scribe" who is able to create glyphs. These glyphs modify spells and skills of the player and provide more damage or other slightly changed effects.

At level 80 a character has 6 slots for glyphs available, 3 for major glyphs and 3 for minor glyphs. The latter ones only change, as the name suggests, minor aspects of a spell or ability. Major glyphs on the contrary cause a considerable effect for spells or abilities. Scribes produce the glyphs by using ink and paper they can buy at the vendors. The ink can be produced by milling herbs. The quality of the resulting ink depends on the level of the herbs used. Glyphs for the high end content will need herbs that can only be found in Northrend.

For mages the choice of their glyphs depends mainly on their specs, of course, the only exception being the glyph for the molten armor which every mage will use. The second major glyph should be the one that empowers the mage's main attack spell such as arcane strike, fireball, frostfire bolt or frost bolt. As third glyph most mages will use the "rune of improved scorch", lest they have to cast the spell of the same name all the time. Frost mages reduce the cool down time of their water elemental and arcane mages heighten the duration of arcane power.

No matter what spec you have, you should go for the following minor glyphs: Arcane intelligence dramatically reduces the mana cost for this buff, slow fall makes the reagent for the spell obsolete and the glyph of the penguin will turn enemies into cute little penguins instead of sheeps.