Fooling Intellego Magix

Greetings.

A recent conundrum has presented itself; how do you fool eg Posing the Silent Question with hermetic magic or say Inexorable Search?
(My initialy joke 'Make a deal with a demon and have it possess him and give false answers, I've heard its a bargain'; this is not an option apparently)
Next I went to the Vim section, spotted the 'give false information' guideline and the shell of false determinations spell(ritual, but momentary in that case so mjeh). Then we reread it and noticed 'gives false information if lvl+1 magnitude is twice the level of the intellego spell'; MJEH! so to provide false information to someone probing for my location I would need a CrVi... 50 range: touch dur: sun +2 mags so In spells =<20 ...or 45 if its a personal variant; abit of an investment in the current setting in time; is anyone a crvi expert except the crazy twilight flambeau?? Or a more modest 40 if we would be willing to invest 8 vis; which we might do; 40 is also doable research wise in two seasons...

At this point we got severly distracted; for a mind reading spell you could alter your memory if you knew you were gonna get probed by someone from within the lunar sphere to throw some mud in the machinery;
We got this little character, he did something bad(...splendid from our point of view), currently we are simply covering him with parma to keep his location hidden since we would like to keep him; we are fairly sure the magus in question is corpus focused and cares little for mentem, but InMe and a tunnel to find out his location is not very investment heavy and something most should be able to do.

tldr
We need to shield a character from being found by intellego magics easily, would be smashing if possible to provide false information on his whereabouts to naughty magus spells trying to probe him down. And preferably we need to shield him fast... stuffing him in a regio for awhile might work, but ...he'll have to comeout and be on his merry way sooner or later; decent folk dont imprison ppl.

Ìdeas?

And that sodales is why we don't let arcane connections lying around...
Also note spying with magic is a crime in the Code of Hermes for a very good reason.

Now I'm not saying I have a motive to hide form some Quaesitori but IF i have one I can ask a Merinita friend to hide me in Arcadia for a while, go to Novgorod, Ultima Thule or even go south, really south maybe visit Prester John.

Now to provide a usefull answer. Maybe you are using the wrong tatic. Use that runaway mage to lure the spying mage and ambush him in your terms or at least try to destroy the arcane connection.

Keep the guy in your covenant. If the spying happens, crush the magus at Tribunal. Just an alternative thought.

On the original idea, I think Rego Vim was used to ward against specific magic in one of the later books, but I don't have that book yet. Soon...

There are spells to prohibit teleportation spells (Impede the Impertinent Interloper (PeVi gen), Transforming Mythic Europe, p.109), and intangible tunnel spells are sealed or removed with (Arcane Seal and Break the Seige, both are (ReVi gen) in Hermetic Projects p81).

I cannot recall the anti-scrying spell - either it's in a RAW book I can't remember or it might have been written up as part of a saga or blog.

So stopping scrying is totally within RAW, the effect just needs to be specific. Also stopping scrying is very different from giving a prepared different answer - the caster of Posing the Silent Question will know that their spell is not getting answers and/or that the spell failed.

There also was a spell to stop being detected by Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie (I think it's in Guardians of the Forest), but all that did was remove the frosty breath, not alter the outcome.

Perhaps you could use a device which deletes responses "heard in the mind" of the target, and replaces them with others? PeMe to delete the real answer, and CrMe to write in your new ones? Thats probably a more complex device though?

The grog could also have their memory regularly removed by making it into a solid form too - there is a base MuMe5 for that which could make the memories into something else, and therefore the poor grog has no recollection of what they did because the memory is removed. Much like the Pensive in the Harry Potter stories.
I wrote up a few examples here. The benefit is that eventually the grog could have their memories back.

A D: Mom Creo ritual lasts forever, until destroyed or dispelled.
But in general spells to fool other spells compare levels: so trusting in magic to hide something means trusting in your spells being always higher powered than the investigators'.

Hiding under an Aegis, in a regio or in a monastery are options that can work well for many years, even for a lifetime - but they limit one's freedom considerably. Hiding in the Magic Realm or in Faerie might work forever, but actually redefines what 'forever' means.

There are specific tricks to fool specific magic. ArM5 p.131 The Inexorable Search and p.149 Posing the Silent Question both require their target to be alive: but p.130 Whispers Through the Black Gate and p.131 Tracing the Trail of Death's Stench work around this well. A Bjornaer hiding in animal form cannot be found by Corpus or Mentem magic, but Animal magic works well.

Cheers

P. S.: A magus' protection from scrying under the Code of Hermes is subject to forfeit immunity (HoH:TL p.45), once his sodales seriously suspect him of a high crime. Quaesitores usually know the finer points involved there for each specific Tribunal.

You could change their mind with MuMe so they temporarily believe something else.

From https://magioftom.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/scrutator-ex-guernicus/ -

I work for you – MuMe base 4 (make a major changes to a person’s memory of a period of their life), +1 eye, +3 duration moon, total 20 – convinces the person that they have spent the past few years working for the person or organisation last mentioned. This can be used by the quaesitor as recruitment tool – he introduces himself, casts the spell and then the person remembers that actually they’ve been an employee for a while – or an infiltration tool – discuss a nearby covenant with a mundane agent, and then cast this spell, so the merchant who turns up with glassware to sell honestly believes he normally works for the covenant. Inspired by the line in the custos section in HoH:TL p70 “If a covenant is known to screen its recruits, the subject’s memory is altered to defeat standard Intellego Mentem screening”.

Protection of the witness – MuMe base 10 (completely rewrite someone’s memories) +1 eye +3 duration moon total 30– rewrites someone’s memories so they believe they’ve lived a completely different life with a different name.

Sorry for the late response, lifes been abit hectic.

We wouldnt have this mess if the dastardly soft-hearted Jerbiton of ours didnt have that 'Always keeps a promise' mentality.
In short an aged npc hunter was severly mauled by a ferocious magic badger(monthy python had the black beast, we get badgers) dragged himself to the nearby village whom promptly dragged sent him to the capable hands of gentle gifted Sophia and all around nice gal with a knack for putting peoples extrails back to being their intrails. In short in their talks he is ever so grateful and she says basicly 'You can always count on me if you are in need!' ...at this point i noticed our dear SGs eye take on a faint shade of cunning delight and then promptly forgot about it.
Now, we've get to play farm boys, a pair of drunkards out in the woods and meeting that weird lady, a quartet of inapt bandits set to ambush that strange fellow with the red hat coming along the road. You get the point, at times the story to come gets a foreshadowing where we get to play out and sometimes cause hillarious mishaps that ends up at the council.
Now Mr Robert as it would being a friendly sort of geezer stayed abit at the covenant while recovering worked abit to 'make right!' and kinda being an old time soldier spent time with the grogs, whom sadly are privy to abit to much of the magis bantering having been educated in latin, before getting back home for good.
Long story short we are just 13-18 years out of gauntlet and we have this offensive Tremere fellow about a decade older looking to make a name for himself in the tribunal so in terms of sheer "power" not to much trouble, naturaly hes got a wolf familiar, dastardly creature that Stole(!) our virtous rabbit away from us(...ate more like, and technically it was free for all but we hunted that thing!) having heard us talk about 'learning the frakkin wolf a lesson when its about and about in that forest' (we quickly forgot about it, not wanting to cause any real trouble; revenge fantasy talk of magi...). A year later after the short incident with the badgers and the hurt hunter and a three session story involving nothing but a trip to Foix, a local robber faerie giving to the rich and stealing from the poor, or was that the other way around, and a long dead knight with a taste for getting revenge on his brother whom caused the death of him, his wife and their children theres going to be a session of returning home...
Enter forshadowing, sg is cunning about it and lets our buddy whom wasnt with us the session of the badger incident play this out. Abit of a horrified scowl can be heard and a few minutes later after some rolled dice and fighting talk a 'Thats insane! thats completly insane!' can be heard from our dear sg. Turns out if your about to be devoured by a magic wolf having taken a heavy wound and three lights and you roll 1,1,1,1, 6 on your last attempt to stab the sucker you stab it through the eye into the brain causing near instant death, which was not the expected result... then patching yourself up, severing the head of the ferocious creature and making way to end collapsing near the covenant doorstep from the back of your old tired horse leads to a soft hearted Jerbiton having to deal with her morals, she knows what the head of the creature you got is...
Here we get to cut back and return focus to the fellows on their way back home, stupid robber faeries realy do try the same trick twice, or so we tought and we are promptly lured to meet "the exiled true ruler of the realm(tm)!" ...oh dear, it was fun.
So there we are... we know the fellows going to come looking for the guy that left bits of himself all over his dead pet, we are all not so secretly pleased about the outcome we just got to try to figure out a way to thwart him. Sure the aegis will hold and we got a little secluded cave system with a regio in it that no outside magic seem to penetrate, atleast not easily... so we stick him in there; not the wisest of chooices since the labyrinth echoes and slowly robs you of sanity and sight while gladly leaving you with the ability to feel the surrounding space ten or so paces about much like eyes of the bat, a moaning husk of yourself eating fungi and lusting to wrestle living things to the ground and suck the marrow from them... we havent realy stuck our neck out to traverse this place, the spider guardians of the bloody place was a menance, we just go in, collect our two pawns of mentem, imaginem and perdo vis and then get the frack out for now but I have plans to investigate this place more; theres always another layer... wish we hadnt killed the spiders, their continued webbings would've given us some much needed animal vis if collected cunningly.
So currently we've stuck him in there, he can't be touched far as we know, but Sophia refuses to let him be in there for any length of time... we don't know if he's actively being looked for, the wolfs head been disposed off in the same place...
If he searches for one person via the map locatation spell and finds him nowhere, we dont know if he got one to find a dead person, sometimes I must say after all this time formulaic spells are written very rigidly at times; requring one to find living, one to find dead is however suddenly very very interesting to know if he has or no ^^
Changing the memories of robert would still leave the 'his blood was all over the carcass! let the quasitor investigate your(...not technically ours but if we wish to protect him) grog for any mind altering spell traces to hide you being behind this!'. If we are lucky, sticking him in the cave will just have him tought of dead... or maybe give us a season or two respite while he aquires a 'find dead body' spell to use instead. We don't know when he'll start looking for him for real... or if he'll ping across the years to see if the wolf slayer suddenly appears anew. Suppose he'll "scry" using forceless casting at first, if thats blocked I personaly would guess a obfuscation spell coming up and then an attempt to punch through our mild fourth magnitude aegis... and keeping a hunter forever inside it while the Tremere fellow grows stronger, ouch if he finds the truth later. Personaly I would've gone with a dead hunter and quick church burial to stop any real problems in our future but this altrustic gathering wont listen to my practical soloution
Permanently removing memories... 'Your blood was the one on my beloved wolf, I don't care if you've forgotten it, I'll torture you for decades and then let you escpae only to catch you anew as you glimpse hope!'
One mortals life(and free will to do what he wishes with his life) vs the efforts of four(well... three...) magi to keep him somewhat safe that would endup costing them dearly down the road...