a folk witch apprenticed to a magus and many questions

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,
I'm currently thinking about a new apprentice for a maga and the random roll decided she is a (badly) trained folkwitch.

The first difficulty will be to open her, but it's far from impossible for a specialist, and happily the maga who find her is quite good in InVi, and can, if needed, require the help of some of her house and covenant to help. (For context, it's a founding of the Order saga, already in the years 850+, so many things do no yet exist in the order, like healing rituals, charged items, circle/ring/ward magic etc., and the maga is a member of the young Tremere house, which is build around one goal decided by Tremere: become a strong house which will take over the Order by pure skill. (Yeah I need to put the bases for the sundering operations and justify it in RP by actions/background.))

Now for that apprentice, I have some virtue points left for pure hermetic virtues, and I'm looking for the major hermetic virtue which was randomly decided. An option is a major magical focus.
I thought about a major magical focus in beverage.
First it would apply easily to Cr spells with mainly Aquam. Create wine, water etc.
But then I was asking myself: if that apprentice were to make a lesser item/invested item/talisman which is bottled water/wine. Would you allow the focus to apply? I personaly would since many focus apply when the talisman "form" matches the focus (like the focus in wands I remember from somewhere, but certainly the focus in swords in some mystery (Verditius?) or the one in "animal X" which would apply to the familiar if it is that kind of animal (in the Merinita section iirc) even to infuse powers in the bond which are not of animal nature.

But now, minor or major? seeing sword as a minor, and considering sword are quite more useful in everyday than a wine bottle talisman, I'd say minor.

Then last question ; would you apply the focus to the folk witch abilities in potion type of use? The section on folk witch doesn't say that "major magical focus" is suitable. But there is no reason that, as a (future) hermetic magus the focus he has a hermetic magus would stop to not apply to the other side of the magic. On the other hand, there is no "rule" to apply it. An easy way would be to add half the ability if the focus apply. For what I saw, there is already a labtext use example :it gives a bonus in the labtotal in the same way a spell would give a bonus, and in normal hermetic magic, te+Fo, the focus double the te or fo, whichever is lower. But it can bring the ability level higher.
So I'm not inclined to do so because it becomes quite complex and is not envisionned by the rules.

In the end, the easier thing for that apprentice would be, once a magus, to integrate her folk witch abilities in MT, seeing she can provide insight at will.
So subquestion: would you require a "season of comprehension" of the insight (see ARM5D p280), or would you allow automatic success and/or no season required for this effort?
On this topic, I'd say she still need to spend the season to think about what the "folk witch ability" does under a "pure" hermetic point of view.

Thank you for your answers,

Exar.

2

Fun idea!

For your questions, of course these are all just my opinions, I'm not saying anyone who disagrees with me is doing it wrong.

  1. I think "beverages" is a minor focus. As I understand it, it applies to things that are meant for humans to drink, so notably, not poisons. And generally not freshwater just because it is drinkable, but I would allow the focus to apply e.g to purify water to make it safe to drink.

  2. My preference when it comes to applying Focus to enchanted items, which is more a house rule than an interpretation of RAW, is to say that it applies to effects that get a Shape/Material bonus from their form. So a focus with swords would not apply to every effect that's invested in a sword, but would apply to effects that harm human and animal bodies, or block attacks. The problem with that in this case is, there's no canon Shape or Material bonus for beer, wine, potions etc... but it makes sense that there could be IMO, so you could certainly invent some.

  3. The focus is a Hermetic Virtue that benefits Hermetic magic, it has no effect on supernatural abilities. So I agree with you. If you wanted to house rule this, I would rather look at Potent Sorcery from Rival Magic. I think "Potions" would be a reasonable focus field for that, since it's clear how it interacts with Folk Witch methods and supernatural abilities. But that's a Major Virtue.

  4. I would not give any benefits to integration other than the inherent advantage of being able to provide insight sources as you say. Even though you understand the folk witch magic, the difficulty is in making it compatible with Hermetic theory.

3

Not so! See HMRE p15: she'll only be able to provide a number of Insights equal to her score in Folk Witch Magic Theory. She can provide the same number of Insights for each potential Breakthrough, though (and HMRE gives 4 potential Breakthroughs for integrating folk witch magic).

4

Thank you for that reminder. It has been so long I fully read (all) the books in Ars Magica line, this little detail was forgotten.

As a (badly trained) folkwitch, in this case, she only really wants to integrate healing&animal healing into the "healing" guideinles for hermetic spells.

In game that's something that house Tytalus and Bonisagus are already trying to achieve in the Britanny side of the Order, but house Tremere wants to achieve it first and somehow make the Bonisagus/Tytalus efforts fail (I'm still looking about the how) so that they, as the best house TM of the Order, can bring their success at the next grand tribunal and obtain the so desired glory points TM, with which they intend to become the de facto ruling house of the order.

Note: the "TM" signs should be exposant but I can't find how to do it, and a mark of joke.

5

Since it's Tremere magi here the thing for her to do is get her # of Insights from her own Folk Witch Magic Theory and then provide Insights to her Tremere sodales on the same topic. She can give each of them the same number of Insights that she can get and her assistance adds to their rolls to gain an Insight from her (so, they're actually more likely to get an Insight than she is). She'll still have to spend a season for each of her own Insights and each time she provides an Insight to another magus or maga, though.

6

That seems sketchy, are you sure multiple magi can derive separate and cumulative insight from the same source that way? I would have thought the insights she can provider to them are only the same ones she can provide to herself.

7

It's a side effect of the fact that Breakthrough Points may be shared. There's no mechanism to check "someone else gained an Insight from this source and therefore it may not provide Insight to another." The folk witch can provide Insights to herself equal to her Folk Witch Magic Theory and gain Breakthrough Points that way. She can be a teacher to another magus and provide him with Insights equal to her Folk Witch Magic Theory (and a bonus for teaching him in that process) and he can gain Breakthrough Points. Likewise, a text or relic can be handed off from researcher to researcher and each gets a chance at an Insight from them that can lead to Breakthrough Points.

Keep in mind that after a researcher gets an Insight whatever lab work they make of it is coming from their own interpretation of the Insight; there's no indication that they'd all make exactly the same spell or enchanted item from talking to the same folk witch. It's all a bit abstracted but imagine it as whatever she says may spark a different "aha!" moment for each magus or maga that she works with.

And then, they can share their lab texts and effectively pool their Breakthrough Points (as well as those from Original Research for the same breakthrough).

Tremere should really be the Hermetic research powerhouse, not Bonisagus: Tremere magi are more communal and would be expected to share research among the house, whereas Bonisagus magi jealously guard their research so that someone else doesn't steal their Acclaim. Sharing Breakthrough Points makes the process much quicker.

8

Tremere should be A research powerhouse, for the reasons you give, except that they have so many activities they've taken up, and a finite number of magi. They'd also keep their research in-House, while Bonisagus is at least supposed to share widely (an expectation sometimes honored late).

Also, the authoritarian and proto/pseudofascist nature of Tremere doesn't mean they don't have individual careers or egos. These magi want to pursue their projects.

A House that organized in a research group structure would industrialize the Order, but that seems a different thread.