I recently revised the spell index for magi of Hermes and I spent five minutes this morning tallying totals when I really should have been doing something more productive.
But for insight in the fifth edition line to date we've had 952 Hermetic magic spells printed
by technique they break down:
Cr 212
In 127
Mu 199
Pe 145
Re 265
( 4 have no specified technique)
By form they break down
An 108
Aq 49
Au 43
Co 151
He 87
Ig 79
Im 88
Me 148
Te 103
Vi 92
( 4 have no specified form)
By form and technique they break down:
Cr An 21
In An 10
Mu An 23
Pe An 15
Re An 39
Cr Aq 8
In Aq 8
Mu Aq 8
Pe Aq 6
Re Aq 19
Cr Au 19
In Au 5
Mu Au 8
Pe Au 4
Re Au 7
Cr Co 24
In Co 20
Mu Co 43
Pe Co 23
Re Co 41
tech Form 4
Cr He 21
In He 7
Mu He 16
Pe He 8
Re He 35
Cr Ig 28
In Ig 5
Mu Ig 12
Pe Ig 18
Re Ig 16
Cr Im 27
In Im 13
Mu Im 25
Pe Im 14
Re Im 9
Cr Me 37
In Me 23
Mu Me 28
Pe Me 24
Re Me 36
Cr Te 13
In Te 14
Mu Te 19
Pe Te 14
Re Te 43
Cr Vi 14
In Vi 22
Mu Vi 17
Pe Vi 19
Re Vi 20
Seems that Aquam and Auram are the least represented Forms. I am not surprised in Aquam's case, but I'm more surprised about the Auram one. Did you look at this adding the wiki spells? I guess not, but it would be nice to see the totals there. There are quite some ingenious spells in there!
It looks like aquam and auram have received the least love 49 and 43 spells respectively).
There are 4 only perdo auram spells described to this point.
Intellego ignem and intellego auram both have a mere 5 spells each.
Corpus is the favorite subject with 151 spells with mentem just behind at 148
Muto corpus and Rego Terram are the favorite combos of our authors with 43 spells detailed each, followed by rego corpus (41)rego Animal (39) and creo mentem (37)
it has been over four years since I did this. Seeing as how I've revised the index again for the Contested Isle and Transforming Mythic Europe (I forwarded the revised files to Atlas and RPG geek, they should both have it up soon) I thought that I'd do the numbers again.
The total number of hermetic spells (not including item effects) is 1179 (we added 223)
By technique
Cr 280
In 153
Mu 225
Pe 177
Re 340
Technique 4
By Form
An 127
Aq 58
Au 48
Co 202
He 112
Ig 87
Im 95
Me 167
Te 158
Vi 121
Form 4
By technique and form
Cr An 27
In An 12
Mu An 26
Pe An 17
Re An 45
Cr Aq 10
In Aq 8
Mu Aq 11
Pe Aq 7
Re Aq 22
Cr Au 20
In Au 6
Mu Au 9
Pe Au 4
Re Au 9
Cr Co 33
In Co 27
Mu Co 53
Pe Co 29
Re Co 60
Cr He 32
In He 7
Mu He 17
Pe He 11
Re He 45
Cr Ig 29
In Ig 6
Mu Ig 14
Pe Ig 20
Re Ig 18
Cr Im 30
In Im 14
Mu Im 26
Pe Im 16
Re Im 9
Cr Me 43
In Me 25
Mu Me 30
Pe Me 27
Re Me 42
Cr Te 38
In Te 20
Mu Te 21
Pe Te 18
Re Te 61
Cr Vi 18
In Vi 28
Mu Vi 18
Pe Vi 28
Re Vi 29
Perdo Auram is still the least developed having not received even one more spell in the intervening years.
Rego Terram is the most popular followed closely by Rego and
Muto Corpus. These were already well developed combinations and they became more so over time.
The Creo terram spells have nearly tripled in number. The already best developed combinations Rego Terram and Rego and Muto Corpus have increased their total spells by about a third during this time. As have Rego and Perdo Vim. The other combinations not grown by much.
It is a bit surprising to me as I would have guessed a few years ago that the list would tilt more towards mentem and imaginem with time as there are so many good stories involving deception and manipulation to be told with those arts. It seems though that lots of the spells came from projects and transforming ME. These books are about grand plans which fit more in line with terram then with mentem and imaginem.
It is interesting to see the change over time. Thank you for revisiting.
I've some spells mocked up from a while ago which have Im and Aq, Au forms, but much like the tendency in the numbers, a large amount of my own spells for Ars are also in Corpus, Animal, and Terram, with Muto and Rego tech.
In doing this I've found three spells that I missed in Transforming Mythic Europe and A spell from earlier that I didn't realize was a duplicate. So the updated files I sent out today are flawed.
In the interest of readability, here's combinations of Form and Technique sorted by the number of spells:
Re Te 61
Re Co 60
Mu Co 53
Re He 45
Re An 45
Cr Me 43
Re Me 42
Cr Te 38
Cr Co 33
Cr He 32
Mu Me 30
Cr Im 30
Re Vi 29
Pe Co 29
Cr Ig 29
Pe Vi 28
In Vi 28
Pe Me 27
In Co 27
Cr An 27
Mu Im 26
Mu An 26
In Me 25
Re Aq 22
Mu Te 21
Pe Ig 20
In Te 20
Cr Au 20
Re Ig 18
Pe Te 18
Mu Vi 18
Cr Vi 18
Pe An 17
Mu He 17
Pe Im 16
Mu Ig 14
In Im 14
In An 12
Pe He 11
Mu Aq 11
Cr Aq 10
Re Im 9
Re Au 9
Mu Au 9
In Aq 8
Pe Aq 7
In He 7
In Ig 6
In Au 6
Pe Au 4
(Sorting done by invoking the power of Vim: sort! n)
I think it's interesting that Creo Vim isn't the lowest scoring combination. I seem to remember in previous editions seeing "there are no known spells for these arts" in the CrVi heading.
And that Ignem and Auram which are elemental forms have a few Techniques to which there are so few spells. Only 4 PeAu spells...I guess there are only so many ways you can dispel a weather phenomenon.
True but you'd think that there would be more utility and variation to be found in destroying air than in "creating magic". What does that even do? Yes, I know it grants warping, "refrigerates" arcane connections, creates the IMO highly questionable shell of opaque mysteries/false determination and a bunch of mystery only stuff, but conceptually it feels like there's more room for practical, desirable things in perdo auram.
About the Mentem issue, maybe the authors have found the same that we found: it is great to have a Mentem expert. It solves a lot of mundane problems easily. So easily in fact that they become extremely boring stories to play when you basically scan everybody and everything. We liked mundane mysteries, and this magus (Ardeus was his name) just crashed the fun for us. And since boring stories are not fun to play the magus ends up being left in disgust in the sideline. Been there, suffered that. We are aware that e could have spun stories around that, but after a few failed adventures (even if the results were a certified "win" for us in terms of achievements) we did not want to. Mentem has seen extremely little use around here after that. Except in the hands of a spirit master that NEVER used a spell on a living mind.
Waddaya know. Already from 3rd ed and through 4th we have three of the Creo Vim spells still known and used in 5th ed. Still only three - concerned with shielding a device from investigation and giving an unfortunate target all the negative aspects of the Gift respectively. And then a significant jump to 18 such spells in 5th ed.
One thing I have found useful to limit mentem masters is ironically, faeries. Sure you can read their minds, but since they have no internal dialogue what you get won't be of much use....
