ReCo 25
Base: 15 (Direct the flow of bodily energy)
Range: Touch +1
Duration: Diamater +1
Target: Individual
The caster induces a rapid and harmless labor and delivery, assuming that the child is at term and conditions are otherwise propitious. The delivery takes place across the duration. The caster must have unbroken concentration; should her concentration be broken, the labor and delivery will continue, but for its natural duration and with the ordinary painful contractions and possible injury. If the caster passes a Finesse roll, the delivery is painless; the Ease Factor of the Finesse roll is determined by the size of the mother and child and the position of the child at the beginning of the diameter. (E.g., a baby large relative to the mother requires more Finesse than a smaller baby or larger mother; a breech birth requires much Finesse). A failure on the Finesse roll indicates only that the birth is as painful as it naturally would have been across a fairly painful diameter of its natural occurrence.
If the spell is botched, either a miscarriage will result at the end of the duration, or the mother will be rendered sterile, or both. Either or both results can be prevented by the timely application of preventative Creo Corpus magics. (E.g., spells that increase Soak scores.)
My character would never invent this spell. But I could really use it, and art imitates life.
Fantastic spell. Many children and mothers die in child birth in this period and a magus with this spell would be very popular with not just the grogs but local villagers and nobles.
Its one of those spells players are unlikely to invent in-game but would be very handy.
In an old saga i ran the magi attended the birth of a dukes son. Through use of corpus/mentem spells, mostly sponts they ensured a safe and relatively painless birth and earned great favour with the Duke (who was obviously chuffed with his new son). They also managed to shiftily bottle the placenta and make off with it. Arcane connection for the future there.
Oooh. My character could think of such a thing. Being male, I'm not sure he'd get a chance to ever use it, and he's not up to inventing ReCo 25 yet.
Is this really directing flow of energy? When I first saw the spell I thought it'd be about manipulating the flesh -- opening the uterus more, pushing the baby along.
Or maybe just use Muto Corpus to make the mother's flesh able to open and close and lift the baby right out?
Heh. In a previous saga a character attempted to make such a spell but failed because the pain (and danger) of childbirth was part of God's punishment to Eve and thus unalterable by Hermetic magic.
Would this cause problems? In a similar vein would trying to contradict/correct other errors/curses of god result in failure? No good examples spring to mind but i'm sure some biblical scholars (i know you are out there) may be able to supply some.
I don't know, but the procedure is really quite complicated. So I chose a suitably high base level. I'm not married to the base level of 15, but no guideline for a lower level really seemed more suitable.
The Knifeless Caesarean Section would be fatal to all concerned, period, in case of botch. (Likewise, the Momentary version of The Knifeless Midwife.) That would be the price of a lower level spell, it seems to me. Otherwise, I have no problem with it.
I think that this is a fascinating point and really maintains paradigm. I've got a lot of respect for the role-playing that went behind that decision.
However, a case could be made (couldn't it always?) that the spell doesn't violate the Limit of the Divine. You could always botch, and a real midwife can substantially alleviate the pain and danger. This spell really doesn't do anything that isn't done, naturally, all the time, it just does it better and faster.
