Adelbert, a "Magi of Hermes" look at intellego and Astrology

Games Discussion Ars Magica
341

Interesting in general, or interesting in an 'is that really the way it should work' manner?

I think that rego is the way to do this. Creo and muto have durations. My model is that the image is already there in all of its 12 magnitudes of added complexity glory. Reworking the Tiny World is just moving parts of it around and repainting it, altering what's already there.

I imagine that he could also do it with a muto imaginem effect with a constant duration. This seems cleaner to me, (and also more likely to spark a discussion).

If he does the mind reading effect and the image alteration effect separately, is getting these two effects to work together sketchier?

342

I've been looking at making magical maps for a while.
Back in the 3rd edition, you could craft items that learned skills, so one of my players, with my help, designed a magical map (with a zoom function) that worked by having the Area Lore skill (well, technically knowledge, back then) and then creating images of what it "knew" to be there. Couldn't be done in the 4th or 5th editions, but I still think it was a clever idea for making a map.

So, with that irrelevant bit out of the way, why do you think you need rego for this?
Surely the device simply reads/senses the visual impressions of the "victim" and recreate those images? No requisite needed for that?
At least not in the 5th edition - maybe in the 4th.
But also, why are durations a problem? Just to be sure I understand. Because I don't see how you're saving an image anyway, if that's the point?

343

The image is a continuous effect, it will persist until it is dispelled or destroyed. Adelbert is altering this permanent image to continually make his map bigger and better.

because creo and muto don't easily make permanent changes.

it's altering and adding to the existing image to match what the target sees, it isn't making a completely new image.

Wasn't really talking about requisites, I more curious on the thoughts of the entire scheme.

344

So, you have a persistent image, via Creation of the Diminutive World. You're planning on using the senses of your minions - or whomever you can get ACs to - to alter, improve, and update this image.
In modern terms, you'd ideally want to 'save' the image after each change, but since that's not really an option, you're keeping it in the RAM.

OK, but why would Rego be applicable? A technique doesn't become a good fit, just because some other technique can't do what you want.
I really don't see how it would be a Rego-effect to change the details of your image. That you can't keep the given changes if you're using Muto just means that Muto doesn't do all that you want. Just because Muto is impermanent doesn't mean I can suddently turn a man into a fox using Rego, just because I want it to be permanent.
So, Why would Rego apply?

You're running into some of the same difficulties that I've had with designed an update-able map.
That's why we ended up using Area Lore back in the 3rd edition.

345

Exactly, that's what he's doing. I was thinking about having more activations per day in order to create backups -images created beneath the table. I think that there were enough questionable things with that plan (are extra triggers necessary, how can he update the backups?)that I shelved it.

Writing something out does force you to think about it differently. I have/had a few reasons why rego was appropriate. They were in their own ways all along the lines of what I wrote above, that the device is altering an already existing image, using the analogy changing the raw stuff of an image into a finished product in the way that rego can alter partially worked bars of iron into a completed iron tool. But in organizing these thoughts into a defense of my design I came to the conclusion that even if I could convince you that it was correct, (not a certainty) it still wasn't unambiguously within the spirit of the rules.

So here is an alteration of the Creation of the Diminutive World enchantment that, I hope, justifies the use of Rego Imaginem to alter it
Creation of the Diminutive World

In effect I'm making the image clay-like - keeping the alterations made to it. Then I rewrite Reworking the Tiny World as a Muto effect

Does this resolve the issues to your satisfaction? Or is making a clay-like image too goofy?, Does Reworking the Tiny World now also need a creo requisite?

(I just made the changes to the effects I did not go back and look at lab totals to see if it was possible for Adelbert)

346

Alright then, here's a revised item:

Adelbert spends one season opening the Table for enchantment, Three seasons enchanting Creation of the Diminutive World, One season on Gazing Within the Miniature, one season on Location of the Unwitting Surveyor, and two seasons enchanting Reworking the Tiny World. Adelbert also spends a season to learn View from Another's Eyes.

I've used sixteen of his laboratory seasons so far, that leaves eight left.

347

Hi,

I might be misunderstanding things.

With this implementation, any single surveyor, when activated, erases pretty much all of the map, since it does not see most of the locations. After all, a blind wolf does not see what is an inch in front of him, but also does not see what is behind the door or on the other side of Europe.

Creation of the Diminutive World (the monitor plus frame buffer spell) does not really create an image of anything. Half of the function of this spell creates a 3-dimensional Something (I cannot call it an image, since while parts of it can be rendered into an image, it is not an image at all) that can contain the information needed to represent all of Mythic Europe in 3D. If I control a wolf outside a house, another wolf inside that house on the first floor, another wolf in the basement, another in the attic, and fireflies inside the mouths of each of those wolves, I have lots of images, but really cannot consider the collection of these an image. I suppose these can be stitched together somehow into an image, but to use it as you'd like to, you'd need something to retain the coordinates.

I have introduced some modern jargon into the last paragraph deliberately. I notice you drifted in that direction too with Gazing Within the Miniature.

Reworking the Tiny World does not really define what is meant by a particular location.

Hmm.

Anyway,

Ken

348

I might be just able to get my last 8 ideas I'd planned in the last eight seasons. But I'll bring up workarounds for some of the things that he doesn't have time for.

Analogs of The Inexorable Search based on different forms are a simple enough for him to spont. I had thought that he might craft a device or two so as to allow any users of his map to locate herbam objects and perhaps things of other forms, but there's no time.

Also, he's not going to have time to craft a device to slow the decay of arcane connections with constant duration and target room. Yet this could be done as a duration ring target circle spell cast with ceremonial magic. Here's his total

Aura 3
stamina 5
Creo 16
vim 21
casting horoscope 3
Artes Liberales 9
Philosophae 3
and a die roll gets him to a level 30 spell easily. so base 15 at range touch, duration ring, target circle will slow decay as if the connections were three steps lower on the decay chart on page 84 of the core book. Target circle means that it only effects items that are within the circle at the time of casting so he'd have to perform it every now and again, if there were to be some need.

With workarounds for those abandoned plans discussed I'll move on to the three least controversial items left on my list.

One season learning Image from the Wizard Torn from a lab text, and because even without Clairitas he's got a sizeable lab total, he'll also pick up Wizard's Sidestep and Illusion of the Shifted Image. These are all sufficiently common spells and I don't imagine he'd have any trouble with getting his hands on texts.

One season creating this lesser enchanted device (which came out with a much higher level than I had expected)

and one season with this, the device is enchanted with range voice so as to be more convenient for controlling fidgety squirrels and ravens that have fled across the room. One of the most common uses for it is going to be ""come here and sit docilely until I give you another instruction.

Now I've got five seasons left.

349

I like the bag of squirrels. :slight_smile:

Reminds me of the Box of Gavrok from Buffy, except you only needed to open the box.

350

Reworking the Tiny World only can activate while the Location of Unwitting Surveyors effect is also active, There isn't a question of things getting changed in Barcelona by a dog observing in Lisbon, it only modifies the map if there is something that the target sees which is not in accordance with the existing map. I edited the description to remove the stuff about a blind animal.

The Creation spell starts off creating an image from the mind of Adelbert, a default image if you will (I was going to go into detail about how he created it but I figured it wasn't important). The modification ability only is able to alter the existing image is modified so if there is a discontinuous batch of information (let's say a raven gets teleported to and unmapped area) it can not be incorporated into the image.

Does it need to? The effect is pulling images from the mind of the target. The location isn't some sort of a spell target or some such.

If those answers satisfy you I'll try and re-wrte for clarity. If they don't then I'll listen some more.

351

Hi,

Hmm. This (Google Maps) is a complicated set of effects. I'm not saying it shouldn't be possible, but I have some issues with the approach. I can try delving into these, but perhaps it might be more productive to first step back and consider something much simpler in all respects, and its another Googly project:

The Google Imaginem Library

Effect 1: Tapestry: An image capable of incredible detail. It could hold a map, but it can also be considered as a two-dimensional grid of miniaturized mental images of pages from books. Millions of such pages can be stored, in perfect detail. Muto requisite so that it retains changes. (Seems reasonable, compared to doing this with all of Mythic Europe. Note that the Tapestry really is a normal image, with no weird 3D inclusions.)

Effect 2: Page View: The user can enlarge a portion of the Tapestry for easier viewing. Alternatively, this effect allows the user to see and focus on tiny details, thereby allowing him to read a page. (Simpler: The region being viewed is much better defined, the magnification is much simpler, and there's no need for rotation or similar operations.)

Effect 3: Page Update: The user can select a page of the Tapestry and change its appearance to match the page of a book he is currently looking at, with size adjusted appropriately. (Simpler: The thing being looked at has better defined boundaries and content, there's no need to account for weird and diverse animal senses, and there's no concern about the location of anything being seen: What you see is what you get.)

At this point, a magus can quickly scan books and libraries of books into the Google Imaginem Library. A magus can display individual pages at will, either to study or copy.

For fun, we can add another effect:

Effect 4: Print on Demand: When page view is active, and a group of inks are available as well as a vellum (perhaps the item has dedicated inkwells and a vellum tray), this effect can be invoked to direct a suitable amount of ink of the appropriate colors onto the vellum to create a copy of the image in Page View. (I'm deliberately not including a Finesse roll here. After all, none of the Google Map effects include one.)

If we cannot get this item to work reliably as a welcome addition to a saga, there's no point considering the map, which I think is rather more complicated, perhaps not even possible as designed.

Anyway,

Ken

352

Here's the way the last few posts felt to me:

Me: "Ok, here's the revised item anyone see any issues?"
Ken: "I have these issues"
Me: "Oh, I haven't explained this well. Here are why those aren't problems at all"
Ken "The issues are so bad I can't even talk about them, let's do something lesser but related so I can begin to grapple with their immense magnitude."
Me: "What issues?"

So before telling me what problems you see, you think it would be more helpful to do this library reduced to the size of a bedsheet project. From my point of view -that doesn't appear to be more helpful. Still, make me (us) a design with the effects you envision, perhaps in a new thread, I'll be happy to comment and give feedback. But I'd very much like you also to try again to communicate to me the issues you have with this device.

353

Is there a way to incorporate astrological information into the map device?

354

That's sort of the point of these threads, isn't it?

Mailable? I assume you meant malleable?
Anyway, it should now be (explicitly) subject to Muto. Why would it suddenly also be changeable with Rego? I'm confused now.

If we accept that the change caused by the Muto req is valid (and I think we're in "discuss with your troupe" territory there, though I'd personally vote in favour), this looks fine to me.

355

Hi,

Hmm. I guess I'm having a hard time articulating, even formulating, my potential issues. And I say 'potential' because I'm not sure these are really issues. But here's a start:

  • Something very complicated and intricate is being done here, more than one something, yet Finesse is not involved anywhere. I have issues with Finesse, but it crops up RAW.

  • Does this stretch the notion of "image" past the breaking point? Maybe not: I can create an illusion of a temple, after all, and then someone can walk among the columns, though will have obvious issues trying to ascend the stairs. So why not a fully detailed illusion of Mythic Europe in miniature? And I can use Muto to update any part of it, just as I can distort parts of my illusory temple to impress or scare someone 'inside'. So although this might be quite a bit more complex than an intricate 2D image, maybe there is no issue.

  • However, what an animal sees is just an image. To update the 3D representation of ME, one must take that image, figure out the location of everything seen, and then update the image accordingly. The image itself (of what an animal sees at any given moment) does not contain information about the location of any part it, or the size of any part of it. The animal infers this information, and sometimes incorrectly, such as when Timothy's Evil Jerbiton Magi create miniatures to confound the unwary, or when it cannot distinguish a nearby hawk from a distant roc. The item must also make this inference somehow, figuring out the location and orientation of the animal, the orientation of its head relative to its body, and the movement and focus of its eyes; and the (rather non-trivial, I suspect) effect that does (effects that do?) this needs elaboration so we can also understand what kind of mistakes it can make, if any. And, of course, so that we can have Adelbert pay for it. :slight_smile: This kind of inference might be beyond the capabilities of an item, being the province of intelligence (lower-case 'I' since animals can do it); an item can directly use Intellego of course, but on the things being viewed and not the image.

I hope that's more helpful.

Anyway,

Ken

PS: Since the Google Library item is worse than helpful, I won't say much more about it, except as people bring it up in conversation, beyond observing that it is in the same vein as this project yet I think vastly simpler. Any design that can achieve the Google Maps project can more easily achieve this. Being comfortable with a small item that lets a magus (or a magus and a bunch of minions, similar to what this mapping item does) walk into a library and digitize one page of a book every few seconds for later study or reproduction is, I think, a prerequisite for this. I'm not saying its WrongBadFan! At the very least, I can imagine Durenmar keeping their precious books nice and safe, digitizing them, and letting magi look at the images.

356

My first thought from the googlemap item was to use a tablet item to view and flick through pages. Seems the logical extension. However I have mixed feelings about that style of item in a game.

357

Yes, I ment Malleable, and yes I thunk that using rego would be be fine. I'll adjust again when I next write it up.

Excellent.

358

I've never liked having non-casters use finesse with enchanted items, perhaps that was coloring my thinking. Do you see a place where finesse would be appropriate? I've set it up to have stuff happen automatically I can't have the table deciding what to update or not update devices can't think, and if there are no choices to be made it is a bit more difficult to find a place to include finesse.

I am talking about a 3D image in this case. It's an illusionary diorama, not an illusionary piece of paper. Models are more period than detailed maps.

Yes, this could be an issue. The information is taken from the mind of the targets, so using the reasoning abilities of the targets could be a possible answer.

I have been previously characterizing this issue along the lines of why a magus can use Mastering the Unruly Beast when the beast and the magus share no common language with which they could communicate, or why when a maga's familiar transforms back in to a cat after being a rhinoceros it isn't killed by the tremendous thunderclap caused by the air rushing back into the vacuum left by the rhino's disappearance. Do you think the idea that this is magic and we shouldn't worry about it is a reasonable choice? Or do you think that would be problematic by breaking immersion, being horribly exploitable, or some other reason?

I wouldn't say that it's worse than helpful. Yet, while I'm doing this for fun, it is a good deal of work and the idea of writing up yet another set of devices seemed like something that I'd rather leave to someone else.

I do think that there are obvious things that magi can do with libraries. I had a campaign in 4th edition where the covenant's books were lovingly cared for by an NPC librarian and the magi mostly only ever dealt with projected images of the texts. Also the first four pages of this very thread contain a discussion of images and memories with regard to the quick memorization of texts.

359

I've fallen behind by a week or so on these updates.. so sorry if I missed this answer in skimming through the messages.
Is there a reason you don't have the table's map worked as a constantly-updating image using additional magnitudes for moving images, instead of the muto/rego to move things around? Just have each AC-spotter change the field of their view when you're 'concentrating' on it, maybe make the table maintain a constant image of whatever it is currently projecting to maintain a static view when not concentrated on.

360

I'm sorry, I'm not sure what your suggesting. I'm a native English speaker so it should be easy for me, but there are a lot of things going on and I'm not sure that I'm following you.

Here's my attempt at an answer. Please be kind if I'm answering an entirely different question than the one you intended to ask.

The creation of the tiny world is constantly projecting the entirety of everything. There is no memory, there is only the single image and this image is probably too small to work well without Eyes of the Hawk (from Hermetic Projects) or some similar magical microscope spell. The enchantment Gazing Within the Miniature allows a single portion of the image to be expanded to a size where it can be seen in detail.

The effect that updates and expands the map is separate from this.

(hey, if the original image is "plastic" why doesn't Gazing Within the Miniature make permanent changes to it? because.... I'm doing another rewrite ok)

You're asking why don't I just make the image a moving image for two magnitudes instead of talking about a clay-like image that can be altered by another effect? If that's your question, the answer is "because I didn't see the issue from that perspective before."