Advice on building a "Spirit Necromancer"? (Virtues, Art Scores, etc?)

Chaotic might explain the Infamous, since you prolly got it from your spont-free parens.
Difficult Spont means you cannot divide by 5, you might find a way to have spirits deal with those.
Deficient Creo might also work.

Remember, the real fun is working around your limitations. What tools will you invent in the lab?

Hello @CornWhiskerTea and welcome to the forum! :slight_smile:

Playing a spirit themed mage is a great fun - I can tell you from first hand.
My character now is a Bonisagus who had some experience with spirits and the Infernal. After those factors he seriously reconsidered his worldview and his concept about what is true power.
Based on my understanding of this spiritmaster style of characters you should consider the following factors:

  • Main path of magic AKA Prime Arts: For spirits in general Vim is the winner. You can affect different spirits (including ghosts) based on their respective Realm. Downside is that you need Form specific spells to affect ghost from different Realm (But maybe it is wise not to affect Infernal or Divine ghosts :stuck_out_tongue: )
    Rego is also on the top - you can summon and command spirits and defend yourself against them. You can also cast the AotH which is a nice card in your sleeves when the Council of Mages negotiates the 1 season of work.
  • Potential for growth: When you build a character you try to be as strong as you can. But if you consider a couple of following sessions you could easily realize that you can quickly reach a level of Te+Fo which is more than enough. Maybe it is better to have only 10+8 lvls in your Prime Te+Fo combination. Usually that is enough for most of the spells you will need. This way you will have som spare XP for secondary Arts.
  • Alternate paths of magic: Imagine that you reached the desired level in your Prime Te+Fo combination. What is next? Which Art could be useful? Spend your extra XP on those Arts at start already.
  • Your attitude toward ghosts and spirits in general: If you are bossy then use Rego. If you want to build a reciprocal relationship then use Intellego (hear or see them) or Muto (make them audible) to bargain with spirits.

Life Boost is a fantastic minor Virtue

Flexible Formulaic Magic is also great (you need fewer spell to have great versatility, variable Range is extremely useful: you can have the same spell with Touch range used with Intangible Tunnel-like effects and with Voice range against spirits)

Magical Focus is overrated if you don't need killer Penetration totals.
Anyway, you will need AC to summon the spirits which you can use with Penetration Ability to generate high Penetration NOT only regarding your focus, but in any situation. So use Puissant Penetration instead of Magical Focus.

Okay, one advice I've seen a couple times in this thread was that "Vim is good for Spirits". But when I look at the core ArM5 book, I can only find that with Perdo Vim, you can "Reduce a target’s Might Score by the level of the spell + 10, as long as the spell penetrates the creature’s resistance." , and that with Rego Vim, you can theoretically conjure and control demons.

Is there something that I'm missing? Sure, finding a faerie or a magic spirit and then threatening to blast it to smithereens unless he/she/it follows my instructions sounds okay for a bargaining tactic, but is there something akin to Rego Mentem spells for Ghosts with Vim that I'm missing? Or do I just need to embrace the "Do as I say, or I blast your vis into bits" act?

Magical Focus is godsent for lab totals though. That extra 10 points might shave a season off.

And check http://www.atlas-games.com/pdf_storage/ArM5Guidelines.pdf

  • sense a Might 30 creature
  • control an Airy Spirit
1 Like

Thank you!!
Just to check, but "Airy spirit" means a spirit without a solid physical form, right? Not "A spirit of Air" .

An airy spirit is not necessarily a spirit of air, but it is not as if the lack of physical form makes it different from other spirits.

Airy spirits are separate from the more powerful named spirits or daimons. Ghosts are also separate from airy spirits; they are not necessarily more powerful but AFAIK they do have names.

You find the details of spirits in RoP:M chapter seven. The Hermetic Sahirs [HoH:S], which is an ex Misc tradition, have a very detailed ruleset for taking advantage of spirits. It is not necessarily a good choice for play though; it is expensive in vis and xp, but one of the more elaborate rulesets.

Taxonomy of the Invisible World (from Realms of Power: Magic p100)

The word spirit (from the Latin spiri-
tus, meaning “breath”) is a general term
used to describe a being with no mate-
rial existence. However, the term confuses
two quite distinct phenomena. There are
the spirits that were created as such, and
the spirits that were created as human but
have since ceased to be material beings.
To distinguish these two, the word ge-
nius (pronounced “GAIN-ee-oos” to dis-
tinguish this Latin word from the English
word) is used for the former kind, and ani-
mus for the latter. In this book, when we
refer to “spirits,” we include both genii and
animi in this category; however, where a
rule pertains to just one of these beings,
we will use the appropriate term.
The genii technically include all
things that never had a physical existence;
but angels and demons are usually consid-
ered separate from genii. Some genii exist
in the sublunar regions (the demons and
the genii proper), and some in the Heav-
ens (the angels). The genii who dwell in
the Magic Realm itself are powerful beings
called Daimons, or Named Spirits; where-
as those spirits on earth are of much lesser
power and are called Airy Spirits.

1 Like

As for your Late Virtue question, that seems a very reasonable idea, as long as your storyguide approves.

It sounds like both you and your storyguide are newer players. I suggest that you actually talk to your Storyguide about how you and he both think spirit necromancy should work, and come to a consensus.

5 Likes

Best advice in this thread so far!

2 Likes

Thanks for all the answers - I showed this to the entire group as the thread had great advice IMO (like not having multiple major virtues, something all of us except 1 missed at first), I talked with the GM and after realizing both of us were a bit overwhelmed & new with the system, I decided to go with a more "traditional" corporeal necromancer, which I could find a lot more examples of, and which was a bit simpler on me & GM (especially about might scores, controlling ghosts, etc.....). I still have my goals on studying Mentem a few years after we start playing, but for now I guess I'll stick with Rego Corpus.

3 Likes