animate bones confusion

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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I apologise in advance.
I have gotten confused with other games systems, probably DnD. Please help me separate my recollections.

If a Hermetic mage with a necromantic bent invents a ReCo(An) spell to animate and control a full set bones, in order to produce something resembling a skeletal undead..

What would be the effect of this spell if cast on a skeleton still wearing living flesh and controlled by an animating spirit/animus?

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  1. Nothing: you created a spell to affect a full set of bones and a living body doesn’t fit what you designed the spell for. Even if you’d use the same Guideline to affect the living body; you’d need to invent a separate (but similar) spell for that.
  2. Nothing: even if you invented a separate (but similar) spell for that, it’ll need Part target.
  3. Nothing: animal bones are affected by ReAn spells, human bones are affected by ReCo spells; ReCo(An) doesn’t allow you to affect either/or animal/human, it allows you to affect human bones that have sufficient animal characteristics where a Requisite would be required. Like, lycanthrope bones or something maybe.
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That is going to be very much an SG question rather than a general guidelines question. It will also depend how exactly you defined the spell when you created it- if it expressly affects dead skeletons than it means that you can’t use it on the living. Arguably you could use it on a corpse where the skelton “happens” to be wearing a meat suit, but if something else is in control of the dead body it is going to have to be some sort of contest, whether physical (you control the bones but it controls the muscles) or magical (do you penetrate the animating spirit’s innate magical resistance) or both.

Despite what a few might say putting a prerequisite in in order to cover a wider range of targets is well established in AM lore, and does not invalidate the spell in any way. Most often this is used in ReTe spells with an added element (such as he or an) to allow it to affect a broader class of materials (wood or leather)

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The non-magical effect would be a bunch of angry people with true faith getting out the pitchforks to take that necromancer down a notch…..

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My little additions to the discussion are this:

Adding a requisite to allow you to affect as second set of targets, IMC, forces an added magnitude into the spell.

The guideline is to “control a target’s motions” (ReCo10). I’m not sure why you’d narrow the target from all corpses to just skeletons unless it was, say, an Affinity you had. Your ability to control human bones is all very well, but if you are seeing a fleshy corpse you can’t -see- their bones, so are you using Arcane Connection range? I mean, you might argue that you can see their teeth…You could just control their body directly.

I’d probably follow elemental spirit rules here and treat it is a “corpus elemental” : you can control a fire elemental by Rego Ignem beating its Might by one, or Rego Vim doubling its might. I’d argue that a spirit possessing a skeleton can be controlled, providing you can get range, in the same way. Might+1 for Corpus, double might for Vim. That it is wearing a living suit of flesh is about s relevant as it wearing a suit of armor: it affects Range, but not what you can instruct the creature to do. Note that in my sums there I wouldn’t include the level boost caused by the unrelated requisites (Cr/An) so your spell has some problems because it is too general.