Ask a simple question, (hopefully) get a simple answer

Anyone can profane Vis of another realm, turning it into Infernal Vis. In the other cases, I believe the answer is 'no' though I'd note that the Divine probably could attune vis with the dominion even if no actual mechanics are described.

A character needs the Gift if he's planning to act as his own mystagogue. UnGifted characters be initiated into mysteries and even initiate others albeit not as effectively as Gifted characters (See HMRE, pg 14).

Lesse: Supernatural creatures can bestow Virtues & Flaws as can some Hedge Magicians, Original Research/Integration often net new Virtues, Miracles can accomplish anything, you could Enrich a Thing of Virtue, obtain a faerie's External Vis, Warping or Twilight and its variants can bestow new V&F as can the Mysticism or Pilgrimage rules from 'The Church'. I think that's about it...

I stand corrected. It is on Page 55 of apprentices. the lab gets -2 general quality (_2 to all lab totals) and a-2 safety rating (Roll a die every season If you roll a one or two then roll some botch dice, probably three possibly more or less, If there is one or more 0's on these dice, something goes very wrong). (general quality and safety are on pages 110 and 111 of Covenants)

Wow, risky!
I assume (and hope) this roll to check for disaster is because of the multiple uses and not simply because the lab has negative Safety?
Wait, it is a -2 modifier to Safety, so a really safe lab could still be positive. I don't have Apprentices right here with me, but it sounds as the roll is versus number of users purely?

No, that's just because of the negative safety.

The roll is purely against safety, so a mgus who'd made a major investment in lab-safety could have an apprentice join him in the lab with no ill-effect. Except the -2 GQ ofcourse.
Less annoying than how I recalled it, mind you.

Well, even so, you can only have as many using a lab at once equal to the Size.

Anyway, now I have a couple more

The description for Circle target states that the spell ends when the circle is broken, regardless of duration (except when the duration ends before the circle). My question is, how does this interact with Momentary duration spells, especially Momentary Creo rituals?

How does Chthonic Magic's False Power drawback work? Does it mean that all spells are now tainted with the Infernal? If you choose not to use it, do you still suffer the drawback? If you use it to boost the Lab Total is the resulting spell/item/whatever now tainted with the Infernal as well?

Does living within an Aegis of the Hearth cause warping? Also, I saw some references to wards needing to penetrate, could someone clarify what this means?

First: See the box on ArM5, p. 113, top of the page, Creo and Targets?
Right. So Momentary Creo Rituals are largely limited to spells that improve what already exists, mainly healing or (in some sagas) characteristics increasing rituals.
The magic in these have D: Momentary, so once the ritual is finished, there is nothing magical about the effect. Magic does not maintain your wound as healed or continue to operate on you to keep you stamina boosted - that's what momentary means.
So if you used a circle for momentary healing (and most people do), but the cirlce is broken after the end of the ritual, so what? The Magic has already ended.

I really hope not. I don't think it was intended to (it never did in older editions) and if it does, life expectancies for magi are so low that Longevity Rituals are barely worth it.
Ofcourse. We play that it does not.

Right. the Aegis does several things:

  1. Spells have to penetrate to affect targets inside the Aegis.
  2. Spells (and IIRC other supernatural effects) cast within the Aegis are suppressed (penalty to casting totals).
  3. Supernatural Beings (that is, being with a Might Score) are Warded out.

The third entry on that list is the one that needs to penetrate - just like any other Ward, the Aegis must penetrate the Might of the being trying for entry, and since it usuallt isn't cast with penetration multipliers against specific targets, that can be an issue.

No. This is clearly stated on ArM5 p.168.

There was a snafu early in ArM5, when authors and playtesters did not notice that wards (ArM5 p.114) needed to penetrate as they were written up. So they were initially balanced around not needing to penetrate. In HoH:S p.113 leftmost box you find the necessary rules clarification, embedded into the history of Columbine wards: and yes, Hermetic wards need to penetrate Magic Resistance.
Aegis of the Hearth is a verrry special ritual (ArM5 p.161 "It was a major breakthrough, incorporating Mercurian rituals as well as Hermetic theory, and was the reason Notatus was chosen to succeed Bonisagus. As a result, the spell is more powerful than it ought to be ..."). Its complex description does not refer to magical wards or warding or a need to penetrate. It is also not derived from Columbine wards or addressed by HoH:S p.113. So there is no literal (RAW) reason to apply the clarifications made after the ward snafu to it. But some players consider Aegis of the Hearth close enough to wards to be anyway treated in the same way wrt preventing creatures from entering the area it protects. This is a topic you should hence best decide with your troupe.

Cheers

xplicitly stated in Antagonists as I recall, but YSMV.

There is an oblique mention in an adventure (Antagonists p.137): "If the Aegis is of sufficient Level and Penetration, the covenant may end up fighting the Waimie's offspring outside the covenant." This acknowledges, that some who would play the adventure require an Aegis to penetrate to ward out creatures - but you cannot even derive from it, that the Aegis has to penetrate in that case. So a troupe decision is needed here, until some clear rule is published: and hopefully not in a collection of adventures.

Cheers

I removed the spoiler tags from your quotation to discuss it and your commentary on the quotation.
The quotation from Antagonists says Level and Penetration, not Level or Penetration, meaning both must be valid for the following condition to be true. It doesn't say what you think or say it says. The RAW is that all spells must penetrate, unless it is explicitly written that the spell or effect doesn't have to penetrate.

I've changed this for my games (because I want the aegis to be really powerful) but, by the rules, the Aegis is a spell and spells all need to penetrate their (capitol t) Targets.

The drawback of Chthonic Magic is essentially the same as its major benefit - your character's magic is simultaneously aligned with both the Magic & Infernal realms causing him to be easily mistaken for (or easily recognized as) a Diabolist. If you were asking about the possibility of taking Chthonic Magic as a False Power, this is arguably impossible since according to the description of False Powers "... this Flaw cannot apply to Supernatural Virtues that are affiliated to the Infernal realm in the first place" and since part of the drawback of possessing Chthonic Magic is subsumed by the False Powers flaw...

That is unnecessary: just marking the spoilered quotation makes it readable as well for those who want to follow its discussion.

No, it says "If the Aegis is of sufficient Level and Penetration", without stating what sufficient means. As part of an adventure, the text does not need to define or clarify "sufficient", and also does not do so. It just implicitly refers to the ArM5 rules to determine, what is "sufficient". Indeed, if an adventure rewrote rules on the sly in the adventure text (and not a box specific to that purpose), it would certainly be just poorly edited, and not an enlightening find.

With wards it was not that trivial, and with Aegis it still is not.
In the case of a being with Might entering the area protected by a ward, an Aegis or a regio boundary, it is not a priori - without specific rules - clear which one resists the other. Now the Aegis description clearly states, that the Aegis resists the Might of the creature. This is also intuitive, because the Aegis is immobile, and the creature moves towards and into it. That the creature would have to resist the Penetration of the Aegis before has never been stated.
This was the initial idea for wards as well, but there it was not cleanly executed: for ReCo wards e. g. it was specified differently in the box on ArM5 p.134. Wards also were more complicated, because their Target is highly variable and potentially mobile. So in HoH:S p.113 leftmost box, resistance for wards was changed and clarified.

Cheers

Of course, the capital T Target of an Aegis is the area delimited by the Boundary - hence normally the covenant.

Cheers

No, and that's simply wrong, because authors write to canon. Canonically, the Aegis must penetrate, as all spells must per RAW.
Rest of stuff deleted, because it's a mental exercised designed to satisfy your need that the Aegis doesn't need to penetrate, when it has been stated elsewhere that it must, and now it appears formally in a book. It's ok to play with the Aegis not needing to penetrate, I have no issue with that, but at best it is a common house rule; it certainly isn't RAW.

Can't recall if it is in the errata, but david chart actually said that it must penetrate, and that wards need to penetrate as well. Not that a lot of us have not house ruled that (neither of those need to penetrate around here) but the official stance is that yes, they must penetrate.

Yes, author's write to canon. And the quote from Antagonists p.137 makes sense both with Aegis needing to penetrate and with Aegis not needing to. Do you have an other quote, or errata? Methinks not.

That all spells must penetrate by RAW is patently wrong.

Cheers

One Shot, just out of curiosity, how does "Sufficient" make sense if it doesn't need to penetrate. Such wording is redundant, surely?

I had previously qualified my statement regarding spells and penetration I didn't think it was necessary to do it again. I don't agree with your interpretation that it could work both ways.
In any event, I'm done. I don't like the way you state things and the way you turn the words of those who discuss things with you into pretzels to support your views. I'm satisfied that the Aegis needs to penetrate as do all spells unless there is an explicit statement in the spell or effect (Intellego spells may fit here, depending on circumstance).

Errata about that do not exist - as can be easily verified here: atlas-games.com/arm5/arm5errata.php . Could you give a quote, reference, link about David Chart's statement that you refer to?
I recall the discussions in 2005/2006 following the discovery of the ward snafu differently, as far as the Aegis was concerned - but don't have them archived.

Cheers