It struck me that, especially for a Talisman, and double-especially if it was not the strongest material, somehow magicking it to be unbreakable would be a wise move. That wouldn't be too hard with the various Muto spells.
But at some point any item is likely to take some abuse/punishment, if only wear and tear, and perhaps some that threatens but doesn't quite end its existence (a crack in a staff, for instance) - it would also be nifty if it could be self-repairing, especially things like staffs or clothing, so small cracks or tears would mend themselves "magically". How might one go about this?
For that matter, how would any spell mend a minor break or tear in a finished product? The Creo Herbem/Terrem Guidelines don't address it directly, and to make it worse, the Creo Animal Guidelines imply it would be prohibitively expensive!
Example- Mend the Ripped Leather
Mends a rip in a leather product
CrAn, Base... 15(???) "Heal a Light Wound"
+1 Touch
+2 magnitudes for a "treated and processed" animal product
= Level 30, RitualSo, for only the low, low cost of that 6th magnitude spell and the 6 vis to power it, you can fix the hole in those leather gloves. The parallels from other Forms for "healing" using Creo seem to be far more complex than the actual creating of the same (dead) material. And creating more of the same stuff isn't the same as mending what you have, apparently.
So...
Is there anything in canon that would support making this less magnitude?
Could this somehow be done without vis?*
Could a Talisman be set up with a constant "self-mending" effect, to repair any minor wear and tear?
(* for leather, wood, stone and etc as well. "Reknitting" woven fabric somehow is clever, but only solves the issue for that one narrow material.)
a better way to do it might be to have a constant effect, so that the item always repairs itself
e.g.
CrAn, Base... 15(???) "Heal a Light Wound"
+1 conc
+5 item maintains concentration
+1 two casts a day
+3 environmental trigger
Total = 29
Although this means the spell does recurring effects each round that the effect is active, since you are only mending natural damage (not really wounds) i'd allow this. I wouldn't allow the same thing re-worked to cast healing magic at touch range (no rings of regeneration).
If I understand 'Rune Magic', this is what you would have if you put healing magic on a person or item.
But you would also get warping...
I would allow that...
Actually, you could put in a linked trigger to detect damage to the item...Then activate the power, for whatever time needed...maybe Moon?
Technically, by the rules.. it'll never work .. cause as soon as the item -does- get damaged in such a way, it'll likely stop being able to count as a fully functioning magical device. But yeah, putting in a spell that makes them unbreakable or such is fairly handy
I don't agree with this. The item will stop working if your staff snaps in half, but if there is just a big crack down part of it, it shouldn't stop working.
Putting a continuous Creo effect into a staff (conc, maintains conc, 2 uses, env trigger) would work and repair all non-destructive damage to the staff. However if for any reason the creo effect stopped all of the damage would reappear in that one instant.
Putting a combined Muto/Creo effect into the item so that it changes it to something different and constantly repairs it to that new "ideal" would be good.
Putting a Muto in to make it hard as stone, and putting a creo in to make it a perfect wooden staff would cause one effect to overpower the other (or just make it explode)
Putting a Muto in to make it hard as stone, and putting a creo in to make it a perfect stone-hardness wooden staff would also work.
Hence the image of an ancient magic item crumbling when hit by a big disenchant.
I suppose a magus could also use vis to patch it up more permanently, perhaps after they suspected serious damage was done. As a Creo ritual, the mending would then be perfect.
But it seems like such a high-level spell by the interpretation above! It seems like mending a small hole in something should not be many magnitudes more complex than creating the item in the first place. Altho' that's not the paradigm for any of the Forms, from Corpus on thru.
I don't know if this is canon or not, but I would allow this at level 5 "Create an animal product," if for no other reason then you are sort of recreating it.
I would certainly allow a constant device that would keep something in a state or repair until the device is stopped, but then I'm also thinking of giving a local noble a ring that heals all damage... but should he ever remove it all the wounds he should have suffered will be returned upon him.
Personally, I think that this is a point on which the Creo guidelines are lacking, and there should be an entry for repairing an object.
Alternatively, you could use the Rego Animal guidelines from Covenants: ReAn 3: Treat and Process items made of animal products. I think that by canon that's the way to go, although until we get expanded Creo guidelines, I'd probably house rule CrAn 3 will "heal" objects of their damage. Well, maybe. I might think about it a bit more, first.
"Healing" works on the idea of Platonic forms, similar to the way Creating things does- you don't need to know what's wrong with it, the magic puts it back "the way it's supposed to be".
But is mending a manufactured item as difficult as mending a living creature? More? Less? BTR, it's more, 1 Magnitude for a treated animal product (like "leather"), +1 more for a fully processed end-product, like a leather jacket. Otoh, the context of that comment is for "To create", not "to mend"... bleh.
I'm also inclined to think that some types of damage can be fixed per the Rego crafting rules and guidelines in Covenants. As long as nothing is missing, it should cover a fair amount of the stains, dings, and dents out there.
Tears, rips, and fractures might better be repaired by Creo magics, but when you put the Rego guidelines from Covenants next to the Creo guidlines, it appears that Rego crafting would work in these cases as well.
Which is why I think this is merely a gap in the Creo guidelines and not a gap in Hermetic magic. By the descriptions, it should be at least as viable to do it with Creo as Rego. I think the authors just missed it, and hope that an official guideline would be included in some manner someday.
what I've done for talismans in the past is to enchant them with a muto spell that gives the talisman the ability to grow back to its ideal form in the same manner as a living plant (it was always for wooden items). I didn't make the effect constant for fear of warping.
Inanimate things don't naturally heal, although crystals, stalagtites and other things that are thought to naturally "grow" may be an exception. So I don't think you can enchant an item to regenerate using Creo, though you can certainly magically repair it with a ritual. The closest parallel to giving such an object a "bonus to recovery" would be to make it more resistant to damage -- although as Erik points out, Muto can give the it the ability to regenerate (rather than just reshape). Probably won't be too easy though. Rego craft magic can keep an item in good shape and perform minor repairs and should be a good candidate for a constant effect.
Or you could just ward the item to prevent it from being damaged in the first place.
Using the craft magic rules from Covenants (SP) couldn't you put a ReTe into a sword with one use per day with a simple trigger (Shout the phrase "Sword, Repair thyself!"), and the effect would imitate the results of having taken the sword to a blacksmith and getting sharpened, polished, and mended?
Well, it's not given as an official guideline, but Calebais does include several items that mend themselves. There's a sword that sharpens and polishes itself as a CrTe5 effect, and a suit of mail and a shield that repair damage at CrTe10.
