Bargain Duration Spells

So I'm developing a young Merinita magus and have been trying to work on creative Bargain-oriented spells for him to use. The concept is that his parens (who was inducted into the Mystery through warping, not blood) used his apprentice (who possessed Strong Faerie Blood) to negotiate with Fey communities for regio access, vis, and so forth.

Though his parens would have had the stronger spells to back up the negotiations, certainly my magus would have a few lower level tricks up his sleeve:

Philanderer's Bane
ReCo 25
R: Touch (sealed with a handshake!) D: Moon & D: Bargain T: Ind
Should the target of this bargain break their end of the arrangement, they will be stricken by a sudden lack of control over their most intimate part. No matter the situation, the target will fail to rise to the occasion.

Thought to be developed by Nerolian ex Merinita, who tired of the fickle Fey near his covenant constantly reneging or backing out on their deals with him. In the weeks following the first uses of this spell, Nerolian would often sit at the open window of his study and toast the plaintive howls of despair from forest below.
(Base: 2, R: Touch +1, D: Moon +3, T: Individual, +3 for Bargain)

"The Liar's Lament" would be perfect alternative to the above spell, and it would allow for non-male targets as well. It targets the tongue instead (much like "Curse of the Unruly Tongue" in the core book), but is otherwise exactly the same.

For creatures who value unbound virility and flashing wit, either seems like just desserts for promise-breakers.

I'm curious to know if anyone has any good solutions for an Intellego or Imaginem Bargain spell that would identify the target of the broken Bargain to the magus. There's a discussion of something similar in this older thread, but doesn't seem to work exactly right: [url]https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/merinita-qeuestions/1120/3]

I'd like something that identifies the promise-breaker in some way. The InMe spell described in the other thread implies that the magus knows that a Bargain is broken, but not necessarily which one. Any thoughts?

Well, I suppose you could just assume that the caster is alerted when the bargain is broken since the bargain is, in effect, an ongoing magical effect between the pair. Alternately, spontaneously cast intellego/vim spells ought to be able to detect if the bargain is still in force with a minimum of fuss.

That could be OK as a house rule, but doesn't really work according to RAW. The Bargain duration spell is cast on the target; the caster is not the subject of the magical effect.

I agree that InVi should be able to detect whether the bargain has been broken (or, if it has a duration, that the bargain triggered effect has been triggered; which is effectively the same thing).

The problem with that is that unless the target happens to be near by, the caster will need to muck about with an Arcane Connection Range effect. To actually detect a specific magical effect is quite a high level effect, especially if the effect that you are detecting is not very high level. In addition there is the possibility that you will need to Penetrate the Magic Resistance of the target. All of which means that you are probably out of luck using a spontaneously cast spell for this. So, it will probably need to be a formulaic spell, and you need an Arcane Connection to the target. So it's not that simple.

This is why my preference with such spells tended to be CrMe. Have the person inform you and make amends (if you don't kill the traitor). MuMe and ReMe could do quite similar things. The Cr/Mu/Re difference is all in the approach, which will affect the level, but the goal is about the same.

Chris

So, the spell held by the bargain is some sort of Cr/Mu/Re Me spell that compels the person to tell you that they have broken the bargain? I suppose that might work.

However, they need to be in a position to contact you during the duration of the Cr/Mu/Re Me spell. So, if they're on the other side of Mythic Europe, or you are hard to find (in a regio, for example), or they just don't know where you are, or they're dead/crippled, then they won't be able to contact you. Even if you are only, say, on the other side of England (and they know where you are), they'd be pretty hard pushed to contact you within several weeks.

So, such a spell would probably be easier to cast than an InVi spell --- but it'd be much less practical. Also a Cr/Mu/Re Me spell won't work if the person got rid of the bargain by dispelling the spell, whereas the InVi spell would detect such foolery. Of course, the InVi route means that you have to periodically check that the bargain is still in force, which is a bit of a hassle.

Oath Breaker's Confession from Magi of Hermes p67 is a level 35 intellego mentem spell that gives the caster information regarding where when and how the target believes that they broke the bargain.

Not all spells in MoH are completely as they should be.
I don't remember if that is one of them.

I've been away from the forum for a few months, I haven't yet found problems with MoH spells but I'd certainly be pleased if someone else found the problems for me. (especially because I wrote that one and I thought about the implications regarding Faerie spells a fair amount and I'd like to know if I've failed the community.)

but to the main meat of the idea behind the spell, it is an intellego mentem spell that is cast after a bargain is made and it gives the caster information regarding the target when the bargain is broken. I'm guessing that you're worried that when the bargain is broken the target is very likely no place near to the caster and therefore the spell would run afoul of the limit of arcane connections.

Admittedly this is only a guess as to what makes you uneasy about the spell. Well here's the way IIRC (and I might not it has been a few years) the rules came down on the subject by my reading. The target is in range when the spell is originally cast, the whole spell, there isn't some sort of a second casting when the bargain is broken. This is essentially the same issue as a spell that transforms a target into bird and then the target is removed from the senses of the caster. Once the spell is cast the distance ceases to matter, even (and this one doesn't feel so right to me either) for duration concentration spells.

But how does the information travel from the target to the caster? The spell does it.
It's not an unsensed target being targeted at some time after the spell was originally cast, it's a range eye spell that was cast at range eye that's just taking effect later. The target wasn't "unsensed" when the spell was cast.

(Or, if you don't find that train of thought convincing, there is the fact that intellego spells have some leeway to violate the law of arcane connections per p80)

Having read that particular spell a few times (and turned it over and over in my head, I think that particular spell is as it should be.

I'll proceed directly to dissect the rest of Lambert's spells right away :smiley:

EDIT:
Pull of Blood appears to be base 3 (not base 4), meaning it should be level 15.
Blissful Messenger claims to use base 5. I'm not contesting this, just wonder why it couldn't be done with base 4.

Thus nothing major.

I'm not sure a spell can be designed 'to not Warp members of [Lambert]'s bloodline', but since he technically casts it on himself...

Pull of blood doesn't have an arcane connection so the level 3 guideline wasn't appropriate. I chose the location to be a piece of very general information about the body ergo base 4. I'm going to stand by that one.

Blissful messenger, yeah, I'm wondering why it's base 5 as well.

Target bloodline spells can be calibrated to not warp a specific bloodline per page 93.

Thank you for taking the time I appreciate it.

Range is personal. I cannot concieve of a situation in which you are able to cast spells, but do not have an arcane connection to yourself.

Excellent, thanks!
Happy to! :slight_smile:

The range is touch actually (range personal spells can't have bloodline target) but the caster's body is not the only one located, the guideline says locate a body that you have an arcane connection to.

(And to digress from the original topic even further, if the caster is paralyzed they can still cast but they might not have an AC to hand)

But their hand is an AC?

I'll have to check that out! Thanks for the heads-up, Erik.

And thank you to everyone else who weighed in on the question. Some great food for thought!