Before the Order

Hyalus · October 30, 2024, 12:24pm

When you're trying to figure out how Bonisagus accumulated all those Breakthrough points, keep in mind that he could have inherited quite a bit from prior researchers. That's particularly likely in his incorporating the magic of other post-Mercurian founders like Mercere, Flambeau, Guernicus, Merinita, and maybe Jerbiton. It's likely that the heirs of the Mercurian priesthood had been trying to reassemble a system for quite some time, and it makes it more plausible than Bonisagus having to come up with thousands of Breakthrough points on his own.

For the Parma, though, that seems like it'd have been his own Original Research; doesn't seem like it follows through from anything Mercurian.

The_Fixer · October 30, 2024, 2:02pm

That's why, in my 1st post, I mentioned Names of Power as Lesser Domain

That's also my idea: That the Hermetic Arts were a shared creation, building on existing knowledge. Thus, the Domains, and their similarity to Hermetic Magic, which yielded easy insight. I figure talking to Flambeau was like " here, take all these free BPs!"

lvgreen · October 30, 2024, 2:34pm

Universal Magic Resistance.
Unless they actually have a Supernatural Might score, no other magician in pre-Mythic Europe had that.

How many Inspiration Points is that worth to developing a universal Magic system/Tradition?

Hyalus · October 30, 2024, 4:02pm

By my read of the Original Research/integration rules, each Art would need a Major Breakthrough. So... quite a lot of Breakthrough points. Hence my suspicion that Bonisagus was building on the work of others. Plus, probably a Hermetic Breakthrough in addition to come up with Hermetic Magic Theory.

Parma Magica in itself would have been another Hermetic Breakthrough. And Certamen, Familiars, Longevity Rituals maybe Minor Breakthroughs as well. That's... a lot for one old guy. And even adapting from the other Founders' traditions, it's a lot of Warping from Original Research.

The_Fixer · October 31, 2024, 11:10am

So, what if the Parma was his first big Breakthrough, that he came up on his own, with the rest flowing ( I wanted to write " following", but this is better) from his collaboration with the other Founders?
I mean, reading the " History of the Order" from Arm5D, it's quite clear that the Parma came first, then Trianoma conceived of the order, and brought wizards, who "agreed to meet with Bonisagus.
From these discussions, Bonisagus drew a great deal of knowledge"

BTW, I've thought about non- Mercurian wizards, but I'm going away so, it's all in my head for the moment One thing: For Diedne be special, they must have relied on spells or, in Merinita's case, supernatural abilities ( I believe she had a very high Forest Lore, among other things).

Hyalus · October 31, 2024, 12:31pm

Merinita apparently came from a tradition of priestesses of Diana. So, from a Roman tradition, and probably rather similar to the Mercurian priesthood's legacy. She probably did have Forest Lore, too (and her stag familiar). But I wouldn't lump her in with Diedne, Bjornaer, Guorna, as "non-Mercurian."

Kodlak · October 31, 2024, 1:03pm

Guorna's tradition stemmed from the Cult of Pluto, so she too was rather "Roman" in origin too. Doesn't matter if she was not Mercurian per see.

Only non-latin Founders were Trianoma (Hellenic Thessalian Witches), Birna (Gothic Shapechangers), Diedne (Brythonnic Druids). Not too sure on Jerbiton the Founder's magic...

Thessalian Witches had a poor reputation, but given the usual Roman views on Hellenes, I don't imagine Greek traditions were viewed with as much suspicion / contempt as others. Granted, Bjornaer chapter only says non-latin traditions were openly under attack in the years preceding the Schism War so who is to say.

ErikT · October 31, 2024, 2:50pm

Bonisagus started his work on his "Grand Unified Theory of Magic" first. Part-way through he realized he needed protection from magic also, and started work on that too.
By the time he met Trianoma he had already invented the Parma Magica, and had finished the first steps of Hermetic Magic. He then improved is magic theory by integrating contributions from the other founders, but the theoretical foundations were already there.
(See HoH:TL, Bonisagus chapter)

The_Fixer · November 6, 2024, 6:11pm

Sorry for not coming back earlier: the last couple of days have been, shall we say, difficult, and I barely have the energy. That, and my ( right hand's) fingertips hurt when I type, which doesn't help

Bonisagus working first on Hermetic Theory changes nothing: He just needed to know of enough different Domains to infer a structure, even if he did not master them.

And, as I said, I've been thinking about Diedne, and non-mercurian mages, or not so ritual based, ar least.
Aside from Diedne, we know they must have used spells: Open-ended abilities like whistle up the wind are too flexible for Diedne's adaptability to have been exceptional. That's the assumption I went with for Trianoma and Viea, above.

We could give them Fast Domains, and a different mechanic for learning spells, similar to the way Hermetic Magic works ( I also like the idea of non- latin mages bringing this to the Order, it gives them something to do): Their Domain must exceed the spell's magnitude by at least 1 point, and they must accumulate a number of points equal to it, given that, each season, they get (Domain - spell Magnitude) point towards learning it. You know the drill. To learn several spells in the same Domain, you just add their Magnitudes, as if they were a single, stronger, effect. If you are taught, this is even faster: Add your (Source Quality/6) to your Domain.
That would make those Founders really powerful, able to quickly master lots of different spells.
This has a fun side-effect: If Diedne has, say, 20 in " Denizens of the woods" ( Animal spells to affect beasts living in a forest), she may easily learn a lvl 50 Spell. But, when she tries to cast it, she falls short by a few points.... And has to spend fatigue

So, we could have 2 main influences:

the Order of Mercury , which relies on Ceremonial Magic and vis to cast " Big" Spells
the Others ( that's Criamon, btw), which can't use that and fuel their magic by their lifeforce (fatigue) if need be

So, they each had something to teach the other. Order of Hermes, unite!

But what about Diedne’s vaunted Spontaneous casting abilities ? I’d say she used a Stress die + straight Domain ( maybe with additional botch dices), meaning that, if she had scores around 20 (Fast Domain, remember ?), she’d have had pretty impressive abilities for her peers

I’d also say Merinita, Bjornaer, and Diedne probably had similar Domains, which has the added bonus that they’d easily have been able to share spells, thus a friendship that extended well onto the Schism War. I can easily imagine Domains such as Control Trees, Plants of the woods ( which overlaps, something that's great in our pre-hermetic age), as well as the before-mentioned Denizens of the woods. Bjornaer probably also had something like Transform Animals, enabling Mu An effects similar to those of HoH: MC, as well as boosting the Heartbeast, which makes sense.

I'm sorry, but I'm getting really tired now , so I'll have to postpone this
Hoping this was fun to you

The_Fixer · November 14, 2024, 2:18pm

Hello again.
I hope I'll bother no one by bumping this up again, but I've been thinking about Criamon .

it happened serially, but also in parallel, so I hope I will be clear. Sadly, I didn't have time/ energy to review my books properly, so I hope I won't make too grievous mistakes.

I thought logical to give him a Fast Lesser Domain in Warping, which shifted into a Fast Lesser Domain in Vis, so maybe he had both .

Warping seems logical. But I noticed that Hermetic Magic can cause Warping (Cr Vi), maybe detect it (There's nothing saying InVi base 10 can't give a rough idea of one's warping Score. It can detect the Gift, after all), but not destroy it ( PeVi) or move it around ( ReVi), probably because of the Limit of Essential Nature .
But there is another Technique .
One which plays with, and around, Essential Nature. I am speaking, of course, of Muto. We also know that Criamon brought Twilight to the Order, and that it was an improvement over what existed before. What if he cast a powerful non-hermetic Ritual, similar in Target to Curse of Thoth ( HoH: TL p 76), to change how Warping affected the entire Order?
In that case, the Hypostasis (HoH: MC p46 wasn't so much found than created by Criamon. Reading the Curse of Thoth, I Wonder… What if the ritual slaying of Criamon primi ( HoH: MC p55) serves to reinforce this ritual, ensuring that, for the Order members, warping continues to manifest as Twilight?
This, obviously, begs the question: What was the alternative? House Criamon believes that "Warped magi simply died" (HoH: MC p 46). [This is taking me too long: 1 hand, so my fingers ache, and I find my eyes watering from staring at the computer) combined with the bit about Criamon's master "attempted to improve his student through two decades of torturous rituals" gave me 2 ideas:
His Master warped him, hoping to change him into a sort of Magic Human, and Warping caused wounds. If, say, you had to soak 3* ( warping score + warping points gained)+ a stress die, everything falls back into shape^^.
Vis came from a Warping "fork", in which, like in Mirarion ( remember that discussion?) the corpse of Magi contained vis, for a number of pawns equal to their Warping Score. So, maybe Criamon's master just wanted to "ripen" him , until there was enough vis to harvest in his corpse? This, once again, would almost make sense, given what we know.
It ended up as Criamon being the one who brought Vis extraction to the Order

That's all for now, folks! For now, at least.
I hope you enjoyed reading me. One day, I'll propose a model to create " primitive tradition". But that's another day

The_Fixer · December 9, 2024, 10:32am

Hello again!

It appears that i was stupidly optimistic when I thought I could advance this for November.
Sadly, I couldn't, which means I had to hold everything in my head Even now, my eyes ache, staring at the computer
So, this'll be quite rough, don't be surprised.

So, I was going to tackle Enchantment, which means Verditius .

In hermetic Magic, you're best at enchanting in your best TeFo combo - Yet, verditius is only known as a "great enchanter", not even for his expertise in Terram - Something which the rules don't support. I LOVE what Guy Leopold did in Sub Rosa #22 (and it is coherent with what I write here, as well as filling a "gap" in history, from Pagan priests to Magicians), so I'll at worst propose an alternative version, for those who prefer a Magical Verditius, at least focusing on what existed besides, and made him, great. But it should be able to coexist.

How did it work, before the Order?
I figure Mercurians did what Mercurians do, that is, cast Rituals. When you're a magician who doesn't know how to do it, how do you create a magical item? You "store" a spell for later use. That's it. You use Waiting Spells. I figure that, after a while, there was a Breakthrough, and someone found a way to create more permanent, stable containers; in short: Invested items.
How could that have worked, in our Domains model?
I imagine there was Something akin to an " Enchantment" domain, used to handle vis, and open items in the lab, for up to twice the Domain pawns / season.This was, obviously, integrated in MT
But, once opened, how do you invest?
Let's say your Domain must be superior to the spell's Magnitude, and it worked like Hermetic enchantment, pitting twice your Domain + Int + Aura (so MT was a BIG improvement for everyone) vs the spell level.
Yup, those Mercurians sucked at enchanting ^^ But how did they do it? With Effect expiry. Let's say it gives a bonus equal to the multiplier, so an enchantment which lasts only 1 year gives +10 to your lab total.

Charged items could also have been developed, especially by witches (potions) and magicians ( scrolls)

Enter Sandman. I mean, Verditius ^^ By adding his Craft score, he could make items that lasted longer, or make them faster.
Unless... What if he was something else?
In older RPGs, a magical item is, typically, something which gives a bonus to its use, like a +2 sword, or a + 3 chainmail. Yeah, you got it. Excellent quality items (C& G p 69), which, as they ignore MR, would have seemed miraculous to Bonisagus and his peers. All without vis! Let's assume he was ( obviously) Touched by the Magic Realm ( c&Gp71):A high Craft score would also have let him do Wondrous items ( C&G p70), which are surprisingly easy to create, especially if, as Guy posited, you've got an applicable Faerie Sympathy, and, also, require no vis to create.
Wondrous items are normally limited to 2 forms, but Verditius could probably create any enchantment within his Domains, adding the appropriate score, if any

Magical indeed^^. I'd also add that Verditius was smart enough to work in, literally, a forge fit for a god , so, presumably, with a very high Innovation, and maybe Raw Materials, ratings. And who's to say he didn't have an Anvil of Quality, or something like that? While I'm at it, I also Wonder: Wouldn't Tools of Quality add to a (magical) smith's Craft total?
If you add an applicable Domain, Verditius suddenly becomes a crazily powerful item crafter.
To me, verditius being a great enchanter also points toward using less vis to create an item ( as per Verditius Magic, "the number of pawns of vis needed to open the enchantment is reduced by the magus’s Craft score, to a minimum of one pawn"), which jibes well with Touched by (realm).

He could thus be behind Lesser Enchanted devices, which would be an improvement for both our poor Mercurian Magi , and the non-mercurian ones

Note that Wondrous items are a link to the person they're crafted for, which could hint at Talismans, lacking the "excess vis limits" vibe, for which I had another idea, inspired by Vincent Garcia-Gomez's piece in Sub Rosa #16: What if one of the primitive ways to create sentient Magic items was just to "saturate" Something with vis, and then, experiment, trying to cram more, until something happened? In that optic, the increased vis capacity of Talismans would be a serendipitous Discovery.

I realize that, since I'm only using 1 hand, this is taking me longer than usual, esp. that I have to "store" everything in my head.Result: I'm lost, I don't know where I was or what I was doing .

But what about the Rings, you'll ask?
As I said, we have no idea of what kind of Magic was practiced by Verditius. Save for his Runes, taught to him by Wayland Smith (Hoh: TL p 127).
IMHO, Tolkien had it right: the effects must be subtle, that's why everyone remembers the mafgic of Flambeau and Guernicus , whereas is shrouded in Mystery.
So, I'd say he had 1 ring per rune, for each of Health, Sight, Pain, Ice and Man. Maybe replace Ice with Harvest, or Loyalty? Too tired to work on this more, I had to postpone it

Going back to Guy Leopold's article, I've noticed that that you can almost keep it as it is, and just shift the focus from Faerie to Infernal . After all, Where did Verditius great skill come from, of not being Mentored by Demons , which explicitly allows you to "exceed the maximum skill level for a given age provided by the character creation rules".
This also fit well with House Verditius being, one could argue, the most sinful house: We begin with Hubris being the Sin of Pride, the " covet device" trait from Item Attunement being Greed, and the Vendettas being another sinful trait, like Revengeful? Each Ring would then be linked to a different sin. I'd add Murder (also present in the story of Verditius) and Blasphemy ( The whole " Cult of Verditius" thing, see HoH: MC p109) .

So, I'll stop here for now. I really should consult my books for inspiration, but my time and energy are limited, as well as my " head storage" capacity.

Have fun! And long live Ars Magica

OakRover · December 9, 2024, 4:00pm

Very nice!

Serf's parma, but I think there might be a troublesome wrinkle with using an 'Anvil of Quality': it only adds to Die Rolls. If you are after a high 'workshop total', and adding in skill, etc., but no die roll -- an Item of Quality seems to have no effect.

The_Fixer · December 10, 2024, 8:01am

Thanks for the kind words!
Now, you're perfectly right about the Anvil of Quality, but you make me wonder: Since you roll when you experiment in the lab, wouldn't it apply?

The_Fixer · February 10, 2025, 5:23pm

Sorry, it's been a long time, and I didn't have the time / mental ressources to get back to this.

So, want to play a pre-hermetic mage?
I've been thinking about it. Trouble is, there's only so much I can hold in my head . So far, it looks like you'll have a bunch of points to design your tradition (about 25-30, depending), with 1 point buying access to a Slow Lesser Domain, and 5 points buying either a Fast Lesser Domain, or a Slow, Greater one. Just, writing this down in stone, for future reference and expansion. I see 3 main ways ( I'm thinking up bits in which this can be perfected):

Play a Mercurian Mage: you've got access to Spell Masteries, especially Ritual Casting, probably some Mercurian or Flawless Magic, but you must meet the spell's level with your CT. You can create Greater invested items if you've got a suitable Domain.
Play a non-Mercurian Mage: You've got less spell masteries, and maybe a weird ability like the Heartbeast, Diedne's casting, or Forest Lore. You always spend Fatigue to cast a spell, and succeed as long as your CT is within 10 points of the spell's level
Play a Crafter , of Words (It took me a while to find TCA p117, as I remembered the book, but not its name), or Items , using a Craft ability and The superior / Wondrous items rules in C&G.

Hoping you (yes, you, whoerever you are, who are reading me) are all right
See you next time!

The_Fixer · February 12, 2025, 8:15am

So, my pal @Marko_Markoko said to me he wants to find ways to bring OSR players over to Ars Magica
Ask, and you shall receive, because I have a new pre-hermetic, non-hermetic tradition

It is based, once again on the Touched by (realm) (CG71) and Wondrous items rules ( C&g p72-73), as well as the Wordsmith rules ( TCI p117-118): You have a Craft Spells, or Use Magic Ability, which you can use to create/learn " spells" as per C&G, with several differences:

You create effects using Int + Use Magic + Aura+ bonuses as per Wordsmiths ( TCI p 117)
R/D/T are free, although limited to to total of +3
You can include penetration, as per the standard rules for Enchanted items. This adds the chosen Penetration to the effect's Magnitude.
Such spells ( or, rather, enchantments), when crafted, must include a triggering action ( gesture and/or word), which is mandatory
You may have Ritual effects, these are only effective if you have correct vis at hand when activating the effect ( 1 pawn/ 5 magnitudes, as usual)
Not having a physical anchor, they decay other time. Typically, if you can't maintain you attention on them ( such as if you're sleeping or unconscious), they lose one " use" after a number of hours equal to the effect's Magnitude ( not including penetration). If you're awake but otherwise occupied, they lose one "use" every 2 hours. These are cumulative: 4 hours awake and 1 hour unconscious count as 3 " spell decay" hours. To prevent that, you can perform a short ceremony to "refresh" your spells: this takes 5 minutes per magnitude of the effect + 5 minutes / 10 penetration (round up).
If you have used up spell " slots" ( ie, cast them, or lost them due to spell decay), you can regain them by intoning lenghty incantations, which take 15 minutes per (magnitude of the effect + Penetration/10 penetration, rounded up) for each use.
Penetration is affected by the local Aura when expending a charge.
So, there you are, OSR-style spellcasters who spend time " putting their spells into their grimoires", and need to " commit them to memory" regularly

If you want different styles of Spellcasting, you can either restrict the forms one has acces to and / or change the Aura from Magic to Faerie and/or change the name of the skill used,as well as the ability.
=> you could have " Magicians", using Int+"Craft Spells" ability, attuned to Magic Auras, having access to the Elemental forms, "Druids" which use Pre + "Nature's Ally", attuned to Faerie Auras, having access to Herbam, Animal, MuCo ( limited to shapeshift, and " Animal improvement " spells, like " Eyes of the Cat", maaaybe some Auram ( winds only) and/or Terram ( Earth Only); "Clerics" using Com + "Prayer" ability, attuned to Divine Auras, having access to Corpus, Mentem and Vim. Tailor as per your group. I can always do more / detail more, if you ask me.
Likewise, you may tailor the vis to each group, from " A dragon's heart" to " sanctified water / holy symbol (use the rules for extracting vis, using Prayer) or "a branch from a centuries old Living Tree"

Hope you find this fun , and, especially, that you find some use for it

OakRover · February 12, 2025, 8:57am

What does TCI stand for? Is that The Contested Isle?

The_Fixer · February 12, 2025, 9:02am

Yes, it is

Marko_Markoko · February 17, 2025, 3:24am

That is some cool stuff. But that is not the challenge. Indeed, that is heading in the opposite direction. It is all about the combat system. If I could drop the standard Hermetic magic system into a BX combat engine, that would be ideal. But still, I don't even want to do that. I feel that the first time one plays a system they should play it close to RAW until they learn what they are doing. I would want to keep it simple and vanilla. Nothing but the core rules. No realm books, no non-Hermetic magic, no options, nothing. In fact, I want to exclude half the virtues and flaws in the core rules.
I wish I knew coding, because I think the character sheet on Roll20 is not very newbie friendly.

The_Fixer · February 17, 2025, 8:52am

I can do that, although it poses difficulties, mostly in how to inscrease the Arts
One upon a time, I'd have taken that as a challenge.

The_Fixer · February 18, 2025, 6:44pm

So far, from the top of my head, typing as I go, here are rough rules, given that I'm fairly new to BX:
MU start with (20-Magic Save+ Int bonus)x3 ranks to distribute in all arts, so, typically, at least 18 points, maybe more.
You can have spell levels equal to INT*5

Casting a spell uses the Arts + CON bonus +1d20 vs twice the Ars Magica Level. If you miss your target by less than 10, you still succeed, but must roll vs Paralyze (at a penalty of 1/ fatigue level) or be incapacitated by Fatigue. Whether you succeed or not, you also take 1 fatigue level
Ars damage ports over as it is, say . Makes it more fearful, which I like .

You have Parma, MT, Finesse and Penetration 1
Decide if you want spells to be resistable or not. If so, either Spell Penetration or the Penetration skill could penalize Magic Save on a 1 for 1 basis, which would make Hermetic Magic incredibly powerful
Parma adds itself to Magic Save, but it is also rolled to protect against all magic, save Hermetic Magic (use the normal rules here), even if it would fall under another Save. Yes, that makes Parma really powerful, which is a good thing IMO.

When you level up, you have 3 choices:

Improve one of your skills
Roll to try and improve an art. I'll be harsh here: Roll 1d20+ Caster level, and the result must be > your art. The result of the dice is the number of XPs you get
do a season's worth of lab work when it's downtime. That way, you can introduce you BX players to the Ars system

It is untested, even in my mind, but that's what first drafts are for

That's all for now. Probably better to let it rest

( edit: replaced *3, which didn't show properly, by x3)
re-edit: having a choice of Fixed Arts ( as per the Heretic's corner, in an issue of Sub Rosa) could also be a good possibility