bizarre interpretation of "The Unseen Porter"

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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This is an anecdote.

We had a situation late in our last session where our troupe was trying to unexpectedly transport wagons up a valley towards home base, but they had to get past a narrow chokepoint, wide enough for a single horse with rider to squeeze through or a person with a wheelbarrow. It was rather important that they could not damage the bare-stone valley walls forming the chokepoint.

So after some discussion (including things like how to shrink the wagons) I acknowledged that higher up (just above the horse rider) the chokepoint widened out. So the troupe decided to lighten the wagons (including removing the wheels) and multicast “The Unseen Porter” ReTe 10 to carry the wagons over (targeting the metal brackets holding the axles), about 10 feet above the ground.

Then somebody reading the spell description pointed out that the Unseen Porter could only lift things only 6 feet high. The troupe immediately acclaimed that the unseen porter was some sort of spiritual entity only 6 feet tall, and needed to walk on the ground, even though it was intangible and invisible.

Then came the attempts to build a ramp. When the Merinita mage asked if an illusory ramp would help? After some discussion I allowed that an illusory ramp that includes a sensation of touch might work if the casting sigil of the casters of the “Unseen Porter” didn’t break the illusion of the ramp.

One caster’s sigil was “sunlight”, meaning the carried wagon would not put an illusion breaking non-shadow on the ramp. The other caster’s was “a sense of Home”, so I ruled that since the direction was towards home base it succeeded, if the direction had not been towards home then it would have failed.

And a thus good time was had by the players doing a lot of sponting and spell casting.

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Interestingly, a Creo Imaginem spell to create a fairy, associated only with one sensation (touch) at Voice Range + Concentration would be the exact same level as the Unseen Porter. Different Arts, obviously, and idk if “About as strong as an Ox” is something allowed for a Might 0 Faerie.

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Not how Imaginem works, especially “touch”. They are illusions, with the Art affecting ether the creation process (and thus species are not magical) or the species themselves (and thus the species are magical).

If you create an illusion with “touch”, people would think it ‘feels solid’ right up until they accidentally put their hand through it. It can only change appearance, not produce/change actual effects.

Definitive Edition, p.209, 347-348; HoH: Societates, p.61-70 (some are other Arts or require Requisites).

Anamorphs is actually a “better invisibility”, a ‘you sense but ignore me’ effect.