Breaking the Limit of Vis

Games Discussion Ars Magica
#1

I am looking ideas for how I can bring a Original Research project to break the Limit of Vis into my saga. One player has asked that as part of his magus' quest for archmagushood, that his Vim specialist magus would look into this. I would like to find a way to make this work as his long-term saga goal. I think one of the end results would be to re-introduce the old 3rd edition 'Change the Nature of Vis' spell to some degree, or some related lab activity or Virtue to allow this.

This is clearly a Hermetic Breakthrough, so 60+ Breakthrough points would be needed.

Now, I'm aware that having vis be mutable can and will introduce drastic changes in how vis is handled in the saga. I am looking for ways to possibly mitigate or provide 'steps' to researching this so that it will be a considerable effort, but not feel like a waste of time.

Some initial thoughts:

  • Having it work on certain types of vis to start (maybe convert non-Vim vis to Vim vis), and then once that is done, theoretically allow research into reversing that one Art at a time.
  • Require self-initiation (Mystery) to new Virtues for each Art that you can convert vis into. The flaws picked up will have a limiting effect on how many any given magus can pick up
  • The research will create a new lab activity that requires a full season to slowly convert one type of vis to another

Have any SGs run into this with their sagas, and how did you handle it? Has anyone else thought about how they would bring this in?

#2

Have you taken a look at the "Grigori Magic" chapter in Ancient Magic? It covers almost exactly what you're talking about and does it pretty well, imo.

#3

I haven't looked at Ancient Magic in quite some time, but I'll have a look. Thanks for the suggestion!

#4

Some other forms of magic use different criteria for vis (Vitkir - the form of vis must roughly match the target, but the runes use different boundaries to Hermetic magic, and Virgillian Animo magic used "any type the troupe feels appropriate to the animation")
Some only use very specific vis (Storm magi in Againt the Dark only use ice rarified in an aura, and Soqotran magi from Rival Magic have been led to believe only incense-based vis works).
Studying either of these may help you understand more about the use of vis in magic generally.