HoH:S p.107 has rare Gifted Companions with Reputation 'Hedge Wizard' as members of the Order.
Do you assume, that your character joined the Order first as a Hedge Wizard, and then shopped around there for instruction in some Arts? In that case no crime against the Oath might be involved.
If there is a crime then the gifted companion is the victim.
There is nothing against a situation where someone with supernatural powers is inducted into the order, e.g. via a "join or die" before being initiated into hermetic magic.
But you could perhaps argue that opening that person to a single art constitutes taking them as an apprentice and giving them a flawed opening. See also how it is a low crime to open give an apprentice deficiencies by opening them to the arts without having a score of at least 5 in every art. In a sense by opening them to only one art you are preventing them from learning all the others. This at least provides a social reason for why magi would be reluctant to open someone to just a few arts. In addition in almost all situations it is better to be opened to all arts and lose a few virtues in the process. In most cases hermetic magic can copy those virtues given enough time to study.
There is no specific reason as I see it why this couldn't be done - true, canonically the order doesn't do it but that doesn't make it impossible. It is likely to be viewed as a crime in several ways by the order and as such I don't think initiation scripts are likely to exist already. So you would likely have to devise new initiations to do it.
There is also one thing in canon which implies this is possible within the rules of the setting - the hermetic breakthrough of Hermetic Realm Integration in C&C (emphasis mine):
"This research eventually leads to a breakthrough with which the magus may initiate others into new Supernatural or Hermetic Virtues without the secrecy and lore of a Mystery Cult. Soon powerful magi may even learn to teach Hermetic magic to the unGifted, by initiating them into each Art."
This breakthrough is about granting virtues the way Solomonic wizards do (which doesn't inflict virtues like mystery initiations) so the hermetic breakthrough makes it practical to take someone through 15 different virtue initiations, but it should be possible to make regular mystery initiations for them even if doing all 15 would be impractical.
edit: forgot to clarify at the beginning, I think you would have to initiate each as a virtue just like non-gifted hedge wizards initiate hedge arts.
Thanks, Argentius, Euphemism.
However, Initiations are outside of my query. Just interested in seeing if the Hermetic Arts could be taught to Gifted individuals, as they can learn new Supernatural abilities (with a score) from a teacher through Practice (which if I remember correctly does not work for Hermetic Arts) or Teaching, as long as you can meet an ever increasing threshold (see Core p.166 Learning Supernatural Abilities).
Also if said individual, once he has a score in at least 1 Technique and Form (as well as MT and access to a lab), can use these normally, create items within that TeFo, wage certamen with their available TeFo, gets MR of 0+ and Form bonuses/resistance from their Forms, etc. The usual.
Even the mightiest Pralician, with help, may be hard pressed to reach a 150+ Lab Total to Open an individual with 2 Major Supernatural Virtues and 1 Minor and preserve them.
Argentius' example works, but you need to
(1) assume a specific Hermetic Breakthrough has happened in your saga,
and (2) accept initiations.
Unless your character first has his Arts opened, your character - by the books, without huge Breakthroughs, Divine interventions, or such - cannot learn the Arts
The character could somehow - e. g. by character creation, initiation, RoP:M p.38 box Grant Major Virtue by a selfless (?) Magic being, or such - have acquired RoP:M p.44 Major Supernatural Focus Powers bestowing RoP:M p.38 box Crafter of Form on him.
Thanks, OneShot, this is more in line with what I was seeking, as this text specifically forbids teaching Arts and spells before Opening.
(I knew Arts ≠ Supernatural Abilities, but wanted to see if others tended to treat them similarly for Teaching purposes.)
The reason is the same as the reason that a rocket propelled by iron filing being driven by an electromagnetic accelerator taking them to 80% the speed of light can't be launched- nobody has invented it.
The culture of the order doesn't encourage such an invention, and it is presumably a non-trivial breakthrough....
The magi don't NEED to invent unGifted initiations. They can associate thanks to Parma Magica. Other traditions, if you are not Gentle Gifted, have no society and two Gifted people getting together will end in ruin for one or both. Making unGifted initiations allows you to create a society of magic users - the Gifted will still suffer socially, but not nearly as badly as among other Gifted folk (and their extra power and knowledge means that unGifted people will still suck up to them - possibly long enough for them to become used to their Gift).
However, Initiations are outside of my query.
In this case I would agree with the other poster who have said no, you can't learn arts as an ungifted person without having a supernatural virtue that gives you the art. That's how it works for every hedge magic tradition - gifted people get their arts opened, ungifted get individual arts through initiation. You can change the method of acquiring the virtue, but ultimately you do need the virtue for it to work.
As you say Arts do not equal Supernatural Abilities. That's why Hedge Magic RE makes the distinction between supernatural abilities, difficult arts (which must be acquired/taught as arts but advance at the rate of an ability), arts, and accelerated supernatural abilities (which advance at the rate of an art but are acquired/taught as supernatural abilities).
The fact is that you can get arts "opened" though supernatural virtues- touched by magic, for example, or Hermetic Inclination in (form) both give limited access to the arts. Craft Magic is described as a supernatural virtue, which by rules of ex miscellania it must be (Rustica tradition) but it also specifies that only people within the Rustica tradition have the virtue, which by definition would make it a major hermetic virtue instead... so that is a bit of an odd duck in the mix.
If memory serves me correctly, I think it might be in the Guernicus chapter of HoH:TL, apprentices are guaranteed 15 Seasons of training, because inducting a lesser trained magician into the order as a full member is against the dignity of all Magi, or some such. And is judged to be a significant crime.
An apprentice who has failed their Gauntlett is not granted the "Join or Die" option, and is not allowed to go free with Hermetic secrets.
So I have difficulty seeing anybody being trained in 2 Techniques and 2 Forms, less than an apprentice who failed their Gauntlet, being allowed to happen.
This is assuming Hermetic Magic can be broken up. Bonisagus seems to have created Hermetic Magic as a single integrated Tradition, rather than as separate supernatural abilities synergistically combined.
Learned Magician magic and Gruagachan/Druidic magic are both represented exactly the same as Hermetic magic (consisting of a set of arts you get all at once when the gift is opened) but they have initiation scripts to grant individual arts as supernatural virtues. It seems more consistent that such initiations are possible in theory for Hermetic magic too, but have never been invented or are not used because hermetic culture doesn't see them as good or useful to have.
In Apprentices it actually discusses what happens if an apprentice is abandoned or cast out by their master. While it is seen as generally "cleaner" to kill the apprentice it's not universally applied, and there isn't really any legal penalty either way so long as they don't know the parma (which they shouldn't!). Indeed it implies that while not common people who are trained in hermetic magic but are not magi are not vanishingly rare or persecuted more than any other hedge wizard:
"Other abandoned apprentices disappear into the woodwork. Such an apprentice considers herself trained enough, capable of continuing her arcane studies privately. She has all the capabilities of a maga, but is not a member of the Order of Hermes and cannot use Hermetic society as a resource for books, additional instructors, or other traded commodities. She cannot join a covenant or participate in any Hermetic functions. Having not sworn the Oath of Hermes, she is not bound by it, but neither is she protected by it. An abandoned apprentice is not necessarily doomed to a life of isolation. Sometimes groups form, outliers of the Order, who accept such members. The mock covenant Fenistal in the Rhine Tribunal is one such group." - Apprentices, pg. 59
The parma is secret knowledge that must not be shared outside the order, but magic theory and the arts are not secret in the same way. In fact, I would argue that it should be possible for a gifted person who acquires some hermetic knowledge (by reading a book on magic theory or some of the arts) to devise a self-initiation into some of the arts exactly the same way you can self-initiate into other supernatural virtues by inventing your own mystery cult. Very inefficient - but possible.
Both Gruagachan and Learned Magicians can be without the Gift: so the Supernatural Virtues providing their arts are necessary.
Vitkir - who do require the Gift - do not have Supernatural Virtues providing runes. They must have been opened to the 24 runes by a master, very similarly to Hermetic magi and to the Apprentices you talk above, who have "all the capabilities of a maga".
In practice there are no Supernatural Virtues for runes or arts, and there are not needed for abandoned Apprentices either. I don't see why you would wish to introduce them in your saga.
Fair points but I would point back to C&C where it is certainly implied such virtues can exist for hermetic arts and would not require the gift just like for LMs and Gruagachan: " Soon powerful magi may even learn to teach Hermetic magic to the unGifted, by initiating them into each Art." Note that the breakthrough in C&C doesn't create these virtues, it just makes it easier to initiate all supernatural virtues and hence makes initiation into 15 arts more practical.
I would also point out that the virtue "Hermetic Inclination in (Form)" exists and literally allows a character to learn a single form without the gift - hermetic magic theory even helps them study it! Though they can't cast spells, having only a form and no technique, and have to apply it similarly to craft magic into items. Still, this implies that supernatural virtues can grant someone the ability to learn and use hermetic arts in the general sense as this virtue isn't simply using a form to represent a non-hermetic type of magic but is actually giving a non-gifted person a hermetic art that they can study using hermetic sources and which fits into hermetic magic theory.
I would argue that it is overall more consistent if equivalent virtues exist for arts in all magic traditions, including rune magic (which like hermetic magic doesn't have the initiations for the virtues - that doesn't mean those virtues can't exist). Otherwise you need an explanation of why some magic traditions have this hard requirement that only opening the gift can grant their arts while others are completely unrestricted in this regard. I personally can't think of one that's as simple and to the point as "the virtues can exist in theory, they just aren't used in practice in 1220".
In practice there are no Supernatural Virtues for runes or arts, and there are not needed for abandoned Apprentices either. I don't see why you would wish to introduce them in your saga.
The thing about abandoned apprentices was just a response to the idea that abandoned apprentices get hunted down and killed, I agree you don't need any new virtues to represent them. As for why to add it to your saga - if you wanted someone to have hermetic arts but not be gifted, as simple as that. I personally am just spitballing ideas about what's possible in Mythic Europe, I don't have any particular desire to do anything with the idea. That said, I could see an interesting hook if a group managed to figure out a way to initiate one or two hermetic arts and formed a new hedge tradition around it, like a group of pyromancers is encountered and it turns out their entire tradition is based on one primer on Ignem and a pilum of fire lab text just like Learned Magicians got their magic from one book on Egyptian Craft magic. How would the order react? Would these hedge wizards try and purchase or steal further knowledge from the order? What would house Flambeau think of them?
Virtues are rules constructs. If no player or SG can use a Virtue as such (in character building, initiation or other), discussing its 'existence' just doesn't make sense.
Now lets go into the details.
Look up TG&TC p.45 again: Hermetic Realm Integration is an Hermetic Breakthrough. "This research eventually leads to a breakthrough with which the magus may initiate others into new Supernatural or Hermetic Virtues without the secrecy and lore of a Mystery Cult. Soon powerful magi may even learn to teach Hermetic magic to the unGifted, by initiating them into each Art."
There is no statement, that Arts as Virtues to be initiated can be used before the Hermetic Breakthrough is achieved. To the contrary, it is the Hermetic Breakthrough, which enables magi to initiate the Arts as Virtues, and thereby teach the Hermetic Arts to the unGifted.
Lets look up A&A p.107 Hermetic Inclination in (Form), a Major Supernatural Virtue available only to the Maestro, a Mythic Companion: "... he can study one Hermetic Form and use that knowledge in his profession. <snip> However, since he doesn't have an understanding of Hermetic magic, ... <snip> He may also instill some magical effects into his artwork."
So the Maestro can study an Hermetic Art, and use his Art score in a very specific way available only to a Maestro, but cannot use it to work any kind of Hermetic Magic.
The Maestro can indeed study an Hermetic Form and Magic Theory, but uses it to work magic in a way an Hermetic magus can't. This is not an argument, that somebody already can initiate an Art as a Virtue.
There is no statement, that Arts as Virtues to be initiated can be used before the Hermetic Breakthrough is achieved. To the contrary, it is the Hermetic Breakthrough, which enables magi to initiate the Arts as Virtues, and thereby teach the Hermetic Arts to the unGifted.
This simply isn't the case. The hermetic breakthrough is from the integration of solomonic magic and grants the ability to "initiate others into new Supernatural or Hermetic Virtues without the secrecy and lore of a Mystery Cult.". The breakthrough is just a new method of acquiring virtues. The latter part is just an example of how this might be applied. The breakthrough doesn't create virtues, or create a new category of virtues that require this kind of method to be used. The virtues being granted are exactly the same as if you used a mystery initiation, but you don't suffer the costs of an initiation using this method - that benefit is why it's a hermetic breakthrough.
The importance of the second part is that it implies that supernatural virtues can exist that grant each art, and that as a whole these are equivalent to an opening of the gift. If the virtues can exist then they can be initiated via any method that can grant supernatural virtues. As the methods of initiation don't exist in 1220 it would take some work to invent them but there is nothing to say they can't be invented.
To turn the question around - is there a good explanation for why the arts of some magical traditions can be acquired via virtue as well as opening the gift, but for other traditions they can't be?
You read TC&TG p.45 Hermetic Realm Integration out of its context. "Soon powerful magi may even learn to teach Hermetic magic to the unGifted, by initiating them into each Art." describes a consequence of the Hermetic Breakthrough outlined in the phrase before.
You know, that by ArM5 p.36 Supernatural Virtues can be taken at character creation for every character. This requires, that those Supernatural Virtues introduced later, which must not be taken by every companion at character creation - like A&A p.134 Hermetic Inclination in (Form) - need to be flagged as such. Hence they need to be at the verrry least precisely written down first.
If Hermetic Arts were somehow - tacitly - understood as bestowed by Virtues before the Hermetic Breakthrough Hermetic Realm Integration, every companion could have had them: that is clearly not the case.
Space in Ars Magica books is always limited: especially so for long-shot perspectives like the Hermetic Realm Integration. The "Soon ..." phrase concluding its description does certainly not in passing postulate Virtues bestowing Hermetic Arts before that Hermetic Breakthrough, but quickly points out, how a saga can progress once it was achieved.
We're arguing at cross purposes here. There's several distinct parts to this and I don't think we actually disagree on most of them. Here are the key points as I see them:
I am not and have not been trying to argue that these virtues already exist in Mythic Europe in 1220, or that opening the gift grants these virtues (although as you'll see below I think it may be equivalent to granted free virtue equivalents). Only that these virtues can in theory exist, if someone discovers them.
We are in disagreement over the Hermetic Realm Integration, though. You're right that it's a context problem but not the way you suggest. If you actually read the result of the breakthrough it has nothing to do with allowing hermetic arts to be granted by virtue - that's just the example used because it's something so extreme to do with mystery initiations (it would inflict an excessive number of flaws and require a huge investment).
The result of the breakthrough is the following major virtue:
"The magus may initiate students into Virtues in the same way sahirs do, by convincing a spirit to accompany the student into the Magic Realm. This uses the character’s Rego Vim Lab Total instead of Solomonic Travel, and substitutes Magic Theory for Magic Lore, but otherwise works the same way: costing vis, reducing the spirit’s Might Score, and Warping the student."
The thing it allows magi to replicate is this:
"The process involves the teacher summoning a willing spirit to carry the student, in spirit form, into the Magic Realm. During the season, the student undergoes a sort of dream journey... The experience is very similar to what happens to Hermetic magi when they experience Twilight... While the student is in this state, his teacher performs the opening ritual and calculates his Opening Total. If this is 30 or more, the student gains a Major Virtue associated with the Art of Solomon that is also possessed by the teacher, usually a Solomonic or a summoning art. With a total of 25, he gains the Major Virtue but
also receives a Minor Flaw. With only 15, he gains the Major Virtue and a Major Flaw. These Flaws should be tied to the student’s travels in the Magic Realm"
There's more about the vis cost and the warping inflicted that I've left out for brevity, but that's the key part. This in no way allows for virtues that were previously impossible to exist, in fact it requires that the virtues already exist and that the person initiating has the virtue in question. All it does is give a way to impart supernatural virtues that costs vis and warping instead of inflicting other flaws (assuming the magus is skilled enough to not also inflict flaws).
The critical part is the bits saying things like "the student gains a ___Virtue associated with the Art of Solomon that is also possessed by the teacher". Sahirs have both gifted and non-gifted members. Just like with magi gifted members have their arts opened, and therefore do not gain the virtues but just get the arts directly - but they can still use this method to grant those virtues to ungifted people. The implication is that they do, in fact, have these virtues but that they are granted as free virtues when the arts are opened. There is no reason for this not to be true for the opening of the gift in other traditions as well, and the section of the breakthrough text "Soon powerful magi may even learn to teach Hermetic magic to the unGifted, by initiating them into each Art" supports this - any magus with this method and good enough lab totals could pass on the (currently unused but theoretically possible) virtues associated with the hermetic arts just as gifted sahirs pass on the virtues that they themselves don't explicitly possess. This is not inconsistent with the core rules - we know that arts act like supernatural abilities to an extent in regards to learning new supernatural abilities, so it stands to reason that this is because arts actually are like supernatural abilities but are simply free virtues granted all at once on the opening of the gift.
Provided that you agree on this:
we can agree on the list above, too.
I wrote:
So we might agree here, too.
You quote in great detail (from TC&TC p.42) the way, how the Major Hermetic Virtue Hermetic Realm Initiation operates. This is not very important for this thread, so I omit it.
As long as this is only relevant for the Hermetic Arts after the Hermetic Breakthrough Hermetic Realm Initiation, I certainly don't care: see above. In particular so, because with the last consequence of Hermetic Realm Initiation unGifted students can be initiated to the Hermetic Arts - so excluding these at creation of unGifted characters does not make much sense any more.
But perhaps I should conclude by quoting from HoH:TL p.27 Breakthroughs: "It is important to discuss your idea and the specific Breakthrough you are attempting with your troupe. Does the group want a Lesser Limit broken, for example, or will a teachable Hermetic Virtue upset the nature of the game?"
Obviously you shouldn't include anything in a game (not just of Ars Magica, but speaking generally) unless the group is happy to include it. That's a bit beside the point, though - my original point several comments ago was just that based on the way different things are presented the (at least theoretical) existence of virtue equivalents of arts as a general principle is a simple and consistent framework that synchronises all the magical traditions in the game, and I haven't seen any suggestion for an alternative explanation, or an explanation why hermetic magic would be fundamentally different from other magical traditions.
Nobody has to agree or use this idea if they don't like it, and I have no plans to do anything with it in the near future - but I do think it is important to think about these kind of things to maintain internal consistency when creating new rules.
I still don't agree that the hermetic arts as virtues require Hermetic Realm Initiation as a breakthrough to exist or to be granted. If it was intended that this breakthrough allowed for these virtues to exists when they could not before this would be in the actual text of the breakthrough virtue rather than a bit of descriptive text elsewhere. My interpretation is (and has been consistently) that the "Soon..." refers to the fact that it is now practical to try and grant so many virtues, not that the Realm Initiation breakthrough is a necessary antecedent to the existence of the virtues in question. But we're arguing in circles here, so lets maybe just agree to disagree here.