"Thank-you. You're right, Fray, that we should prepare something to hold the horse before we try to capture it. I'll talk with Damianos - he used to work with horses at Gigas. Might be worth bringing him with us, actually. I had been thinking about a ward, and that might still be useful in addition, but they do have the problem that you have to cast them after you have the horse in position."
"My worry about going to look for the horse is, how do we make sure we get the right horse? There's no shortage of them out there. That's why I was thinking of setting up a horse and waiting for it to come to us. Of course, that does have downsides - it might take longer, and we need a fine mare, which we don't have. Can either of you create a mare, or a convincing illusion of one?"
"Hmm. Illusions are not my strength, however - switching sight, scent, and sound of another animal might be plausible. With the help of somebody who knows mares, and a suitably large animal or person. "
"Failing that I have a spell to change Beasts which might switch a horse cosmetically into a mare, if the change is superficial enough".
Edit: Fray adds "perhaps the effects in combination. Do we have cattle or another passive horse for bait?"
"I'm afraid illusions aren't my forte either," Stephen replies, "except for invisibility. Nor are Animal spells. I do know a spell that will cause the earth to rise and hold someone firm, however. That should work as well on a horse as on a person. With luck it would hold long enough to put a halter on the horse."
Gregorius mentally goes through the list of the covenant's large animals, and emerges with a slightly horrified expression on his face.
"I think the only creature we have that's the right size is Alcimus. Which...would certainly be a deterrent to future attempts. And he's intelligent, so he can co-operate, at least if I can persuade him that it's not too beneath his dignity. Can we rig it so we can unravel the spell at the right moment so he can ambush the horse? That might persuade him. How's your penetration, if you can get an arcane connection to him?
Looking to Gregorius, "as long as he's accepting as a first principal but honestly his inherent magic may be too powerful. At the very least it will need three separate illusions to give me a chance. "
Ooc I can't see his Might to take a guess.
I see Fray only has a Penetration of 1 (with no speciality), so that probably is going to be difficult to get through, even with an arcane connection, especially as a positive aura will also boost Alcimus' magic resistance, making it counterproductive.]
"Hmm." Gregorius thinks for a few moments. "It's a bit risky, but how is both of you's Perdo Vim? Could you manage to penetrate on a spell to suppress his Might briefly?"
[OOC: Relative guideline is on page 63 of The Contested Isle. Dispel Magic Resistance from a Might score aligned to one realm with a level less than or equal to the level of the Vim spell plus 20 + stress die (no botch). Spell must penetrate the Vim based magic resistance of the target. Suppression only lasts for the duration of the spell, and the magic resistance returns afterwards.
I'm pretty sure "level" should read "base level", so we just need to penetrate on a base 1 + 1 Touch + 0/1 Momentary/Concentration spell = level 2/3. We want to do it in the lowest aura available (which I think is 1 without a lot of travelling), so we're trying to penetrate an 11 Magic resistance, meaning we need a Perdo Vim casting total beforew division of 26 or 28 if we don't use arcane connections. That's probably just within what Stephen can do?]
"That's just as the edge of my ability," Stephen replies. "I might be able to manage it if I tried enough times. But then I'd be likely to suffer some Warping, which I'd very much like to avoid. Is there another alternative?" He thinks for a moment. "I could create the illusion that looks like a horse, or one that looks and sounds like a horse. But I'm not sure I can manage smell on top of that."
OOC1: Stephen can get a +18 (+23 in the Aura) to his roll, so he could make 26 or 28. But he's like as not to botch before he succeeds. Also, alas, he has 0 Penetration. (As I said, this was one of the first characters I ever created. I made some definite mistakes.)
OOC2: Stephen can get +26 for CrIm (+31 in the Aura). That's enough for a CrIm 15 spell, which includes the Phantom Animal modified to not have smell. If we were upwind, the magical horse might not notice the absence
OOC3: I wasn't thinking of spontaneous illusions when I said that illusions weren't my forte. Apparently I'm pretty good at them.
SIMPLE PHANTASMAL ANIMAL CrIm 15
R: Voice, D: Diam, T: Ind
Creates an image of any animal or beast up to the size of a pony (Size +1). Under your direct mental command, it moves about (within range) and makes appropriate noises. You need to be able to concentrate, and be within range, whenever you wish to direct the illusion to move in some manner. If you move out of range or stop concentrating, the illusion just freezes in place. The image does smell like an animal, but it has absolutely no effect on the senses of touch, taste, or smell. Of course, a magus may not use this spell to create the image of an animal he or she does not know exists.
(Base 2, +2 Voice, +1 Diam, +2 move under your command)
[OOC: Is it just at the edge? I made Stephen's Perdo Vim casting total Pe 11 + Vi 5 + Sta 2 + 1 Aura + 2 loud words and gestures = 21, which only requires a roll of 5 or better to hit 26 (which is probably all that's needed if Fray is casting the other spell, as then it can be done in the same round). He can get another +3 if he uses ceremonial magic (which should only take 15 minutes as it's a first magnitude spell), although it's arguably not worth it. Botching is only going to be a one in a hundred chance - his golden cord makes it unlikely he's going to be rolling more than one botch die.
I have to admit, when I first remembered that guideline existed I thought it would be Rego rather than Perdo, which would be more convenient.
But yes, illusions look like they're another option (although the needing to keep concentrating to stop it freezing in place is a pain).
I suspect you'd need to concentrate on the smell to keep it in the right place, which would be difficult whilst also keeping the animal moving. Although you could just have someone else create it (quietly) when the horse actually turned up. Base 1 + 3 Sight + 1 Conc = level 5.]
[OOC: Although, thinking about it a little more, if you do manage to hit 28, using diameter and then casting a long duration intangible tunnel on Alcimus for use when we're up in a boat in the air could be useful.
Dispelling an effect of a specific type is going to be base level + 4 magnitudes + stress die. I think the Imaginem spell will be Base 3 + 1 Touch + 2/3 Sun / Moon = Level 10/15, which implies we need a base of 2 or 3, so will be a lot easier to unravel if we can use Touch range. Unfortunately if we don't unravel, Alcimus is unlikely to be able to penentrate the magic resistance of the horse when it shows up. (This is the point where I regret that it's Stephen rather than Fray that has Harnessed Magic.)]
[OOC I thought CrIm didn't need to penetrate MR. It is not resisted? Or do you mean that the MR reducing effect? I thought that was only momentary or Dia?]
[OOC: A pure Creo Imaginem effect wouldn't need to penetrate to be seen, no (and it hurting people is a bit of a moot point).
I was thinking of the potential alternative approach of Muto Imaginem-ing Alcimus, which still wouldn't need to penetrate to be seen, but which I think would need to penetrate for him to attack someone with magic resistance for the same reason invisible characters need to penetrate.]
[OOC: Hmm. So potential alternative approach which solves the problem of being able to drop the spell at will:
Fray casts the Muto Imaginem spell as concentration duration (so, Base 3 + 1 Touch + 1 Conc = level 5)
Stephen then casts "Maintaining Another's Demanding Spell" on the Muto Imaginem spell (guideline will effect a spell with a level less than or equal to 1/2 *(base level + 5 magnitudes), so base 1 for a level 5 spell, +1 Touch + 3 Moon = Level 5.
Stephen uses his Harnessed Magic to cancel Maintaining Another's Demanding Spell at will later.
My understanding is that there's two different ways you can approach it:
The default, and what I'd been thinking of: You cast the Muto Imaginem spell on the target (i.e. Alcimus) emitting the species. The target is then under a magical effect, but the species are natural. The end result is that the species don't need to penetrate to be seen, but you do need to penetrate the magic resistance of the target to affect them in the first place.
You cast the Muto Imaginem spell directly on the species. In this case the species would be under a magical effect, and would have to penetrate to be seen. This option would probably also limit the mobility of the thing emitting the species.
[OOC: An illusion doesn't normally have to penetrate to be seen (although you do need to penetrate the magic resistance, if any, of the person you're transforming the image of - otherwise you could give random archmagi donkey's ears. If only once). However, it's possible to do it a non-standard way. See page 63 of HoH:S.]
Stephen will need to volunteer the information about his ability to cancel his spells at will, as I don't think Gregorius is aware he has harnessed magic. Gregorius will be publically trying to work out a way to reliably cancel the spell, so there's plenty of triggers to volunteer, assuming he's happy to.
Assuming this all gets agreed, Gregorius' plan is:
Build a secure pen to keep the horse in in case we end up capturing it.
Persuade Alcimus to agree to the plan. This should be fairly doable as it stands - it's only an illusion rather than an actual transformation, and he gets to spring the trap, so it's just magically enhanced hunting really. Gregorius has instructed him that they're not looking to get the horse dead, just unable to run away.
We go out to somewhere the aura's only Magic 1 (which there's plenty of available land to do).
Fray casts the Muto Imaginem spell as concentration duration (so, Base 3 + 1 Touch + 1 Conc = level 5), to transform Alcimus' sight, sound and smell.
Stephen then casts "Maintaining Another's Demanding Spell" on the Muto Imaginem spell (guideline will effect a spell with a level less than or equal to 1/2 *(base level + 5 magnitudes), so base 1 for a level 5 spell, +1 Touch + 3 Moon = Level 5. (Rego 20 + Vi 5 + Sta 2 + Aura 1 + W&G 2 + die)/2 = (30 + die) /2
Stephen makes everyone other than Alcimus invisible, and his boat invisible, then we all go and hover above Alcimus in one of the places the villagers were getting horses stolen from and wait for the horse to show up.
Hope the horse turns up before we all get too bored (and Fray needs to get back to his labwork). Gregorius will have brought water, and something to do, but is assuming the horse will turn up in the day time and we don't need to bother staking out at night.
When the horse turns up, do some combination of threaten, persuade and bargain with it into not stealing mares in future. Hopefully having had one said mare turn into a monstrous wolf will be an incentive in this regard.
Gregorius will bring Damianos and Theodoric as grogs. Damianos is good with horses, and Theodoric can translate if necessary. They've both brought bows.
A stallion that turns up and trys to lure away (or even magically spirit away) the fine mare that Alcimus should appear to be once Fray has finished with him. I'm not aware that the villagers have a more specific description than that, which is part of why Gregorius was going for plan "Set a trap" rather than "Go out and look for it".
