Things look good to me overall. I would say make sure your spells have descriptions or at the very least a citation to where you grabbed it as you continue ahead here. If you have questions about the Post-Gauntlet advancement at all, feel free to ask.
I'll put the references on. I took them all from the grand grimoir
The Grand Grimoire includes some questionable spells (from books which were less rigorous about the use of the guidelines), so make sure to include the Grimoire's reference to the original book, not simply the reference to the Grimoire.
You also have several typos in the spell names...
Yeah, sorry.I have gone back and fixed it. Going to edit previous mistakes, too.
The Grand Grimoire includes some questionable spells (from books which were less rigorous about the use of the guidelines), so make sure to include the Grimoire's reference to the original book
I assumed published materials would be right. Silly me.
We had a discussion about the different sourcebooks in the Saga Discussion topic. See this post for the result.
| Name | Te | Fo | Level | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| True rest of the injured brute | cr | an | 20 | ARM 117 |
| Ward against the beasts of legend | re | an | 10 | ARM 120 |
| Bind fast | re | an(he) | 5 | Magi of hermes 100 |
| Circle of beast warding | re | an | 5 | ARM 120 |
| Purification of festering wounds | cr | co | 20 | ARM 129 |
| Preternatural growth and shrinking | mu | co | 15 | ARM 131 |
| Wizard's leap | re | co | 15 | HoH:S 36 |
| Sprouting out of season | cr | he | 20 | Cov:79 |
| Acorns for amusement | re | he | 5 | Tales of mythic europe 55 |
| The mended tear | re | he | 5 | Magi of hermes 58 |
If you want me to re choose the 15 levels of spells outside of the core books, then I am happy to.
The only two which are (in my opinion) questionables are Bind Fast and Acorns for Amusement.
Bind Fast uses T:Group, with the text implying that the spell affects the clothes a group of individuals. This seems like a slightly improper use of T:Group. Since the spell is ReAn(He), this sould affect up to 10 items of clothes forming a group (such as the items of clothing worn by a simple person, or of 2-3 people standing very close to one another), not the clothes of a group of people.
Acorns for Amusement is basically the same as Wielding the Invisible Sling but using a piece of wood instead of a stone (and so not needing an added magnitude for stone vs dirt). The problem here is that it is allowed to deal a lot more damage by saying it can fling a very large piece of wood (up to "a pace long, wide, and deep") for +10 damage. But as we can see in Unseen Porter (ArM5 p.156), the heavier an object moved by Rego is, the slower it gets. So a large log would move quite slowly and not be able to deal +10 damage in combat, as it would just bump the target instead of striking it a hard blow (the target would also be able to easily dodge it). I am fine with the spell dealing up to +4 damage (using sharp arrow-like sticks), but no more. Otherwise the spell is unbalanced.
Spring
Good news! I have finished my apprenticeship and am finally a fully respected magus. Well, however it is not quite so simple, of course. Like almost everything in life, the magi have a hierarchy of importance and as a newly gauntleted magus I appear to be at the bottom of the ladder and looking at a few decades of climbing.
Even given this lofty freedom, almost unequalled in all of Christendom, I have some duties still. I know Sigmundus wants to make some progress on his own quest for immortality and is hoping that I will keep working with him on the topic. As such, he has asked me to keep a list of my doings as a seeker and to keep this diary, write up the relevant parts and send them to him and my hermetic siblings. I can, apparently, expect the same back from my hermetic family.
However, diary, I expect the initial log book shall be less than interesting to my Pater. I have become a magi of the order, yes, but the time at tribunal has shown me that I am by no means a great magi yet. One day I shall be! I refuse to continue being this poor excuse of a wizard, so at the tribunal I went looking for someone who would take me in as a Peregrinator while I read a little, and learn some.
The covenant of Dankmar seems a reasonable choice. It is old enough to have copies of the roots of the arts I am seeking, but it has old enough magi to not need them. I spoke to one of the people there, and they said for some work on their behalf, I would be welcome for a while. As such, I am travelling there.
Diary:
Dankmar is not what I expected. My friend Spinnerbeine says I should be wary of the fae here, and I am likely to believe him. It is a foreboding and dark seeming covenant. Still, it has the books I am looking for, and as such I settled in to read. Unfortunately A world in flux the primer on Muto I am reading seems to be adequate as a primer, but not in any way exceptional. Such is life. However, I do find it impossible to ignore the fae around me and the pacts with the dark faeries. I must concentrate on my studies.
(reading a primer on muto L5Q15)
Summer:
After using their library for a season, I started to get some rather unsubtle hints from my gracious hosts about how it would be customary to provide some benefit to them in exchange for their hospitality. After some thought, I have opted and been accepted to open a length of rope made of silk, hemp and silver for them, making it available for enchantment. It would seem the nature of my house’s outer mystery is a somewhat poorly kept secret as no offer of the vis this would usually take was made, but no matter. It is a thing I am capable of, easily enough.
In other news, one of the custos of the covenant has noticed my unique heritage and keeps asking me unfortunate and prying questions. This seems like a place which should be thick with the lore of the faerie realm, and yet somehow they seem to have lost it, or the will to seek it fully. After some listless questions I was able to deflect the issue at hand and return to my duties.
(exposure xp: magic theory 2+1 season spent opening an enchanted item)
Autumn:
Having provided a service the magi became more accommodating and then allowed me to return to my studies. However, my companion of all these years, Spinnerbiene has been acting strangely. He is still watching me and matching my weaving from the shadows, but he keeps disappearing during the night. Still, the reading matter I have found matches the dilapidated and concerning surroundings. I have found another primer on a technique I am weak in, the demise of all things an apprentice’s primer on perdo. It is again a little out of date, but I must suffer the circumstances I find myself in as usual.
Reading a primer on Perdo, L5,q15)
Winter:
Spinnerbiene has told me to follow him into the forest. Where it anyone except my dear friend I should be too afraid, but I fear the imp of the curious is upon my shoulder and I found the offer of something new and strange impossible to ignore. I shall follow him into the faerie woods, and see what the spider courts are, and why he is so eager to take me to them.
Well. I am not sure what to say. Yet I must, I feel. Spinnerbiene took me into the forest, and from there, I am quite sure into a regio. The story gets stranger, however. I was led to a great tree in the centre of a regio, where all of the branches were covered in a thick curtain of spider webs. This was a place of strong magic, and I was excited to see it! However, when I was moved through the curtain of the webs, I was changed magically. It took me some time to realise that I had been transformed into a spider. I had never seen or felt anything like it before. A spider’s body is an extremely strange experience, I must confess, and I struggle a little now to properly encapsulate it. The compound eyesight and the closeness of the ground, the tangle of so many limbs!
As much as I would love to claim that I was calm in the face of this unexpected change I was not. It took me some time to be able to control my new form properly and to fully use the vision from the many eyes. Spinnerbiene found this predictably hilarious, taunting me in his good-natured way about how I was used to being under legged and deficient in the eye department. However, with perseverance I performed adequately as a spider.
It seems there is a spider queen bound to the willow-covered-in-webs who form the senior members of a court of spider faeries and sentient spiders of virtue. Having seen Spinnerbiene come into the area and then also realising that as far as they were concerned my faerie spider blood and alignment to the magical realm were more than enough to make me require introduction to the spider court. So I spent 3 moons as a courtier to willow-covered-in-webs and attending the Black Queen’s court.
I learned much about the ways of fae spiders and also of magical spiders and thought long and hard about how they had so easily pierced my parma magica, but when I realised the might of the creatures in question, my injured pride settled somewhat. Still, it was a strange thing, and one I am, apparently doomed to recreate. The forest has demanded if I am to stay in the rhine tribunal, then I must present myself to the court every five years. On one hand, this is a ridiculous demand. I am a magus of the order, and subject myself to no other governance! On the other hand, I think there might be much to be gained or learned here, and defiance might cause me issues with the fae and magic spirits needlessly. Something to contemplate.
(adventure, gaining 5 xp in magic lore and 5xp in a fae sympathy (if we are using it) if not in parma magica? Returning with a pawn of rego vis and a pawn of animal vis as the symbol of the courts. Probably 3 warping points over the season for being a spider. I would like some feedback in this part)
End of the year:Correspondence with my pater about our cult. 2xp in cult lore.
Bind fast seems to me like the group is the clothes on a person. I read it as affecting only one person.
Acorns for amusement: I am perfectly happy to limit it like that. I just wanted an attack spell!
(also that is the weirdest season I have planned for a while)
Just to put my two cents in re Bind Fast; I think it is meant to be a group of people, the text is pretty clear that the individuals wearing the clothes are targets. I don't think the issue is whether the group is defined correctly, but about the a ReHe spell targeting people. It runs into the question of whether clothes are part of the person, which they probably are as discussed in A&A, but it's not completely clear whether the spell works as is or would need to be after the Lyceum breakthrough on 22.
That said, the spell could be redefined to work on one person's clothes, and since it's a Mom duration (the clothes tie themselves up and then the magic ends) the effect might avoid MR.
I will drop the spell, I think. Or add a corpus requisite?
Year 2:
Spring:
After the madness of last year, I am glad to be returned to some more sedate studies. I sense my presence here is starting to become unwelcome. Perhaps I was insufficiently strident in my agreements about the issues with Durenmar’s position in the order. Perhaps I spoke too long to Larinda and aroused the suspicion of the matriarchs of this clannish line. As such I think I should learn what I can and remove myself to a less… cursed place. Still, I have finally found (with Larinda’s help) a part of their library which seems to have been largely forgotten, and here there is a decent primer on imaginem. It makes sense, I suppose, that a line which deals with the glamours of the Faeries would want to invest in the knowledge of intellego. About three quarters of the way through spring, as we returned from celebrating a saints day, inquires began again about both where I went last season and when I would be moving on.
(reading a primer on intellego, L6,Q21 – the good one the covenant has)
Summer:
It is time to leave. The hosts have been clear on this since before even the feast of St Matthais, and loathe as I am to leave this first home of my magic as a free magus, I must away. I will enjoy when I have a place to truly put down roots, but the nature of a seeker is to move, I suppose.
Now I am no longer in a grove of spiders, not indeed in a covenant which is close to haunted by dark fae. Instead, I am in a hut in the woods. I should explain for the benefit for those reading, or indeed my Pater and Filii. Upon leaving the covenant of Dankmar, I began seeking for the man of the woods that Larinda mentioned, and who, upon thinking about it had also been part of the call for the roll of the spider courts somehow. I am sure that he shall be simple to find and convince.
After a month or so of searching in the woods, I realised first that my utter lack of woodcraft was lamentable, and also that I had no real and solid plan for how to find this man. I have been cold, hungry and tired and nearly fallen to my death twice. I should learn better! Fortunately for me, the man I was seeking had heard I was searching for me and found me somewhat more easily.
It seems he is someone who walked a “path in the forest” that made him something of a wise man. He has lived in the woods for decades and lists himself as a baron of several courts of the forest. While I am sure the magical creatures and the Faeries recognise him as nothing of the sort, he does seem to have some mystical connection. What that strictly means is not known to me at the time, but he said I should come with him. I am not sure going to the home of a hedge wizard is precisely what I had envisioned for my time, but he might have something I can learn.
Hedge wizard is a little bit of a grand title for my host. It appears, bereft of magic gifted by god or the magic realm, Heinrich (as he names himself) has chosen to gain magic power through pure will. He has some sort of communion with the spirit of the forest which I genuinely do not understand. It, in turn, allows him to find vis through the communion.
Even stranger, with a series of idiosyncratic rituals he is able to coax genuine power out of these items of vis. Some of them function, he tells me, only once and other function continually. I am hoping to learn some of this lore, but he is asking what I would do in return. After some bargaining, we have a pact. I will study his arts for most of a year, and in return I will provide for him what must be the simplest enchantment I can think of; a bag which always has wood in it. This seems laughable to us, but for a man who lives in a wood he cannot harvest, it will provide a great deal of heat he otherwise lacks. I have also offered him access to a longevity ritual, though he will have to find the vis and I have admitted my arts in this are not precisely mighty. It was then I found out that though he seemed a man in his thirtieth year, he claims to be a full count of three score and ten! Apparently his body is sustained by the forest, he claims and so he does not visibly age. None the less, he knows that something to help him live longer would be welcome. Such a strange fellow!
Practice xp: survival -> 5xp survival to 1 with a forest speciality.
Autumn:
I think Heinrich is a combination of a genius and a madman. He can almost smell items and creatures of virtue, I would swear to it. He insists, instead, that the “song of the forest” calls him to them. Then he spends a while cooing over his latest find and begins to wrap it in some cloth. Or he fastens it to a high tree. Or any such strange thing and by a natural magic I am just beginning to comprehend, suddenly at the end of it he has a charm or gegaw which will provide some small magical power. I think I feel something of a kindred spirit here, as he is someone who has found ways to craft himself power that his natural magic lacks. Obviously his pales in comparison to the hermetic arts, but I am ashamed to say that it is I who is filling the role of the apprentice here, and he the master. I am learning much of non hermetic magical lore, and I can already see ways to integrate it into hermetic practice when I return to civilisation.
We wander the forest, following his intuition and looking for chances. Most days, if I am honest, we are poor hunters and return empty handed. Indeed a whole moon might go by with only frustration and no new magic. But! Then I remind myself that finding vis reliably at this rate is a marvel of itself. One I would have no hope of repeating, as I have yet to hear even the first stirrings of this “song of the forest” in my mind or soul. This, he says is probably because my gift and faerie nature conspire to block it out, and he has despaired of teaching me anything of the matter. Instead, we are working on the magical sympathies of various items and how they can be enhanced from items and herbs of virtue. It is, I confess, fascinating and I can already see how it would be possible to integrate some of the things I am learning into vulgar alchemical practices. I shall have to write this to my family.
Training magic lore -> 10xp.
Vis gain -> 2 terram bis from a stone of virtue (about to be immediately traded away)
High training quality because Heinrich is good at this. I am imagining someone who was a mundane and did the forest path from the Rhine book, getting himself the unaging virtue and affinity with magic lore, and eventually just got his forest lore skill and magic lore very high by practice. This whole section is about him playing out his seeker flaw as he goes off unprepared into the forest to try and find some new thing.
winter:
grows colder and I have suggested to my host that we move to a covenant as guests that we may spend the harsher months in the relative warmth, whilst I fulfil my promise of my end of the bargain. As such to my great relief we are going to repair to a local covenant where I hope once again to prevail upon their hospitality as a guest. I have walked with Heinrich to a covenant in the midst of the forest and though they were surprised for my arrival, they have accepted that I may trade the stone of virtue I have found with Heinrich for my right to stay in the covenant and use a lab for a little while.
Whilst the journey was tiresome, I have managed to find my way here in just enough time for the enchantment I have planned on. My first proper enchantment after I have left my gauntlet! A shame it is such a small one, as things are considered. Certainly it will not win any competitions at Verdi!
I do take the time to receive and send mail to my pater who is extremely interested in Heinrich and asks me to make sure he does not die before he can come and see him. An unusual request, but one I was hoping to fulfil anyway.
Heinrich’s wooden cornucopia
CrHe
Whenever you reach into the bag, you will find one smallish log inside. This log will last for a moon duration.
CrHe 15, Touch, Moon, individual, unlimited used per day
Bag made of linen and with a wooden toggle and handle at the top (wood: effect dead wood)
(base 1, +3moon, +1 touch, +10 for unlimited uses)
Lab total:
Creo 5
Herbam 5
Int 3
Aura 3
Magic theory 8
Craft 7
Shape, material and runes: 6
Inventive genius: 3
Is more than enough to make the item in one season as a lesser enchanted item.
Practice xp -> 2+1 magic theory, Lab text for heinrich’s bag. Heinrich provides the herbam vis required.
End of year xp
Imagainem 21 xp
Survival 5xp
Magic lore 10 xp
Magic theory 3xp
Correspondence: 2xp in immortal weaver lore
Also gained: Lab text for heinrich’s bag.
How come he learns Magic Lore if he spent the time in a Faerie regio at a court of faerie spiders? Wouldn't Faerie Lore be more appropriate?
No, it wouldn't avoid MR. It covers the magus and his clothing, as well as other small objects worn or carried upon his person. See ArM5 p.87, first paragraph under The Functioning of Magic Resistance: "Magic resistance keeps magic away from the maga, her clothing, and other items that are very close to her."
Of course, since this is a level 5 spell, it is fairly easy to achive a decent penetration total.
The narrative text mentions a "decent primer on imaginem", not Intellego.
More later...
The description of the effect should include the effect of his Wizard's Sigil. Perhaps the piece of wood is covered in spider webs?
As per Covenants p.90, second sentece of the description of Correspondences, "A magus can participate in many correspondences, but can only gain benefit from one per season, which must be on a theme that is associated with the magus’s research or reading."
There were no season during which Marcus researched or read about his cult lore as his primary activity. As such, I don't see how he can gain correspondence xp in this subject.
Re: correspondence I didn't read that carefully enough. I was honestly trying to dump my correspondence into a lesser area. I am still writing to my pater about it, but just fail to get any xp. I will not claim that xp.
Re the item: absolutely, I think covered in spiderwebs makes perfect sense.
Re: magic lore: my thinking was that there were both faerie and magic spiders there (the idea being it was a confluence of magic and faerie things) but Marcus already knows about the faerie spiders, since he has faerie lore with a spider speciality, but the magic ones were new to him. So he learned more about that. But I am happy to take faerie lore instead
Re: intellego I mistyped. He is trying to get his forms to 5, so read intellego, not imaginem. My bad.
Year 3:
Spring and summer:
I have received news that my pater is coming to meet us. This is exciting but unexpected news. He has asked me to keep Heinrich here for the season as he resolves some business and travels here. That is easy enough to do, as I invite him to spend the season teaching me about magical resonances and links between some items and the magic he has been able to coax out of them.
It is fascinating learning, but I do wonder sometimes if I am going to be able to find a way to make this fully viable and valuable to me as a hermetic magus. Even so, never let it be said I did not enjoy learning for the sake of learning, and Heinrich appears to be a reasonable teacher, if nothing else.
Spend the spring and summer being taught Magic lore, quality 9 +6 for single student, twice.
Autumn
Sigmundus is here! It is good to see him again after the years on my own. However, I must keep focused on the summation of the season’s learning, oh my hermetic family. I will confess, Sigmiundus made a decision which surprised me, in that he took my offer to make a longevity potion for Heinrich and took that burden on himself in exchange for a further service from the forest mystic. I was initially elated until I found that our Paerans was also going to ask me to assist him in the lab for this endeavour! I was shocked. There would be many in the order who would shirk at the cost of a master magus, as well as an additional magi collaborating on a longevity potion for them, and this was being done for a hedge mage. To say I am confused and a little put out is fair. However, I did swear to aid him as the head of our cult, and so I go to my duty.
Summer assist in the lab to Marcus’ great chargrin. 2+1 xp magic theory
Winter
Sigmundus has asked me to accompany him into the woods again, and has made a point of asking me to bring Spinnerbiene with me (who had been absent for the while, lacking a token of the aegis).
He has some plan that he will need to find something for the forest in order to move himself forward on his quest, and that it is important it is done in winter and not any other time. There is apparently a symbolism of having it in possession in spring time. This appears to be something which he is working on as important, though I confess the lore of it is lost on me. However, into the forest we go!
My notes after the “hunt”: I am not currently suited to the life of an adventuresome magus. I ache and am sore beyond reasonable amounts. We went into the forest, and it was a disaster. Well, Sigmundus seems to be pleased by the outcome, and I think I can just about see what is going on and why he is pleased, but I can mostly see that we were hunted like beasts.
Starting at the start, it seems Sigmundus has received some sort of quest. The first part of this involved hunting down some creatures in the forest which were apparently trespassing. I am not a huntsman, and somehow I am better in the forest than Sigmundus, even with a few months practice. I asked why we had not brought shield grogs or custos, but apparently this is not allowed, by the terms of some mystery he is hunting. However, as his most recent apprentice apparently I am allowed. Wonderful.
So, we went into the forest in hunt of some wolves. Said by Sigmundus to be ravening beasts, they were hunting beasts of virtue at a rate to make the magic of the forest deplete a little. So, on we went. I found he had wanted the presence of spinnerbienne since he assumed the forest would be natural home to a spider fae, but my friend is a faerie of the house and workshop and is as ignorant in forest lore as we were. And yet we hunted.
Eventually, with some improvised castings (which took me at times close to twilight) and some lucky tracking we were able to find and corner the beast. This was my first real combat or armed conflict as a magus and I am ill suited at present to it. Fortunately I was able to provide some support and cover, while Sigmundus hammered the beast. It also managed to use some power of fear over me which near disabled me Its pack were close to hand and with a pair of circular wards I have learned as spells I was able to protect us both from them. However, with how spellcasting hurts my fragile form, it has become apparent that I cannot rely on my spells too well in combat, lest I be incapacitated by pain and simply mauled after. I must work on imbuing an item, such that if I am ambushed or something I am not in as difficult a position. I must also work on my parma magica since it has thus far defended exactly no times from hostile casting. This is frankly not good enough!
Still, despite one small wound, we defeated the beast and the pack without use of fire and Sigmundus is happy. I am returning to a covenant to rest and heal, using some of the vis gained to pay my way.
I hope this missive finds you well, my siblings in magic. I am deeply interested in the magical lore that you have been uncovering, Pacifus, and hope that we can discuss about it and forming it into magical theory in the future.
Adventure:
8xp 5 for marma magica and 3 for animal, 5 animal vis and 3 warping from spellcasting.
Year end:
32 xp in magic lore
3 xp in magic theory
5 xp in parma magica
3 xp In animal
1 Like