Character Development: Conall of Ex Miscellenea (Player: Emelric)

[Vortigern]

Your spirit location/lore matrix is pretty nifty I think. Approved as is.

@Emelric

Last question for today: the Longmist Corrguineach magi in Through the Aegis have Minor Magical Focus: Elemental spirits as the minor Hermetic virtue of the tradition, which I feel is redundant with the summoning/bargaining aspects of the Sihr/Gairm Ability. Is it ok to deviate from that precedent, and go instead with Minor Magical Focus: warding against spirits?

So I think it really depends but I think a Minor Focus in Warding vs Spirits is perhaps a bit narrow. Before digging into this I'll quote my own preferences regarding Magical Foci from the House Rules.

@Vortigern

• Magical Focus: Magical Foci must be based on themes of effect. This means for example that a Magical Focus in swords would not then apply to enchanting any effect into a sword as a magical item. Instead the Focus must apply thematically to whatever effect is intended to be produced.

Yes this is contrary to a variety of Magical Foci that are in the game. I try to be flexible with themes of effect because I know it is challenging at times but a Minor Focus in say Swords being used to anything and everything in a class of items annoys me.

Back to the Magical Foci you were talking about.

A Major Focus could be something like Spirit Magic that would cover any all types of spells that have anything to do with Spirits at all. This would be reminiscent of the Tytalus Titanoi described Major Focus in Spirits, just described as a theme instead.

The Minor Focus in Elemental Spirits I would tend to regard, using the same logic, as better described as a Minor Focus in Elemental Spirit Magic. The same sort of theme but restricted being applied to dealing with any Spirit associated with the Elemental Forms (but potentially of any Realm). Whereas another common one I've seen many times is a Minor Focus in Magic Realm Spirit Magic, to be doing any sort of Spirit Magic with any Magic Realm spirit, and not with spirits of other Realms. All of these are a little different from one another but have overlaps and different gaps.

A Minor Focus in Warding vs Spirits would in theory apply to any sort of spirit from any Realm. And you can do that if you want to.

However I would also point out that a Minor Focus in Elemental Spirit Magic covers types of spirits that Sihr/Gairm does not. Sihr mechanically focuses on Genus Loci which are spirits of places/locations. They are a particular type of spirit but there are lots of other types of spirits potentially associated with Elemental Spirit Magic, which the focus would also apply to if you were interacting with those. You also might consider Hermetic Theurgy which would let you research spells specifically to summon spirits associated with spell powers from different Forms etc. This would be another way to get mileage out of having a Minor Focus in Elemental Spirit Magic.

Kind of an info dump already, so I'll stop here and you can let me know if you have any further questions.