What happens if a magus enters Arcadia (or a similar realm) outside of a Covenant’s Aegis and then tries to exit it inside the Aegis?
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Not well defined.
Metaphysically, an AotH is a boundary and barrier to supernatural effects. One would suppose the effect of the AotH extends to regio crossing as an extension of spatial barrier..
So while I do not know the mechanics of Arcadian travel off the top of my head, I expect the AotH to resist a supernatural incursion from “outside” the AotH (as it does with teleporting).
So the Arcadian travel should be required to penetrate the AotH.
Does Arcadian travel go to magic Auras?
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Container targets aren’t some sort of fence that you can ignore if you somehow trick your way past them without touching. Everything within the Boundary defined by the covenant is affected by its Aegis. As soon as you’re inside the covenant’s Boundary – whether by walking, flying, teleporting, or popping out of a Regio – you get affected by its Aegis.
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but does that mean they get hedged out if they have might?
I’d say yes, but I will always take the Aegis is stronger interpretation, so you might want to wait for others view points. The Order is meant to be the wizard tradition that “won” because of the strength of it’s defences, being Parma and Aegis, thus me always wanting them to be stronger.
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If someone with Might fails to get through the Aegis they stay where they are. There is no special case here. If they fail to cross the Aegis they don’t cross the Aegis.
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exactly: So they get shunted back into Arcadia? Even though their story there is ended?
‘Strength of their defenses’ is a major reason for the success of the Order of Hermes; but there is another ‘strength’ which is absolutely unmatched by any other magic tradition, and which may be even more important: OoH Magi are (due to the Parma) not compelled by the Gift to be at each others throats. Even if the Parma provided almost no protection, the ability to cooperate and act together is amazing and utterly beyond the other Traditions.
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So you have a magus entering an Aegis through a regio portal, for example?
The magus walks in as normal, feels the Aegis where they cross the boundary, and if they are a member (and part of the Aegis ritual) or have a token can cast normally, otherwise not. Magi are not physically blocked from entering an Aegis-protected area. Magi have no Might.
A faerie who tries to come along with them may have a problem.
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Except that the Unaffected by the Gift Virtue exists. Both learned magicians and gruagachan (and maybe others) can grant Virtues with their magic.
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But they can’t grant any and all virtues. Troupe discretion is needed to decide which virtues can be granted and which cannot.
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It doesn’t seem to be a common virtue, at least not in 1220. It might be in the future, if a program of virtue-granting were followed. It was clearly not the case in the 700s, when Bonisagus was working away.
There’s a basic problem with an order of magi with Unaffected By The Gift; you have to get the virtue gainer to trust you enough to let the grantor do something supposedly beneficial to you, and who would believe this strange stranger, who is clearly out to steal your magical secrets?
I don’t go to the extremes of Gift paranoia that some do, but the Gift does make people edgy and suspicious.
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Or slide to the next exit.
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In canon, there is a precedent. Hermes portals were disenchanted or moved outside the Aegis as they were used in the Sundering war and bypassed the Aegis.
In DE, unless you are native to the Aegis, it will dispel your Parma upon entering but you can cast it again if you have the time.
I'd argue that if the portal is native to the Aegis, which just requires it to be existing at the time of the casting of the Aegis, then it will act similar to a Hermes portal and allow all to break the boundary features of the Aegis. You'd still be hindered as usual but even creature with might would step in.
W
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You’re just going to randomly decide that parts of the Aegis’ effect don’t work for some arbitrary reason? Seems like a recipe for a game session to end in rules arguments and accusations of unfairness.
There is no “boundary feature” of an Aegis; the Boundary just tells you what is affected by the Aegis. Everything affected by the Aegis is subject to its effect. The portal’s effect is “native” so it functions unhindered by the Aegis – but anyone coming through the portal is subject to its effect separately.
Anyone without Might can simply walk into the Aegis at any point – through a Hermes portal, from a Regio, or just through the front door. Anyone without Might is not stopped from entering.
In the Schism War the Diedne magi would not have been blocked from entering through the Hermes portal. (their minions with Might could have been.) The reason that the Hermes portals were vulnerabilities is that for some covenants the only way to enter is via a spell effect, like teleportation. Those effects would be downgraded or blocked by the Aegis… and Diedne were spontaneous casters who would not have had Penetration spell masteries to get themselves through. However, they could just walk through a Hermes portal without needing a spell. It was never the Aegis that was preventing them from getting in; the Aegis was preventing some of the means that they needed to use to get in for particular situations.
Depending on how they work, Hermes portals are even worse security risks, of course. The effect seems to imply they’re some kind of magic wormhole where there’s magically no intervening space between the two portals… If I captured one portal and wanted to give the folks on the other side a bad day I’d just relocate a sea’s worth of water on top of the captured portal, trigger it to open, and laugh as water geysers out to flood the other side. Or send through a swarm of plague-bearing rats. Or billions of fleas. Or raise up a new volcano and let the pyroclastic flow geyser blast through their Hermes portal. All reasons why it was a bad idea to put your Hermes portal inside your house without needing to randomly decide it means that parts of the Aegis illogically don’t apply.
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There seems to be majority agreement that the Aegis surrounds the Covenant in all directions (around, above and below) and across all “dimensions” (i.e. Realms), even if there is a Portal within the Aegis or an attempt is made to teleport in by someone who is not a native. (Of course, an exception would be made for the Divine.) Am I hearing this correctly?
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Not quite. The Aegis does not “surround” anything. A Circle target effects everything within the circle. A Room target effects everything within the room. A Structure target effects everything within the building. A Boundary target effects everything inside the boundary that you marked out.
The Aegis is present and in effect at every point within its defined Boundary while its Duration persists. If you slip into thinking of the Aegis as a barrier its going to lead you to some very poor conclusions.
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The boundary of the Aegis gives a tangling sensation. Creatures with might need to overcome the Aegis to cross the boundary into the Aegis. I'm arguing that the portal gets you within the boundary without having to overcome the Aegis. It is not arbitrary, not far fetched and most align with the gaming structure which the rules are based on and why the Aegis has so many flaws such as being easily dispelled/Suppressed or that magical objets will always work within the Aegis irrespective of its might or penetration of said object.
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As I understand this, the Aegis fills the entire volume of the boundary that defines it. It would stop a [mage, demon, faerie] from teleporting in, but any mage can just walk across the boundary line from any direction, including slantways from a parallel realm.
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The question is, what defines the boundary. I think it is fair to say at any point one is not in the Aegis, then the next place is in the Aegis, that is a boundary edge. Therefore moving from the regio to a location in the Aegis is moving from non-Aegis to Aegis, thus crossing the boundary edge.
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