What do folks think of a CrMe(Vi) guideline similar to the one from the Core Book to create a magical animal that instead creates a spirit?
That is ArM5, p. 116, CrAn guidelines
Not to create a spirit.
The limit of the soul may apply here. So this is breakthrough or mystery territory.
Magical Ghosts are explicitly not souls so I don't see why airy spirits and the like would be considered souls.
Would you have a quote on that?
Given that there are faerie ghosts and faeries categorically do not have souls, there must be spirits which are not souls. In Christian thought the spirit is also considered separate from the soul. Although that does not automatically apply to Mythic Europe, I think it has to to maintain consistency. Hermetic Magic can destroy a spirit but not a soul, isn't that right?
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They can be summoned breaking the Limit of the Soul if they were souls. But also see RoP:M p116 last paragraph of previous section before "Ghosts as Characters" section.
Ghosts are perfectly capable of being summoned and affected by Hermetic magic, thus clearly they are outside the scope of the Limit of the Soul, and are described in RoP:M as essentially Magic memory spirits rather than souls.
(That said, I'm kind of bewildered by how much certainty the Hermetic world even gives the existence of a separate "true" soul and which creatures would or wouldn't have them, considering the complete inability to observe, influence, or otherwise prove the existence of the soul in any way.)
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The limit of the soul is not a limit to affect the soul, but a limit that prevents the creation of a soul. Demons and angels being immortal souls, they are nonetheless subect to rego and perdo vim spells. Nonetheless, you may be correct about ghosts being more memories than soul.
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On the other hand, hermetic magic is unable to affect the wine and bread in a mass because God says no. If he also says we have souls, I would be inclined to believe him, in a world where hermetic magic can move mountains.
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There are guidelines to create elementals on RoP:M, so I think a guideline to create a "mind elemental" seems at least theoretically feasible (from a mechanical point of view). It would be interesting for it to be a magical thing (just as any other elemental), not a magical spirit... The ones in the known would know how to distinguish it from a true spirit.
(Dang, now I want to run that!)
For the creation of actual spirits, I'm not sure.
Personally I think of magical spirits (and in special airy spirits) as a manifestation of the natural world and natural phenomena of the world, so you can't create them directly unless you actually change the world. Want a herbam airy spirit to develop? Plant a tree! A strong one? Plant a forest! And once that is done, summon the spirit with Rego magic. But that's my personal view.
I'm not sure it's kosher, but I've seen games where creating an elemental with intel was allowed with a Mentem requisite.
Well we know from the spirit familiar rules in The Mysteries that to turn a spiritual "body" physical is MuMe(Co) so it makes sense to me that to create a spiritual entity one would use Mentem.
Personally I think the idea of a "mind elemental" is kind of unhinged. Definitely more off from the setting as I understand it than being able to create a spirit using Creo magic in a similar way to how a magical animal can be created.
While spirits of a particular natural thing are in the setting there are also airy spirits that don't seem tied to a particular object and spirits tied to humans such as eidolons or spirits of emotions. There are also airy spirits tied to concepts such as the Lugra. This stuff is all canon.
I would modify the guideline, keeping the same level, but possibly allowing different Forms.
CrMe(Vi) would be ok for something like an "artificial ghost" - great for the Living Ghost magus who wants an impressive ghostly steed, for example.
But in my opinion CrVi would be better suited for "pure spirits", and CrVi(Form) for "generic" spirits associated with a particular Form. Creating a spirit of emotion would be CrVi(Me), for example, not CrMe(Vi). Creating the guardian spirit of a forest would be CrVi(He).
Note that the canon effect for turning any spirit physical is MuMe(Form it takes) which implies that the spiritual "body" (for lack of a better term) is ruled by Mentem even when the spirit is of another Form such as Herbam.
I am aware of that, but I do not find it enough evidence that to create a whole spirit the primary Form should be Mentem. After all, to summon a spirit is Re(Form),. not ReMe (with the obvious exception of ghosts), see TMRE p.26.
To make a whole magic animal the primary form is animal if the "body" of a spirit is mentem no matter what then it needs Mentem whether that's CrVi(Me + other Form is not Me or Vi based might) or CrMe(Vi + other Form is not Me or Vi based might) might be debated but to not include Mentem when it clearly covers the "body" of insubstantial entities seems completely wrong to me.
As I said, I think you are inferring too much about the passage on spirit familiars. I do not think that the "body" of all spirits is Mentem (that of ghosts is, however). If it were, how would it be possible to summon them without using Mentem, even as a requisite?
Let me stress that from my point of view the rules are very unclear on this, so all I am saying is based on a rather vague sense of what I feel is "right".
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I think why mages wouldn’t create spirits has more to do with their world view than the “rules.”
The danger, in paradigm, is that a demon would take the place of the “created spirit.” Since hermetic Intellego Magic can’t tell the difference, under most circumstances, they would risk their soul.
It could definitely be the basis for a devious GM to mess with them. So, not ruling it out would open you up the the machinations of demons, through the god of the table.