This is an examination of the following guideline from AM5DE pg 365.
Level 4: • Create a temporary Arcane Connection to a target within range. This Arcane Connection cannot be fixed in a laboratory, and does not itself give a bonus to Penetration. It does, however, allow the magus to use other methods to boost Penetration, and to use other spells on the target even if the magus can no longer perceive it. Note that this spell must Penetrate the target’s Magic Resistance, if any, like any other spell.
What would you all say to a Ritual version of this for creating, via Instant Creo Ritual, a permanent and “real” Arcane Connection with all of the normal properties?
At Touch/Instant/Individual that would be level 5, encountering the “minimum Ritual level” requirement of 20 (and thus leaving room for fitting some other modifications in if desired, without affecting the end level).
Well for the “test case” I’d imagine exactly what I described.
“Forge Sympathetic Bonds” (Ritual)
CrVi: 20
R: Touch, D: Momentary/Instant, T: Group
Something something, imbues permanent Arcane Connection properties to a designated subject (in range, requiring penetration) to a set of up to ten target objects.
I think the biggest issue will be the definition of permanent- normal arcane connection. Ritually created milk, for example, does not endure, and the longest lasting natural arcane connections (without a laboratory) last decades, not indefinitely. Whether you are creating an instant arcane connection like a body part (lasting decades) or like a fixed AC is a huge difference, especially depending on your vis economy. Using a temporary AC with duration of moon to get a natural, fixable, AC might be a better decision if the conjured AC only lasts decades or years.
I don’t see this as creating the physical substance of the Arcane Connection. It is imparting the property of being an Arcane Connection (to the declared subject) to existing objects, and you can thus use whatever sorts of objects you want as the Target (to imbue those properties to).
It does raise the question as to what grade of Arcane Connection this would thus create.
While it’s not a perfect, eternally-valid solution, if you can Ritual Creo an Arcane Connection that lasts for several decades that’s probably worth the Vis. HOPEFULLY that’s long enough to arrange a more permanent solution - or to solve whatever problem makes you want that AC to it in the first place.
It does raise the question as to what grade of Arcane Connection this would thus create.
It isn’t creating something as if it were part of the target, it is creating the sympathetic/magical bond between two things that is what is being exploited in an Arcane Connection. Sympathy by ‘composition’ is just one way of something having such a connection. All the way down to say a Signature on a document being usable as a connection.
So I don’t see any need for a Requisite when the Creo Vim guideline already gives us the mechanism for creating connections (albeit essentially grade zero and temporary ones) to anything with no requisites.
In theory it could be, I would imagine. Plus being able to manufacture them in whatever form desired, such as a charm or ring or whatever is convenient. If it were a normal Arcane Connection at that point you could turn around fix it in the lab as well, for a permanent one in any form desired.
It could also have a larger Size on Group, to in theory create larger numbers. Ten seems enough to me but now that I’m thinking about it? Just imagine a Quaesitor casting a ritual to make one hundred copies of an Arcane Connection to pass out to all the Hoplites on a Wizard’s March.
One could also use it to create a link to something or somewhere that one doesn’t necessarily have an Arcane Connection to, but can get within range of. Such as (I’m just throwing out options here) an Island from Sight range for instance.
I don’t know, maybe. One could also just create a “cheap” Arcane Connection and then preserve it with a formulaic Creo Vim spell, until it could be fixed in the lab. Though for the sake of argument … that seems like something that “should” work (increasing magnitude for higher grades of sympathy being imbued into the target object). What sounds like a reasonable increase in magnitude to you?
Thematically I am not a fan. Permanent Arcane connections are meant to be a big deal. A magi only does this for something really important. Spending a season is not done casually. In a high vis saga, burning 4 Vis is not a big deal. Low vis saga, maybe.
Because the connection is not anchored to anything real connected to the target, I would say the target, if they have the skills, can identify the spell and use it against you just like opening the intangible tunnel.
The idea being that in order to create an Ac that lasts for decades it has to be a part of their body to be “natural” (ritual creo requirement) so you would need to create a piece of a body…
of course that assumes you want an AC to a person, not a pace of thing (or animal…)
On the other hand even a moon duration AC should be enough to allow you to use Re spells to grab a piece of the target from the comfort of your lab…
This makes me suspect you are misinterpreting the described effect. The Ritual does not create a “fixed” connection, it creates one that then functions normally including the potential for decay. The guideline does not describe anything about “fixing” the connection, just that it can create Arcane Connections and the question raised for the thread is doing so via a Creo ritual instead of as a temporary spell.
I’m not sure why or how? There are no guidelines for determining the Arcane Connections to something (whether mundane/normal or artificial), though perhaps there really ought to be. In theory one might argue that if one thing is an Arcane Connection to something else, then the something else “should” also be an Arcane Connection to the one thing… but we don’t have any clear stipulations about that in RAW. And even if we take that to be the case, knowing it still requires the right sort of Vim analysis (that we don’t have guidelines for) to find this strange new connection.
I think the difference in our perspectives is that I don’t think it needs to fit cleanly into the examples of what is naturally an Arcane Connection to function as an Arcane Connection if it has been artificially induced into being one via Creo Vim. The guideline doesn’t require anything else as stated to “create” a connection to something, or would you say that guideline would require a Requisite to function at all?
Also quite possible! And … you have to penetrate in order to get your Ritual to function at all to start with. So if you have (via whatever means) access and ability to penetrate already with something at least level 20 as a ritual? There are far worse things that you could already be doing if this is against something hostile.
I read permanent, the spell using Vis, the use of the word “real”, the lack of duration, and assumed you meant a fixed connection.
If it can decay, how fast? Shed skin last hours, and as this is not a physical object, does it decay in minutes? I doubt that is what you want. If it can decay, I think it needs a duration, so at level 25 it lasts a year.
Opening the Intangible Tunnel sets a precedent. The point is this connection is a pure thing of magic. Arcane connections, a lock of hair, a fingernail, a vial of blood, a favourite piece of clothing, there is a sympathetic connections that make sense.
A different option is giving it a corpus requisite, and creating the lock of hair, fingernail, finger, etc.
I think an open "Magic Conduit" like an Intangible Tunnel is a pretty different thing from an Arcane Connection someone could in theory know nothing about and that is not exerting any sort of active effect on them. The difference of an active effect being on the person vs not seems pretty stark to me, so I'm not sure what someone is supposed to be detecting?
With the Ritual version, there is no longer any active magic there, any more than there would be if someone were holding a normal non-magical Arcane Connection to the same person.
It does beg the question though with an active Formulaic Spell version (non-Ritual Arcane Connection creation) that is still an active effect, is this a continuous spell effect active on the subject/target? It needs to penetrate and is actively maintaining the sympathetic bond between the subject and the target (created Arcane Connection), so it would seem so?
In that instance I think there is an active effect that could be detected and then investigated or simply dispelled.
Different yes, but there is a connection. If a magi opened a tunnel for a month and literally cast no spells, it still exists and is a known thing.
There being an arcane connection means the magi can magically reach out and cause an effect whenever they want. The reason arcane connections can do this normally, are due to sympathetic magic. There is no sympathetic connection, the only connection is magical, so I consider it reasonable to say there is an ongoing magical effect.
You have mentioned it is not in the Rules as Written. Neither is the spell being cast as an instantaneous ritual. I return to an earlier post. if you say the AC can decay, considering something physical like hair decays in hours and this is not physical, why would the decay period have any meaningful length? It should arguably last minutes.
Alright at this point I think we are talking past one another and really question if we are discussing the same thing productively at all. Best regards but I'll be moving on from the topic. Thank you for the interesting discussion everyone.
The key issue, as I see it is that the question as originally asked is whether a creo ritual can create a permanant arcane connection and, as asked the answer is simply no- creo rituals do not create something permanant they create something real. A cow created with a creo ritual does not live forever. A sword thus created is not unbreakable. There are no natural permanent arcane connections. In oder to have an AC that is not imbued into an item that does not come from a person’s body, such as a favorite pen or a book they have written you will be dealing with a duration shorter than decades. I believe the longest non-biological AC is a book or letter they have written and which contains their thoughts on a subject which breaks when their thoughts on the subject change- even that could arguably require a me component to emulate, and is not likely to last beyond a decade.
So from my perspective the real point is not simply that it is an AC, but what kind of “natural” AC are you creating.