callen, your objection has merit. But the problem is there regardless of whether we allow items to create creatures with magic powers.
You can use rituals to create creatures with magic powers, that can cast them all day long for you, according to HP.
Imagine then that, instead of creating a "wand of conjuring temporary Stellatus", you create with the same time a "ritual of conjuring the natural Stellatus", and cast it with the same vis. It costs, in fact, somewhat less time and less vis because it can have D:Mom, you do not need penetration etc. Repeat this for a dozen magical creatures, giving you a veritable array of magical powers that can be cast, simultaneously, all day long, while you are sipping tea in the comfort of your lab.
But wait, you'll say: these creatures are not under your command, and having Stellatus in your pocket is not nearly as easy or convenient as having a wand in your pocket. Well, just give them a serious Flaw: Slavish love for my creator, and a power to turn into acorns at will, and you are done. And if your SG rules it can't be done, just make a wand with the same "seduce my beast" and "acornize my beast" powers! It will cost you some, true, but it works for all the magical creatures in your ritually created menagerie, so your amortized cost will be relatively low.
Hi callen,
I have just been reading that section of TMRE and it has some good stuff in there. I would like to point out that once a Magical Beast with powers has been designed for an item, it cannot be changed, whereas the spell spirit can change the power every time.
Other than that, you raise some good points. The only difference that I can point out is that enchanting such an item uses vis and needs extremely high lab-totals.
In many cases, spell spirits may be more convenient.
That also occurs to me and seems incongruous within the overall system for Hermetic magic. So do a couple other issues.
Food created without Vis won't nourish. Water created without Vis won't hydrate. But magical monsters can be created without Vis and will have a full panoply of powers? That doesn't seem right.
People are discussing creating creatures with customized powers. Just creating something as simple as well made armor or an attractive work of art requires a difficult Finesse roll. How much Finesse is required to customize a Griffin?
Well, mundane animals can be created without Vis and will have a full panoply of senses. And they leave behind (if they are maintained for a sufficiently long time) perfectly nourishing carcasses! Does that seem wrong?
The magic-food-and-water-provide-no-nourishment rule is something very specific, that basically enforces the "no vis, no lasting effect" principle. In terms of beasts created without vis, this principle seems to translate into "powers of those beast won't outlast the beasts themselves".
Arguably no more than that required to customize a dragon (to Stellatus's "template"): 0.
But you raise a good point: maybe not every conceivable magical creature is "possible" and can be fetched from the Realm of Forms...
I'm going to bet, that like wards, this didn't see massive playtest in development. That's a hunch, just based off of our discussion. I think Callen has an excellent point WRT theurgy, and that in those instances, you're calling a spirit to cast the effect, and we stay true to the "one spell, one effect" mantra of Ars. I think multiple powers for a created creature would require a complexity adjustment. In my games, I'm going with a base of 5 Might at CrAn50, and a +1 magnitude per 5 Might beyond that. I don't know how often it'll come into play at that high level, but it's better to have in the books.
I don't understand some of the points against what I said:
I'm not so sure this analysis is correct. Less vis? Well, the level will be lower, but that doesn't mean it will cost less because we're looking at a ritual v. an item. If you can invent it in one season, the item will cost just over half the ritual's cost. If it takes longer, the item will be a little more expensive, unless made by a Verditius in which case it will cost less. But if the ritual is cast by a Mercurian, it will cost less. As far as time, yes the level will be higher, but so will the lab total. Depending on the specifics, you get to add your Magic Theory again to it due to Shape & Material Bonuses (and/or Philosophiae for a Verditius), and if you're a Verditius you get Craft, too. If you're going to do this a lot, you're going into Twilight from the rituals unless you master them, which takes extra time unless you have Flawless Magic. But let's say you want several of these beasties: efficiency would have the ritual at T: Group vs the item still at D: Moon, so that doesn't raise the level of the item like ritual, bringing them more on par.
As for the penetration, that's debatable and only a case when necessary. Do you need double penetration (spell and effect)? Getting great penetration out of the creature's effect is similar via both methods. And I wouldn't take this yet-to-be-accepted double penetration as a given.
Can you really just assign such Flaws? And, even, can you freely just choose all its Virtues? I know the answer for animae is no. For magical beings it seems at least slightly so, but not necessarily this much so. It does seem like you're getting to ultra-high Finesse rolls at the very least. (Or maybe it's ultra-high Magic Lore rolls to have any idea the exact combination you want can exist? Or maybe it's just impossible?)
Separate control also run the risk of worse dispelling. If you lose control of a high-Might creature, you have a powerful enemy. If your temporary spell is dispelled, though, you just lost the ally but have no enemy. So you're still safer with the temporary version.
I think you need to reread that bit in TMRE. You need to invent a different spell for each spell you want, and it doesn't change. And if you want the spell available twice at once, you also need another version of the spell. And if someone invents the same from your lab notes, you share the spirit instead of each having it. Yes, you can get spirits for spontaneous magic, but it's always the same spontaneous magic and is not as good as grabbing Focus Power for a magical beast.
Extremely high lab totals? Not really, just you can't do it cheaply for really low-level spells. But compare the two. You can get the magical creature with Base 50, +1 Touch, +2 Sun to pick up a dozen level-50 effects via Major Power and Improved Powers. That would be a dozen different Hermetic Theurgy spells, each at Base 50, +4 Arcane Connection, +2 Sun. You might also get penetration out of the creature this way (again, debatable). Not only is the item cheaper, but the creature sticks around afterward instead of casting just once and can fight for you. Also, adding a few levels for multiple uses to the item, you can get many of them at once compared to the single spell spirit. And now the real doozy: summoning that spell spirit is a ritual each time instead of a little flick of a wand. Therefore, for higher-level effects (not even level 50, starting around level 25 or so depending on duration), the item beats out the Virtue designed for exactly this purpose in ease of creation (time and usually level), expense (many rituals v. one item), safety (botching rituals), and utility (it fights for you, sticks around, etc.).
And, having looked at RoP:M p.133, I have to wonder why creating an elemental is a ritual while creating a magical animal is not. It makes me wonder if the writer just figured there was no need to write it explicitly with a base of 50, forgetting about the item exception.
I'm pretty sure they don't leave nourishing carcasses, since that would be a backdoor way to creating real food. To be fair though, the details of the "no food" are debated on here regularly and consensus never seems to be reached.
It seems to be that any customization, even to templates, would require Finesse to match craft rules. I would expect working with living creatures to be far more complex than creating pretty objects or functional constructions.
Yes, they can. The issue is that they've eaten real food (whatever the animal eats) for quite a while, so it's become somewhat like a Rego effect, transforming the real food into a real corpse. It doesn't violate the limit of creation because the real food had to be supplied to make the corpse.
Interesting, I wasn't aware of this. I wonder what happens if the creation spell is dispelled after the animal has been through the process, or if the effect is of the sort that technically ends and needs to be recast every sundown.
I don't think there is any clear answer to lots of those questions. If it's eaten, dispelling it leaves a corpse, perhaps? How much of a corpse do you get if you haven't fed it for long enough?
Create a magical cow, feed it for only a day, kill it at the end of the day, and... get a hamburger out of the process?
That does give a clear answer to dispelling, but it still leaves the time totally vague. Let's say the horse is fed for 364 days and then dies. Does it leave a corpse then? If not, why suddenly a day later? If so, does it leave a corpse after 11 months? My hamburger comment was supposed to be a slightly comical fractional corpse.
There's also still the question of whether an item-created horse has really been around a year (say) or has just existed since the last sunrise or sunset, since enchantments are no longer actually permanent.
RoP:M and Hermetic Projects are consistent in calling for rituals for creating magical entities. If you're going to ignore one as a ret-con you might as well ignore both. Or keep both.
I would agree. As one of them gives a guideline, the two guidelines seem at odds. The HP statement about the core guideline would then seem to bring them back in line with each other as opposed to being some inconsequential statement. And with all the issues with placing this in an item, I can appreciate that statement about the core guideline.
An elemental effectively is vis: if you wound it "cutting off a piece", it loses Might and that Might gets converted into vis that can be collected. I think that in this sense, forcing "Creo elemental" spells to be rituals just solves a lot of headaches about having to deal with what would happen in the case of a "temporary elemental". I would not take it as hard evidence that magical animals, too, require rituals even when created temporarily.
For what is worth, Animae are faeries that can be created without vis (although they require an appropriate Virtue).
I think that's taking quite a bit too far and illogically so considering what it actually stated explicitly, but I understand your following point...
But this is not just true for elementals. It's true for every Magic Thing as well as some other magical beings. So if you go this way you have yet another special qualifier you have to put in place on creating the animal.
I have no problem with RoP:M making an elemental with a Ritual power, it is creating a permanent thing. Exactly the same as if it was creating a lake of permanent water or a permanent forest. Permanent stuff requires vis. This is one of the foundations of Hermetic Theory.
RoP:M is a slightly different case than a normal CrAn ritual because it is making the raw materials into the elemental. As it points out, there are lots of other spells which can "awaken" an elemental from sufficiently pure materials.
In my opinion, the spell levels are different because:
Making a magical creature with CrAn creates something from nothing.
With an elemental, most of the work is already done.
It is my understanding that Elementals are permanent - which is why they contain vis. As far as I know, there is nothing mentioned in any books about hermetic magic, temporary magic animals and vis.
I can't remember much about Animae, are they permanent?
