Spells that determine age are possible, Eye of the Eons (InTe 10 from Core) is one example. Often the spells you create to get the breakthrough can do things slightly outside of standard hermetic abilities. Cr preservation spells could be viewed as arresting the aging process. Forget if it’s Mysteries or Art & Academe but there are spells to help you determine a being’s nativity horoscope. An enchanted sundial, astrolabe, or hourglass could all be relevant depending on the effect.
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Not yet, but on the Bonisagus's to-do list. The player is already planning to look for/at spells to speed things up/slow things down. If he doesn't think of it, I'm going to suggest Eyes of the Past as a possible lead via an NPC source (book, faerie, etc.). I mean, that could lead to the basis for Intellego Tempus, IMO, and if we find an ArM analog to D&D's Haste spell, that might be a lead on Creo Tempus.
Up-thread a ways I gave a R/D/T outline of a spell I'd call "Give Me Just a Moment" for a possible Creo Tempus example.
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Here's two I came up with that might be good:
Fruiting of the Mystic Tree (ReVi 35)
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Circle, Ritual
A circle is drawn around a natural source of vis. At the conclusion of the ritual, the vis source immediately produces a single pawn of approriate vis. This spell was created as part of a Breakthrough into the Hermetic Form of Tempus. It may not be altered.
(Base 30, +1 Touch)
The Hungry Baker (ReHe 35)
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Circle
Upon tracing the circle around a fired oven any baked goods within instantly finish baking.
(Base 5, +1 Touch, +6 No Finesse Roll, -1 Needs Heat Source)
I think these are good examples of the idea that spell created for research are in no way required to be actually useful. Who would learn a magnitude 7 spell to bake bread?
Also, here's two good questions:
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What should the Tempus Form Bonus do? Obviously if someone comes and tries to erase you from the timeline or whatever, it should help. But they usually have some sort of mundane application as well.
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Where do you get Tempus vis? Does it turn out to have existed in the world the whole time, but without the knowledge of the form no one could perceive it? Or am I going to need Hermetic Alchemy?
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It could modify your aging roll. Aging is moving through time, after all.
I'm inclined to say that Tempus vis would always had been there undetected because it is outside the hermetic paradigm, but I don't see why the InVi base 1 "Detect the presence of vis. As concentrated magic, vis is not hard to spot" would fail: the comment suggest that you are after spots of concentrated magic, after all.
At first I was thinking that these sources may already exist, but had been always discarded because casting Sense the Nature of Vis on them gave strange results, and are so few and rare that no magi had yet come up with the idea that maybe these strange vis sources are examples of uncharted forms.
But then again there are hedgies out there using Vis as if it were matching their own arts, roughly translating them to what they do and how they match against hermetic arts, which suggest that vis is what it is, and magical users fit it into their paradigm.
So I think these sources do exist, but are being misinterpreted as vis of other forms. Think that spellcasting involves a roll and sometimes we get botchs here and there. These rolls and botches are the ways the game system is dealing with the unknown and the unacountable factors in the activity rolled. So maybe some botchs were caused not just because bad luck or a magus stuttering a word in the worst possible time, but because he was using the wrong vis.
Which can give you some story ideas about integrating this new form: maybe there is a vis source out there which seems like a good candidate for Tempus vim (maybe the rock at the end of the cave which is only struck by a sun ray on the summer equinox or something like that), and someone notices that every spell that uses that vis botches.
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Great posts and ideas, @Wilgar and @Ouroboros, thank you!
On Tempus vis: perhaps it occasionally works as other forms of vis with Hermetic magic? Maybe magi have been using it off and on throughout the Order's history, but as perhaps Rego or Perdo vis?
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That would be problematic if vis Art is fixed. I'd rather go with it being just an undetermined Form that causes spells to botch when you use it assuming it is from another art.
Or throw all the vis forms things completely out of the window and say that vis doesn't have to be pure and some pawns of vis can work for multiple arts, i.e. you could have magical seeds being both Cr and He vis, so some vis sources could indeed be Rego and Tempus or Perdo and Tempus. Which could fit more in the way other traditions use vis without having hermetic arts.
I'm liking this idea quite a bit actually.
Personally, I'm not keen on Time as a Form. If anything it should be a Technique (as briefly discussed -- I think -- in Art & Academe). The concept of Time as a thing is very modern; Time is an accident / differentia (i.e. a process) and therefore should be a verb.
I'm a fan of the Ten Forms being the fundamental building blocks of (sublunar) nature, as presented in RoP:M. Bonisagus got it right, there are no other Forms. He thought that there might be others (such as Luck), but he was wrong. The real growth area is new Techniques.
Just my opinion, for my games.
Mark
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I think I rather do, as well!
Creo Herbam vis as seeds, or Perdo and Tempus (e.g. aging) together in another type of vis both seem to be very good examples of possible Multi-Art Vis. I especially like how both parts complement or reinforce each other.
I hope the magi Bonisagi are taking notes:)
I'd almost forgotten about your post, Mark. Apologies for that.
Could you please elaborate on your ideas about Time as a Technique? How would it work with the current set of Forms?
I'm not even sure what we could call it, due to insufficient Scribe Latin on my own part.
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In the philosophy of Aristotle, time is not how we conceive it today. It was not a thing that could be sped up or slowed or reversed. It was not a 'place' that could be visited. It was a process that happened to things, rather than a universal principle. This is why I don't like the concept of a Form of Time.
In Aristotlian ontology, a thing has essential and accidental properties. The essential properties are provided by the substance of the thing, and is covered by its Form in Hermetic magic.
Aristotle held that there were nine kinds of accidents, which, together with the substance, made ten fundamental categories. The nine accidents are quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, position, action, and passion
Quantity (how much of something) and Quality (how something appears to the senses) are provided by the Muto Technique.
Location (where something is), Position (relative position of the parts of the object), and Action (what something is doing), are all provided by the Rego Technique
Relation (how something is related to another), Passion (what is being done to something), and Habitus (what something has) aren't clearly covered by Arts, but all could be related to the consequences of Muto or Rego.
That just leaves Time, which Aristotle defines as the position of the thing in relation to a course of events. In theory, you could change the 'when' of things in the same way as you could change the 'where' or the 'how much' of that thing. In a minor way you can already interrogate the 'when' of something with Intellego, and push it into a future state with Rego (bring a tree to fruition). Making a separate Art of this would allow you to put a thing into a past state or a future state, having it exist yesterday or tomorrow. There isn't a good translation for this, you could call it Quando (meaning 'when', an adverb, but it fits nicely with the first-person-singular ending of other Techniques).
Note that this is covered in Art & Academe, page 22.
Mark
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There's also an 'angel' in charge of Purgatory (see Mythic Locations page 83, stats on page 87) called Pasiel that has powers related to changing time, which might provide some inspiration.
Mark
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This is actually Creo.
For an alternative that sticks to the "first person singular transitive verb" scheme of the existing techniques, maybe Verto or Roto? In the sense of revolving or turning something and altering it, seeing as this technique is inducing a kind of motion in the target and time is often associated with wheels/cycles/turning.
Or you (or in-universe, magi) could just invent a new verb for it. Make Tempus into Tempo ("I time..."). I don't think there is a Latin verb that fits this meaning exactly, but that doesn't mean magi couldn't coin one.
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New Form: Correspondentia (Cp)
The principle of correspondence. The matching principle is one of the 7 hermetic principles and... It's well connected (hehe!) to the flavor of the game.
Here it goes.
"What is above is like what is below, and what is below is like what is above."
There is a correspondence between laws and phenomena on all planes of existence and life. The human microcosm is governed by the same rules as the universal macrocosm and vice versa.
Creo Correspondentia: generate more space within a pre-established space (Bag of Holding!), new locations, make bigger paths.
Intellego Correspondentia: defining spatial dimensions, recognizing sympathetic and arcane connections, perceiving observation.
Muto Correspondentia: changing spatial definitions.
Correspondentia Perdo: decrease interconnected spaces.
Correspondence Rego: Teleport, Portals, Moves, all without the need for the other forms (similar to the first part of what was mentioned about magical movement in hermetic designs, but more accurate).
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I just changed what is called VIS into Aether just because I felt it is missing when forms are based on the four elements (Terram, Fire, Aquam, Auram). Aether as the "fifth element" and the "stone of Wisdom" belongs to this concept.
And looking at vis and its definition this seems pretty well fitting and consequently arranged to me. Fullfing the ancient mystic theory of the fife Elements.
Only change I had to make in the rules is, that there is no longer any specified form of Raw Vis. Consequently there can be only one form of Raw Vis (Aether) which works for all....... cause that is the idea of the "stone of Wisdom" with which it is even possible to create pure gold. I really like to add Aether into the mystic concept of hermetic magic. Naturally finding "Raw Aether" is harder and happens more rare than Raw Vis.
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