Cult of Mercury hedge wizards

[Furion_Transsanus]

@Erik Dahl

My thought was that Bonisagus showed Mercere how to adapt the Hermes Portal ritual he had to Hermetic magic, and that then together they invented a device that did the same thing. I imagine Bonisagus did most if not all of the work on that, but that Mercere claimed it so that the secret could be kept for the good of the Order -- as Bonisagus's discovery, he would have been obligated to share it with everyone else.

I think that it's cool that the Portal was made a Mercere rather then a Guernici spell (I wonder if there's any hard feelings with a Terram Gernici or two...?). The involvement of Bonisagus is also nicely hinted by you in the book, but I really like possible motives you voiced here of why he might have downplayed his role!

@Erik Dahl

Rego Terram actually brings two distant places next to each other, making it so that stepping through the portal is like stepping from my lab to the hallway, but magically making it so that Harco is there instead. It's like a river or a shipping lane, in that it always goes to the same place, but it can carry anything.

Whenever I hear the "brings two distant places next to each other" explanation I can never help thinking of good ol' Mage's Correspondance, but I best quit that lest Paradox snatches me away . But basically I like they idea anyway. On a sidenote this was luckily a breakthrough discovery, as I wonder if anyone would ever argue to do the same with e.g. a Rego Herbam ritual (somewhat very Diende or Merinita-like). As is they can just be told to get back to the lab and work half their lifes to make a similar breakthrough if they really really want it.

@Erik Dahl

I imagine the Redcaps would totally abuse the portals, though. I mean, if you could take a vacation in a far-off place with no travel costs and instantly return whenever you wished, wouldn't you

[EDIT]My Explorer acted up (again!) and I had to restart the computer. I just wanted to add that I do think that the Redcap live exiting adventurous lifes going for and wide, but at the same time I probably don't imagine them to do it to such an extent. There might be plenty of reasons why they all don't just pop here and there for a little time off. Families, danger, inhospitality, duties, other interest or simply a mild censure on the use of the Portals might reduce it a bit. I think of them as great travellers with a long range, but if they all just popped about like modern day globetrotters it would in my opinion became a bit too much.

[phildack]

Whenever I hear the "brings two distant places next to each other" explanation I can never help thinking of good ol' Mage's Correspondance, but

Torg, another RPG with an excellent-if-over-complicated magic system has a similar feature to correspondence in it's system of arcane knowledges, which closely correspond to ArsM forms. "True Knowledge" is deemed to be one of the most powerful and difficult to manipulate forms, but allows for a range of effects including teleportation by altering the "true knowledge" of a person's location. In ArsM terms, if something like true knowledge existed, you could use it to overcome the hermetic limitation on would actually overcome the Limits of Essential Nature, Time and Arcane Connections.

Probably just as well there's nothing like this in the game then

[Ravenscroft]

Yay! Someone else who knows TORG!

[Rafael]

@Ravenscroft

Yay! Someone else who knows TORG!

Doesn't everyone?

[phildack]

@Ravenscroft

Yay! Someone else who knows TORG!

Totally off topic but know it and love it! It's system of 4 Skills and 16 Arcane Knowledges presents an interesting alternative ArsM which could very easily be integrated. However, it's let down by its fascinating but over-complicated spell creation system which is nonetheless well worth a look at by anyone interested in RPG magic systems.

For the reference of the unitiatiated, Torg's magic system has the following 'Arts' and 'Forms'

Alteration (~Muto)
Apportation (~Rego)
Conjuration (~Creo, Perdo)
Divination (~Intellego)

Arcane Knowledges are arranged in heirachies, where the higher can accomplish everything that the lower can, but with more difficulty (insert "sledgehammer to crack a nut" anology here):

Life, Death, True Knowledge, Time (Principles)
Darkness, Light, Magic (Essences)
Living Forces, Inanimate Forces (the Forces)
Aquatic, Avian, Earthly, Elemental, Enchanted, Entity, Folk (Kindred)
Air, Earth, Fire, Metal, Plant, Water (Elements)

Spells have a Pattern, a Mechanism and a Result, although only the Pattern is used in casting. So a Fireball would be Conjuration-Fire, but when being designed would probably use the mechanism of Magic to create a result of Fire. Similarly, linking back to the original teleport spell, that would could be Alteration- True knowledge, with a mechanism of True Knowledge and a result of True Knowledge. Or an Apportation-Folk, with a mechanism of True Knowledge and a result of Light (you disappear in a blinding flash!).

As you can see, all very complicated, hence the spell-design part never really took off except among us sad cases! If you're really interested, I have a Torg spell design Excel sheet on my long defunct website!: angelfire.com/realm2/pdack/torg.html

Now back on topic....