Dark Magic and Witches of Thessaly,

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Hello everyone!

Thank you for answering my questions so far and I really appreciate the resourcefulness and discussion that this board brings!

Faith & Flame has a virtue, Dark Magic, that allows a caster to benefit from Magic, Fairie, and Infernal Auras, and specifically mentions that

The Virtue is thought to be related to Chthonic Magic, and may have originally come to the order and the cult from The Witches of Thessaly.

I like this virtue, because the Witches of Thessaly are mentioned as using Fairie Auras as well as Magic and Infernal, and also because it doesn't link them specifically to blasphemy the way Chthonic Magic does.

In my headcannon then, the Witches of Thessaly/Trianoma are the magic, Fairie and infernal using but not (yet) corrupted folk witches, and the Daughters of Erictho are the fully infernally corrupted version.

But I have some questions about Dark Magic:

Would this virtue also allow the use of Fairie and Infernal Vis without penalty or extra bitch dice?

Could they refine Vis from each Aura?
(Probably using the Folk Witch Magic Theory version of refining Vis)

Could they bind creatures with Infernal or Fairie might as familiars? (Which may or may not be actual fairies or demons)

Besides the bonus to casting total, and immunity to warping, basically my question is how far does "benefit from" extend?

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Does the virtue say you can do any of that? No? Then it doesn't give you that ability.

It says you can benefit from auras, not anything else. So when you are in a Magical, Faerie, or Infernal aura you get the best bonus and no penalties from the Aura Interaction Table. Also no extra botch dice for being in a foreign aura, since those auras aren't foreign to you. (Core p183) You also don't get any warping points just from being inside one of those auras.
And that is pretty much all that "benefiting from an aura" includes.

Any hermetic magus can extract Vis from an Infernal aura as if it was a magical aura, but any such vis is automatically Vis Prava, and thus dangerous to use unless you are in infernalist. (RoP:I p19)
This is likely true for followers of other magical traditions as well, assuming they can extract vis in the first place.

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Fay? Probably not.
Demons... no virtue needed, it's easy. Very easy...

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And note that's already quite a lot for a Minor Virtue!

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