The question is: How do ACs in ARs really work in your sagas?
Well, obviously you don't have to sense the target for which you 've got an AC, to target it with a spell etc.. but thats not the point of this post.
But is it possible to use the "inexorable search" (ArM p.131) to determine the location of an individual in another regio/realm? (in case you've also got a map of it)
Is it possilbe to use "The leap of homecoming" (ArM p.135) to jump into another regio or realm?
It certainly doesn't conflict with "the limit of arcane connections", but does it maybe conflict with "the limit of the lunar sphere"?
On ArM p.84 RAW is "[...]ACs must be stored carefully, or else they become links to different people or places." How do I store an AC linking to another supernatural realm or to a regio properly, without risking that the link will change?
On ArM p.112 RAW is: "[...]anything that the magus has an AC to. Distance is immaterial unless the SG chooses to impose some limit."
I really like the part of magi, who want to travel to different regiones or even other supernatural realms, having to search for regio bounderies, entrances and overcoming regio guardians. It gives plentiful story options. But I don't like the "beam me up, scotty- ars magica"
Are magic realm regios another plane of existence, floating somewhere like an "in-beetween" of the magic realm and the mundane world, or are they part of one or the other or even both?
What about fearie or infernal or even divine regios? What you guys think?
The answers of "yes, AC's work across regio boundaries" and "no, they don't" both exclude some good stories. There is a detailed covenant in Lion and the Lily that was sealed off in a regio for decades, it's hard to imagine how this could have been so if Arcane Connections worked across the boundaries. I think the best answer is "it depends on the regio" and while this answer is not explicit in the published material it is consistent with all of the fifth edition books (how could it not be).
The definition given in the core book is something along the lines of "Arcane connections are things that were once part of other things and retain a connection to them" (not a direct quote). To this I'd say that you need to store your connections in a way where they don't become more a part of their storage space than they are of their original thing.
I think this means that having an organized collection of AC's with a place for everything and everything in its place is absolutely the worst possible way to do it, (unless the connections are permanent).
Against the Dark (page 59) has a sidebar specifically on how Leap of Homecoming interacts with regiones. Basically, the answer is "it varies by regio".
The answer seems to be that arcane connections reach most regios. Normally, you can't reach the realm of power itself using arcane connections (i.e. the level 10 regiones like Hell, Garden of Eden, Magical world and the Faerie realm) and there are some lower level regios which could not be reached with arcane connections.
I can think of no real reason why Arcane Connections wouldn't reach across regio boundaries, unless the regio (or its master) prevents it, and most people seem to be of similar opinions. A slight expansion of topic: How about Realm boundaries? Would an Arcane Connection reach through faerie and into Arcadia-Eudokia? Could it send missives to the Infernal Realm? And the final step: Can an Arcane Connection contact a magus in the realm of Twilight? (Again, I think it's probably varying realm by realm, but I definitely lean towards mostly no on these.)
Thanks for the hint. I'll go with that and let it vary by regio..
In our Saga, I will also differentiate more beetween temporary AC, and fixed ACs. I want to empower fixing ACs, since it costs 1 vis and a season after all:
temporary ACs: allow to "link" into the same type of supernatural regios (e.g. magic regios for magic/hermetic effects; fearie regios for faerie-powers,..)
fixed ACs: should make it possible to link to other supernatural regios (teleport into a fearie regio)
some regios won't be "reachable" by neither of those.. (especially divine or infernal ones)
Regarding AC-Storage: IMS the only save and long-lasting way of storing ACs, will be to make them fixed ACs. We already play with HR to reduce the effectiveness of ACs (counting as max. penetration multiplier +1) to place more emphasis on sympathetic connections anyway.
Your idea remembers me a bit of "AD&D Ravenloft domains, and I like it". However, I agree with all of you, that RAW it seems possible. However, I' am also interested in the different ways, other sagas handle that peculiar issue. Any other HR available?
(After 6 years of continously playing an ArM5-Saga in the greater alps tribunal, we have already "gathered" more than [strike]8[/strike] 18 pages of HR! Still, I'm rules-hungry.. :[]
An AC can't reach from Mythic Europe into Faerie, because there is no way to synchronize mundane time and time in Faerie (RoP:F p.30 Warping and the Passage of Time): you can't arrive from Mythic Europe in the middle of the story another character experiences in Faerie, and that character can't escape his story to Mythic Europe via an AC either.
The Twilight Void (RoP:M p.24ff) also is outside the time of Mythic Europe, and the time a traveler experiences there depends on his Twilight Comprehension roll and the choices he makes.
The accessibility of the Infernal Realm is (RoP:TI p.9 box One Way Trip?) left for troupes to limit.
Thanks for the helpful references! That leads towards about what I expected, though I somewhat remember the magic realm having creatures which can peer into Mythic Europe, but that might be through regios.
Vestiges may be ACs to places in Mythic Europe, but using these to travel back to Mythic Europe means (RoP:M p. 23 Magical Travel) Vestige Travel through the Twilight Void and may take many years or even literally forever.
This is quite different from using an AC for - say - ArM5 p.135 Leap of Homecoming or p.145 Summoning the Distant Image. It is also a good motivation to develop the Minor Breakthrough from RoP:M p.26 Magic Realm Magic and invent (RoP:M p.28 box) Swift Wings of Timeless Days before beginning to rely on vestige ACs.
As stated above, AC's work to get you into regios.
I might make a few distinctions
-You can only affect a regio that's one 'step' from where you are. Envision a regio with three levels. I'm lazily describing the outer regio as a shallow pond, the next level as a deep pond, and the innermost level as an island in the pond. Assume you have arcane connections to all three levels.
If you are outside the regio, you can only effect the first level (shallow pond).
If you are in the shallow pond, you can affect the deep pond, and anything in the mundane world you have a connection to.
If you're in the deep pond, you can affect the shallow pond or island, but nothing in the mundane world.
A more restricted option would be to make it arder to target someone 'inside' a regio, even if you have an arcane connection to them. This is a bit of a weak analogy, but I'm almost thinking of a regio as a Structure or Room, in the sense of a Hermetic Target. You can target the regio itself (the outer boundary), teleport yourself to it, but not affect things within it from outside. They're too far removed. Essentially, this treats the Regio as a Structure (can't affect things within), but since Regio isn't a Hermetic Target, you can't use it like you would Structure. Perhaps designign a spell with Target: Regio at +1 magnitude, or original research to remove that bump, would work?
A middle ground is simply to say that there's nothing inside a regio to affect. The regio itself doesn't exist in Mythic Europe, only its boundary. You can push yourself to the other side of the boundary with a spell, but otherwise everything else is on another Plane of Existence. This may be too D&D-esque for some.
Easiest answer, of course, is to decide regio-by-regio.
I like the idea that ACs mostly work between regio layers however the connections are fickle. Sometimes not, often ok, and never for some specific places.
That’s frustrating for players but I think it reflects magic