Dream magic: can you dream a labtext and bring it with you with a great dream grimoire spell?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,

Still trying to use the dream magic and greater dream grimoire for a NPC who dreams to create an island of magic all by himself, I'm noticing the level of the "create island" is each time very high, whatever method I use, even those from Transforming mythic Europe, full island in one go, "floating island on air ballons", "island supported by red mangrove network of almost millions of trees intertwinned". (It is certainly due to our house rule that "size magnitude" is not a linear x10 but a "pyramidal calculus so +1 size = +1 mag, but +10 size = +55 mag to avoid big spells being trivial).

Since that magus has dream magic, he thought about dreaming the island and using greater dream magic to bring it in reality, but the level of the (real life) ritual is still enormous since size would matter too. It could allow it to use imaginem vis but that's not the main problem.

But then an idea appeared: why not dream a labtext of the required spell? It diminishes the challenge to invent the spell a lot.
I read the rules for dream magic and dreams in general and nothing seem to prevent it: you can even bring magical items from dream in reality. And the wonder of dream is that if the dreamer is the magus, he can dreams what he wants to dream being in control of the dream.

Did some of you use dream magic to do so? What are your advice? opinion?

Greetings,

Exar.
Edit : maybe I found a flaw of the idea: for physical travel, you cannot do it on yourself because you have to be conscious to cast the spell ReCo required to travel into the dream. Putting the effect in an item would not help since the same problem arise. Hence, the need to cooperate: one must dream the text, the other must extract it.
Edit2: the CrIm guidelines (at the opposite of the Cr[Fo] one) of greater dream grimoire does not have that limitation and can be used by a spiritual traveler, thus is usable by the lucid dreaming magus.

2

I imagine its due to complexity. A magical item is, intuitively and conceptually, simple. "Stave that shoots flame" for example.

A book that details how to create such a thing or a spell- bringing up principles and the like- is unlikely.

To make a comparison, it's the difference between a peasant dreaming of a bird and a peasant dreaming of an aerodynamics book that details the scientific principles of the bird. The former is likely, the latter is implausible.

3

Dream up a friendly Hermetic Mage who can cast the spell. They can teach the spell, in Hermetic terms -- now you just need to bring them through to the real world for a season.

4

Due to the soul, bringing a human back in the world would require another breakthrough (possibly an Hermetic one). While it's a good idea in the story, it requires too much work for a magus who cannot have too much warp before a final twilight.

Also, someone being able to invent the required spell would be better than the magus, and his goal is to be the best of the Order (creating the island of magicians is his way to be acknowledged by the new Order and recognized as first archmagus), thus it's not compatible with its set goals.

5

Yes I thought about it.

Using the guideline from A&A p32, the magus created a spell CrMe base 5 ("create imagination, like a force a dream on someone") with 6 complexity magnitude (as much as "the shadow of life" in CrIm) to make a target, preferably someone with MT already, dream the desired labtext and whatever was required for that person in the dream (study time, and time to do the study) to make it in the dream.
It works rather well since in dream, time has no importance, as TMRE says that when time is required, it goes as fast as needed in the fashion of "several times later".

6

Dreaming up a working "labtext" happened in real life. Look here for August Kekulés dream. Putting the work in to dream up that formula was of course done in real life and took the work of years - and it worked then in real life, too.

Circumventing that work and just declaring the results of a magus' dream to work in Mythic Europe is highly questionable, isn't it? What about making one's daydreams of becoming the inventor of a universal Magic Theory replacing Bonisagus' Theory with its many known flaws work there, too?

7

Well I agree with the fact that it seems easy.
The problem is that if there are guidelines to bring functionnal things from dreams into reality, it can happen. If it wouldn't be able to happen, then the great grimoire mystery wouldn't exist.

Assuming it exist, I need to take it into account.

Since the guideline explicitely allows to bring magical items (using vim and form requisites for their real power), I think there is no reason that it wouldn't work on a labtext.

Then it comes back at the "is it the right labtext? is it what is wanted". There I first thought about the "you will need many days speaking with your cooperating friend magus for him to dream the right labtext" question... but since dreaming is unlimited in (dream) time, you can influence the dreamer inside the dream to make him dream what you want, and then I even noticed that A&A guideline which lets you put dreams inside someone mind. I envisionned charm/magic theory rolls to make the dreamer dream what you want in dream, even making him study dream vis found in the dream up to the point he has the arts required to invent the labtext (since anyway, it would be required for the labtext to exist in the dream, even if times passes by the "some time later" tool which is used in dream).
To be sure the dreamer dreams long enough in real world, long duration ReMe to make them sleep at moon are to be used were to be prepared.
Some CrAn/aq with Co requisite to feed and make them drink while asleep, rituals casted by another every day while he is asleep were to be prepared (or alternatively some healing spells, I'd have to check if deprivation causes wounds or not)

And then, using a complexity modifier to simulate exactly what you want, the "make someone dream the right thing" (with a finesse roll because there is no reason as not to) bypasses even all those pesky discussions needed.

Currently I'm on the opinion that it comes back to "to which point does the dreamer dream the right labtext, even with the help of the spell" and deciding the level of the finesse required for the spell. I'm on the current "let's say 1 ease factor per magnitude" for the "insert dream" spell.
That would bring the current envisionned compromising solution of level 180 (create the half ring wall of 152km long to encompasses, cast twice, the whol 100km diameter island to be case, using TME idea, but cutting the wall in two because the next size would be at level 220 iirc, which is way too high while 180 is achievable by the magus with some big effort) at a 36 ease factor for the CrMe spell, which means the effort is now required to raise finesse and mastery and proceed by trial&error inside the dream.

For the extracting labtext step, at first I would have put a Vim requisite but the text is not a a magical thing at all so there is no real ingame reason to add it (and it wouldn't change anything in this particular case, since Vim is the magus most high form).

Then for the ease of this... I never saw any magus using the dream mystery at all in all my playing years. So either it's because players do not like it (myself I read it after 17years of playing Ars only... (never bothering with that chapter before) and since that moment I couldn't forget that it feels FUN and interesting) or the potential is overlooked.

8

Such "functional things" wouldn't be texts making sense, though. Dreaming up knowledge concerning magic or other topics from whole cloth doesn't make it apply to Mythic Europe.

I.a.w: Ars Magica isn't Nomic. :smiling_face_with_sunglasses:

Also compare with Borges' The Library of Babel. Every book of that library is a "functional thing", right?

9

Why? is it because those are written? why can't a dreamer dream of writing untelligible things?
But let's say we follow that : then a casting tablet would be okay?
If not, a magical item encompassing the desired effect, using the mystery of hermetic empowerment, and containing a mighty enough spirit to sustain the ritual effect (which is only ritual because of its high level and major effect (as decided by me), which would be still ritual as per the enchanting rule of ArM5 p256: "Enchanted device effects may have a level over 50, as long as there is no other reason for the spell to be a ritual, such as Year duration, Boundary target, or major effect.")?
Maybe because the magus don't know that hermetic empowerment exist. Okay then if he knows it exist, can he dream it?
Does the dreamer need to know the "science" behind the item that he dreams to dream it, and if it works, would it matter if the dream-object is brought into the world? For the labtext and casting tablet, this is important because MT is a system, but magical items need not be in the system to exist.

Where do we trace the line between what you can and can't do with the great grimoire magic mystery. TMRE do not sgive any limit except: "Note that no-one has ever successfully given living substance to a dreamperson, as Hermetic magic cannot create a soul, although beasts have been made real."

10

What about the following:

(1) Hermetic magic cannot affect anything on or beyond the Lunar Sphere.
(2) But a dreamer can dream up any kind of fully functional astrolabe or armillary sphere, with her favorite planet Vesta and a whole lot of new fixed stars - and she believes it in her dream.
(3) Such an object your magus could fetch from her dream and bring it to Mythic Europe.
Now would the magus have changed the unchangeable heavens?

11

I'd say that yes, it's just not very useful since the setting prevents it. The dream could be rendered real, but it would be rubish if not related to the setting sky, and thus would not provide any mechanical bonus. It's like most characters can see the sky of the magic realm where the stars, if they are, may be nothing alike the real stars.

(For the labtext, nothing in the setting prevents a labtext about a spell to be a labtext about a spell)

12

Make it that way: dreaming up knowledge about Mythic Europe just doesn't work. If brought there, it is just a random copy from Borges' LIbrary of Babel, a fool's implement or such.

13

This is, after all, how dreaming works. You can read something, but it's contents are changeable and unrelated to the truth.

Now, if someone has written a book and kept it from you, by invading their dreams you might be able to get to read or copy it. That's not creating information, and stealing it.

14

Your posts are interesting because it creates some restriction I didn't find in the book: you can dream whatever you want, but only things you at least know exist can be brought into the world. It should be applied in the sense that if you have read a book, you could bring it, but if you have never experienced it yourself, you would only have the "book" item without the knowledge content.

That would mean that if you brought a labtext from a spell you already know there is no problem, but a labtext from a spell you don't know would be giberish as Oneshot said earlier.

For magical items, same limitation: the famous staff of X you have multiple accounts about, you can try to bring, but magical item X which you know nothing of, you cannot. It thus require prior research to find someone able to dream about it, perhaps its current owner, or a past one.

You can try to create the dream for someone, but are limited in the same way: if you make someone dream about something you know of, no problem: as caster of the create dream spell, its your knowledge which matters, not the dreamer one. If you make someone dream of something you do not know, he would dream about some version of that which would make sense to you, but that is not real (even if he would have thought of the real version because you implanted the dream) and would be a "gibberish" thing, either a magical item without magic, hence a stupid item, even not working for its purpose other than magic?
In either case, if the thing is not dreamt by someone who knows/implanted the dream by someone who knows, something appears in the dream but it's blurry in the dream, having the "dream role" required of it, but useless in real world (like a beautiful but soft sword if it was supposed to be excalibur and the man do not know of its legend in your setting).

For beasts, the same. Bring the crocodile if you know of them, or the "big lezard" version/small dragon version otherwise.

If you try to bring something which is "gibberish", it appears, but is just useless/not what it's intended. There is no "the ritual is not cast" protective clause avoiding (real world) vis expense.
That would mean that the traveller must be careful as toward what he brings in the reality.

Last question: are you able to bring vis from the dream world (especially your dream as a lucid dreamer with CrIm spell which is allowed to be cast by spiritual traveler, which is the only one type you can be as dreamer)? obviously it seems useless because bringing substance cost vis... but it's a good way to bring other forms and because of size modifiers.

15

It is worth noting magi cannot create what they cannot envision. We also know magi cannot create new knowledge, only information which they know.

A magus cannot create knowledge
using magic, and can only manipulate
it indirectly. In Mythic Europe, a
person’s knowledge is integrated into
his mind through the memory and
the imagination. The memory stores
ideas and experiences, whereas the
imagination stores images and other
sensory input. In particular, inscribed
memories are the powerhouse of one’s
Arts and non-physical Abilities, fixed
into the memory through study and
experience. Magi have only begun
to delve into the secrets of the mind,
and there is no known way (yet) of
transferring inscribed memories
between minds or creating new
inscribed memories, even though
other types of memories can be
influenced with the Art of Mentem.
For more information on the medieval
concept of the mind, see Art &
Academe, pages 31–32. For more about
memories in particular, see Houses of
Hermes: Societates, pages 68–70.

The Technique of Intellego is
sometimes mistakenly seen as the Art
of Knowledge. However, this Art in
truth covers only the acquisition of
information, not the information it-
self. Likewise, Mentem spells oper-
ate on sentient minds, not on the
contents of those minds, so learn-
ing is not encoded with the Form of
Mentem either. Words on a page are
under the purview of the Form relat-
ing to the components of the ink used
(mostly Herbam and Terram), or the
page itself (Animal for parchment,
other Forms for different media). Ma-
nipulating the words however gets no
sense of the meaning therein. There
is, for example, a profound lack of a
spell that can translate the written
word from one language to another,
even though there is a spell that trans-
lates the spoken word in exactly this
manner. This is because the mind that
uttered a word can be interrogated for
its meaning with Mentem magic, but
written words are just artifices of ink
and parchment that have no intrinsic
thoughts behind them.

So you cannot Creo Mentem the labtext. You can hypothetically have someone dream up a labtext, but it likely isn't at all reliable unless they placed much thought on the matter as to have nearly completed it themselves.

We also know the dreamer cannot invent the spell in their dreams, at least through traditional lab activities.

However, the passage
of time is illusory and they
do not gain real experience
(that is, they do not gain game
points for Arts and Abilities).
Laboratory work is also impos-
sible in the shifting conditions
of dreams, so magi may not
invent spells (from texts or
from a teacher), nor perform
enchantments. Spells are a
matter of illusion in this dream-
ing world, and are governed by
Imaginem.

A physical dreamer probably can, but at that point they're doing seasonal activities to invent crap. This is of course assuming astrological influences work in dreams- which is unlikely

16

In particular, August's dream is more on par with a breakthrough to my understanding. If one allows this approach, you could have magi farming breakthroughs by having people dream of the final relevant labtext then taking it. Suddenly most of the Lesser Limits are broken...

17

Yes i know all those limitations. The intellego for knowledge is not a limit here since there is no intellego spell and the magus is not extracting knowledge but the content of a dream and I think it falls under the imagination, not knowledge.
For the same reason, the dream is not used to invent the spell because it is of no use in the real world.

What I wanted is to extract the labtext from the dream and then study from it. But others provided counterarguments and my previous gather my understanding of the implicit rules.

For the lesser limits: they are limits only for the NPC. Any curious PC will break them (rather easily in RAW, an hermetic breakthrough is soo easy... I house ruled that long ago to give a random component to the Breakthrough Points required and putting the average well above the RAW number) if he dedicates his time to, which is something most PC have no interest in doing in play in fact; lesser breakthrough are more common because they are of immediate use and interest for magi.
But for the same reason the extract labtext would not work easily, the extract insight source is hard in the dream too with my last post information.

18

I think the Crown of Hermes (covenants pp.121) is an interesting precedent here. It allows laboratory work in an imaginary environment, but the work is neither instantaneous nor effortless. The wearer still needs to spend seasons meditating and performing the actual work, even though the laboratory itself is a mental construct.

To me, this is the important distinction: a magus shouldn't be able to obtain a finished spell or labtext simply by dreaming of its result. However, a simulated environment might allow genuine laboratory work, provided the necessary foundations, time, and effort are still invested.