Elemental Creation and Requisites

As I've seen a bunch of people post things in disagreement with canon on the elements, I figured I'd go through what is actually stated with regards to elements and requisites. There is an important box on page 79 of ArM5. If you haven't read that, I highly recommend doing so. It clarifies a lot.

The fundamental rule is:

Now let's apply this to ice.

So, let's say you want to create normal ice. That would be CrAq. There are no Ignem nor Terram requisites. Can we find support for this statement?

That explicitly says you don't need requisites to make normal ice.

There is a Rego requisite to move the ice to unerringly hit the target. But notice the lack of Ignem and Terram requisites.

We can look at lava just how we looked at ice. Following the same rule, creating normal lava would be CrTe. There are no Aquam nor Ignem requisites. Can we find support for this statement?

That's from a list that includes requisites and has explicitly been put there to guide spell development, and it agrees. But maybe you say molten lava is actually not hot?

Notice the Ignem Form Score, not Aquam. This is from heat that Ignem protects against. That's what molten lava is/does in canon: it's hot and cause damage as result.

So what are requisites for? Page 79 gives an indication beyond what is stated about ice and lava above:

You could do similar things. You might make ice and adjust its hardness (a quality of its solidness) by adding a Terram requisite. You might create liquid lava that is cold enough to touch by adding an Ignem requisite. You might create liquid lava that flows as easily as water (a quality of its liquidity) by adding an Aquam requisite.

When making ice with CrAq[Te] it is cold. No PeIg requisite.

ReAq will make water Ice. PeIg makes water Ice. Both will be cold. If ReAq had no impact on the heat, governed by Ig, it wouldn't be cold. However it is cold. This implies Aquam or Terrem can affect Ignem's domain, heat.

CrIg will heat. PeAq destroys water. Both can make things dry at low magnitudes. One requires Corpus to affect people the other one gets a free pass. Some reason Aquam isn't allowed into Ignems domain.

If CrTe[Aq] makes room temperature lava, this is inconsistent.

Why?

I just re-read the section callen posted, and this seems to be correct. I'm learning a lot of interesting things very quickly about the elemental magics, which is useful, since i have an Aquam and an Auram mage specialist in my current home group.

Actually, I want to know where this will lead; If I use ReAq to turn a bucket of water into a bucket of ice, the RAW seems to imply it won't be cold ice, and the only thing keeping it 'ice' is the spell's duration. Back to water as soon as the duration is done?

If you're talking about using magic to make someone no longer wet, both CrIg and PeAq can dry someone's clothes, either by heating the air around them (probably uncomfortable for the wearer) or just making them dry (more comfortable) Neither of these uses should require corpus.

You're right, it shouldn't. As callen said, CrTe(Aq) shouldn't make room-temperature lava, it should require CrTe(Ig).

EDIT: spell check.

My point is both CrTe[Ig] and CrTe[Aq] will make lava, both should be hot.

From an Elemental Magic perspective only the primary art really matters. For other Magi it matters. It makes Ignem too important.

HP is Hermetic Projects? I don't happen to have that book for reference. Does it use the same base CrTe guideline as stone, or does it have a unique guideline as something more difficult to summon than, say a cube of granite, or does it use the same base 3 for stone and glass?

What I do is simply refer to Ignem and see what the equivalent is. Molten Lead vs Iron etc. Molten Iron is around x hot, molten Obsidian is the same ball park of Iron.

If one uses Molten Lead, Ignem 10 for damage, it's +12 per round based on exposure. Full exposure is +48 a round.
If Aquam at level 10 it is +10 per with the same base exposure. The extra 8 damage is really a wash imo once full immersion occurs.

Aside from a stylistic difference, if one were to base damage on the arts used Aquam will do less, but won't be "heat" per say.

Yes, Hermetic Projects.

CrTe will make hot lava. No need for those requisites. CrTe(Ig) could make lava that isn't naturally hot, perhaps ultra-hot or perhaps cold enough to handle. CrTe(Aq) necessarily makes hot lava because there is no Ignem requisite to change the natural hot state of the lava created; the Aquam requisite is there to change something else, like letting the lava flow like water.

That is a reading that most people disagree with from my experience, and it's not the point here anyway.

I suppose that one might say only the primary art matters, in terms of the number crunching. A maga with Elemental Magic, a good CrTe score but lousy Ignem and Aquam, would be just as good at producing ultra-hot lava (ie: CrTe(Ig)) as if her Ignem were as good as her Terram. If I understand the virtue correctly!

Yes. CrAq makes natural ice, which is cold. The Terram requisite doesn't control its temperature; it's there to do something like make sure the created ice is as strong as steel.

As this thread is about creating/making stuff, let's be more careful with the language. ReAq will make liquid water into ice. PeIg will lower the temperature so water will freeze.

Sort of, sort of not. You're reading something and extrapolating way beyond what it actually says. Let's say I want to burn something. I could use CrIg. I could also use CrTe to make lava to set it on fire. The ReAq will let you shift things between liquid and solid, but it won't just let you arbitrarily change temperatures. You could be clever, though, and try to chill a drink by using ReAq with T: Part to freeze bits of it, letting them melt, and repeating until the desired temperature is reached.

Raising the temperature will help dry a towel. Reducing the humidity will help dry a towel. Wringing it will help dry a towel. Do you think either a lower humidity or wringing is the same as a higher temperature? You can get similar results through different mechanisms.

The liquid is considered part of the make-up of the being, while the temperature is not. This isn't so unreasonable if you look from a different perspective. Consider a sword. It could get a bit hotter or colder, but it'd still be a sword. I'm not saying it all makes perfect sense from modern perspectives; but none of it really does anyway.

It doesn't. It makes hot lava. You didn't include the Ignem requisite. The Aquam requisite allow for changes in the liquid state, like allowing the lava to flow like water.

Again, something most people disagree with from my experience. From what I've seen, most people calculate a spell's level the same, regardless of Elemental Magic. If a requisite adds magnitudes, it adds magnitudes. So the requisites are typically used in number crunching.

Yes. The scores in the magus's requisite Arts wouldn't matter.

Apologies: I was thinking purely in terms of the casting of the spell, not calculating the spell level. I shall try to be clearer next time! :slight_smile:

We have different conclusions from the same perspective. I don't know how to explain it such you know what I'm saying. Your reasons for disagreement are the reasons I say it should work differently.

Well, I backed up my statements about CrEl v. CrEl(El) with both explicit rules and examples straight from the books. If you disagree with what I've said about CrEl v. CrEl(El), you're free to quote rules from the books that say otherwise. If you can't, then you know you're wrong.

I honestly don't care how things "should work." I care about how they do work.

Nope. Here is where Ignem for some reason deviates from all the rest of the material. I know what you're saying and we are going in circles. The way Ignem works as you describe it should be renamed "radiation".

If the game were consistent with the rest, to manipulate a person's Inner Fire by use of Perdo requires a Corpus requisite. Air and breathing cools living things.

Why does ambient heat affect a person but ambient humidity not?

PeIg Winter's Icy Touch does not target ambient heat, it targets the heat generation of a person to remove a fatigue level. This should require Corpus, the target is a Person's Fire. Life's Inner Fire is what's targeted when you cool a person. Ambient temperature would be different.

PeAq cannot destroy a person's water without Corpus. It also requires Part. Why?

Muto Auram can make a wind a winter wind. Rain to snow. If I want to change only one property of the wind it's 1 magnitude lower. So, I change the temperature. Make it hot or cold.

Rego Aquam makes water Ice and snow. A quality of which is it's temperature. Either harder or easier, I don't know, but if one wanted to manipulate just the one quality of water, its temperature, one could. Hot or Cold.

I'll do the same here. If you don't care how they should work how do you make spell effects not explicitly stated? I'm talking about things implied by how they do work that aren't explicitly stated. If you just want explicitly stated effects there is no reason for the discussion, just look in the books and those effects are the only ones allowed.

There are no rules about PeAq simply removing a fatigue thought dehydratetion. So, it can't do it, because we don't care how it should work.

I'm trying to extrapolate what effects and what rules are applied based upon the RAW. Which are inconsistent. To solve this one can either make things consistent or ignore inconsistent issues. Why it is Ignem is allowed to be inconsistent, but when effects for other forms are extrapolated suddenly things must be prevented?

Taking just one statement out of this ...

Could you, for the sake of understanding your argument, provide a page reference for where it says that? All I can see is the level 4 Perdo Ignem guideline on page 142 that says: "Chill a person so that they lose a Fatigue level." There is nothing there about targeting the heat generation - is it stated elsewhere?

I've actually always thought that Winter's Icy Touch does target the ambient heat around a person, rather than the heat inside a person. It describes them as 'feeling a chill', and in the games I've seen it used, it also caused some residual frost damage to grass, etc. I admittedly don't have a book available right now, since i forgot my tablet at home. By contrast, the higher level spell (forgot name) that does damage, seems to target the person directly, but I've always house-ruled that as targeting the space around them and making it deathly cold, so that if someone was grappling them, they'd be affected too.

I believe both ambient heat and ambient humidity can affect someone - humidity just takes a lot longer. I don't think a momentary 'ambient' PeAq spell can do enough effect to affect a person negatively, other than maybe make them thirsty suddenly. Cold exposure will kill a lot faster than dry exposure. may just be opinion though, I don't know survival-science well. Anyone else have input either way?

Still hoping for more people to weigh in on this. Elemental magic makes special dispensation for creation and destruction, but turning water to ice or steam doesn't have RAW I can find. Does it add/remove heat?