Let's say you have an object that has inherent value to you for some reason, and you can't let it be damaged. Maybe you're, oh, watching an External Soul for a Gruagachan buddy, I don't know, the important thing is, no damage. How would you go about protecting the item? Obviously, the first priority is giving it a safe spot to be, whether that's well-hidden somewhere, or one of the safest places in ME, on your own person (hey, you're a magus, people don't mess with you and live unless they're also magi, most of the time). However, I'd like to look at stuff to keep the item safe if it ever does fall out of your hands somehow. I'm thinking probably permanent enchantments to give it immunity to basic things like metal and wooden weapons, fire, and acid. Are there any enchantments you could put on it that would make it resistant to being scryed if you go with the "hide it" route? And what would be good spells to put on a Waiting Ward on it? Maybe an explosion of something it's immune to if anybody tries to disenchant it? But anything with MR might be immune to that, and most disenchanting happens by Hermetic magi. So maybe something that will teleport it elsewhere? Hm.
If possible, start with something basically tough. A diamond, maybe. Steel. Oak. Granite. A dragon's tooth, or a magic turtle's shell. Enchant that to make it even more damage resistant.
Otherwise, I think it's Rego [Form] to make something damage resistant. Start with whatever it is, and add lots of requisites; all the elements, most of the compounds; the only things you can ignore are Mentem and Imaginem.
Rego for wards. Muto for everything else. Start with an object with serious natural hardness such as stone, metal, glass, diamond, etc. Then Muto it to the resiliency of very hard rubber. You can't cut it, you can't bash it, you can't burn it. You basically cannot harm this combo of properties with any mundane means save some very exotic acids. Then ward against those and against magic. Bury it in a very hostile environment like the bottom of the sea or the heart of an active volcano.
The only thing better than this is misdirection to avoid it being targeted in the first place.
Not perfect, but then again there's no such thing as perfect when a PC and a Storyteller are together in a room.
There's a few established enchantments in core material. In the 5th ed Calebais they had a shield and a sword that had CrTe echantments which repaired themselves constantly. In Magi of Hermes Hugh of Flambeau's talisman staff (wood) had a MuHe with a Terram requisite to give it the hardness of iron (wood that neither bends nor breaks I think). And in Societates under Flambeau they have a MuTe that makes metal even tougher (Hardness of Adamantine). With those as a base they should do pretty well.
I have a problem though with anything non-Divine that is unbreakable, because IMO it goes against the Magic laws; ie things on earth are doomed to fail at some point, there is nothing permanent but the Divine. So you can make things far stronger and resilient, there is nothing on earth that is truly unbreakable. Just my opinion though, I tend to put more religious metaphors in my games.
A magic item that makes it look like a bird, and makes it fly like one too. That's easy. A perdo Vim effect to destroy the "magic" sensed by spells that look for magic. I have no idea how to prevent it from being "scryed", but I can't see why you wouldn't be able to make it look like, say, the Vatican when people do so?
While you probably can't make something utterly indestructible, you can make something tougher than any physical mortal harm. You can make it top of the physical pile, able to last indefinitely.
Instead of making it indestructible, I might try to make it immaterial, using as a base "Scattering like Light" (HoH:S p 63). I would design a spell which only leaves the iconic species of the objet, turning it into a ghost.
Of course, not to destroy the objet, it must be an enchantment with an automatic trigger to make it permanent and not Momentary.
So it would probably be a MuIm base 30 (Scattering like light is MuIm base 5, turning a human into an insubstantial form is MuCo base 30), self, sun (+2), ind. So MuIm40, twice a day + env. trigger, for a final effect of level 45.
Probably a requisit according to the form is needed, increasing by 5 the effect.
It is high level, but you remove the need for a ward against any physical attacks, fire, acid and such. With a ward against magic to prevent dispelling effect, it becomes really tough to damage. Or you might go all the way with unlimited uses, and the trigger is as soon as it fails (similar as the floating disc in Legend of Hermes).
Although it is fairly high level, it is probably more vis effective and less time consuming that the multi ward approach. And since the magus must be good in Imaginem, adding an invisibility effect should be easy and make the object impossible to see, feel, smell and touch...
Declare Wizard's war on an ancient nearly Eternal Twilight Magus. Shove item down Magus's throat. Give Magus two points of warping. Alternatively toss it in the Twilight Void on your next trip. Item is now safe.
Are we to assume that the owner wants the item back at some stage, or are they happy for it to be permanently lost forever? Getting the thing back if it is undetectable is going to be nasty if it is protected by magic divination and for whatever reason it is misplaced. You don't want to throw something into the twilight void if the buddy wants it back later.
Otherwise (as said) then MuTe into hard and resilient and ward it against magic & corrosion. A higher level spell that your protections will always be able to undo it, even if the magical protections need to be stripped off first.
Aside - Muto has a limitation of duration too, if you select an unnatural substance as the end result. If you select a natural result (like diamond) then it can be permanent. An enchanted device permanent effect gets around this, but can still be effected by PeVi effects.
This is actually more of a general question, though my example was the closest equivalent this game has to a phylactery, the External Soul of the Gruagachan tradition. But yeah, I'm asking this question for any kind of item that, for whatever reason, the magus can not allow to be damaged.
Also, what are these defenses against magic people talk about? You can't enchant MR into an item. (Er, I think there's a Breakthrough for that, actually, but I want to stick to vanilla Hermetic magic.)
Can't you put a 'detect magic being cast on object', 'cast wind of mundane silence or similar at the detected spell' combo as an active counterspelling attempt? Also, the various "mage an object appear magical or nonmagical", "sense scrying" (the one book talking about wizard war), "show false image", could all be used as part of a defense.
What I would do, since the object might not like extra magic on it, is put the object in a box and magic the heck out of the box. ReTe to keep what's in the box from shifting in transit (magical bubble wrap), MuTe with req to change the object into something more durable, PeIm to destroy any species in the box to make scrying more difficult (If an object is inside a pouch, I think scrying shows you just the inside and you can't 'zoom out' to see what is around the pouch?), ring wards on the box edges, etc etc. Also, this should reduce the Warping on the object to be protected.
A bit of a personal interest for my Verditius glassblower. Started with a display shelf enchanted to keep objects inside from falling off or chipping. A spell similar to Supple Iron to make it tough while in use. Eventually working up to a breakthrough, either a new Verditius mystery based on Items of Quality that would give a damage resistance bonus, or giving an object an Essential Trait relating to not being broken. Hmm, external souls & similar show up in faerie tales, but I suspect that even a Magic realm external soul would have an Essential Nature making it vulnerable to one specific thing.
