Obviously, it is impossible to "find" a magus that doesn't want to be without an arcane connection. With an arcane connection however, how easy is it to use that Perdo-Vim guideline to reduce the effectiveness of an existant arcane connection? And do you need to see/have line of sight to the item that is an arcane connection?
A) Couldn't you simply create a Perdo Vim spell that targets yourself to sever arcane connections that you have?
or
B) If you have to target the specific object that is an arcane connection, could you not create a perdo vim spell with arcane-connection range to do the same?
Basically, these would be methods to remove arcane connections and hence pretty much live out the rest of your life, in seclusion yes, but also in peace from the order that is hunting you down.
I mean it is hard enough to see through invis (since you've got to penetrate magic resistance with other sensing spells, such as Vision of Air (or cast a higher level intellego imaginem spell)... so we're not even at the confrontation part yet.
Well I would argue that anything that's an arcane connection to you, you an arcane connection to it. That's all I've really got the ability to contribute, not knowing the rules well enough.
That's my thinking too. So being a Master or even more powerful, on the run, you could do almost hourly scans to detect existing arcane connection to yourself (intellego Vim or so maybe?) Even once a day could be good enough.
Even should you miss it, the enemy, if attempting to cast something on you with high penetration due to the arcane connection (such as finding) you, they'd get one shot or so before your formulaic, personal range, remove arcane connection is cast (at least, that's what I would do as an 80+ or so year old mage on the run with good Perdo VIM)
I may be misremembering, but I thought that there was a discussion of this in Art & Academe. It's my recollection that the part is a connection to the whole, but the whole is not a connection to the part. The medieval thinking was that a fingernail connects to the body because the body was of great importance to the fingernail, but the fingernail is irrelevant detrius to the body. Or something like that...
I think this is also discussed in Magic in the Middle Ages by Richard Kieckhefer, which is a book that all Ars Magica storyguides should read.
That would make it significantly harder to survive wizards (as it should be?) even as a master...
I mean, you could still destroy arcane connections by targeting the part from your location.. right? You'd have to penetrate the holders magic resistance though, and add +4 magnitudes for a range:arcane connection..
Or could you even do that at all?!?! I mean - if the part is a connection to a whole but not vice versa, the only way you'd be able to target your finger nail or that love-letter you wrote to the green-headed faerie with a bum-shaped-forehead is by having a PART of those items (so you'd need, a piece of that finger nail, or a torn part of that letter...)
The best way to do it is to not leave Connections lying around. Cast Perdo Corpus, Room, to destroy all bodily scraps on a frequent basis. Protect your lab so that your items are not stolen. If you behave in a paranoid manner and use a lot of Room Target spells, you should be able to get rid of most of your Connections.
Make sure you check the durations of those Arcane Connections. Someone has to fix them before they expire.
On a related note, make sure you've been baptized and use your Christian name instead of an impressive-sounding Latin nickname. Baptismal names can't be used as a sympathetic connection for a Penetration bonus.
Cast Perdo Corpus with an area of effect whenever you travel.. every minute?!
Anyone you kill you have to reduce to dust and then .. somehow obliterate even the ashes. (Technically, wounds causes by a wolf are an arcane connection to the wolf, what about damage inflicted by you.. it has your wizards sigil somehow colouring it.. yes? no?)
It's very hard to avoid every AC. (This is why being bald is the sign of a bad-ass mage, and the ones with no eyebrows are truly scary.) (Besides the syph.) 8)
I concur with JP, it's not a two-way street. A straw is an AC to the broom it fell from, but that broom is not an AC to every straw that came from it. If you read the rules on AC (p 84), the AC is always referred to as a "part" of the whole, never the other way around.
A fingernail is part of you, but you are not part of a fingernail.
Note that this is not a hard and fast rule - an object split "in half" could work both ways. As with many aspects, magic rarely allows itself to be reduced to simple formula, thus the need for SG rulings and for a mage to err on the side of caution.
(Note also that this is only one aspect of AC's, as has been discussed in another recent thread. The other aspect is "association", rather than any necessity for an AC to have physically been "a part" of something larger.)
I think that you are mixing up sympathetic and arcane connections. Serf's Parma, but I think your handwriting is only sympathetic. If you really are paranoid, then do your letter on a wax tablet and have it transcribed by someone with better penmanship. This was a common practice for people who wanted their writing to look nice.
You only have to cast it when you leave an area. If you're really paranoid, create a Rego (Intellego) Corpus device to collect everything that falls off you in a bag whenever you leave the lab.
Wounds caused by an animal's claws or teetch are a connection for a short period. There is no rule that applies this to spells or weapons. You can do it how you want, but I would rule that burns from a Creo Ignem spell would not be an Arcane Connection to the caster. Bite marks from a magus, sure, but any wound caused by a foreign object wouldn't do it.
There are Perdo Vim spell rules in Magi of Hermes for destroying Arcane Connections, they all require the connection to be sensed or in a bound area. Create a PeVi spell with Structure target with a couple of bonuses for Size and cast it every couple of hours over the whole covenant, if you want to have a seriously mentally deranged paranoid magus. Then it's really only the Arcane Connections that are out floating around outside of your presence that you have to worry about.
Where are these? I was looking for them but couldn't find them. I found CrVi guidelines for preserving Arcane Connections. I know there are guidelines within ArM5 itself that say essentially what you said above, but if there are clarifications, I'd like to read them.
There are rules in the core book for destroying arcane connections. I don't recall any such guidelines in Magi of Hermes. (The Ranulf chapter explicitly stats that you can flip the core book perdo vim AC destroying guidelines to creo vim and "refrigerate" AC's to slow their decay but it says nothing about destroying them.)
It has been my thought that magi who are both old (and therefore powerful) and also wary tend to not leave their covenants often (perhaps not more than once in a decade).
For these fellows, a level 20 perdo vim spell (base 5 range touch target room) to reduce the duration of arcane connections cast repeatedly, along with something like a range touch duration diameter version of wall of living wood (level 15) to create "rooms" in areas where the magus walks which aren't enclosed (and it needn't be herbam, arguably you could do it with base level 1 imagonem) . Would suffice, over the course of an afternoon (leaving a few minutes aside for tea) to destroy all of the arcane connections to him that exist outside of his body and his talisman.
