Fan Grimoire?

Woohoo, new editor went active today. Hopefully the fresh blood will help us keep chewing through things.

Yay! If the new editor goes through Auram, then we'll be more assured we're all on the same page with things, as well as putting another set of eyes on Auram. There are a few things we've spotted that are likely to show up again with other elements, for instance.

I was tackling Corpus, but if you want me to go through Auram....

Talking about Corpus, I would like to discuss a topic: Momentary ritual with Target: Circle. Yep, the elephant in the room. They have two specific potentially problematic applications: massive healing and large scale stat boosting.
I cannot find a canon spell with these set of parameters. You can make a teleporting Circle, to move the content of said circle, it makes it Mom/Circle, still not a Ritual with lasting effect.

I have two proposals:

  1. We admit it as a clever use of parameters selection, with emphasizing that the mage still needs to draw (5 paces a round) or walk if there is a permanent circle (10 paces around) the perimeter of the circle while making a Int + Conc EVERY round. And in case of failure, the spell is interrupted resulting in a botch (core rule p112). Which is a part often handwaved. Yes, you can have Puissant Concentration and Cautious with Concentration, but you need to find the mage with these skills...

  2. Or we dismiss the whole batch by quoting: "The casting of non-Ritual spell may be extended out to allow the drawing of a larger ring." And we interpret that Ritual healing and Stat boosting cannot be performed in larger circle - but we need to define what "larger" means: the circle is drawn within a round ?

I have a preference for 2: you can still do massive healing using Group/Room target, but of course, it is two magnitudes higher. It feels more "thematic".
Regarding stat improvement, I feel that people forget that they are spells from the Cult of Heroes and do not grow on tree ("... rarely found outside of this Society."), so having variant affecting a whole turba or using the Bloodline guideline of a Inner Merinita mysteries is,,, shall I say... unlikely.

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We want to finish Auram, but starting to tackling Corpus isn't bad. I just thought that people were asking me to cut it down to one Form every time, to make the document more manageable.

I one hundred percent want to have it limited to one form at a time because of loading time and focusing.

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I reviewed Auram.

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While there are no canonical versions, there is a canonical Room version specifically "to save vis while healing a large group of wounded people." So we are absolutely sure a "container Target" (David's term) doesn't invalidate things, and that it is canonically acceptable to try to save vis this way.

To me this is just one container Target v. another. There are reasons to choose to go either direction. What I don't follow is why one container Target would be valid and not another. If there is a good canonical-rules reason to allow one container Target while disallowing another, fine. Otherwise, "It feels more "thematic"." sounds like an individual troupe's house rule to ban Circle in these cases, and we shouldn't go by such house rules.

The guideline is generally available. If someone can invent it, they can invent it, whether they're in the Cult of Heroes or not. That they are held by the Cult of Heroes just means it will be about impossible to find a laboratory text on them. However, remember that one of them is a canonical spell from the core book, too, so there may even be a lab text for something available more broadly.

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Fair enough. I did not follow this discussion.
So the only remaining point is

So it clearly rules out Momentary Healing and stat boosting rituals.
The issue is the definition of "large". Ten paces perimeter to have the ring drawn within a single round is roughly 1m diameter. Enough to squeeze four standing people, possibly a bit more, although you really don't want to accidentally break the ring while a ritual is being cast (= insta botch, I insist :slight_smile: ). And it will last a good two hours and half for a 10th magnitude ritual. So no moving during that time...
If the person is bedridden (Incapacitated), the bed would require a 2m diameter ring.

Fair enough. We always had D: Ring a T: Circle going hand in hand but you are right, we never questioned alternative parameters .

For larger circles, yes. But not for default-sized circles.

I don't think there is much question that large is exceeding 10 paces in perimeter. It may not be written with mathematical clarity, but the intent of the statement is pretty clear.

But your math is way, way off. A perimeter of 10 paces means 10 paces in circumference. (10 paces)=pi*d. d=(10/pi) paces, which is at little over 3 paces, or close to 3 m.

There are canonical spells that do not have the two tied to each other. Look at Test of Flame (HoH:S p.36) or Image of the Lady (MoH p.124), which are both Ring/Individual (see the erratum). Look at Seven-League Travel Circle (TtA p.79) or Restore the Faded Threads (HoH:TL p.74), which are both Circle without Ring. So we know canonically there is no need for Ring and Circle to be tied together just because they commonly are.

And, I did just find a canonical healing circle: Enter the Domain of Eir (TtA p.153). So we now know for sure that canon permits permanent healing circle rituals. I don't think there is a Characteristic-improvement one, but if you can do it with healing, why not with Characteristic-improvement?

Mechanically, there is nothing stopping you from making a Target: Circle spell to raise the stats of all within it. The biggest possible 'issue' is that Circle spells are the same magnitude as individual spells, which means that buffing however many grogs and covenfolk you can safely put in a circle is the same vis and difficulty as buffing one grog.

This is a saga by saga decision, IMO. Canonically possible, but my home saga house-ruled that for some unknown reason it doesn't work as planned. It's specifically against canon and RAW but we just didn't want our entire covenant cheapy having all their stats at 3.

Your group is not the only one to do so. My own initially allowed it and then did a 180 during the first game someone attempted to cast it.

It's neither unreasonable nor uncommon, but it is a house rule. So if people are house-ruling that way, then they're choosing to ban such canonical spells, and they don't have to do anything further to ban the spells in the fan grimoire that follow such canonical rules.

We as a group really need to avoid having such house rules and house preferences weigh into our decisions. As Enter the Domain of Eir shows, Momentary/Circle ritual healing is fine. We even know there are canonical statements about saving vis by using container Targets with healing rituals. We want to be consistent with how these work, not fight against such canonical rulings.

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My original comments are from three months ago and I have already backed down from my personal dislike of some RAW things for this project. I have already stated that if the group wishes to allow them then I will vote yes as well. If needed I can go through and edit/delete my old comments.

I do however disagree with the "improved" stat boosting spells which provide more than a +1 for a Complexity mag.


@Ezechiel3571 Can you start adding your votes to spells? This is by giving a "Thumbs Up" or "Thumbs Down" on the name of a spell. The threshold has been sitting at around +3 or -3 for good or delete, though Itzhack might change that if more editors are active.

We have a psudo-policy of giving the spell name a thumbs up/down emoji review, and then putting the discussion of mechanics in the body of the spell. Makes it easier to tell what stuff doesn't need review anymore.

I was referring to a few posts above with new comments about this just 12 hours ago, not your much earlier comments. Sorry.

I wonder if we should change this policy, though. I've been noticing a problem with it. I get emails about comments that are made. The emails include the highlighted bit as a sort of title. The problem is that all the highlighted bits are now formulas without even Technique and Form. So then I have to do some searching through spells's comments to figure what is even being referenced. If we were to attach comments to the spell name or at least the TeFo #, it would be so much easier to find them. This wouldn't be an issue if we had almost no comments in the document, but we know that's not the case. Have you all experienced similar pains trying to find what spell a reply is attached to?

My thoughts on what would work best after dealing with this is spell name for comments and TeFo # for thumbs up/down.

I was not aware. I will start from Auram spell onwards.

For clarity, is thumb up for OK as is or with correction ?

Thumbs up is that the spell is ok.

Thumbs up for OK as-is. That may be after correction. But don't include thumbs up if corrections are being discussed and have not yet been edited in.

That's something for you to decide. I don't comment much on spells, and go over once every few days to see if a concensus has been reached, so things can move to the final file.
Well, final before I start the layout.

I think that's going to be semifinal, though, right? I've have not been diligent about editing grammar and spelling, and I've noticed others are similar. We're really focused on the meat of it right now, which is the important part to deal with first. But it would be really good to go back through a semi-final version to deal with this sort of editing before it moves to layout, right?