So a PC just discovered that a sample of there blood was taken by their Parens and subsequently stolen. Is there a way to destroy it?
Yep. But you have to go there and find it, because while the part is an arcane connection to the whole, the whole isn't an arcane connection to the part (except for Daimons, but they cheat, so).
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I thought so but didn’t want to rule against it before checking as it might have been in a book I don’t have.
While the blood sample is an arcane connection to you, you are not an arcane connection to the blood sample, so finding and targeting the sample can be difficult.
In general arcane connections only work in one direction, with a few exceptions like talismans and familiars where there is a two-way connection.
There exists a work-around though, but that is not exactly trivial either.
The Secret Name mystery of House Bjornaer will cause all existing Arcane Connections to you to expire.
Of course, first you have to know this mystery exists which is not commonly known outside House Bjornaer, and then you have to persuade a Bjornaer mystagogue to initiate you.
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Could you research a PeCo spell to destroy all dead human tissue belonging to the specified person at arcane connection distance? You can’t target all existing connections, but you can target the blood, hair, fingernail clippings, and the like. Unless you have been extremely careless, the total volume would be less than a single individual.
How do you define "belonging to", and translate it then into an Hermetic spell target?
I don't think so.
Not due to the guidelines per se, but due to targeting.
While you could do this with, say, R: Touch and T: Room (to destroy all human tissue within a room), if you wanted to do this at AC range, you'd need an AC to these remains.
The only way I could see this work is if these remains are in a Room, Circle or Structure you've got an AC to, using the appropriate target.
For exemple, you know that your parens has a servant that cleans up his laboratory, and you suspect that the AC is in the lab.
If you manage to obtain an AC to the servant, you can cast a low-level PeCo spell to do superficial damage to a body (the one used to shave) with T: Room when you know the servant is in the lab. Should it be suitable for T:Room, the spell should work (and the servant lose their hair)
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If/when you are targeted using an intangible tunnel the tunnel could be used to target the AC but that requires sensing the tunnel and having the spell to destroy human bits ready.
I think you could to it with an item, though, taking advantage of Linked Trigger. You use an Intellego effect to spot what things are AC's to a specific person. When they're spotted you trigger a PeVi effect to degrade the connection.
Modern day, dialysis where all you blood is taken out and filtered, the blood arguably would not be considered linked.
So for Mythic Europe, a spell where one exchanges all their blood with another person. The blood is no longer the same as the AC. No link. Many may consider that a bit extreme.
I doubt that would work, Lee. Blood is an arcane connection to someone, not because you have still blood in your body, but because that blood came from your body and represents in some way part of your essential nature. If switching all of your blood with someone else was sufficient, by that logic many Muto Corpus spell would temporarily render all ACs to you void, because clearly your blood/skin/hair isn't the same if you're shapeshifted into a fish, or if you're now a pool of water.
While you are not an arcane connection to your blood you might (YSMV) be able to use InVi to sense arcane connections attaching to you, and be able to at least track it down in that fashion.
If this does work don't try and cast it while you are in your sanctum or you will likely be overwhelmed by all the natural arcane connections collected there.
Not a perfect solution but it allows you to survive
Box of Essential Nature - MuCo(Me,Vi) 45, Ritual
R:Per, D:Conc,T: Ind
This ritual takes all of what makes you, you and strips it away from your corporal body leaving you with a sense of loss that feels like you’ll never be able to fill, granting you the social trait +3 Depressed. At the conclusion of the ritual, your essential nature is imbued in another construct. While under the effect of this ritual, you do not shed arcane connections and existing connections now point toward the recipient of your essential nature. People that know you cannot relate to the person you are now and may shy away from you. If you have a familiar, it will not recognize you as the friend he knows. If you have a talisman, you do not benefit from its usual perks but can still use it as any other magical items. Triggers that are tied to your nature, including ongoing effects such as the Aegis of the Earth and your ability to give tokens of it no longer work but you can receive a new token if they agree to give you one. To cast this effect on yourself is truly a curse and one needs to be desperate. Should the construct holding your essential nature be destroyed, your essential nature is returned to you along with the restoration of all arcane connections but in the process, you forever lose your sense of identity, your familiar bond is corrupted and might very well turn on you. Should you survive the next few years, you might grow a new sense of identity wholly divorced from your original one or resembling closely but never the same. While under the effect, the construct is the only arcane connection to your person and as such, you should protect it carefully.
Uber of Jerbition created this effect to continue travelling while under a wizard’s war in which he thought they had an arcane connection to him. He attached his nature to an enchanted box that had a ReVi effect to sustain the effect. He wanted to continue following his passion wherever it led him but unfortunately, he miscalculated the severity of the side effects and spent the whole time sobbing in a dark corner of the alliance until the moon had passed.
(Base 40: Dissociate the essential nature of a thing in two parts, +1 Conc, rq. free)
W
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Or you could go to the Bjornaer and have them destroy all AC's to you, which I believe would take your Talisman bond and your Familiar bond out as well.
Already suggested the Secret Name mystery.
That initiation won't work if you have a talisman or a familiar - those bonds can't be broken so easily.
I was thinking of something like this...
Purging The Cast-Off Flesh
PeCo 35
R: Arc D: Mom T: Group
Touching a bit of fresh human blood, the magus destroys not only the blood, but all other instances of dead flesh and tissue belonging to the same donor.
(Base 5, +4 Arc, +2 Group)
The target is identified - dead human flesh, belonging to the specified individual who provided the fresh blood touched during casting. The blood also serves as an arcane connection to all other instances of dead tissue belonging to the same source within Arcane Connection distance. Target group is needed because the tissue could be scattered in multiple locations. Only works if the accumulated tissue is smaller than 10 individuals (base group).
Am I missing anything? As a T: Ind the spell would work to destroy a corpse at Arc distance, so increasing to Group should destroy 10 corpse equivalents in multiple separated bits. Which satisfies the need of the design.
Yes. Blood or hair is an arcane connection to the target, not other blood sample spilled or other stray hair.
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In general if you are paranoid about AC being created to your Magus (and in some Sagas you really should be), then the creation of a spell (or spells) that destroys AC using the PeVi guidelines on page 160 of the Core book is really important. While such spells will not help you with AC which are already taken away from your area of influence, they do allow you to purge areas of potential links.
These spells will not work on naturally indefinite AC (in Core that is familiar and talisman links), they will work on connections which have been fixed in a lab. How they work on fixed AC is not covered in the rules, so if they break a fixed AC down from Indefinite or from where the base connection would normally start is YSMV. I can see arguments for both sides. Starting from Indefinite because that is where it is at after being fixed. Starting from its innate duration because the effect that maintained it is broken.
For Magi who make their living crafting items, such a spell is almost an essential part of their skill set. While Lesser Enchanted items only last for weeks and thus can be set aside for a season to remove any innate AC, Invested Devices last years. A level 10 spell (PeVi Base 5, Touch +1) that you can cast a few times can rapidly destroy any such potential an item has. It also will not have a chance of botching, something which can be a large problem with a Sponted version of such a spell.
A level 20 version of such a spell (PeVi Base 5, Touch +1, Room +2) might be almost a required defense in any saga that makes extensive use of AC for intra-OoH combat. Just make sure you do not use it in a room with any fixed AC you wish to perserve.
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See ArM5 p.113 Group/Room Group:
The components of the group must be close together in space, and the group itself must be separated from any other things of the same type.
So "instances of dead flesh and tissue of the same donor" "scattered in multiple locations" do not make a group target.
A magus can experiment for such a spell and hope to transcend the group target (troupe decision). Or he might work to discover a new - widely scattered - group target (HoH:TL p.26ff Original Research), perhaps based on the (ArM5 p.92f Merinita: Faerie Magic) Target Bloodline and limited to stuff from the same body.
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Lol funny, I was coming here to say something similar.
One track we haven't explored is that of non-standard spell parameters, which are part of the core rules (in the section about R/D/T).
You might use a non-standard target based on Bloodline (let's call it blood) and a non-standard range based on Arcane Connection (let's say Arcane Leftovers).
That would make a reasonably high-level spell that you would have to invent from scratch, and a troupe could reasonnably assume that it runs afoul of the limit of Arcane Connection(1), but otherwise, it looks like it could be done.
(1) A reasonnable alternative might be to rule that non-standard range based on bloodline is okay, but that breaking lesser limits falls outside the scope of non-standard R/D/T and require original research.