gnome of research(new magic item)

this item takes the form of a little huminoid that procedes to learn about ALL the things around it (about a 5-10 mile radius) and relay the information when asked to the creator or friends of the creator to help make magic spells/items!
does anybody think this is a doable item?

Sounds tricky.

Maybe if you made an automaton with the Automata virtue from the Verditius section of Mystery Cult book and gave it the Magic Theory ability? But I don't think automata are smart enough to use Magic Theory, and if they are then you don't need to make them search the area for new knowledge.

I guess you could give a little figurine the ability to move with Rego Terram/Herbam, the ability to see things with Intellego Imaginem, and the ability to "talk" to people with Intellego Terram/Herbam. But I don't think that would do anything to help you in the lab...

It seems like a huge project.
Magical item cannot learn, by the same token that no Mentem spell can create/transfer skills/knowledge.

So probably, you need to bind a Spirit of some sort to an animated body/objet. Yet immortal being cannot learn thing permanently without ritual to "bind" XP. Very expensive.

Then, when it comes to learning "everything", it will be limited by his/her memory and ability to perceive and understand.
Now if you mean by "to learn about ALL the things around it ", learn instantly, that would be several magnitude higher that an spell impossible to invent :smiley: (by RAW).

By RAW, it is impossible, and I would urge you to consider the consequence of allowing such spells in your campaign: If a spell allows to learn everything within a certain radius, what about privacy, secret, and not prying on fellow magi.
Also, it would lead to many potential abuse: if a spell/enchantment allows to capture knowledge by a magical item/golem, why not a mage would not apply it on him so he does need to spend season in a library or in training ?

Then, why not apply that on a young apprentice where an archmagus would have all his skills transferred to breed a super magus over a few iterations...

FYI

I'll point out that abe ray, formerly known as abe, has a long tradition of introducing items and spells that aren't based on any of the rules. Indeed, to my understanding abe doesn't have any of the 5th Edition rules, and merely the free 4th Edition pdf. Past comments on his posts that have been intended to improve his understanding of the rules appear to fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?).

At one point, long ago, it was requested that Abe's ideas be confined to one thread. I renew that request now.

Abe even warned us in another thread that he is back again :slight_smile:

Widewitt
p.s. this reminds me to play munchkin once again

You want a tiny, unintelligent subhuman who can go check things out and read stuff you don't want to waste time on, and who provides a boost to your lab total? Have you tried taking an apprentice?

Or bind a familiar?

Meh. Permanent solution to temporary problem. The annoyance of an apprenticeship is temporary by form, perhaps much more temporary if you don't mind a bad reputation. Though at least familiars don't require wasting seasons every year teaching them.

Well,

but back to the core of the question. Can a magic item contain some sort of memory? Or is that against the hermetic limits?

I don't recall any hermetic limits on that but I also cannot find any spell guidelines which can do it ...

Confused and wondering
Widewitt

Well, the familiar can provide you with other services beside "checking things out and read stuff you don't want to waste time on" (as you put it yourself). Its abilities will grow with time. And it is much less expensive than enchanting an item to do what Abe suggests.

An even simpler solution is to send out some grogs to check things out for you. Now that's a low-magic (low-tech) solution for you. :wink:

Out of hand (don't have my books with me), I'd say this is outside the scope of magic in any form.

The original poster wants an item that will learn everything there is to be known about a certain area. Just can't be done, IMHO. That's much too broad (covers ALL forms) and vague for an enchanted item or spell. The only force that can know all there is to know about an area would be God, in paradigm.

I was just wondering what could be more unreliable than an apprentice, and then you brought up grogs. :stuck_out_tongue:

I jest, of course, in regards to Familiars. Not only are they useful beyond measure, but by their very design, they'll only be annoying to their magus if their magus can tolerate their annoyingness (after all, you need mutual respect for a bond).

No such jest regarding apprentices... But they are a thousand times cheaper than trying to invest twenty effects into some little thing to loophole your way around the fact that you're breaking (a?) Hermetic Limit(s).

As for this being outside the scope of magic in any form... Can't the Gruagachan do something akin to creating knowledge?

To be fair there are examples of basic hermetic magic "creating consciousness" without the need for mysteries or exotic research. Both Stir the Slumbering Tree MuHe(Me) 25 and Shadow of Human Life CrIm(Me) do that to a greater or lesser extant. Are the minds created capable of learning new facts if maintained long enough? Maybe in the case of StST maybe not for SoHL. Still it is a conceptual route to follow if you wanted to.

All of the things? Unless there's a way for the information to be sorted in some way, that is a vast amount of memory. Ask about Herbam and spend weeks overcoming the flood of information. One could easily go mad, or suffer Twilight.

A small team of stealthy, scholarly grogs with the 'Dwarf' flaw might well fit the bill of being gnomes of research.

Bonus points if they're fae creatures and are actually gnomes!

this magic item was desighned mostly for lab notes & text writing.