Help for invested devices with bounded spirits

Hello everyone,

this is my first post here and I hope you can help me (and my storyguide) with some questions.

Well, my magus is a sorcerer, he knows the goetic arts of Summoning and Binding and has a major magical focus with spirits.

He create an invested magical device binding a spirit to an object (page 117 of "The Infernal"), then begin to instill various effects.

I Have 2 questions:

  1. The spirit bounded become part of the object enchanted, so the effects are essentialy instilled in the spirit. This mean that my magus can apply his magical focus for all the effects instilled, also if these effects are not concerned with spirits. I'm right?

  2. The spirit bound to an object is aware of the surroundings or must use addictional effects? In the last case, some suggestions on these effects?

Thank you in advance for the help.

I have no idea... i havent really read the rules in this case.

I only wanted to say.... what a future dead magus you are playing! Quite fun to be an infernalist?

I would say no. Unless the effect deal directly with the spirit itself, being Vim or Mentem spells, I would not apply the focus. You are instilling the effects on the item. The fact that there is a spirit bound to the item is irrelevant there.

And spirit master is not necessarily infernal. You might have a few things to explain if there is one of those nosy quaesitors around, but feeling infernal and being infernal are 2 different things. Not that a lot of trigger happy hoplites would mind much about the difference....

Cheers,
Xavi

Xavi: if summoning may be not infernal, binding IS infernal :smiley: . And it was my focus :wink:

  1. No. His focus concerns spirits, not, for exemple, fire (investing a PoF in the item, or giving fire powers to the spirit). However, it would apply to hermetic spells* to summon, bind, control or destroy spirits.
  2. Noble's parma: I believe he's aware of the surroundings.

I don't know if you know this, but your Hermetic Focus can't apply to the Supernatural Goetic Arts.

Exactly.

IMO, this distinction was done mostly to balance the greeeeat power of binding, ablating and commanding, and allowing non-infernal versions is giving too much to one player.

Hi Baudolino! Cool name, makes me think of Umberto Eco.

Excellent. I presume you have read the bit on page 124 of The Infernal where it states you may substitute your score in Rego for your score in Summoning or Binding? I don't think your focus applies to Summoning or Binding Totals, though, just to Hermetic spells that target spirits. However, you can always master those spells with Goetic Mastery and then add both your lowest Art and your Summoning score, though that taints them of course.

All right...

Mmm, no, I wouldn't agree. In my opinion, the focus would apply only to effects that target spirits, even though a spirit is involved. If you want to use your focus to conjure a ball of flame, I'd say you would need to magically summon a fire spirit and force it to use its fire powers.

The spirit can use the senses of the object to which it is bound. Inanimate objects don't typically have senses, though I'd allow the spirit to hear things said by someone holding it and to recognize when it is moved a certain way. Other senses would probably need an invested effect.

No problem! :slight_smile:

(Edited to add:)

Oh, regarding being an Eeeeeevil Goetic magus, you can actually get away with quite a lot using Binding, because while imprisoning the spirit into the object is infernal, once it's there it can't be detected. I'd say it looks just like a magic item even when investigated in the lab. But yes, Binding is always an infernal power when used and is recognizable as such to Hermetic magic, even when substituting in Rego, because it is so powerful. I hope you and your storyguide have worked out how this character will likely meet his end, as his destruction should be inevitable. If not because the character gets caught by other magi, then because the forces of the infernal will ultimately betray him. :smiling_imp:

Thank you everyone for your clarifications!

:open_mouth: , I think that I and my storyguide missed something during the character creation.

My magus was to be an Ex Miscellenea Spirit Master with connections with dark powers, but not an infernalist. Just like the "many magi who traffic with creatures of the underworld" mentioned at page 81 of "The Infernal", in the discussion on False Powers.

These were our assumptions about the Ars Goetia when creating my magus:

  1. Summoning is associated with the Magic Realm but Tainted, this mean that its use will be perceived as unholy by (only) infernal/divine investigation.

  2. The other Goetic Arts are associated with the Infernal Realm, so their use will be perceived as unholy by both infernal/divine and hermetic investigation.

  3. The use of these arts will certainly attract the attention of the hell (and this is not good) but who practice the Ars Goetia is not by definition an Infernalist, he may indeed be a formidable demon hunter.

So a magus that:

  1. Use his Goetic arts on demons only for difense or their destruction

  2. Use his Summoning art with circumspection and the other Goetic arts almost only in his Sanctum for laboratory actvities

  3. Is a rather paranoid guy

... is not an Infernalist and can hope to survive in that perilous place which is Mythic Europe.

Do you think that it is wrong as reasoning?

  1. Right
  2. Right
  3. Infernal Delusion :wink: If you use infernal (Evil, Wicked, Bad, boo-hoo) powers, you're an infernalist :wink: It's like using the dark side and saying you're not a sith, or that you can cast spells and no be a magus

Questionable, but I would say yes.

Not clear from the RAW. We assume that the spirit can use the same senses as the object, at least symbolically. The spirit can always sense being moved. It can sense stuff touching the object (though if it's a very rough, hard object such as unfinished stone, its sense of touch will always be much blunter than, say, that of a scarf of fine silk or wool). If the object has eyes (painted, sculpted etc.) then the spirit can see through them: the same could be said of a mirror. A blade or pointed weapon can taste any blood it draws. And so on.

Incidentally, I totally disagree with everyone saying "oh, your magus is as good as dead." From a simulationist, rules-lawyer point of view, there's absolutely no reason for that. Sure, your magus leads a riskier life than a god-abiding, peace-loving, city-dwelling Jerbiton diplomat who never-ever risks his precious hide. But so does a Flambeau zoroastrian holy magus Hoplite, or even a crazy Bonisagus seeker going after the secrets of the Old Ones. There's a higher risk, but not necessarily a certainty or even a major probability of your magus losing his skin. His soul... well, that's another story (incidentally, it's not 100% clear if using any magic leaves one's soul untarnished so...).

Remember, any magus of the order using his magic to detect whether your magus' magic is infernally tainted is spying upon him and thus committing a high crime (there's some funky quaesitorial precedents about spying not being illegal if the victim is revealed guilty by the spying, but it's by no means universal - and who would risk it without good reason?).

But really, ultimately it's something you have to work out with your storyguide and troupe. If you all enjoy telling a white-wolfish story of tragedy and gloom that ends with ultimate doom and damnation of your character (or perhaps with him repenting and giving up all his power) hey, great! If you enjoy a story of a character using dark powers to heroically fight off greater evil, and triumphing again and again ... there's nothing wrong with that too! What's really important is that the whole troupe should understand and agree where this path is taking your character. Few things are as disruptive as a player planning for a "tone" of the saga diametrically opposite to that of the other players (including the storyguide).