Hermetic Pilgrimage of Aligned Auras with Significatos

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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Significatos - Convenant p.101 & Mythic locations p.43
Aligned Auras - RoP:M p.16

Mundanes have been doing pilgrims since before the times of the One God. Takes them to holy sites, places they can contemplate & pray to the Divine.

Hermetic Magi have the same potential to have routes protected by the code that allow Magi to access the best learning sites available to the Magic World. There are 10 forms to study. In the Early days of the order, it is said that many "Holy" magical sites existed for each of the forms but lack of vision, greed & wars have destroyed most of them to the point that in 1220, only few are known to remain.

Most of the Holy sites were under the patronage of the Rowan Gild. The Druids, Merinita and Bjornaers as care takers the site were kept pristine. Each of them was granted a protector that was initiated into the Forest Lore mystery to better serve his duties. When the Schism war erupted, the aggressors actively pillaged the sites in order to weaken the Diedne & to gather some needed vis supplies. By the end of the war, even protectors turned and sacrificed many sites in order to prevent them from falling into non-deserving hands. By 1220, the few remaining known Holy sites are controlled by powerful Covenants or currently inaccessible as powerful creatures guard them. It is known that the Hawthorn Gild has records for many sites as the Rowan Gild split from them in the 10th Century but the current leader of the Guild, Urgen of Bjornaer, has no interest in sharing or restoring the sites as he is dedicated to his war on Mundane encroachment. Can his filia, Ordorpes be convinced of the noble cause to restore the Holy Magical Pilgrimage Sites? Can Schadrit, the last surviving member of the Rowan Gild, be convinced to side step from his rivalry with Durenmar and join the endeavor?

Hawthorn Gild - Urgen of Bjornaer (ArchMage) - Odorpes filia Urgen of House Bjornaer. Odorpes is not exactly a model member of her covenant, and Fengheld has accused her at Tribunal more than once of failing to fulfil her duties, although they are reluctant to discipline her harshly for fear of her aggressive and powerful parens. Odorpes spends most of her time in her heartbeast (a bear), and hibernates for the whole winter.
Rowan Gild - Founded in 941 - Last surviving lineage of the Gild resides in Dankmar in the Rhine Tibunal. Schadrit of Bonisagus, Gauntlet in 1048.

Lets use this thread to create the site & their history & restore the Holy Pilgrimage route to it's former glory.

W

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The Bears’ Cave GoF p.82
"Amid the slopes of the northern Harz is a hidden and primeval cave with a Magic aura of 3. Strewn across the cave floor are arranged the ancient bones of bears, which may be harvested for Animal vis. These bones, teeth, and scraps of hide appear to be from bears which are far larger and more fearsome than any which roam — or at least which are commonly known to roam — the Harz today.

The cave is in fact the secret hiding place of an ancient lineage of Bjornaer magi, all with bear heartbeasts, descending from the Founder Bjornaer herself. The two current magi of this line are Archmage Urgen (see Chapter 9: The Eastern Marches, Crintera) and his filia Odorpes (see below, Fengheld) — each visits the cave on occasion, and they would be most displeased to discover any other magus harvesting from their secret vis source."

Hawthorn's Gild records show that the cave was a much more potent source of vis in the days where Birna occupied it. Following her disappearance, her 1st born, a mighty bear took residence in the cave. It is said that contemplating the sleeping bear for a season granted great insight into the Animal form. As Urgen currently collects the vis source and the cave and there are no residents, the Aura has fallen to it's base value but in his last visit, he experienced a twilight experience and remained there for a year sleeping in his bear form. The Aura increased by one at the end of the year and his filia, Odorpes, studied the experience and documented the experience as a significato. She believes that if a descendent of Birna were to relocate to the cave or if Urgen could be convinced to take permanent residence upon his final twilight, that the site would be restored to it's former glory. Fengheld covenant is nearby to the site and might be tempted to tax or take control of the site should its secret be out. Will the order find a way to set tribal disputes aside and restore the site for the glory of all or will the Bjornaer and Fengheld mighty covenant lay the site to waste.

Aura - Vary (Currently 3) - Animal aligned (Double Aura rating for Advancement Total if studying with vis). If descendent of Birna bloodline sleeps in the cave, treat as a significanto of his might, replacing the vis requirement for vis study. Aura regains +1 per year that vis is not collected up to might/5 of sleeping bear.

W

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That's not what the rule says.

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Ha. Re-read it and you are correct. Applies to Casting totals, Lab Activities, Spell like effects even non-hermetic. Applies to specific activities such as healing, luck, Concentration practice.

"Some in the Order claim that study of such places was a key component in the development of Magic Theory." RoP:M p.16

"There are a very few auras with alignments that manifest that are not part of an Art. Such an aura has an effect on what goes on inside it in an appropriate way, depending on the strength of the aura. A few examples follow..."

So not explicitly RAW but if you combine that aligned aura's were used in the creation of hermetic Theory with there are aligned aura's to Hermetic Forms and finally that some aligned aura apply to specific activities, we get that it is within the realm of stretch reason that some of them could apply to Vis study of hermetic forms.

Still... more of a stretch than I would have liked. I wonder why they included everything explicitly except Vis study.

W

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The Friends of the Forest Cousin

A secret mystery cult that believes aspected auras are best considered a Hermetic mistake, or even a crime. "Forest Cousin" is a circumlocution for "bear". Specifically, the Bear spirit in her role as protector.
The Friends was founded by a Bjornaer mage who believed that Aspected auras are evidence of a primal aura that has been shackled to one of the 10 Hermetic Forms, either by Bonisagius himself or by early followers. The Friends seek ways to revert the auras.
The Friends is a small cult, and membership may be entirely restricted to Bjornaer and Criamon magi intent on freeing nature's magic and revealing the truth, no matter the cost.
Initiations involve Forest Lore, magical senses, and, perhaps, magics - often destructive - that can manipulate auras and regios.

Also:

Are we sure vis study lab both isn't and - more importantly - shouldn't be considered a lab activity?
At least optionally: Under vis study the Ars book say a lab is not required. It doesn't say, "vis study is never, in any sense, to be considered a lab activity."

In 2nd edition it was a lab activity.
In 4th edition the Laboratory chapter section on book and vis study directs the reader to the xp rules.
In 5th edition studying Arts is mentioned in the Laboratory chapter's introduction, but all the rules for studying Arts seem to be with the xp rules.

Study needs to be possible outside labs for Study Bonus and Study Requirement to work, and it opens up story possibilities. But is the idea that vis study cannot be considered a lab activity an artifact of improving the organization of the rules?

Regardless of all of that, maybe vis study should optionally be a lab activity. Searching through the forum, studying vis in aspected auras seems to be an idea that keeps cropping up. It strikes me as a nice idea. It being a lab activity could also open the door to other interesting possibilities and, best of all, rule-abuses for you, dear reader, to argue about right here on this forum.

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I think the idea is that a lab activity is something where you roll Form + Technique + Int + Magic Theory + Aura. In that context, doubling the aura isn't that big a bonus. Whereas when the "total" is stress die + Aura, doubling the Aura bonus is huge. So there's a consistency argument about what the "lab" number is.

I also think the authors considered this overpowered: it suddenly makes Vis study in a good aura better than the best of Tractatus. It would also have major effects on the behaviour of magi, as they start to become magical tourists popping to the best sites around Europe to improve their arts.

I wouldn't object to people using their lab bonuses to improve the safety of Vis burning, but I wouldn't mess with the basic formula for EPs much. I might give a +1 bonus for an aspected aura, as that adds a bit of flavour without losing any balance considerations. (But that's a house rule.)

Thinking about it, there's one other effect: I would think an aligned aura would be extremely helpful for magi with Study Bonus or Study Requirement who wish to study the appropriate art, by whatever means. The Study Bonus table is examples, not complete, but I think a +5 aura should cover you up to an art of 30 or more.

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Core book p. 165 "If the author chooses to set the level of the summa below half her score, there is a bonus to the quality. For an Art, the bonus is one point for every level by which the summa is dropped. For an Ability, the bonus is three points for every level. This bonus cannot exceed the base quality of the summa, so the final quality cannot be more than twice the author’s Communication + bonuses from Virtues + 6."

As we all know core process of writing a summa allows to double its "Base Quality", which, to use your words, is huge. It would also align with aligned aura bonus if we can interpret somehow RAW to allow it.

True but there are worse things than mechanics that get Magi to get out of their lab and into the world. Personally, I find it strange that the best means of getting your arts to epic levels is to study old and boring tractatus in the comfort of your chair. Thematically it is much more appealing to me that you spend the time studying the sleeping Dragon in his lair and figuring out the in-trisect relationship he has with the world of magic and his aura.

W

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Yes, but Summae are level-limited. It's a deliberate feature of ArM that low Arts are much easier to increase than higher Arts, not just because of the triangle system.

I get what you're saying here, and I sympathise, But again, ArM tries to be "realistic" in making study a better idea for magi than adventure. I find that more plausible also! But there's a tension between plausibility and interest value. House rule away, I see why you might want to. But I am uneasy about size of increase that doubling the Aura bonus leads to.

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I agree the Aura bonus is proportionally greater with studying vis, and that's a concern. But, given the scaling of Art scores, I'm not sold on it being a "huge" difference. At least not given the hoops magi might have to go through to get the bonus, and the possible story benefits. Note also that there's no established rules dictating the value of these auras - troupes have complete control.

Yep. Just like, IMO, the rules for books - esp. tractatus - have a major effect on the Order. I'd expect the aspected-auras to be easier to "balance", though, because of the access issues. And it seems completely up to a troupe to establish how high these auras are.

I would be concerned that players might start trying to apply a host of virtues and other modifiers, but I think it's easy enough to say, "You're already getting a good deal, don't push it."
(And if a player had a really good, thematically-cool argument: Well, I'd probably vote that the troupe accept it and give at least some bonus. Because that sounds fun.*)

These Art-auras strike me as being more about an adventure (or at least a long walk) to get to a great study opportunity, not adventure-as-study. If anything, I think that highlights the value of study.

And, if we're discussing the tone of an Ars game: I like that mages get so much benefit from books, and it's nicely Classical to learn everything from the same books all your peers are reading, but I've always thought Ars games were better when not every darn thing the Medievals thought might be true was true, and I want bubbling flasks and glowing whats-its.

So there are certainly possible pitfalls, but I don't think they're any more troublesome - and likely a good deal less - than those we already have with book and vis distribution.

*We don't play Ars competitively, or involve ourselves with the tournament scene, so we're quite comfortable with HRs that maximize our fun.

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If these auras were a one-off, I would agree. By default, they're a resource you can return to indefinitely, making it more of a risk of unbalancing.
Now, you could absolutely set up some kind of one-time reward with a big bonus, and that would be neat. E.g. Spend a season in Etna while it's erupting, or you've killed a monster, spend the season dissecting it in its lair before it decays.

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