I'm sure this particular idea has been described before at some point in this game's long history, but as I am relatively new to Ars Magica, having only been playing for close to 3 years, it was a novel idea to me.
In many fantasy settings there is an idea of a “spell scroll“ as a type of relatively common item, allowing common folk to grasp at a little magic in exchange for some coin. This idea seemed to me like it would be ripe for use in high fantasy sagas to allow grogs access to magic, or as the centerpiece of mischeif that might occur when such scrolls fall into te hands of those they were not meant for.
The trouble is, the obvious way to make these in Ars Magica would be with Charged Items, which suffer from being a seasonal activity and therefore too expensive to even consider for use on any but the most important or personal of missions.
I have something of a personal interest in Spell Containers, though, and the Rego Vim guidelines say they may be used to create single-use magic items, so I tried my hand at making this a problem to be solved with spells, not seasons.
The Circle and Ring Target and Duration prove the obvious choice as normally a Spell Container has no easy way to end its duration and thus release the spell, and these Hermetic parameters provide the out needed for such an effect.
Using the Circle target also opens up the potential for affecting multiple spells, so like Watching Ward, this effect can hold multiple effects as long as the sum of their levels fits.
With these together, I present:
Invocation of the Spell Scroll
Rego Vim General
R: Touch, D: Ring, T: Circle
The magi casting this spell draws a circle in ink on a piece of parchment or paper, then may cast one or more additional spells into the scroll with levels that sum to less than or equal to the level of this spell plus two magnitudes. The spells contained will be released when the ink circle is broken or smudged. The circle should be drawn small enough that if the page it is drawn upon is rolled up, the circle will not be considered broken.
When casting this spell, the magi may select a simple trigger to be used when the circle is broken to select the targets for the spells contained within, for example affecting the person who breaks the circle, or the nearest valid target, or the target directly in front of the person who breaks the circle, etc. If a contained spell is an Intellego spell, then further spells may have their Targets selected by its results.
Usually, the magi will then pen on the same page a description of the spells contained, and instructions for their use. Often, this may be done in Latin, but many magi will use a more vulgar tongue, such as the native language of the area in which their Covenant makes its home. Such parchments will be created on small scrolls passed to grogs with very explicit instructions, or the ability to read, who at need may tear the scroll to break the circle and release the spells contained within.
In some cases, magi may even keep scrolls with this spell cast on them but with no spells contained, so that they may cast spells into them and hand them off to grogs at need, as well as to increase the level this spell can be cast at by relying on the presence of a friendly aura.
The long-term storage of scrolls of this type is often a challenge and requires special considerations be made. If the circle on the scroll fades with time, the paper is damaged by water, eaten by vermin or rot, the scroll is crushed and the circle folded, or any number of other ways it may become damaged happens, the spells will be released, potentially wothout a proper trigger to direct them, often resulting in chaos, and if many are stored together perhaps even causing a chain reaction of effects triggering each other.
(Base "Create a spell container", +1 Touch, +2 Ring)
What do you all think, and besides the obvious Pilum of Fire, what spells would you store in them?