immunity to acclimation

In ROP:M it indicates that magical beings either generate a magic aura of their own, acting as tethers, or they suffer acclimation. The rules do not provide for how to make a character which does not suffer acclimation, and the only other reference is the note under the presence power which indicates that the might should be doubled for calculating aura strength.
Since it would clearly be an advantage to generate an aura instead of facing acclimation, it seems to me this would have to be considered a major virtue of immunity to acclimation- what do other's think?
(it also seems to me like the first thing any magical creature would want for advancement, especially if it has a large might score...

There are other ways to prevent acclimation - like being under a more or less continuous magical effect not originating from Might.

I get that, but I am refering to the staement on p.10 under tethers which reads

Other
kinds of magical beings do not generate an
aura, but are often instead dependent on
some other Magic aura (such as that arising
at a monument) for their abode

implying this is an either/or situation (either they generate an aura or suffer acclimation) and then this seems to be ignored for the rest of the book.

Yes - Rival Magic, page 116, describes the major virtue Spirit Ally, which is essentially what you are describing. With Spirit Ally, the immunity comes from the magical being's arcane connection to a sorcerer, in the same way a familiar's immunity from acclimation comes from an AC to their magus. Based on that, it seems some rationale is expected to explain how a given being has immunity, but as long as you can come up with something, a major virtue is clearly appropriate.

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There are two elements to remember:

  • It takes a year for the magic might being to start counting as a tether. During that period of time, they are vulnerable to acclimation;
  • The tether is normally Magic Might / 10, and the rule to prevent acclimation requires a magical being to always be within an aura of strenght = Magic Might / 5. Incidentally, this means that magical beings generating tethers will normally settle in a magical aura anyway - because the tether isn't enough on its own to shield the creature generating the tether from acclimation, unless A) the tether adds to other tethers in an existing magical auras to the degree the aura becomes powerful enough to protect the new resident ; or B) there are more than one such creatures in an area and they collectively increase the prenatural tether score enough.

As for the implication, I believe what is implied is not so much in regards to implying an immunity to acclimation, and it's just a simple statement that magical beings generating tethers need to find an aura since they can't generate one. The primary rule regarding acclimation is in a separate chapter, and makes no mention of tether-generation.

Acclimation is aging for magical creatures... if you do not allow immunity to aging or warping as a virtue, you probably shouldn't allow immunity to acclimation either. There's a reason Elementals, animals of virtues and dragons don't typically settle down in a dominion-dominated urban environment - they will fade away. If they could simply shield themself from acclimation by their very presence, Mythic Europe would start to ressemble a more typical fantasy world, and the magic side of the setting wouldn't be as mythical as it is, because it could easily be in your face anywhere.

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Slight addendum - Magical meditation would allow a magical being generating tethers to forever prevent its own acclimation while meditating, since that would effectively lower its own virtual might by half for acclimation. This may explain the myths of sleeping dragons under a hill. It could also mean that magi settling on a place long enough for the aura to increase may awaken said dragons when they no longer needs to "sleep", aka meditate, to prevent acclimation.

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One thing I would like to point out is that all the examples of Preternatural Tethers from beings with Might in the examples lump all beings of the same type together. Things like having multiple of this gives a 2 and multiple of that gives a 2, which is only effectively a 3 together.

If you count them all individually rather than by groups, then any collection of five or more beings with Might 10+ will max out the Preternatural Tethers strength at 5. That would make it exceptionally easy for any Covenant to raise their Aura score to 6+, just by collecting a small group of low Might beings. Sure you could play it this way but it feels against the nature of the game and is counter to the examples.

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I very much agree with all that temprobe has written (in particular about that there is no implication of aura generation implying immunity to acclimation per se), with one exception:

I would not assume a cumulative effect of multiple creatures: note that the text in RoP:M says "Any place that they currently inhabit, and which they have inhabited for at least a year, has a tether score equal to (being’s Might / 10)". It does not say "each magical creature generates a tether etc.".

Could you provide some pointers to the aforementioned examples?
I always like extra evidence that supports what I already believe :slight_smile:

They are in the "Examples of Auras with Multiple Tethers" box, in RoP: M p. 9.

I see, for some reason I had missed the "multiple creature" examples. Great!

This makes a lot of sense, and how I was handling it myself in my games, as I don't necessarily like the idea that 10 elementals would generate a tether 5. I had seen this on page 8:
Preternatural Aura Score (maximum 5) =
strongest preternatural tether
+1 per additional tether

But I had not looked up the examples to validate that, and I wasn't sure it was RAW that a group of similar creatures would generate a single tether. But it does look like it is RAW.

So in principle, a covenant of 6 magi who all have might 10 familiars would generate a preternatural aura of 5, on top of whatever the natural aura is...

Well, they could, but it's not automatic that they would. I suspect that's the reason why the book leaves open the possibility that some magical creatures do not provide a tethering effect.

While it's not made explicit anywhere, it seems from the examples as if the magical creatures providing the tether have, in some way, to contribute to the overall ... "theme" of the place. So 10 random familiars would not do it. But ... a covenant located in a poisonous swamp (natural tether 1) at the very bottom of a deep, deep ravine never touched by the sun (natural tether 2), whose 10 magi are all Perdo specialists, 4 of them having bound basilisks native to the area, 3 more various chthonic spirits of darkness, and 1 a poison-breathing dragon? I'd allow the three "familiar families" to form each a tether adding to the natural aura. This is just how I would play it, of course.

I do not think I would support using any being immune to acclimation, to include familiars, as part of an auras Tethers.

The Preternatural Tethers form part of a feedback loop with the Natural Tethers, slowly radiating out their Might (as liquid vis) and needing enough floating around that they can absorb to avoid acclimation. In effect, the Natural Tethers are refilling pools of liquid vis while Preternatural Tethers are things that absorb and expel liquid vis. You put a bunch of those feeding/expelling things around and you end up with more liquid vis spread over a larger area.

Familiars are effectively tethered to their Magus (by the Cords). The liquid vis that they would normally expel is routed through the Cords to the Magus, then flows back to the Familiar. While this does prevent the Familiar from suffering acclimation, it prevents it from contributing any liquid vis to the aura. Other things immune to acclimation would often have similar circumstances.

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p. 10 of RoP:M also implies that every level of tether also corresponds to a 3 pawn/yr vis source. Personally I didslike the rigidity here- for one thing it means that vis sources and auras are no longer independant of one another but are instead mathematically linked.
It also would suggest that a might 10 creature (ignoring the sentence which implied that a creature either generates an aura or suffers acclimation) would have a level 1 tether, incrasing the aura by 1, and producing 3 pawns of vis per year. To avoid acclimation it should live in a level 2 aura or consume 5 pawns of vis- each seeming to meet half the requirement for 2 mutually exclusive ways to avoid acclimation...

Though the presence power indicates that a spirit produces might/10 pawns when generating twice the normal aura... which would be 1/3 the normal vis.

The total of preturnatural tether can’t be more than 5 so if there are other things in that class of tethers, previous powerful magic, a monument, or vis sources, then a familiar or other being that makes the place its home may not effectively add anything to the effective tethers unless one of the previous tethers is somehow removed or destroyed. But also remember that for the aura to have a chance to improve or decrease the aura modifier needs to reach an absolute value of 3 and there are many things that might slightly reduce the aura modifier but not enough to, by themselves, create the situation for a chance of a reduction in the aura. Even if these situations are not there the die roll may never lead to an increase in the aura (though chances for that get to be infinitesimal as the number of years gets larger).

Breaching that threshold of 3 is not all that hard once your start adding Preternatural Tethers (if you were below the cap of 5). Adding them raises the Base Aura Score, which if higher than the Current Aura Score provides a modifier equal to the difference x3.

In areas without active magical activity (or impinging Divine Aura), 2 points of Preternatural Tethers are going to cause a Strengthening roll every year. Yes it will most likely take several years for the aura to strengthen, with the longer it takes the more likely a Regio will form.

My current game was started centered around the idea of Magi manipulating an Aura/Regio. We capped out our Preternatural Tethers at 5 in an aura that started with Natural 3 and Preternatural 3. We have had two Aura strength increases and a fracture, though things have since slowed due to our modifier has been sitting around +4 most years. For a while it was hitting +11.

There are a number of ways to read the aura variation rules regarding when new tethers form because it is not spelled out very well (when an aura gets permanently higher dos it form a new tether? Is it natural or preternatural if it does so?) t certainly implies that it adds a new tether in something like a magical monument, but as you note there is also the question of whether the aura is naturally higher or lower than its natural level...