I have an idea for a useful magic item for the covenant to have in my upcoming saga. I think I have a grasp of how it works, but I just want to be sure that what I'm doing is kosher.
Basically, the covenant's vis source is the eggs of the Loch Ness Monster. So, to enable them to track the wee beastie's location, they have enchanted a map of the loch with something like The Inexorable Search (or the Marauder's Map). It shows the current location of the monster at all times.
Now, The Inexorable Search requires an Arcane Connection. Then it occurred to me as I was thinking in my laboratory that since Nessie is (ims) a type of sea serpent, and sea snakes shed their skin, that they managed to get some of the shed skin and have made the map out of that skin. Reasonable?
Now, to the item itself. Map of the Monster's Meanderings. It should be Intellego Animal, I'm thinking probably Base 2. It's not in the guidelines, but the two guidelines I can find with a direct correlation between InAm and InCo (Sense/get general information, at 3 An/4 Co, and get/learn a specific fact about an animal/a body, at An4/Co5) indicate that it would be one level less for Animal than for Corpus. Since the InCo 3 is "Locate a person to whom you have an Arcane Connection", by extension the InAm equivalent would be InAn2. Range: Arcane Connection (+4), Duration: Concentration (+1), Target: Individual brings the Spell Level to 15.
Having it usable twice a day (+1), having the map maintain Concentration (+5), and having an Environmental Trigger for Sunrise/Sunset (+3) brings the Inexorable Search part of the item to 24. Oh, and plus Penetration because she's got a Might score.
Now, for the mapping part. CrIm base 1 to "create an image that affects a single sense." Since it's creating the image on itself (the map), that would be R: Personal, D: Concentration (+1), T: Individual, for a Spell Level of 2. Making the image move about the map adds a magnitude, making the Level 3, I believe.
Usable twice a day (+1), maintaining Concentration (+5), and an Environmental Trigger as above (+3) brings it to 12 and counting. It should have a Linked Trigger to have it display the location of the monster using the Inexorable Search above, which would be +3. But if it has an Linked Trigger, it doesn't need the Environmental Trigger, right? If not, that would have a Effect Level of 12. If it needs both, 15.
However, what I would really like is for it to show the path for the last few hours, similar to what the Marauder's Map does in the movies. Would that be possible?
(as an aside, I'm also thinking that the shed skin would be a pawn of Vis, probably Muto, but that might be beside the point)
Ideas, comments?