I'm wondering, are they any rules about who can/must install virtues in a lab?
From covenants I read that it takes 1 season to install a minor virtue, and 2 seasons to install a major virtue. For refinement, it must be someone with enough MT (which must reach 3+ refinement score after operation of refining the lab)
For installing virtue in lab, the only text I found says: "The person doing this work needs to have a Magic Theory score at least three points higher than the lab’s Refinement."
So if refinement is 0, any person with MT 3 can do it... and it needs not be a magus at all, since the gift is not even required to do so (as for refinement in fact).
I assume that big covenants will dedicate resources to have a specialist person reach MT 10+ (with summae and other books) to teach apprentices and upgrade labs for magi. The possible LR is quite a weak price for such a time gain for each magus.
You are thinking about it with an optimization mind. Most magis would never, ever let anybody besides their apprentice and their familiar inside in their laboratory (it is part of their sanctum). Even if it would let them save a few seasons here and there.
Consider that it means leaving a non-gifted magi, without any MR get inside a laboratory for a season or longer, to tinker and tweak in the most personal place for a magi. Possibly having his mind read, or being mind controlled. Possibly spying on all kind of notes and writings.
That's for the contextual aspect, without rules impact.
For the rules perspective, there is the insert about taking over a Laboratory with above 0 refinement (p 118). So one would have to consider if the Refinement of a laboratory is increased by 1 by somebody else that the owner would require some form of re-familiarisation? Should the magi succeed a Per + Magic Theory above 3xRefinement to avoid the Predecessor flaw.
You have also to consider if somebody who does not know a laboratory, can come in and just work on its refinement. There are no rules about it, but it would seem logical that the "Optimiser" should succeed a Perception + MT (stress since the insert implies a risk of botch) against EF = 3xRefinement before starting his work.
So I think that having non-gifted working into a laboratory is okay as long as it is not claimed and used by a magi (for example, for a visitor lab of higher quality, or a young magi who is getting gifted a refined laboratory). But once the magi starts to personalise and work in his lab, any outsider wishing to intervene should succeed the Familiarization roll.
I totally understand the first part about trust but it's really not an issue. As you said already, a familiar and/or an apprentice is a good option. So if your familiar is the one with MT3 because you let that skilled mundane teach him MT, you have no problem of trust. (It's an example of avoiding the issue, since in the case I'm envisioning it's not an issue at all). [In fact, I find that teaching MT to a familiar should be the first any magus do, or have a skilled mundane do -if the covenant has such tool -, after binding.]
You speak of improving refinement. Here I'm not speaking of refinement. Let's say your lab is size +15. You can install 5 major virtues without refinement. You do not want to pay 2x5 seasons. Your apprentice has MT 3. Can he do it? that's the main thing.
The familiar could also do it, because he know that in the long term, it's better for them both that the magus improves his art and help put new powers in the bond than lose his time putting virtues in the lab.
The rules seem to say that "MT +3" compared to refinement is "know (this refined) lab stuff"
If the only limit is that familizariation thing, it's good for my use case, since those virtues would be put right after the lab is created (which would be done by an apprentice because why not, it's one of their purpose to set up labs and removing "elementary flaw" after 2 seasons of work for a 0 stat lab except the base size).
I would maaaaaybe allow that a mage might let someone else (other than an apprentice or familiar) install a lab virtue if it was someone they trusted deeply - another member of the covenant after decades of being in the same covenant, a parens they've maintained a good relationship with, another member of the same very-specific mystery cult, etc. Like the sort of thing where a biographer will use "Their friendship was so close that he allowed him to install a lab virtue in his lab" in an argument that these two were lovers, etc. I agree that lack of familiarity would be a problem, so the original mage might have to be present and assist to avoid that, thus negating the "Not burning through several years worth of seasons" issue; although depending on the lab size and the thing being installed maybe the mage whose lab it is that isn't doing the install could be doing another seasonal activity, like reading a book in their study or doing a translation in the scriptorium, with distraction days penalties.
It might also vary based on what's being installed - a Major Feature would require a LOT of time refining and refitting to make everything fit that is very personal to the mage's needs, whereas a Gallery or Grand Entrance are perhaps more something that the magus needs to have constant input in, but with the actual work being done by masons and carpenters and the like, and thus they would have to let someone else do some of the work. I would assume the Senior Carpenter of a covenant would probably pick up a good deal of magic theory through osmosis, even if they aren't intentionally taught it, from all the "It is VITAL that we use birch wood and that it be angled to EXACTLY align with the rising sun on the vernal equinox!" that they're likely to have to put up with.
I understand this is a voluntarily exaggerated example, but I'll play along.
Your Lab with 5 major Virtues has occupied Size 10 and -10 Safety. If you have MT 8 and take 5 seasons to Refine it, Safety will reach 0. With some Flaws to reduce occupied Size, it will take fewer Refinements to clear Safety.
So yes, your apprentice could take 3+ years to build a large but dangerous Lab. This could cost you 500 mythic pounds to build and need a further 50 mp per year. Even a more reasonable 5 Virtue points will be around Upkeep 5 = 150 lab-points = 75 MP to build = +15 MP per year.
I listed the rules elements below.
Occupied Size: current Virtue points minus Flaw points – Refinement Base Safety of lab: Refinement – occupied Size (if greater than zero) Empty*: The lab has a large amount of empty, unused space. –1 Aesthetics, either +1 Upkeep or –1 Health.
Install Virtue: The person doing this work needs to have a Magic Theory score at least three points higher than the lab's Refinement. Upkeep: If a new Virtue or Flaw (or its removal) results in an increase to Upkeep, then the difference between the old and new build costs (which are one pound per two points of the lab; see Chapter 5: Wealth and Poverty) must be paid.
Refinement: The rules for increasing a lab's Refinement are quite straightforward: A maga must be familiar with the lab in question (as a rule of thumb, she must have have worked in the lab for a number of years equal to the existing Refinement score) and have a Magic Theory equal to at least the desired Refinement score, plus 3. Taking Over a Laboratory: This counts as a season spent to increase the Refinement, with a chance to gain the Highly Organized and Spotless Virtues or the Hidden Defect Flaw (as detailed above), except that the resulting Refinement score of the lab is equal to its old Refinement, or the new owner's Magic Theory – 3, whichever is lower.
Is the problem with a non-magi installing the virtues one of allowing the information to a non magus, or of letting them work in your lab/ A redcap is certainly allowed to study the texts on magic theory, and a failed apprentice (or magus) might well already know some magic theory if they have lost the Gift. It wouldn't be widespread, but instructing apprentices, installing lab virtues, and of course writing tractatus or even books are ways those characters could still make themselves usefull.
Thank you, that is a very good summary of the information.
I know that for most magi such labs are traps with their very negative safety. But for the right magus with the right familiar and the right virtues, it's just not.
The Order of Hermes laws and culture are specifically set up to make this unlikely.
Though the Code of Hermes
provides protection for magi
who meet on neutral grounds,
the sanctum of a magus
(laboratory and living quarters)
is a special place in which magi hold their
greatest treasures and deepest secrets. Thus,
the Code of Hermes allows for magi to
exact any toll on magi who trespass within
their sancta. Because one magus foregoes protection of the Code when in the laboratory sanctum of another, very few
magi ever cooperate in laboratory work (AMDE:264, emp added.)
This also would be the case for a mage installing virtues or refining the laboratory sanctum of another.
However, the assistant is
announcing to the Order that he considers the
primary researcher to be his superior. This
substantially limits the range of magi that most
members of the Order are willing to assist. (AMDE 264)
While installing a virtue or performing refinement isn't exactly the same as being a lab assistant, I can't imagine the perception being much different.
For refinement specifically there is another barrier
The rules for increasing a lab’s
Refinement are quite straightforward: A
maga must be familiar with the lab in
question (as a rule of thumb, she must
have have worked in the lab for a number
of years equal to the existing Refinement
score) (Covenants 110)
So a mundane cannot perform refinement and the mage needs to be working in the lab quite a bit normally, not just pop in to do a refinement. Shared labs might get some such support (Such as the dedicated Vis Extraction Lab, or Teaching Lab), but a mages primary lab is going to be their own efforts, with few exceptions.
This lack of cooperation is actually a key thing holding magical theory back, much as it slowed technological advancement IRL. Hermetic magic has lots of reasonablly common virtues that it would be beneficial to integrate into core hermetic theory, and magi should know its theoretically possible to do so. Hermetic Breakthroughs are really only difficult, lengthy, and dangerous because its a solo endevor -- and yet there has been only one since the order was founded. And that doesn't even require the collaborators to forgo legal protection from murder to cooperate.
Actually there have been a lot of hermetic breakthroughs since the order was founded- just very few major ones. Early on each range and target was a breakthrough, since then there have been new shape and material bonuses which may have been breakthroughs or discoveries, and all kinds of trivial breakthroughs that have kept the Bonisagus busy for a few centuries,,,
Hermetic breakthroughs are the big ones. Breakthroughs are classified as Minor, Major, or Hermetic. S&M bonuses are not even breakthroughs.
In a canonical Ars Magica setting, the Parma Magica is the only Hermetic Breakthrough that has occurred in the 450 years of the Order of Hermes.(HoH:TL 27)
I think this is wrong on two counts:
1} Hermetic Magic Theory was devised after Parma was invented; and
2} I believe the Aegis of the Hearth was a Hermetic breakthrough.
I may be mis-remembering, though.
[Edit:] Yep, I was recalling incorrectly; the invention of the Aegis by Notatus was 'only' a major breakthrough (definitive edition core, p 277). [/Edit]
Has anyone done a (presumably speculative, non-canon) timeline for the various minor breakthroughs since the Order's founding? Eg "I think this Hermetic Virtue is relatively new, I think this Range probably showed up around the turn of the millennium" and the like? That seems like a "There's a Sub Rosa for that."
