Leadworker Virtue

[Timothy_Ferguson]

@ultraviolet

Threadomancy to the extreme, sorry! But I'm still baffled by the Leadworker virtue from HOH:TL

Help me out here:

OK.

1. The Leadworker can make a Katadesmos - a tablet with a name, og a Kollosoi, a figure-representation. They become active through the name (unique power for the Leadworker) or through a physical AC, like a body part or hair (lile normal AC rules). This is useful for Penetration, see below.

2. Either can work as an AC to "the restless dead, and to those animals and spirits able to recognize their own names".
   2a) That sounds to me like undead & animated corpses (or corpses to be animated later on!).
   2b) And to animals, living animals or so it sounds like to me.
   2c) And to spirits. The last two need to be able to recognize their own names, so it sounds like no wild animals, only domesticated ones. But definately no living people, so this is a virtue for Necromancers as well as animal- and spirit masters. Although the Animal part seesm less useful. Except perhaps to curse another magus' familiar...although that might be a bad idea.

• Yes, they can make either tablets or figures.
• The restless dead include ghosts. If you can find the ghost of an animal, you can use this with it, too, if you like, provided the animal knows its name or you have an AC to the ghost.

3. He can make a Kollosi with a fixed AC without the need to spend time or vis. Now, this text could be misinterpreted to mean that you could take an AC that's already been fixed and do this, but there seems little point to this then, since it's the Fixing that takes time and vis. But otherwise seems like a great thing to able to do, if you're in the habit of wanting ACs, since they're nice for Penetration.

I have no problem with using a fixed AC to make a kollossos, but you'd be making the connection weaker, not stronger, in terms of Penetration. To make a kollososs you need an item of the body which is an AC. A fixed AC of the body is, definitively, an AC. So, sure.

But the intent is: you get something "of the body" with an AC to your enemy, and by putting it in a kollosus, you fix that AC. This takes no vis, or study time, and requires no roll.

4. Better Penetration.
   4a) A Katadesmos is an AC just because the Leadworker etched the name, cool enough.
   4b) The Kollossoi is a symbolic representation, that's in sync with the regular rules. Although does it require the creator do make some Dex+Craft roll as ArM5 says? Or does the Leadworker skip this part?

"Successes are automatic." The representation is about as life-accurate as a gingerbread man, so it doesn't require a roll.

4c) And finally the Leadworker gets a Penetration multipler of +3 for using "a Killossoi with a sympathetic connection from the body of the target". If that's meant to be the aforementioned Fixed AC (which the Leadworker can create using no time or vis) that's actually worse than the Core rules, since that would give a +4. Or it it additive with the +4, for a whopping +7?!??!

No, it doesn't sum, but it doesn't cost vis or study time, so you can have billion of these if you want. They are weaker, sure...but they are essentially free, so there's a cost-benefit to consider.

The text does say "sympathetic connection" and not "fixed, permanent AC". So is this if you just have a body part, where the AC has run out? Because if you find an AC from a body which is still active, the Leadworker can apparently Fix this in to time and with no vis.
These questions baffle me.

The Leadworker fixes the AC by making it a kolloosus. That is, the process of fixing it and the process of making a lead voodoo doll are the same process, you don't do one then the other. It's not "no time", its "no study time". You can make them in about the time it takes to make a little human shape out of a lump of lead, which is really quick with tiny ReTe spells.

You can't revive an expired AC by craftin it into a kollosus.