The lantern of homecoming
This brass lantern, when lit from a flame, utilises the arcane connection between the two flames, and when the command word is uttered a small arrow suspended from the lantern will point to the original flame. If the flame is extinguished, the arcane connection will end and stop the magic working.
(InIg 1 "locate a fire" +4 Range: arcane connection +1 concentration for level 10, +5 levels for item maintains concentration for total level 15. Utilises the brass +3 Ignem shape/material bonus from HoH:MC, but you can also have the lantern having a hazel handle for +3 divination, and SG's discretion if a small arrow as a pointer counts for the +3 direction bonus from ArM5 p110)
The forge companion's aide
This hazel wand, inlaid with brass, when pointed at an item will make a number of its brass fittings glow, which the glow increasing with the item's hotness. It can be used from a safe distance to tell if a fire is hot enough to work metal, or if an item is already at annealing temperature, or even if water is close to boiling in the kitchen.
(InIg 2 "sense levels of heat" +3 range: sight, duration momentary, +10 levels unlimited uses for total level 15. Uses hazel +3 divination and brass +3 ignem. It's a thermometer that works at sight range)
The night watchman's aide
This brass amulet, when touched to a building and the user concentrates, will reveal where fires are lit. It is used to make sure that all fires that should be dampened are out and who has left candles burning. This only detects flames, so magical lightsources won't show up. Technically this counts as a scrying effect so a Verditius might complain that someone keeps scrying on his forge at night, but the covenant that built this turns a blind eye to trivial breaches of the Code that increase safety.
(InIg 2 "become aware of all fires within the target area" +1 range touch +1 duration concentration +3 target structure - total 15. As ever, brass +3 ignem is a handy bonus)
Boots of silence
These boots lined with down are useful for scouting stealthily. They are designed so the silencing effect can be dropped if the wearer needs to speak to someone or cast a spell. The effect is triggered by clicking the heels together twice rapidly, and cancelled by three rapid clicks. This is useful for scouting grogs and magi using invisibility spells who want greater stealth. A higher level effect with more uses is better and wouldn't cost more vis, but this is the apprentice-level version.
(PeIm 3 "destroy an object's ability to affect hearing", +1 range touch, +1 duration concentration, +1 changing image for level 10, +5 levels item maintains concentration for total level 15. Down has a +3 silence bonus)
Amulet against odour
This cinnamon wood amulet removes the bearer's scent, making it easier to sneak up on animals with a strong sense of smell, or making those who suffer from a Feral Scent more tolerable. One Bjornaer covenant has a lab text of this as they frequently inflict Feral Scent through their initiations.
(PeIm 3 "destroy an object's ability to affect smell",+ 1 range touch +2 duration sun for level 10, +4 levels for always on for total level 14. Cinnamon wood has a +4 imaginem bonus. While a person's visual or auditory image changes rapidly and distinctly, their odour tends to change much more slowly and subtly so I judge the +1 magnitude for changing image isn't needed)
I’m being a bit pedantic but the effect is more about making the person more friendly and less fearful / distrustful. The spell effect has no way to know who has the gift, so would not know if they encountered a bastard or a magus with the gift (or both).
I changed the description to note that the change affects the emotions produced by the Gift or any similar source of negative emotions. For example, it certainly works with someone having Magical Air too, or an appropriate curse.
Tyrell, don't forget to add The Troll's Tablespoon from a few days back.
The Thief's Final Coin
Muto Mentem 13 (Base 3, R: Touch, D: Concentration [Item maintains Concentration; +5], T: Individual, +3 for Penetration +6)
A penny cast from cheap tin doctored to appear as silver, adorned with the face of King John. When a person touches the coin without speaking the chosen magic words (which are often as simple as "Please" or "Thank you"), they find themselves wracked with guilt and paranoia whenever they think about having taken the accursed currency. The extra Penetration allows it to work on the edge of the church's Dominion, where cutpurses tend to dwell. The lab text for this item includes the slight bonus tin provides to enforcing law.
Cursed coins such as these have been minted as far back as the Order of Hermes' third or fourth generation. Their intended use is to shame a thief into giving their stolen goods right back to the victim, though the effect has no such specific instructions. When The Thief's Final Coin is lost in "the wild", it often drives bearers into hermitage or a new life in a monastery, if they don't turn themselves in and become outlaws.
That makes an item for each TeFo combination, darn great! The thread is sticky-worthy imho.
The chart may be filled, but I'm having too much fun making more of these. Tyrrell? What would be another interesting goal for us to reach?
Pluto's Invisible Hand
Intellego Terram 15 (Base 2, R: Arcane Connection, D: Momentary, T: Individual, +3 for Penetration +6, +2 for 3 uses per day)
This homespun linen coin pouch is tied closed with a drawstring tipped with polished granite beads. Thrice per day, scowling at the bag while shaking its contents tells the bearer the general cardinal direction of any one object that was in the bag recently enough to carry an Arcane Connection. Magi who have minted The Thief's Final Coin often fix it as a permanent AC; like its companion, Pluto's Invisible Hand has enough Penetration to find a thief even near the church's Dominion. The lab text for this item includes the material bonus for granite's promise of wealth.
An unassuming bauble, Pluto's Invisible Hand is most famous for the hotheaded Jerbiton apprentice who used one such bag to chase a gold nugget all the way to Egypt. Despite his parens having declared his Gauntlet failed, the endeavor was later declared a success when he came back with some very exotic Arcane Connections...
I really dislike magic counteracting the effects of the gift in so clean a fashion. For my tastes (which you are obviously free not to share) I would prefer that the description be altered a bit more. For instance, counteracting fear and distrust but not envy, or taking a cue from Soothing Voice of the Stableman and making the target uneasy around gifted people despite their positive feelings towards them. I also, like ironbound tome, don't see how it wouldn't work on everyday, non-supernaturally induced, distrust, fear, and envy.
I missed that, it was a the end of a page I had thought I'd already indexed. I've corrected it now.
I don't see the requisites as essential, so, by my calculation, this is level 30.
Goal for this thread or goal for a different project? I suppose it doesn't matter as the answer for both questions is "I don't know, what do you think"?
Edit: A full set of level four and five spells to use for non fatiguing sponts would be useful.
I’ve enjoyed all the creation threads recently, especially as they discuss different approaches. I’m trying to write a stack of spells to publish one a day in Nov too, might cheat and do one every few days though.
What about a thread about Verdi Grand Designs? House Verditius issues a special competition to seek the best designed puzzle, trap, or maze.
I thought the base effect is to use Rego Terram "to move stuff like the unseen hand" but items also need requisites for the form of materials. My intent was a generic move that stuff spell. If that's OK under Terram and can ignore the res then its as I wanted it.
Actually, that's why I am using the Level 4 guideline ("Completely change a person’s emotions") rather than the Level 3 one (" Make a major change to a person’s emotion"). And that's what the "social" effect of the Gift is:
That's a completely different guideline, from a different Technique. Soothing Voice is a Level 2 ReAn guideline "Plant a single suggestion in the mind of an animal." That's completely different from "Completely change a person's emotions". Saying that one should "take a cue from" Soothing Voice when designing Belin's Gift is like saying that one should "take a cue from" Pilum of Fire when designing Rain of Oil. No, they're completely different things.
It would, as long as that distrust, fear and envy came into the same "combined feeling" that the Gift produces. I could very well see a non-supernatural Social Handicap producing the same sort of effect. The Story Flaw Envied Beauty in many cases produces the same sort of effect, but not always. A plain looking, lonesome female redcap, who sees a beautiful, younger, powerful noblewoman about to marry the most eligible bachelor of the duchy? Oh sure, that would qualify, without the need of any Virtue, Flaw or supernatural intervention.
The raw terror inspired by a dragon looming on you? Nope. The rational mistrust you feel for a well-known cheat? Nope, that's reason talking to you, not a gut feeling.
Speaking about the particulars of your spell with regard to the guidelines, doesn't address why I find it distasteful. I never thought the effect was wrong from a technical perspective.
that's the description certainly. The gift is an byproduct of the character's magic, using magic to solve the issues of the gift is a plan that from a story perspective is completely unfulfilling. You wouldn't write fiction that way, at least I wouldn't.
The guidelines are clear on what the item can do, the nature of the gift is such that having anything short of initiating the gentle gift remove the negative consequences of having it is really really unsatisfying. So when you change the target's emotions you should have some other drawback pop up. The gift still works, the spell still works. That is the thrust of why I suggested taking a cue from soothing voice, because it provided a thematically appropriate side effect to stifling the immediate negative effects of the gift.
I find it distasteful and cheesy to get around the stink of magic by using more magic, at least as cleanly as you've done it here. I wouldn't want it at my table.
I think that moving everything rather than something does significantly increase the power of the spell. The example rego Terram spells use casting requisites,yet they're only moving one thing at a time so it's not quite as strong a counterargument as it could be because power jump is smaller, one item is still one item, terram and herbam versus just terram could be ten items versus twenty.
Are there any published examples of items that include casting requisites for free? My first response was based on thinking that they weren't a thing.
I've always played "Unseen Arm" and "The Unseen Porter" (basic ReTe from the core rules) as using casting requisites for free, and they have "casting requisites of an appropriate form for he target are required" so if it's entirely stone/metal then just ReTe is enough, but add He if there wooden stuff, Aq if liquids, etc. Likewise "Supple Iron and Rigid Rope" and "Object of Increased Size" from MuTe.
Does "Curse of the desert" (PeAq 25) need an extra magnitude when it affects a living target? I'm sure the requisite of An for beasts and Co for humans don't add a magnitude.
Hmm. Well. First of all, note that extending your Parma to someone removes the "effect" of the Gift, too! Wouldn't that also be using magic to get around the stink of magic?
Second, note that it's not such a "clean" solution. The choice of removing the effect of the Gift is not left to the Gifted, but the other party. Who needs to activate a magical item (that cost time and vis to create, and if kept active too long will warp the user) and tamper with his own mind to do so. In fact, only someone with long experience with the Gift would probably do so (if already in the presence of the Gifted, it becomes very hard to activate something that you know will tamper with your own mind and make you trust those devious, untrustworthy bastards...)
A possible solution to make the emotional effect of the Gift much more "resilient" would be to house rule that it creates "True Antipathy" in the other party. This makes it proof against Hermetic tampering (and, in fact, tampering by other magical traditions too). Note that Parma in this model prevents the Gift from "reaching" the target, so it does not quite affect the "True Antipathy" but instead prevents it from forming, by removing the cause. However, other spells such as Trust Me from HoH:TL would not work in this paradigm.