With the current rules for magic powers for magic aligned characters, they mostly use powers that can be described with Hermetic forms and techniques.
Going against this, could magic creatures have a magic power like Master of Fortunam, where something like a spirit of misfortune uses powers that mimic Vulnero Fortunam (The learned magician form+technique)?
RoP:M p.37 intelligent Gifted magic creatures can certainly learn the magic of other traditions than the Order's. Also intelligent non-Gifted magic creatures might pick up some powers described in HMRE.
If magic creatures aren't intelligent, they cannot grasp Magic traditions. So Learned Magician or Cunning-folk charms, amulets and chartae are beyond them. When designing such creatures, it still may make sense for some to have Hedge powers they can grasp: e. g. Folk Witch powers like Cursing, Healing, Flight and Second Sight.
A (RoP:M p.36 box) Magic Power described in terms of Vulnero Fortunam (HMRE p.91 box) charms requires some work and responsability of the SG to design:
- First. because Vulnero (HMRE p.82) is a Difficult Art.
- Vulnero Fortunam charms have therefore typically reduced Penetration, if compared to Hermeitc spells.
- Also the way to assign the Hermetic Form used when resisting the versatile Fortunam should be determined.
Mapping (RoP:M p.39 box) Master of (Form) onto a Master of Fortunam needs to map Muto and Perdo onto Learned Magician Vulnero and Hermetic spell levels onto Learned Magician charm levels: this likely isn't one to one. If the spirit of misfortune is a player character, the troupe needs to somehow accommodate, that Fortunam is more versatile than a single Hermetic Form.
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That depends on your situation. If you are asking because you or another player in your game wants to play one, then I think @oneshots answer is what you need.
If on the other hand you are a storyguide wanting to introduce a magic aligned spirit of misfortune in your game, perhaps because you need it to make a specific plot work, then I would say go for it.
On a more philosophical level, I think that there is no good reason why a creature of Magic could not be aligned to Fortunam instead of any of the 10 hermetic forms. Fortunam does not neatly fit within hermetic framework and IMO there is reason to believe that there could exist more forms than do in hermetic magic. You would have to wing the rules for such a creature since the game is about hermetic magic and as such is pretty sparse on tangential rules such as beings of might aligned to hedge magic.
In practical terms I would base the power you request on the already existing family of power that mimic a TeFo spell of level Y or below at a cost of Y might points. But then replace Te and Fo with Vulnero and Fortunam respectively. As a storyguide you have a lot of wiggleroom to make such things work.
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I second what @Euphemism is saying here, if the magical creature isn't a player character (so balance is less of a concern) there is no reason why creatures of the magic realm would be limited by the same limitations as hermetic magic (some limits may be actually universal, like the limit of essential nature and the limit of the divine, but others are just flaws in hermetic theory).
Personally I think if something is possible for any magic tradition then creatures of the magic realm should be able to have effects which do the same thing. Takes a little work to make it work mechanically, but there is no reason such spirits couldn't exist in the setting.
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I tried above to outline that 'little work'.
Just to clarify, do you mean:
- can they learn these Arts?
- can they have native powers designed using these Arts?
In both cases, my answer would be Yes, absolutely! - though in the first case, obviously only if they are able to learn Arts at all. Or have the relevant virtues.
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Brings to my mind an interesting conundrum when a learned magician is trying to explain that the vis from the magical creature you have slain is fortunum vis, not vim.
Take a look at HMRE p.85 Vis Use for Learned Magicians. They may never encounter stuff like Fortunam vis, but still find vis to bolster their Fortunam magic: often Vim vis.
What is left is, whether Learned Magicians address vis differently than Hermetic magi. Would that be worth the paper to print it?
I have always interpreted this as why Vis involves rolls when used. Hermetic theory is the best but not perfect and sometimes Vis identified as VIm is actually a mix of Salutem and Vim or whatever. Creating magic items allows one one slowly take the "Vim" bits but if you are using it on the fly it gives weird results.
Bob
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I know this but it's now what I'm getting at, as I'm thinking of creatures who's powers are independent from such traditions.
I very much agree. I used Master of (Form) because the perdo aspect to it can be easily seen with the Vulnero art. Muto not so much of course.
This is true for Learned Magicians of 13th century Mythic Europe, but the Lands of Nile mentions that the Charm Magicians that worked in Egypt long ago had much higher totals (Lands of Nile P.55) and a wider array of RDT. The difficult arts of the Learned Magicians can be described as a flaw from the tradition being founded on a single text.
Of course, for balance reasons it would be good to figure something out that would reduce the power of such a spirit. Perhaps each quality that grants spell levels does so at a reduced rate?
OneShot already gave the best response but it does make me wonder where the magic of Learned Magicians and the Graugach would look like represented in the Magic Realm. Graugach more so, because their magic presumably comes from the worship of their Magic god. Maybe Graugach himself has powers that strongly resemble Graugach magic?
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I can give multiple possible explanations, but each of them connects to a cosmic plot point for my games, so best not.
Cosmic plot points are where players have a chance to find out that the world does not operate quite the way they thought it did...
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