Approximately in 1235 Federico II "stupor mundi" and his impressive army descent in Italy in order to move war against rebelling cities and versus the Lombardic League. The clash of armies continued for 15 years circa.
For a greedy Verditius this sholud be a great opportunity to become rich in the selling of magic items suitable for war! I would be very interested to know your own creations/ideas about, please indicate also construction detail, I could reproduce them in my Lab!
A wise Verditius would have to be very careful since he can make items powerful enough to win battles with great ease. If one side starts winning battles they really should have lost then one might wonder about sorcerous aid and that might bring ruin on his sodalis.
Hoever, if he were reckless or a rogue, then there are a number of items i can recommend.
How about perdo mentem, group target +3 size. Reduce morale on 10,000 people.
Perdo corpus with the same group target +3 size. Give everyone in the other army a light wound at range with a charged item. Can't tell me that wouldn't swing a battle.
How about ReAu spells to ensure that a marching army is always in the middle of a rainstorm. A few days of that will destroy morale, cause sickness and ruin supplies, not to mention slow troops down from muddy ground.
CrIm spells to make your numbers seem much greater than they are, especially before a battle to help direct your enemies forces where you desire.
MuIm to change a spy's appearance to that of the enemy general, then go around ordering the enemy army all over the place. Divide and conquer.
A pair of drums meant to be beat as a pair, one drum enchanted with an effect that causes fear in enemies and the other with an effect that increases bravery in allies.
Or if you want to go (more) blatant, CrAu(Ig), make the sky rain fire on the enemy camp.
ReTe make the ground come alive and swallow one wing of the enemy army.
CrIg with obscene range to immolate impressively single targets in the middle of regiments, that would be a terror weapon, really scare the hell out of people.
In general though, in war one doesn't want to kill enemy soldiers as much as cripple their morale, have them leaderless and confused and unable to respond to your attacks. Mentem spells are obviously great for this but all kinds of condition changes such as attacks on supplies, weather and such like can all wreak havoc on morale.
I would like to create subtle items difficult to link to a "Wizard" so is my intention to avoid blatant spells/effects. Till now I have created
- magically reinforced leather armors (Mu/An)
- saddles of brave horses (Cr/An to inspire courage)
- harp of mass awakening (Re/Me to have in a few seconds ready to fight warriors)
moreover I know a minor mistery from House Verditius (Quality Items) and I have made a lot of spears, swords, armors and shields of quality
"Sniper" sight range crushed hearts vs enemy officers tend to work well.
Increased speed of marching for the army (MU/Re Te to make the ground more stable and harder). Can be atibuted to good weather easily.
Auras of ennobled presence or similar for important officers (+3 to lead, +1 presence...)
Banners at sight range granting +3 to bravery rolls to the followers of thaqt banner (so make the banner that of your HQ).
Try to keep them enviromental or limited to single targets in a way that the effect is not obvious. Otherwisr you risk being spoted as a sorcerer, or the army having sorcerer help and that is a BAD THING (TM).
You can easily go big and design spells to raze Milan from the surface of earth, but that is NOT desirable in the opinion of 99% of the OoH, it seems. Going small and with stuff that boost mundane capabilities is more desirable here. Magical swords with minor obvious magical effects are the maximum you can reliably achieve before being hit in the nose by the pesky Q's.
Cheers,
Xavi
How many seasons did you spent on that??? One item/season, that is awfully long... But it does have the benfit that these items won't turn the tide of a battle as only few will have such a superior items.
My suggestion would be a low-level lesser enchandet item so you can produce several of them, selling one to Federico II, one to the Milanese, one to the Venetians, one to the people of Pardua... Remember, the peripheral code of the Rome tribunal allows any Verditius to sell one magic item to each group per year.
Another way would be to sell high level charged items you created while using lab notes (1 item with asingle chanrge/magnitude).
suggested effect:
- ReHe. Crossbows that are winded up more easily/provide more damage
Devastating Crossbow of Vetrenius
lesser enchanted item
ReHe 3 (Base: 3, R: per, D: mom: T: ind)
unlimited uses: +10, end level 13
Trigger action: trying to bend both ends of the bow bachwards. This could either be done with two hands or one hand pulling the bow string.
This enables the crossbowman to archieve a rate of fire similar to that of bowmen. The enchantment is rather easy to research and requires little vis. Thus it is especially useful for spring convents.
As the bolt is propelled by mundane force it ignores magic resistance. To aim the corssbowman uses the ability crossbows rather than finesse, which most grogs are missing.
A different Version of the enchantment is used for composite crossbows. This requires an animal requisite resulting in an endlevel of 14.
A metal bow, which are not in use by 1220, will require a ReTe effect of 4 resulting in an end level of 14. - I love those Me-effects described by gribble_the_munchkin. If made as charged items you could take care that one side wins a battle but does not win the war. This way your machinations might not be discovered so easily
3 years for 12 items... I know it is not so much but with only one item per Season this is my best before war begin.
Reading all posts I have to say: nice ideas (I wonna create them in my lab) 
Not sure how I would do it yet but a accurate map for where every you are.
some device that let officers time their attacks (maybe just relative to one another, that would do). I recall the watch was a major military advancement for this reason.
How about nitroglicerian?(probibly would be made alchemtically by way of soap)
Would you care to share some knowledge of the relevant character's arts? Then the ideas provided could be tailored to what you can do.
Euh... For those who don't know. Abe doesn't play Ars. He has never read the rules, not even the free 4°Ed pdf. And yes, people gave him the link to download it.
Yes I would!
Cr 10 In 8 Mu 4 Pe 6 Re 5
An 5 Aq 5 Au 6 Co 8 He 5 Ig 5 Im 4 Me 6 Te 10 Vi 8
Magic Theory 8 (+1 specialization: making magic items)
Aura of my Covenant: 5
Craft 3 (Leather working)
Philosopy 3
Inventive Genius
Quality Item (minor house mistery)
Lab: +1 Rego
Well, as your stated goal is profit in terms of money...
I'd suggest making a device capable of performing ReTe production of mundane, if quality, metal items for sale. Relatively simple, permanent, and visless save for your initial creation of the item. Worst case, to get your production started, you cast a ritual creo terram to make materials. If you are discrete you can do this with little risk of reprisal from the Q's.
If it is not important to you who wins the war, save the big items ( in the expendable versions as previously mentioned ) for when one side is starting to lose... and then sell them a few to bring things back into chaos.
This however is a decision that could bring questions of meddling into the picture. Especially the more times you do so. Selling equally to all sides is an option, yet also has it's own dangers.
I'd still be concerned about hermetic charges, but also about how the various factions in this war would begin to view me when they realized I was selling to all sides. Which... I think they eventually would, if you sold anything beyond mostly mundane items.
PeHe/PeTe charged battering rams/screws ought to be popular after a demonstration, and not all that blatant to mundane eyes (depending on magnitude, of course). And agreeably expensive.
nitrogilicirian would probibly be possible via magic(basically it is glicirian that is made explosive!)
It is not my idea to use something that could break the flavour of the game so I do not use nitro, but I think other ideas are very good (like battering rams)
ok how about a magic blowgun then?
It is very difficult to siege a castle with weapons like this but it could be usefull for an ambush in the wilderness