It is late at night, and my brain is drifting.
Does Mercurian Magic reduce Vis costs when rebrewing a Longevity Ritual ?
The wording of the insert on p42 of TMRE has my troupe speculating.
No. A Longevity ritual isn't a ritual spell.
In our saga, we took the generous view of saying yes it is a longevity ritual and gave the half price discount on it to our CrCo Mercurian.
This is in my view a YSMV kind of reading.
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Recasting requires no significant investment of time, suggesting it is, in fact, a ritual, and that inventing it is the lab activity.
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The general input from the higher Powers That Be (Writers and Line Editors) is that it is not a Ritual. While considering it one is advantageous to Mercurian Magic, it is a massive disadvantage for some Flaws.
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There is a flaw that prevents one from casting Rituals, and yet, it doesn't mention that those taking it cannot invent or renew a Longevity Ritual. I'm gonna be in the no Mercurian benefit for LR.
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Longevity ritual is a different kind of activity than ritual magic.
If so, is the initial vis investment for the invention or for the very first casting (which takes no significant time at the end of the season of invention)?
Since 5ed is not written from scratch, it is safe to assume that interpretations carry over from previous editions unless explicitly contradicted. Longevity rituals were longevity potions in previous editions, making it clear that it was not at all a ritual spell. IIRC it was also made explicit that it was not a potion, now known as a charged item. The idea that Mercurians also be experts at LR probably never crossed the minds of the authors, lest they make it explicit.
The fact that LR does not use any of the spell mechanics also supports this view.
To be fair there are many rituals besides ritual spells. For example, mass, coronations, baptism... many initiations involve rituals.
Parma Magica is also a ritual. But not a ritual spell.
Part of the reason we asked, was we realised that rebrewing the LR took the same time as casting a Ritual Spell of the same magnitude.
Yeah, you're not the first to make that connection :-/