Might of Aspects and Their Daimons?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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I had a long rant written for this, but I deleted it because I realized getting angry about things isn't going to help me get answers.

Basically, I'll admit I'm agitated by how vague the information on Daimons and Aspects is in RoP:M and TMRE. The TMRE examples of Daimons are only somewhat helpful in figuring out how strong Daimons are and how much influence they can have because it doesn't very clearly describe the relative strength of Aspects to their Daimons. (At the very least, though, it's fairly easy to assume that the given Daimons are actually Daimons, since the main thing one does with Daimons per TMRE is summon them, which requires knowing their Might.) RoP:M clears this up by saying the Aspect can be as strong or weak as the Daimon desires and it's free for the Daimon in any case. But it also compounds the issue; for a book that normally did a really great job giving me a relative vantage point of how powerful various magical beings in Mythic Europe are, particularly compared to each other, I have no idea how strong the given types of Daimons are, because the section leads off with the almost infuriatingly vague statement, "All the game statistics for spirits in this section represent Aspects rather than the Daimon itself, which usually has a much higher Might." (RoP:M 107) In other words, it's up in the air entirely, and I have no direction for how strong Daimons are actually supposed to be compared to various other things. I mean, most of what I know about medieval European beliefs comes from these books, and everything I know about the setting of Mythic Europe comes from them, so I don't really know how things are all supposed to match up. I could just wave it off with a "deal with it when it's relevant" thing, but it's relevant fairly regularly; if anybody tries to summon a Daimon's Aspect, that plays against the Might of the big guy himself, according to TMRE.

So... Yeah. The long and short of it is I have no idea what appropriate Mights are for Daimons of the various types. I know it could be called a YSMV issue, but variations have to be made from some kind of starting point, so not having one makes my job quite hard. Can anybody give me some more solid guidelines, or at least a better idea of how to figure that stuff out for myself?

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RoP:I notes that the nine most powerful demons, the Electors of Hell, have Might 75; with the Devil himself presumably having a higher Might. I think this is the scale for all other Realms, with the exception of the Divine which is more powerful, with several Might 100 critters and a Might-infinity at its head.

So the scale works something like this:

20 least Daimons; I note that Hipta the Nurse is Might 15, but I'll ignore that.
50 most powerful local powers, i.e. summonable Daimons, including things like lesser Magic deities.
55-70 major Daimons, summonable or contactable only through specific unique adventures such as travel to the Magic Realm. This includes most Titans and such, beings like Nike and Pallas.
75: Great Powers, including the Elder Titans (HoH:S) and the Primordials.
100: Ymir, the Earth and Sky. A tiny amount of Primordials might be somewhere between 75 and 100.

Now - do you summon according to the Daimon's Might, or the Aspect's? TMRE says yo work off the Daimon's Might, but HoH:S says that the invocation need only penetrate the Aspect's MR (HoH:S p. 100, "...if the spell penetrates the Aspect’s Might (see insert), that Aspect appears before the caster...". I'd consider the general (TMRE) to "win" here in principle, but in practice it might work better to interpret the HoH:S rules to be correct, as this allows magi to summon things more easily. YSMV.

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Then I assume we also ignore Pukis, the Dragon of the Hearth, TMRE, p. 139, with Magic Might 10?

My thoughts on the subject generally boil down to:
Daimons are generally powerful, very powerful. But their actual Might scores do not really matter.
Each Daimon has a 'Standard Avatar Template', which is covered by the stats we see given, in TMRE, RoP: M or whereever.
This is the Might relevant for Summoning said standard avatar, not the actual Might of the Daimon.

Most Daimons could probably foster off a non-standard avatar, but why bother? Which leads me to suggest that designing such a non-standard Avatar is a non-trivial task for the actual Daimon. Probably in time rather than might, but since Daimons are unchanging beings, even learning to do a known thing in a different way could be tricky.

EDIT: I forgot, but presumably we also ignore Aneirin the Bard, TMRE, p. 140, Magic Might 15?
Ignoring 3 out of 9 seems... selective.

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It's clear that daimons and their aspects can have different Might scores. The thing about the daimon proper is that it's Might is irrelevant. It's not going to leave the Magic Realm/Hall of Heroes to visit magi in Mythic Europe; it sends an Aspect instead. And there's a good reason to send 'weaker' aspects, as lower Might aspects are easier for theurgists to summon, so they will do it more often and generate daimon points for the daimon to grow. A Might 80 daimon isn't going to be summoned by anybody (often!), a Might 20 aspect will be summoned almost as desired.

As a rule of thumb, though, the fact that daimons can grow in power more easily than most things with Might means that they will be more powerful than conventional spirits with Magic Might. It makes little sense for ancient magical spirits to be Might 20 or lower, especially since daimons are the one spirit type that can explicitly grow over time.

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Acknowledging that the books as an ensemble are neither perfectly clear nor coherent on the subject, I tend to assume that the examples of daimons given in TMRE are, in fact, examples of aspects, and that one needs only beat the magic resistance of an aspect to summon it. I'd point out that TMRE came out rather early in the line's history, so I'd trust HOH:S more, and RoP:M even more.

Putting together the info in the various books and seasoning with a bit of salt, I'd say something along the following lines for the individual daimons (rather than aspects).

Might 10: the very weakest of daimons. Newly ascended heroes, or daimons that have declined and are on the brink of destruction. I'd say there are probably fewer Might 10 daimons than Might 20 daimons.
Might 20: daimons of relatively weak power (as daimons go). The typical ascended hero, the weakest Leti (named spirits of death), the very weakest genii loci who are also daimons (e.g. the Pomeranian Forest, while held "dormant" in its weakened state). I'd assume that the daimon of whom Pukis is an aspect is at this level of power.
Might 30: daimons of moderate power. Great ascended heroes, the leaders of the Leti, the average genius locus who's a daimon, the weakest of the theoi (i.e. the non-faerie pagan gods like Helios, Zelos or Lesa Vegoia - note that, as usual, the aspects can have much lower might).
Might 40: strong daimons. The average theoi, the astra planeta, great genii loci.
Might 50: The most powerful theoi, the weakest of the kosmokrators/titans, a handful of the greatest genii loci (which at this level straddle the lines with kosmokrators: THE forest, THE desert, THE steppe).
Might 75: The strongest of the titans and of the daimons ever contacted by humans. The weakest of the protogonoi (the basic building blocks of reality like Earth and Sky); note that no theurgist has ever managed to contact these remote beings.

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Agreed.

But this also makes the Might scores of the actual Daimons much less interesting.

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That is kinda the idea, though. No theurge has ever successfully summoned a protogonos, while Might 20 daimons are the common ones called on to make pacts with.

This also has the interesting benefit of encouraging ascended magi (assuming any magus ever reaches such a point) to limit their power just a bit, to avoid becoming so vast that they can't be called into the world.

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Keep in mind that that Might 80 daimons could have aspects that are only Might 20. So there's little need to actually limit the overall power of a daimon, just the power of the aspects it sends. RoP:Magic pg107 says:

"All the game statistics for spirits in this section represent Aspects rather than the Daimon itself, which usually has a much higher Might."

That said, the more powerful the Aspect, the more valuable the services (in theory) it can offer. So there's a fine balancing act to be made - if your Aspects are too powerful, no one can summon them, but too weak and no one wants to summon them. Might 20-30 is probably the ideal for summoning; powerful enough to be useful, but low enough that a small group of magi can manage it. Ideally the summoner wants to save on vis, meaning they want to be able to summon a Daimon with a single spell.

A level 40 spell to summon Might 20 with 20 Penetration can be done by a lone magus (old or specialized for it).

A level 60 spell to summon Might 30 in one go with 30 Penetration is possible with Wizard's Communion. Beyond that point you're probably looking at multiple summoning attempts and it gets very expensive on vis.

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Seeing as theurgic cults tend to teach synthemata, penetration is not always a problem as long as you are looking to magically control the aspect rather than worship it or peacefully bargain with it.

The repeated castings rule makes it possible for a weaker mage to summon, but so expensive it's futile unless you're in a vis rich campaign. (What's that? You got your apprentice spending 3 seasons a year tapping a nearby aura for vim vis? Looks like you can afford to be a little wasteful, even if your apprentice will resent you forever). Still, if you've been hit with a non-hermetic curse of decent magnitude, repeated castings to get Hipta to remove it can look preferable to several seasons of research or questing for a removal.

The other thing is that when you banish them, they leave behind vis roughly equal to their magnitude (Chnoubis one less, pukis one more, portunes unsportingly leaves none, Aneirin requires bottling rather than banishing - however that works). So if you are capable of doing it with a single casting, you spend (aspect's magnitude * 2) Vim Vis and get (aspect's magnitude) back when you banish. Therefore you can slowly convert vim vis to other types at a rate similar to trading with House Mercere (2:1 exchange rate given in HoH:TL) while getting the services of Daimons.

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Now, if you had Mercurian Magic and Hermetic Sacrifice...
Keep in mind that, if banished, a daimon often can't be recalled for years, according to TMRE.

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Rather dangerous. Spirits will know when their Aspects are banished, and the magus in question will rapidly acquire a bad reputation and likely be targeted by vengeful spirits. It's also unnecessary, given that you can trade vis with Redcaps at the 2:1 rate, or just trade with other magi at whatever sort of rate you can manage.

Theurgical rituals should be worthwhile for the cost. If it take 8 pawns to summon a Might 20 daimon, the service it provides should be worth 8 pawns. Let's look at those presented in The Mysteries:

Chnoubis (Might 30; 12 pawns minimum): Can perform Divination and Augury with 10 levels of effect per Might. In theory he can do 300 levels of Divinations, which is a lot, though the Penetration of these will likely be below 30, so only useful for divinations that don't require much Penetration.

Gydryty-kom the Giant (Might 40; 16 pawns minimum, likely more due to multiple castings): Can do Auram magics at 1 Might Per Magnitude, including ritual effects, and can dispel level 50 spells for 5 points of Might. Very powerful and versatile, but hard to summon.

Hipta the Nurse (Might 15; 6 pawns): Any PeVi spell for 1 Might per Magnitude (so up to level 75) with +30 Penetration. This is an exceedingly good deal.

Lasa Vegoia the Matron (Might 30; 12 pawns minimum): Can perform any theurgical spell (therefore, any spell desired, really), can teach any theurgical spell, and can help initiate Divination and Augury. Extremely versatile and can save you many seasons inventing spells, especially when you consider that you can theoretically sell those spells for vis to recoup costs.

Portunes (Might 25; 10 pawns minimum): Guarantees calm weather and can open locks up to level 40. This guy isn't worth it when you consider Hipta costs 4 pawns less to summon and can blow away level 75.

Honos (Might 30; 12 pawns minimum): Teach leadership at 17xp, magical healing feast (if you have the Dutybound flaw). 17xp of Leadership isn't worth 12p of vis and the healing feast is highly limited. A healing ritual spell would be more effective. Would have been great in pre-Hermetic times, but now pretty much useless.

Pukis (Might 10; 4 pawns): Invisible thief spirit is really rather good, considering it can teleport small objects to its owner's hearth. The fact that it can generate 4 pawns of Ignem vis almost makes it too good to be true.

Aneirin (Might 15; 6 pawns): Can teach names of power. This is somewhat nebulous as described. Does it teach Names of Power spells as Lasa Vegoia teaches Theurgical spells? Does it just give you names so you can invent appropriate Names of Power spells yourself? Not terribly useful, though Aneirin has Magic Lore 8 and Stonehenge Tribunal Lore 10. Not a compelling summon.

Dietrich Von Bern (Might 35; 14 pawns minimum, likely more): Improve Per/Pre/Com by +1 up to +3, but only once per person. This is more expensive than CrMe rituals to do the same thing, though at least you get to choose one of the three rather than learn three spells. Another spirit that was more useful in pre-hermetic times.

Anyways, I'd say about 1/2 of these spirits are giving good value for their summons costs. The best spirits are the ones that have versatile powers, as a theurgist only has so much time to learn spells.

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Generally speaking, if the god is strong enough compared to you that you need Synthemata, getting its ire is probably a Very Bad Idea. Synthemata usage is not free of consequences.

Yeah, summoning Daimonic Aspects by oneself is really hard. Understandably, I suppose.

Only if the Daimon wants, though. According to the sidebar in TMRE, Daimons can choose at the moment of the Aspect's destruction whether they want to leave behind a vis-filled corpse. And if you were using Synthemata as above... Cooperation is unlikely.

@OP: I think it works best if you pretend the thing about "this is the Might of the Aspect not the Daimon" was just part of an original draft they forgot to remove, and the listed Mights actually apply to the Daimons. Then just use the "Beyond the Lunar Sphere" argument or "magic can't act across realms" or something to keep people from using the Aspects to wreck the Daimons.