minimal aura for laboratory

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi,

Does someone remember if you need some minimal aura to have viable laboratory (or specific activities of a laboratory such as extracting vis)? i remember 3 but not from where i get this number... so i think i may have wrongly remembered this.

2

You need to be in a magical aura to extract vis - but an aura of 1 is enough for that.
For other laboratory activities I don't think there is any requirement to be in an aura.

3 is the standard aura for a new covenant according to the covenant creation rules, unless you use some boons or hooks to raise/lower that aura.
3 is also the minimum score in Magic Theory needed to set up a laboratory.
Either of these are probably where you got the number 3 from.

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3

I think 3 comes from the fact that covenants are assumed to have an aura of 3 unless a boon is picked to increase the overall aura level, or a hook is taken to reduce it. As Erik said, there is no minimum aura. However, to have a weak aura is a real power-limiter on your magus as their lab total will suffer, as will their spell casting, as will learning from vis.

4

If you have holy magic and are in a divine aura can you extract divine vis? Manifest essence of faith?

5

You can theoretically have a lab with no aura - or even in a hostile aura. As mentioned by @ErikT above, you need a magic aura to extract Vis, but other than that, have fun. Not that I would recommend hiding a lab inside a church, but it could be done.

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6

Yes, you can do that. (RoP:D p69)

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7

Infernal Auras work for Hermetic vis extraction, too:

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8

Ah yes. I forgot about that one.

9

Breakdown of vis extraction:

  1. Magic Aura: any Magus can do this, RAW
  2. Infernal Aura: any Magus can do this, RAW with RoP:I notes. Produces tainted Vis, so not very useful in not Infernally aligned.
  3. Faerie Aura: no rules provided, side effects of doing it talked about in RoP:F. Siphons off the level of the Aura (effectively the might of the top faerie), reducing the level for Vis.
  4. Divine Aura: requires Holy Magic or other Virtue, effects of using Divine flavored Vis are mostly up to the SG for non-Holy Magus.

Then of course you have the stuff in LoH, Chapter Two. It is about the Magus who integrated Vim effecting non-Magic Realm things. Before her there were no ReVi wards against any realm other than Magic, no PeVi spells to attack the might of any realm other than Magic, etc. The rest of the chapter goes on to talk about possible things she invented that never made it out to the rest of the Order. The minor virtue Confluence of the Realms lets you replace one Realm in a Labtext with a different Realm when learning the spell, as well as extract Vis from any Aura for example.

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10

And at no consequence or risk either!

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