Also Muto would eventually end and it would revert to original volume (if volume was changed), Shape (if shape was changed), Material (if material was changed).
Basically whatever Muto changes, that specific change is undone when the spell ends. You muto a tree trunk into the bowl, eventually it will revert to tree trunk with proportional changes to reflect what happened to the bowl (Ie, break the bowl in half, the tree trunk will be split down the middle, paint it fancy and the tree trunk will have paint on it.).
You use rego to make a bowl from a tree trunk and you get the bowl and lots of scrap wood since the volume doesn't change, it was just like you carved it up. You use perdo, then lots of the wood volume vanishes and you hope you didn't destroy too much (probably need a rego requisite to get the right shape not destroyed.)
Muto: "...can grant or remove properties something cannot naturally have. ... Muto magic cannot affect the properties that something has naturally,..."
Rego: "... allows a maga to change the state of a thing to some other state that the individual thing can naturally have."
I take this to mean that if you wanted to make a bowl from a tree with muto, it must be done someone 'unnaturally'. If you want to play games with density, then the requirement to change from rego to muto would be that the resulting bowl must be unnaturally dense. That is, if the density could still exist naturally, muto would not be applicable. Another method would be for the bowl to remain living (which would certainly be unnatural). This is what is meant by the "inexplicably magical" characteristic mentioned by CH. I'm not sure what the implications are for the violin or flute examples.
Of course, 'weird' living shapes are actually much more possible 'naturally' than is commonly considered:
Mixing substances are most certainly not Muto but still Rego.
Getting substances to mix that would normally not be possible(or make it easier), thats Muto.
If it can be done by any sort of "mundane" application of work, ie it doesnt have to be possible for any real craftsman, but still theoretically possible, then its Rego.
No, you must decide if its possible to do naturally.
Certainly yes.
Nice tree picture btw Thumper.
I know there was someone who managed to grow alot of trees into odd shapes, IIRC somewhere in California? And when he died noone still knew how he had done it(and afaik noone have still managed to repeat his more "extreme" trees).
Your picture might be from his "collection"?
I'm trying to wrap my head around the distinction you are making here. It sounds like you are implying that Rego is limited to things that can be 'done' not just states that 'are'. I would say not. "Rego can also make a tree blossom out of season,... ...Rego can make a tree bear fruit out of season,..." This seems obvious to me. Am I missing something in the point your making with this statement?
I could be wrong, but I believe the distinction here is solely with regard to Rego as "crafting" something. What (I believe) DW means is that, with regard to this discussion, it's not something that the tree, itself, needs to be able to achieve naturally, but that mundane ("natural" vs "magical") action could achieve.
A tree, in and of itself, could not naturally become a ship - but it could become one without any magical alteration or necessary tweaks by a mundane (natural) hand.
I don't believe DW was considering the other aspects of Rego (such as the ones you mention) when he said that - tho' if I'm off target, I'm sure I'll be corrected.
Difference is that that Rego requires finesse roll for quality (or success at all), rego would be permanent most likely (you used magic to assemble it) and rego would look like a craftman went through the steps to make it.
Muto would looks seamless, no signs of craft work, would not last longer than duration.
Rego can do the the work of a craft but it takes a lot of finesse to do it as the magic actually acts as if a craftsman did the work.
To me, a boat (a fully functioning "boat", rather than just a hull) requires multiple separate moving parts - and I'm not convinced that Muto can create separate parts from a single target. In fact, I'd say it cannot. Target: Group could (possibly) do it, but that's not what anyone had been talking about.
I suppose it depends on what your image of "a boat" is. The distinction I intended to draw was not in size, but in complexity of independent sub-parts, a movable rudder and oarlocks or boom, etc. The more I think about it, I don't believe Muto can split a whole into two (tho' it could leave a very thin connection which could be broken manually, to achieve the same end result that way.)
Let's say I was going to make a boat from a tree. For sake of example, I will say I am going to make a simple canoe, which is more or less one whole with no additional parts.
Using Muto, I could simply turn the tree into a canoe, exactly as a envision the canoe in my mind at time of casting (I am assuming adequate casting totals). As long as I have a good idea of what a canoe is, I will get a canoe. Quickly, farily painlessly. It will go back to a tree at spell's end.
Using Rego, I can "craft" the canoe out of the tree. This would probably take multiple castings of lower lever Rego spells or a higher lever Rego spell. Finnesse rolls would be involved. But you get a canoe and it will now always be a canoe.
The Rego/Muto overlap has always been one of the parts of the game I have been mystified by. For example, Leap of the Fire is a ReIg spell, even though the fire is behaving unnaturally (Leaping to a new location). I could see an argument for a Mu requisite with that and similar spells, but none is required. I know the fire could be moved by a third party and Rego takes the place of that third party, but it still has never quite been kosher to me.
Then I remember that whatever the scratches and scrapes, it is still the best designed magic system in the gaming world, and just let it go.
Reading the description of Muto from ArM5, what are the "properties" your granting or removing from the tree that it "cannot naturally have"?
It seems pretty clear to me from ArM5 that the distinction has to do with weather the properties in question are such that the target can or can't naturally have.
In the case of the fire example you mention, my understanding from ArM5 pg 78 is that 'location' is a natural property of a fire therefore rego can change it. Keeping the fire burning on a substance that can't burn?... that'd be Muto.
It's the criteria used to distinguish between natural and unnatural I'm commenting on.
In the Leap of Fire example, the spell description reads: "Causes a bonfire to leap...up to 10 paces". I would not say fires leap in and of themselves as described by the effect of the spell. An argument could be made that the effect could be achieved by Muto or the effect has an element of Muto to it.
I am perfectly fine with using Rego on the effect. It makes sense. There are just occasions when it's not quite as clear cut what is a natural and unnatural process, and it depends on the point of view.
When you talk about what is natural for something thats not the same as what could naturally be done.
Its easy to set a tree on fire, but is it natural to find a tree burning without outside influence? Ie its not "natural" by itself for a tree to burn(trees dont burst into flame occasionally just for the fun of it), but its a naturally easy thing to cause.
And while you cite RAW, those two examples are really some of the most shady and questionable base effects there are.
Should be Creo(which can already have a plant/tree to grow fullsized in reduced time) or Muto(because it means causing an essentially unnatural effect).
I guess from my point of view I go through a process when figuring out the Rego/Muto question. Looking at the language in the art descriptions, I come away with the distinction of 'a stat that could exist naturally', where 'naturally' doesn't necessarily have to do with 'nature' so much as 'properties in congruity with essential nature and in line with platonic forms,... or not'. I look at the rego examples and this becomes more clear to me. If a property can be had by the object without magic, then Rego, else Muto.
Actually, I find the problem with the write-up for Perdo as compared with Rego much more troubling. You can destroy the property of 'weight' with perdo, but OTH it is not a natural property for a normally heavy object to have no weight - so does that mean muto?
I agree-I think in most cases it is fairly evident which art to use (Rego v. Muto), especially once you have an "internal process" down like you describe. I just think everyone's internal process may vary slightly.
Perdo v. Muto? I must admit I had not thought about this one until now.
I ~think~ with Muto you'd have to change the target (temporarily) into a different substance with the desired properties, while Perdo would be targeting that property alone. Also note that while Muto is "designed" to do this, Perdo is always easier if it's destroying properties that something could lose naturally, as opposed to making unnatural changes.
But there, we get back to "un/natural", which is the crux of much of this.
Exactly.
I think one problem is in semantics, that the word "natural" has two different meanings here.
One is "the natural world", as in "what would occur without the influence of man's hand". No tools, no craft, no human interference, just objects left alone to themselves.
The other is "theoretically conceivable in this world" - to put a castle high in the air is hardly "natural", but nor is it completely against the possibilities - if a castle can be here, it could instead be "over there" (pointing to a much different location), or even "way up there" instead (pointing, in this case, high into the air), on the theory that "things can naturally have any location". (This is a far more philosophical "natural" than the first meaning.)
It's not "natural" for a person to fly (via Rego), but it's certainly not changing a property of that person - they are still the same person, in flesh and mind. And a person can "be anywhere" naturally - in this sense of the word. That's the Rego thing.
Muto is unnatural in either sense - a tree certainly could "naturally" become a canoe under the hand of a crafter with an adze, but it would not "naturally" be expected to become one on its own, and certainly not in the blink of an eye, as a Muto spell unnaturally achieves.
Muto deals with "properties", while Rego deals with "states". To be "over here" or "over there" or "way up in the air" are states - states of location. The Properties of the target remain constant, no matter how moved, bent, broken, or shaped.
A Tree does not "naturally" have the property to be a canoe - the potential, yes, but it's not a natural progression, an expected (or naturally possible) state of natural existence - the property to be a canoe naturally.
To take "wood" and change its state from that of a natural tree to that of natural planks and pins and thwarts and all the parts of an assembled canoe does nothing to change the natural properties of wood, merely their states. To instantly transform a Tree into a canoe changes nothing of its state (it's still right here, and still technically - after the magic wears off - a tree), but everything to do with properties.
To move a fire changes no natural property of the fire. To change a natural property does nothing to relocate it. This effect changes only the state, from "being here" to "being there". It's not about moving, it's not about changing the thing itself, it's about changing states of the thing. The Latin "Rego" and "Muto" are far broader concepts than "I control" (or "I move") and "I transform" (or "I change").
I suppose, but not in the sense of the term I was using them in (nor I believe the book uses.)
Shape is not usually a state, because a "state" is something that an object does have or does not have - but not something it "cannot" have - altho' "stable" or "in flux" is a state. So a tree can have the state of being whole or being in pieces, old or young, here or over there, but not the state of being something else, something that is not a tree.
If a thing had the natural property of being able to change shape, then it could be a state - but that's uncommon (and if a tree could naturally change state into a canoe, then Rego would work fine.)
Few people would agree that "being a newt" is a state a human can have, or a cloud the state of being a volcano. That's really not how the word is being used here. If you want to blur those two terms, then fine - but then we're stuck with natural and unnatural, which is what I was trying to avoid/clarify in the first place.
Yes, but if "made of wood" is the property that you are addressing, then you are not talking about changing its shape but talking about changing that property, the wooden tree into non-wood, into perhaps metal or liquid - and then, yes, you are Muto'ing the property of "made of wood" into "made of X".
But when changing shape, "made of wood" is a constant - it's the property of being a natural shape vs a different shape that's being changed.
Water has 3 possible states - liquid, vapor or ice, plus location, plus either being still or in motion, all "states" that water has. I would say that water never has "the state of being a sword" - but it could be given the properties of steel and the shape of being a sword. This is beyond merely altering its "state", as the word is used in the rules/Techniques descriptions.
You can put water into shape of sword with rego because water naturally flows and assumes whatever shape fits its container, this is rego. If you are making water from a river into a sword of ice though you are doing one of two things in general:
Rego the water into the shape of the sword and
perdo Ignem to make it ice
change it into ice with the rego appearnatly
Getting a canoe in the forest (Using Herbam)
Creo creates your canue in the shape that you want it
Muto turns a tree into the canoe (leaves, bark, branches, roots etc all become part of it). Tree is still a tree and even still alive potentially that when spell ends, it is back as a tree
Perdo basically disappears all the bark, leaves, branches and such and other elements and leaves you with the canoe shape if the trunk was large enough.
Rego acts like you cut a tree down, stripped the barka and branches, hacked out the center and otherwise worked the wood to shape it. See boat building craft (for exact details) and also requires a finesse roll because you are using magic to do the work of a craft (int+finesse -6 vs target number of 6 for functional I think is the formula). This method also leaves lots of by products so you need a larger volume than your muto version. When spell ends, you still have the canoe.
Of course you can also do it with Rego Terram (Cr requisite) by creating a bunch of tools and putting them to work chopping down the tree and processing it.
(as for skinning cat, it is still a minor magical focus because while it is all technique and forms, the target and result are so narrow is it minor like the focus with certemen of the tremere. One of these days though I will have to get this list of ways and make the mage with this focus)
