I have been an avid purchaser of Ars Magic materials since 3rd edition, but, despite previous attempts, have never really played. I have started a new campaign in 5th edition (with me as primary GM).
If it is alright with everyone here, I would like to post questions that come up during the campaign, either from the other players or ones that come to me as we play.
We started this week and it went fairly well I think. However, I have long had questions with respect to auras and regios, and they are starting to pop up now.
Mechanically, it appears to be easy for a mage to determine what kind of aura they are in by merely casting a spell and seeing what whether the spell works (based on their roll). My question is gamewise: Other than casting a spell (i believe it is a level 2 intellego vim spell but I don't have my books in front of me), do mages experience any kind of a physical reaction to the different auras (or in the present case, a change in aura)?
Secondly, how would Faerie magics change the equation?
I think weak auas of 1 or 2 are hardly to notice without some kind of supernatural help, but in stronger auras you can simply see the changes: the infernal/divine/magical/fearie influence from an aura can be seen in plants, animals, colours, sounds, and something like this. And if you go deeper in an aura or a regio your surroundings also change more and more.
Welcome, I'm glad that you decided to play rather than just read.
I believe that the descriptions of auras in the fifth edition core include material regarding how a magus might feel when entering a strong aura of each type.
A charcter who had faerie magic would feel much more comfortable in faerie auras than one without it. I imagine that you didn't need any of us to tell you that. In what way were you suspecting that faerie magic might make things different?
Thanks both of you for your responses. You have confirmed what I suspected. As an explanation, what I've designed is the village near the covenant. The whole area has a magic aura of 5 (the church in the village has a divine aura of 1, but it is my understanding that that would be subsumed by the magic aura (although I allowed the mage with sense holiness to detect)).
However, the fishing village has a unique situation a strong faerie aura overwhelms the village's aura following the tides...so while the actual covenant always has a magic aura of 5, the village has both a magic aura and a faerie aura (depending on the tide). Needless to say, the villagers are a bit "unique".
Well, our second session went quite well and only one real question came up.
What would be an effective substitute for Second Sight to detect Faerie? We settled on Intellego Vim, but would like to know if anyone has done a similar situation.
Facts: A faerie lord was annoyed at the Magi "trespassing" on his lands, his lands consisting of a fishing village and the watch tower above it. He sent out a host of minor Water Faerie to rile up a storm (which got the Mages' attention) in which a fishing boat was "lost". The mages after a series of trial and error (this story line was intended to get us all more familiar with the rules) figured out what was going on and cast an intellego Vim spell to detect the Faerie. After that, the story moved on to the negotiation phase of the story.
Again, thanks for putting up with my ignorance of mechanics and I appreciate any feedback.
I think you made the right choice. Something I would like to add is that there is often more than one Form/Technique combination that can solve a given problem.
For instance, using Intellego Vim can detect a supernatural being of any one (specific) Realm. So you can cast one spell to detect faeries, one to detect magical beings, one to detect demons, or one to detect Divine beings.
You might also be able to detect a being by the Form of the being itself. For example, to detect the water faeries you mentioned, I would allow Intellego Aquam to work. For dryads, Intellego Herbam. The difference is that Intellego Vim will detect any and all faeries, whereas Intellego Aquam could detect any and all water-based creatures (faerie, magical, Divine, or infernal). The choice of which to use depends on the situation, and on whether the magus is stronger in one Art or another.
