Creo Imaginem (Mentem, Corpus, Terram, Animal) 35, R: Touch, D: Diameter, T: Individual
Creates an almost perfect illusion of the caster, his weapons, and armor that seems, sounds and feel like real ones. The illusion moves and acts guided by a very limited intelligence (Mentem prerequisite) that drives it to attack the nearest enemy of the caster in melee combat for the duration of the spell.
The illusion is semisolid, solidified to physical form through Corpus, Terram, and Animal prerequisites. In combat, the shadow clone uses the initiative, attack, defense and soak of the caster, but its damage is always +0 (no matter the original one) and its attack advantage is halved to calculate the damage done. As it is image solidified, the shadow duplicate can be destroyed. Any medium or more severe wound destroys the image, with light wounds accumulating and having the usual effect as the solidified image degrades.
I am not an expert in Imaginem (or any spell creation), but I am pretty certain that this Art can produce nothing more than sensation, no actual physical manipulation (ie semi-solid).
Note, you forgot to add a Herbam requisite for weilding a quarterstaff.
I would have thought you would also need a Muto requisite to turn the Image into something semi-solid (requisite for whatever Form the semi-solid is), then a Rego requisite to move the resulting semi-solid in a way that is dangerous.
Compare this proposed spell with HoH:MC p.101f Glamour (Major Mystery Virtue), especially
Then talk this over with your troupe before introducing your spell there.
The creation of an independent fighting machine can be accomplished with standard Hermetic magic along the lines of ArM5 p.117 CrAn 35 The Wizard's Mount, or Cr(Re)An 45 Curse of the Ravenous Swarm.
Most magi will not have it look human, let alone resembling them. But should they wish, they can create an ape-like being and cast an ArM5 p.146 MuIm 20 Image Phantom upon it.
It seems that glamours are the thing that I was searching for. It seems that my spell is completely illegal without that virtue. I thought that I have read something similar but I didn't remember that virtue. Probably they were the examples in that book. Thank you!
I had checked the power levels of the spell creations that you mention, and I thought that I was fine because illusions from my spell would do negligible damage compared with those summoned creatures and they would disappear more quickly. Their function would be to confuse opponents. And the difference between levels was of 2 magnitudes, what I thought that was acceptable.
Here's an attempt of a standard spell to confuse a large group of soldiers, even mounted ones:
Cr(Re)An 40 Centuria of Boar Auxiliaries (R: Touch, D: Diameter, T: Group)
This spell creates for two minutes a group of 100 enraged boars charging forth into an assigned direction, also among the legs of opposing soldiers, other people or even horses. They do not need much control, as they just behave like natural enraged boars - but the Rego requisite ensures, that they only attack beings desired by the caster.
This spell is meant to quickly engage and scatter formations of mundane opponents. The boars' attacks need to penetrate Magic Resistance, and the spell is of a high level - so there may be problems when charging magi or supernatural beings.
(Base 15, +1 Touch, +1 Diameter, +2 Group [yes, by Mundane Beasts boars are size 0, so 100 make a standard group of animals], +1 Rego requisite)
Since the spell, Cr(Re)An 40 Centuria of Boar Auxiliaries (R: Touch, D: Diameter, T: Group), is touch range, does that mean the boars can really only be ordered as they are created, since they'll leave touch range almost immediately?
So they could be ordered to charge a group of say horses, while avoiding your grogs, but they would not be able to take new directions afterwards, right?
The spell is meant to have the boars charge specific beings and avoid specific others known at the onset: just one charge of 20 combat rounds, and damn the ... enemy archers.
If you intend to play centurion and keep some control during that time, just retain one of the boars - the buccinator - within R: Touch. And you better do not create that one enraged. I should think that this would not require further magical complexity or requisites.
But most magi would likely rather feel like tribuni militum and just send a second charge of boars after the first in case of something unforeseen.
Glamour is definetively what you are looking for. There aren't many examples in the Houses of Hermes: Mistery Cults book. There it only says that glamours are solid images, which can cause harm, that the base of anything glamourish is 10, and that adding moving parts add 1 magnitude, movement controlled by the caster adds +2, and not pretty much. It's actually pretty straighforward. For example let's say that a combat burst out and you need a quick replacement for a shield grog. It would be:
Phantasmal Shield Grog
CrIm(Me) 30
R: touch, D: sun, T: ind. Glamour.
Creates a glamour soldier with some limited freedom and intellect, but essentially loyal to the caster. Take note of the spell penetration when it's cast, as you are going to need it in order to be able to harm any creature with magical resistance he hits. He uses the stats of a shield grog in the core book.
Base 10, +1 Touch, +1 Diameter, +1 Me, +1 moving parts
And then you can add extra fun: you may add 2 magnitudes to raise it to moon duration, or other 2 to make a target: Group and create 10 shield grogs at a time, or an extra magnitude to make it look like someone's else copy (imagine your foe having to fight a copy of itself).
If you want some inspiring glamour use you'll have to read Magi of Hermes: Scipio of Merinita details some glamour spells that you can use to get some inspiration (though it ignores size, and the phantasmal horse he creates there would be just a pony in my saga).
I have a Glamour Merinita in our saga and we developed a handful of glamour spells for him (included a not-pony-sized horse). It skips the part of making soldiers and aims to directly get a glamour dragon (you can't fly over a shield grog!), focus a bit on towers and fireballs, and modifications of rooms and roads, but it may be of some help > Some Glamour spells for consideration
This is exactly what I was aiming for. My version would have level 35 because I would add +1 for intricacy because the image is a duplicate of the mage. So the final level of the spell is exactly the one that I proposed, but it requires a specific Virtue to be able to use it.
In my description, the damage and resistance of this duplicate were limited, but, as I understand from what has been said here, that limitation is not longer necessary. They would be exact duplicates. I feel that is quite powerful, but I suppose that a seventh magnitude spell is no joke (and anyways it is not very useful vs anything with magic resistance because glamours are affected by it).
Another question. These virtues are mystery specific, aren't they? So the only way to get it is to get initiated by the Followers of Pendule described in that book. You cannot choose Glamour as your major hermetic virtue during character creation, can you?
Well, if you are a Merinita and want to start play with it, you can refer to the The Initiated Apprentice and Beyond section in The Mysteries. I wouldn't mind if a player character with a Mistery Cult magus, as a Merinita in this case, wants to start play with an inner mistery virtue such as Glamour. Maybe he should take the Cabal Legacy flaw, then, but in such a loose house as Merinita I don't think it's even required.
The main objection is that it's a major virtue that he can get later by initiation without much trouble, just spending a season or two with his parens and getting the Vulnerable Magic flaw as an ordeal, and so it's a bit of a waste of starting virtue points. In the case of our Merinita we designed the magus as usual without the virtue, with the only odd thing that he had a Major Magical Focus in Glamour that was sleeping and useless at character creation, and then spent an extra year serving his Parens/Mistagoge when he was initiated into Spell Timing and Glamour, realized that he was pretty good at it as finally his Major Focus could work, and getting the Vulnerable Magic flaw in return. Then he had to quickly set up a lab and spent some time tweaking it to get a big Im bonus, and only then start working on his new glamour spells. But in around 5 years or so he was riding his small glamour dragon around the Covenant's towers, if I recall it right.
- within R: Touch. And you better do not create that one enraged. I should think that this would not require further magical complexity or requisites.