I have to disagree here. It seems to me that if the book uses the term "unnatural property", its meaning should stay constant between guidelines. In other words, if Muto Aquam says that rose-flavoured castor oil is an example of a slightly unnatural liquid, and Creo Aquam says that I can create a slightly unnatural liquid by adding a magnitude but no requisites, then I can create rose-flavoured castor oil by adding a magnitude and no requisites.
Note that the essential nature of such an oil is distinct from that of "normal" castor oil, so any magic that changes "normal" castor oil into rose-flavoured castor oil must be sustained, like a spell that gives wings to an existing lion. But that does not mean that you cannot create rose-flavoured castor oil, or winged lions, with Creo,without a Muto requisite. It will cost you extra magnitudes because it's "unnatural" - not commonly found in the mundane world - but you are still creating an essential nature. In fact, if created through a Momentary Ritual such a thing can last indefinitely.
Remember, the fact that you do not normally encounter something in the material world does not mean its platonic form does not exist. In fact, the very fact that you can conceive of something would suggest the existence of that form: the Ideas, the perfect platonic forms, come from the greek root "id/vid" which means to see (the same root behind the latin "video" = I see, and the English "vision").
This is an excellent example of what I'm saying Ravencroft - thanks for citing it.
You do not need Muto to create water in an "unnatural" shape - say, a perfect sphere.
The book goes on to specify, however, that only the initial shape is allowed to be unnatural without adding extra magnitudes: the water will behave normally and tend to splash down if not contained. If it was implicit, there would be no need to mention it.
To make "water" that tends to stay in a spherical shape you'd need one or probably two extra magnitudes (depending on whether you consider the change slightly or very unnatural), as per the guidelines above. Obviously, such "water" would not really be water (its essential nature would be different) even though it would behave as water for all other purposes.
I guess we disagree. My point is that the term 'unnatural' actually has multiple meanings here - because there are unnatural things that are in the realm of forms (rosewater, statues, crossbows, castles, etc.) and unnatural things that are not (burning water, smoke statues, crossbows that scream, castles with no weight). This distinction is key to understanding what is possible with Creo alone (by virtue of its connection with the realm of forms) and with needing Muto (by virtue of the realm of forms alone being inadequate to 'describe' an object).
With regard to your castor oil example the question for my is 'is there a castor oil in the realm of forms that could have these properties - does it contain a 'perfect' example of such a thing? IMO, no, unless you could demonstrate the 'natural' manufacture of such a thing. So for example, you could create a dog with dyed purple hair, but you couldn't create a 'naturally' purple haired dog.
This is just a water example of the statue mentioned above, with aquam instead of terram.
I see what you are saying. It just seems unlikely to me that the spell guidelines should use the same word for two different meanings, particularly within the same Form. It would have been very poor writing, in my opinion.
If everything were always clear, there wouldn't be so much forum traffic. It really is as simple as a categorical misunderstanding when using the term 'natural'. "Unnatural" is a correct description of both a crossbow and a castle made of lamb-tasting strawberries, but they are unnatural in different ways. The best way I think to make the distinction is to ask yourself this - is it something that could exist without the intervention of magic or miracles. If it can it's 'natural' in the sense that it is encompassed in the realm of forms (the realm which encompasses the 'definition' of mundane reality). If it couldn't exist but for magic or a miracle, probably needs Muto.
The writing isn't so bad - you just need to pay careful attention to the guidelines for Creo and Muto in general. The terram 'unnatural' confusion comes because CrTe is often used to create manufactured items, which by one sense of the word are also 'unnatural'. You can actually picture how it may have gone down in playtesting/editing.
P1: "Creo Terram is used to create earth and many other solids."
P2: "What about unnatural solids like castles?"
P1: "Same thing but add a magnitude."
The use of the term is entirely innocent I think. It certainly would have benefited from a distinction between 'natural - can be found in nature' and 'natural - can be found in mundane reality'.
I'm still quite convinced - by Occam's Razor - that the same word means the same thing; and that if Muto were indeed necessary to create non mundane stuff, it would be a limit spelled out explicitly (as other limits are) instead of being just left to deduction. I wonder if we could ask David Chart for a clarification though.
Actually, I think that those references to unnatural properties in the CrTe and CrAq guidelines count as errors in the rules, since they contradict the Creo description. You'll notice that no canon spell actually uses them.
Actually, the larger vocabulary makes it easier to provide exact meaning without relying on context.
However, the point is: when you are trying to communicate clearly, particularly to communicate "technically" rather than "poetically", it's really important that the same sign should mantain the same meaning, otherwise communication gets obviously obscured. Because of this, it's generally safe to assume that the other party will follow this rule, unless there are obvious incentives for him to do otherwise.
Absolutely. Strawberries do not taste naturally of salmon (thank the gods!). With Muto you can make them taste of salmon (for whatever cruel reason). However, nothing says that you can't create the Salberry, a berry that is in all ways identical to the strawberry, except that its taste is like that of salmon. Its essential nature includes the salmon taste, so only sustained magic will make it taste as a strawberry.
It seems to me that this passage actually supports what I am saying, that you can create "composites" with Creo, at the cost of some extra difficulty.
There are two issues here. First, I think you are quoting this second part out of context - it comes from the passage where it says that Creo can "enhance" things by making them more ideal. So you can make strawberries sweeter and/or redder with Creo, because it's in their essential nature to be sweet and red. You can't make strawberries taste of salmon. But nothing says you cannot create Salberries, berries whose essential nature is to taste of salmon but are in all other respects identical to strawberries. Once you've got a Salberry, you could not make it sweeter with Creo, because it's not a strawberry, though you could make it redder and/or increase the salmon taste.
But nothing says you cannot create Strawmon , fish whose essential nature is to taste of strawberries but are in all other respects identical to salmon.
Indeed! I'm trying to figure out which would be more disgusting.
Actually, this thing of the strawberries has some kernel of truth. I was told by a geneticist of an attempt to create cold-resistant strawberries that could be grown in cold climates without the need of greenhouses. Apparently they tried some gene-splicing with some salmon genes. I'm not sure how it went
There are multiple games that include complicated rules to deal with this kind of argument. Something like "anything not specifically allowed is not allowed", or "no other weapon may be fired at a plasma torpedo, including another plasma torpedo". Rule-lawyers are the bane of these games because they make everything needlessly complex.
When you try to rule-lawyer to allow something not clearly spelled out, you must prove it is allowed by finding an example to support your POV. This is why reading the guidelines isn't enough, you have to read the spells too and understand what the guidelines meant. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from asking your troupe to HS in your favor.
When you claim that ReAq1 "extremely gentle way" can be applied, but the matching Push of the Gentle Wave uses ReAq4, you have to demonstrate why your effect is closer to Cloak of the Duck's Feathers.
I'm all for minimizing complexity. One meaning for one word is simpler than two meanings. From my point of view, "rule-lawyer" is who says: "Ah, but see, there are nuances to the language, apple here means the fruit, there it's a metaphor for Adam's sin and it really means ambition".
I disagree. There are several examples in the core book of guidelines that do not have a matching example. This is quite natural: there are more guidelines than examples, even if you disregard that sometimes the same guideline is used with different parameters in two different examples. Were your point of view correct, then many guidelines should simply be simply erased.
I dread the storyguide who says: "Look, there are no examples of Rego Imaginem using three senses in the book, and hey, I mean any three senses, not just sight, sound and smell, so your "Grapes just outside reach" are clearly the product of despicable rule-lawyering! You obviously need a Creo or Muto requisite for that - see, there are Creo and Muto Imaginem spells utilizing three senses. No, I do not care about what the guidelines say, you have to read the spells too and understand in that context what the guidelines meant. Go somewhere else if you want to House Rule in favour of this munchkinism!".
Well, I was emailed, but I'll answer here as well.
The intent was for "unnatural" to have the same meaning in all guidelines. You can Creo flammable water. However, since it isn't natural, you can't use vis to make it endure; it's only sustained by the magic, like Muto. There is no form for it; that's what makes it unnatural. It wasn't written as requiring a Muto requisite because you aren't changing anything; you are bringing something into existence with those properties. Looking at it now, the magnitude boost is probably too small, however.
I don't think this got heavily playtested, because looking at the rules shows that they aren't as clear as they should be. That probably indicates that I and all the playtesters thought that the meaning was perfectly clear, without actually agreeing on what that meaning was. But since no-one saw a problem, no-one raised it for discussion.
If I read this correctly then, you can create a man strong enough to lift a castle (stealing an example from the Creo guidelines), but you couldn't 'enhance' an existing man to the same strength. Does that sound right?
Actually, thinking about this, there are some severe play balance issues I think this creates. If the idea here is that you can create instances of things that can't exist naturally, what's to stop creating the most game broken, individual sized, hypothetical ultimately loyal and effective killing-machine animal or person? I mean, if all I have to do is conceive it, then everyone's in trouble because I can conceive of quite a lot. Even if you want to double the magnitude bump to two it's too cheap. Also realize that I don't even need to very well define what I'm conceiving - just like I don't have to know anything about woodworking to create a manufactured wood product. I just need to hypothetically conceive of something with the properties I want (size +0 (why add magnitudes) Str +10 Attack +30 Dam +200 - I can conceive it) and reach into the realm of forms and get it.
Well, you can't create a man through Hermetic Magic, whether strong or weak (Limit of the Soul).
You could enhance an existing man to sufficient strength to lift a castle, with Muto Corpus (e.g. turn him into a giant).
You cannot enhance him with plain Creo Corpus to such level of strength.
