new spell(touch of insanity)

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

effect of touch of insanity-you cause people to act & think crazy notions(decided by the caster)
prequisite-regomentum(corpus)
range-touch
duration-sun
target-ind
tell me what you think of this spell,please.

2

bummmmmmmmmp

3

It's an interesting spell that could be used to manipulate someone's long term train of thought. Delusions can be powerful things and the memories of the effected thought process will naturally out live the duration of the spell. Anyone's who's worked with the mentally ill can tell you that memories of mental delusions will stay with them even when they're healthy and no longer suffering. For example someone who had the delusion a room was crawling with spiders while sick, may understand it was just a trick of the mind, but that doesn't make the memory less real, nor will they be that likly to want to hang out in that room even when they are healthy.

This means that casting this spell every now and again on someone, can slowly sow the seeds, of a real delusion in their mind. Yep, it's an interesting spell.

4

thanks!

5

what sort of items or story ideas could be made from this spell?

6

Well.... one of the things that can be fun with something like this is a Magus can start a train of thought in someone's head, but that doesn't mean he/she has control over the way such planted ideas/delusions manifests themselves in the target's actions.

So for example a story idea: Let us say there is an NPC Magus in the covanent named Abe and he doesn't really like the local lord who's also named Abe. Well the head of the covenant is buddies with Lord Abe, so Magus Abe needs to express his hostilities on Lord Abe in a subtle manner. He creates this spell, and starts giving Lord Abe delusions that Lady Abe is stepping out.

Well at first the spell has the desired effect. Lord Abe's marital bliss is ruined. There's fights & screaming, and slamming of doors. However Lord Abe begins to realize everytime his intuition (ie...dulisions) take hold, it's when members of the covenant have been about. So he makes an assumption, his honey's gettin hot & heavy with one of the Magi. So does he start making life more difficult with the covenant when they've biz in town? Does he confront his pal the head of the covenant? Or will life just get bothersome for any who have to deal with him?

Reguardless, the head of the covenant sends a few (player) Magi out to figure out what's going on, and fix the issue. Do the players find out Magus Abe's messing with Lord Abe? Do they just try to smooth over the problem with a few spells of their own? Is the twist that Lady Abe actually is doing the wild thing with one of the players? Does Magus Abe let the players help Lord Abe regain marital bliss or does he want the lord to continue to suffer? Or is there a harmless giftless old hag that everyone blames for bewitching Lady Abe, thus venting the issue on her?

In the mean time Magus Abe has been so pleased with the results of his spell on Lord Abe, he's begun all sorts of mental experiments on the local population to amuse himself.

How's that?