Damnations, I just realized I probably made a mistake in calculating the Aegis totals. I forgot that Wizard’s Vigil is at duration Sun, whereas the Communion in Core is at Momentary. This means that you have to deduct two magnitudes when calculating the effective level of the spell. That leaves us with a measly 15 effective levels for a level 25 Vigil. Since the summed-up levels of the Vigils need to equal twice the level of the spell being cast (50), we would need 7 magi casting Vigil (15 times 7=105) to cast the Aegis. That would leave at least four botch dice even after deducting three for Lares’ Careful Sorcerer. My assumption had been that we could do this with 4 magi (25 times 4=100), which would have meant 1 die.
Can you verify that I got this right, @silveroak ? It’s rather complicated, so I might still have something wrong.
If this is indeed how it is, then we will have to go with the level 30 Aegis. That means 4 magi casting vigil, and Lares can learn the Aegis without helpers. 30/4=7,5 , which means that there should be sufficient penetration.
Okeannetis has no ReVi, so even with three seasons, she might not be able to learn Wizard's Vigil. And that's assuming others don't need to learn from the Rego and Vim books we have.
Perhaps the one with highest total could create a Casting Tablet? Then everyone doesnt need to invent their own and people with low MuVi can still aid.
Another problem is that the magnitude of the Aegis determines how many magi can participate in it. So with a 30 level only 6 may partake. But that fine with the botch die i suppose
[edit: we realized this is incorrect - the number of participants is determined by the level of the spell being cast, not the Vigil]
Crap, that's an excellent point. So for an effective level of 15, we only get 3 participants, which isn't even enough for the level 30 Aegis! The requirement of the Sun duration really nerfs the Communion pretty badly.
This Aegis problem is going to be a lot hairier than I thought, unless we find a higher level Vigil amongst one of our lab texts.
Lares' casting total for the Aegis is only 32 given aura 5 (lower than I thought), so without the vigil, the Aegis would be quite useless without penetration. Basically we have to get a higher-level Vigil and get min 4 magi to learn it, which is hard by itself.
This raises the question, though: what the heck were are forebears doing with just this crappy-ass Vigil in their library They could not have cast their own Aegis, even!
I think a casting Tablet is a no go after some thinking. It would take too much time to produce.
1 season of invention. 1 of practice. 1 of creating the tablet. Then 1 for aegis invention. By that point we missed the window
Next problem is:
From my rough estimate only Lares and Aetherius can invent the spell. But with little a studying before Argentius and Okeannetis could possibly do it as well.
Also we need multiple versions of the lab text but that should be easy enough...
Yeah, I hope the young scribes are able to copy it. Then we could study simultaneously.
We need at least two seasons in any case, because Lares needs to learn the Aegis and the Vigil. Others can use the first season to study to get up to snuff in the second season. I haven't looked at the character sheets with an eye on this problem, though.
We have two Vim summae plus tractati that can bring someone from 0 up to 4 or 5 in a season. That should be enough (assuming aura 8) for Okeannetis, Argentius, Plasmatoris, Zarkut, and Aetherius to learn the Vigil. The players may want to verify this - it's just a quick estimate.
Okeannetis can read the Vim Summae Q16, to get 5 in Vim, in one season, and she will then have Lab total of 25 in MuVi, so would be able to learn and cast Wizard's Vigil.
@Bartomeus the 6 effects are on the three rings, and are triggered by key phrases which may be whispered. The translation and interrogation effects are on a plain gold band worn on your index finger, a silver pinkie ring with an amythest holds the two efects regarding auras and regios, and the two effects regarding inanimate objects are on another gold band which goes on your middle finger.
They could not have cast their own Aegis, even!