One day, if Gregorius ever gets a talisman (relatively unlikely given his flaws), I can see him imbuing it with the set of the following enchantments:
Cr(In)Me(Vi)
This enchantment triggers whenever the supernatural aura changes, and forms words in its master's mind with the (new) level of the [Realm] supernatural aura.
(Base 3 (+ 1 complexity?) = 3/4, +3 lvls environmental trigger, + X levels usage.)
It's the only example of the canoncial "change in aura" environmental trigger I can remember seeing - it's almost always sunrise/sunset. It's also sufficiently low level that Gregorius would probably be able to enchant it even given his Weak Enchanter flaw. Whether it's worth the time is a different question, although for a scout it might be.
Wouldn't that need multiple versions to detect the various kinds of aura? I still think it earns greater Cool Points if the talisman somehow changes to reflect the current aura, as with the CrIg/InVi lamps that Patrick's made. Though a MuTe shift in a gemstone color would be good too. Hrm....or even a ReAq movement within a glass vial.....
Still, the notion of using the InVi as a trigger in an enchantment seems like the way to go.
The current build is based on the idea that you'd have four essentially identical enchantments, one for each realm.The talisman changing requires you to notice it doing so, although avoids the annoyance of having the voice in your mind when you know full well you're crossing aura boundaries (I'm umming and erring whether unlimited uses is actually desirable for pretty much that reason - at least if you put in a finite number you can exhaust them if you want to. Also, when you don't want to.
So...I could pretty easily go hog wild throwing Vis sources into every new location which I bSG for. I can think of three or four right now for the necropolis. We should probably put some kind of limit on how many I'm allowed to introduce, or give me some guidelines for when it is appropriate.
Allowing the SG to maintain the element of surprise should he so desire, and also allowing the magi's thoughts to be free from interference. Plus, I like the relative analog scale better for knowing aura strengths. The numbers are a mechanical necessity, but I prefer to think of it all as approximations.
I really don't want Patrick to go after the herd established for the Temple regio. That's part of Viola's storyline, and I'm the one who came up with their backstory. But I can certainly go looking into all the others, and maybe just say that Patrick doesn't run into that particular herd?
I suspect those horses may have multiple backstories by now (they had a backstory written by Arya when I gm-ed the horse-hunt). That said, given that neither have yet come up in play, it's probably not a problem, and the previous backstory can be quietly dropped.
Admittedly, Gregorius is probably far more ready with it than a magus who's suffered a serious botch or twilight would be, but, still. He'll learn. And in the meantime, it's fun. And surprising the range of stuff you can do with pretty low Arts scores.
I had forgotten that you don't even need to roll a stress die for /5 sponts. I've been having a lot of fun figuring out those spells, and the Net Grimoire's Big List of Lvl 3 Spells makes much more sense to me now.
I'll be heading on another road trip, and will be semi-afk until Feb 20th. If you happen to be attending Capricon (Feb 10th weekend, Chicago, IL) or Wicked Faire (Feb 17th weekend, Somerset, NJ) you should come find me!
Star Trek: TNG episode. The Enterprise encounters a race whose language is completely devoid of adjectives or verbs. The language is entirely historic references. "Agath and Jinub, at Tanagra! Garthon, on the sea!"
It was a rather heavy handed moral play about how in order to understand a people, you have to understand their history.