Has there ever been a description of what Opening the Arts actually looks like?
I know it takes a season for both master and apprentice but what actually happens. How would you describe it.
I am looking for flavor text rather than game mechanics.
I am looking for a way to use flavor text to inspire story ideas.
I think the new "apprentices" covers it but I don't have a copy yet.
Apprentices covers the mechanics of Opening the Arts, which is what is necessary to Opening the Arts, preserve Supernatural Virtues, transform them to Hermetic virtues, etc. Beyond that, it's mum.
The only one I went into any depth on was an older magus with the Magister in Artibus virtue taken before gauntlet. He was 22 years old and discovered just after compulsory service. I vaguely recall writing his backstory up as being a painful experience with fevers and headaches, although beyond that I didn't get into detail.
In some ways, I'd like to see a Hermetic flaw get inflicted at Opening, it seems appropriate to the process that Opening the Arts should "scar" the individual in some way. Other characters I've developed might have hard their Arts opened ineptly creating a deficiency that shouldn't have been, since the master would have had an Art score of 5[1]. It adds some flavor and it makes apprentices different than their masters, which I'm still having trouble with from the Apprentices sourcebook, it almost requires a rigid line of common virtues and flaws be passed from master to student.
[1] Previously, I'd assumed needing a score of 10 in an Art if the master possessed a deficiency to not pass that on when opening the Arts.
I have the Apprentices Book and while it has a lot a great info on the game mechanics of Opening the Arts there is no flavour text.
In my next campaign I am going to have playrs create thier characters using the Extremly detailed method. I want them to write a sentence or two for each season describing what happens.
I would like to give them a suggest as to what might be happening during Opening season.
There is very little info in any of the books. We know it takes and entire season for both the Mage and apprentice. We know it requires Level 5 in every Art or you gain flaws. This indicates to me that something dramatic is happening.
Should we be taking our clues from the Longlevity Ritual? Could Opening the Arts be researching a bath of strange potions? Is it a series of 15 Rituals cast by the light of the full Moon (or some other astrological thingy). I suppose for some of the Mystery Houses it could be season long Vision Quest.
Is there a flare of Acrane light whenever a defficiant Form is created. I do like the idea of tying in any other Hermatic Flaws into the Opening of the Arts, even if it is just symbolic.
As I type this I am becoming convinced that the Opening of the Arts should be very simular (thematically) to what ever the player decides will be the form (theme) of his Longlevity Ritual.
Any ones thoughts?
I do not concur that it should be similar, a longevity potion is all about sustaining what links the magus to the mundane world, opening the arts is about that which seperates magi from the mundanes.
This could include burning incense and feeding the apprentice mind altering substances while the magis keeps casting minor spells of all forms on the apprentice, sensory deprivation followed by a short display of each art and form combination, laying Vis of each type on the apprentice for a day, while reading out loud parts of introductory summae, scribing runes associated with the arts into the apprentices' flesh with associated materials, or anything you might come up with that fits your magus.
You make a good point.
I thought that as Opening the Arts and Longlevity Ritual are the two major rituals a Mage goes through in his career it might be good to link them thematically.
I am looking for away for players to be able to express their ideas of what their characters magic is all about and I thought the write up of the various longevity rituals in the main rules book had lots of good ideas.
I think that opening the arts in an apprentice is probably a personal thing for each magus and apprentice, based on the magus' house, magic specialty, and the personality of both master and student.
So how about this:
Iocasta ex Criamon is a mature maga, with a quick sense of humor, who enjoys the ironic twists life often brings. Her specialty is Mentem magic. When opening the Arts for Noam benAbram, her last apprentice, who started training at age 8, she began, as she had with a previous apprentice, by clearing the floor of her lab, and painting a labyrinth on the floor. Noam stood in the middle while the painting occured. When she finished, Iocasta walked the path to the middle, then walked back out with Noam. Every day for the first moon cycle of the season, they would walk to the center, where Iocasta would tell Noam stories of the Criamon and the Enigma, while painting illustrations of the stories on his body. Noam would sleep in the middle of the labyrinth, then walk the path out in the morning. Iocasta had him tell her the dreams he had at night, then have him bathe in herb-scented water, washing away the paint from the previous day. During the day, Noam would repeat back as many of the stories he could remember from those Iocasta told him in the evenings. During the second moon cycle, Noam walked the labyrinth repeatedly by himself in the evenings, and continued to tell of his dreams, and retell the stories. Early in this month, Iocasta confirmed a pattern to Noam's dreams: the images he told her about seemed to feature things around Noam decaying or falling apart. She began giving him occasional items to take with him through the labyrinth, to do with as he pleased. One night, it was a plant, which Noam first picked clean of its leaves on his first walk through the path; he then peeled the stem away bit by bit on his second pass, and plucked the roots apart on his third and final pass before falling asleep, exhausted in the middle of the labrynth. Another night, he scratched a small stone on the ground as we walked, slowly wearing it away to dust before falling asleep. Each item that Iocasta gave to Noam, he completely destroyed during his walk, including the last item, a live rat which Noam stripped to bones and crushed the bones into the path on his last pass through the maze. Intrigued by the fact that Noam had no memory of the destruction he wrought after waking in the mornings, Iocasta changed tactics during the third moon cycle. She stopped giving him items, and again began painting his body in the evenings, but this time with traditional Criamon symbols before he started his walk. She would then monitor his thoughts and dreams while he walked and slept. Noam continued to tell Iocasta his dreams in the mornings, and she enjoyed puzzling out the differences between what she saw of them and what he was able to relate. During this month, the labyrinth began wearing away under Noam's feet (even more so that with the previous apprentice) but he continued to walk the path exactly, although more and more slowly, and apparently with more and more exertion, falling asleep exhausted by the time he reached the center. He seemed to dream less and less as the month wore on and the path wore away. On the last night of the season, the last vestiges of the path disappeared beneath Noam's feet, and he dreamt not at all, but awoke in the morning, and ran to Iocasta straight across the floor where the path previously wound, to tell her about the brilliant light he saw throughout the night.
It takes a whole season. Three months of the year so it's not a simple process. I woud imagine, like the Longevity Ritual, it has to be designed to the person. It is, after all, a 'long-lasting' magical effect: it shouldn't cause Warping so it has to be perfect. What is more it will change the subject's Gift irrevocably, Further, I would wager, it will teach the apprentice the ritual which they will eventually use on their own pupils.
So a large part of the season will be spent doing calculations, taking measurements of the subject's Gift, assessing any possible quirks or talents that may emerge in the process. I would think that the result of all this work would be a schedule of which order to open the Arts in and at what times.
Once the rituals start, I imagine that they would involve some sort of 'copying' of the channels in the Master's Gift onto the pupil. Summoning the energies that make up the essential of the Art and then letting them flow through the apprentice while the Master creates paths for the formed magic to flow through, paths in both body and mind. He might summon his own sources of magic first and let the apprentice manipulate the powers he has called up to familiarise the youngster with the sensations. Once done, the raw Magic that Gift provides flows in the new channels and can no-longer run wild.
I imagine the Master would forbid the pupil to use any of the new magic until they are ready. It might even be necessary to suppress the apprentice's Gift until the re-shaping of it is completed.
Any flaws or benefits that are inherent in the apprentice would emerge as his new-made Gift is tested towards the end of the month. Any flaws or benefits that are innate to the House (other than the purely social ones and those that are learned by teaching) would be transferred now: each House would have a slight variant of the ritual. It's an interesting question as to whether the Gift of the teacher affects what can be taught the pupil. On the whole I imagine not.
I would imagine that the Lab Text produced by all this would be a very valuable thing for the apprentice's enemies lay their hands on. It might be kept by the Master (the Tremeres would probably do this), handed to the apprentices with admonitions to keep it safe or (more prudently) destroyed.
I'd run it a little differently and less mechanically, personally. Here's what I wrote in the "Apprentices: In my hands" topic:
BTW I like the Criamon one quite a lot!
I think all the examples are great. I love the Criamon concept
I think I take back what I said: the idea that the Master takes the apprentice into the Magic Realm to show him the Arts in iconic form is just too neat not to be used. You'd still need the calculations and all but the bit about opening up the magic and letting it flow through the apprentice can happen On The Other Side.
A couple more stories ...
Mercutio, an old and very traditional Tytalus magus with the virtue Magic Sensitivity, trained his apprentice using a technique to desensitize the boy, feeling the virtue was more of a handicap. He spent a season teaching Magic Theory to young William, then started assigning him some mundane lab assistant duties, like grinding owl pellets to dust, sweeping out the hearth, stirring a bubbling beaker for hours at a time. Rather than carry out his own lab activities, however, Mercutio would observe William, and periodically cast low level CrVi spells on him, not enough to cause warping, but enough to see if the boy reacted. After a couple weeks, with no apparent reaction from William, other than complaining about the drudgery, which earned him additional punishments, Mercutio raised the level of the spells, but still kept them low enough to avoid warping. Other than the occasional sneeze from William, which excited Mercutio at first, William showed no other reaction to the spells. Mercutio was tempted to raise the level even more, but did worry about causing warping, and as he had spent quite a bit of time searching for William, decided not to risk the young man that way. Instead, he started giving the boy nightly draughts of watered honey that had the CrVi spell cast on it. William started to comment on how bright everything looked, and how brilliant the sounds and smells of the covenant were. Excited by this turn of events, Mercutio raised the level of the CrVi spells on the drink, but William displayed no further progress. With the season almost over, and no sign of the Arts opening in William, Mercutio stopped the nightly draughts, and was devising a new method, when William fell into a deep and raving fever. Mercutio nursed him, roughly, for several days until the fever broke, and William awoke with his Arts and eyes open. As he progressed in his studies, it became clear the William had developed not only a sensitivity to magic, but also appeared to have a magical addiction.
Sylvia ex Merinita, a young maga with her first apprentice, decided to take the girl, Agatha, on long walks through a nearby wood with a low faerie aura. The faeries in the wood recognized Sylvia and had for several years enjoyed her company, so they left the pair alone, for the most part, at first. Sylvia would tell Agatha stories during their walks, and the faeries would follow along, enjoying the stories. As the walks continued, the faeries became more bold, and started taking on the images of the characters from the stories, acting out scenes to the delight of Sylvia, and awe from Agatha. As the faeries grew ever bolder, and started rearranging the landscape to match the stories, Sylvia instructed Agatha to hold tight to her hand, no matter what happened. Sylvia began increasing the tension levels of the stories she told, and the faeries correspondingly increased the sense of danger in the wood. Agatha held ever more tightly to her mistress’ hand, and often emerged from the wood at the end of the stories with tears streaking down her face. After one particularly hair-raising walk in which the dead seemed to rise from the earth and chase the pair, Agatha collapsed into unconsciousness upon leaving the wood. Sylvia instructed Agatha the next day that the girl must now tell the stories. Agatha tried, but her words did not evoke any reaction from the faeries, who merely followed behind again, sighing with the wind. For many days, Agatha tried to tell a story to enliven the faeries, practicing over and over at night in her bed, only to have the wood remain dull and lifeless as she relayed the words she had so carefully rehearsed. Sylvia encouraged her to keep trying, and continued to walk with her in the wood daily. Agatha would often leave the wood crying again, not from fear or excitement but from frustration at not being able to evoke a reaction from the faeries. One day, she was quiet and spoke not a word as she walked with Sylvia, and remained so for several days. At night, she practiced and refined a brilliant story about a knight rescuing a princess from the lair of a dragon. Sylvia listened to the girl rehearsing, repeating sections over and over while she lay awake night after night, looking more wan and still silent during the days. Finally, Agatha thought she was ready to present her story to the faeries, and began the tale the moment they entered the wood. The words flowed from her pale lips, their cadence perfect, the phrasing beautiful, and Agatha’s dark ringed eyes shown with the fervor of her performance. But the faeries remained quiet. As Agatha reached the climax of the story in which the knight would slay the dragon and rescue the princess from a fiery death, tears streamed down her face, her entire body shaking with the realization that she had failed, finally, to rouse the faeries. Just as the knight was to strike the fatal blow, Agatha blurted out, “but the dragon twisted his neck at the last minute, avoiding Sir Wellborn’s sword, and biting his head off!” The woods were immediately silent. Agatha continued, breathless and unaware of the world around her, “His royal blood splattered on the princess who cried out, hopeless, her sleepless nights spent praying for this day ending in a bloody torrent from the knight’s lifeless body.” The woods grew dark, and the ground gave way to a bloody mire, and Agatha continued, unaware of the changes her words brought. The princess tore her clothes and hair in agony, and now it was Sylvia’s turn to hold tight to her apprentice’s hand, as the young girl’s clothes were ripped away and her hair appeared to loose itself from her head. A dragon appeared from the ground and engulfed the girl in flames and ate her, as she described the same terrible death of the princess. Sylvia was not sure she could still feel the girl’s hand, but she could heard her voice continuing, telling of how the princess’s tears of love and sorrow were too much for the dragon, burning it from the inside out until nothing was left but a clear pool of water in the middle of the lair. The images cleared from the woods, revealing Agatha lying curled up in a small pool of clear water. She opened her eyes, and Sylvia could see that her Arts were opened as well.
Wow
Good stuff!
QFT!!! Great stuff there! Only detail is that I was waiting to see what the V&F of Agatha would be and was left in the dark here! 
These are certainly the most inspiring opening of the arts I have read.
Xavi
Back in 4th ed my Troupe had some House Rules illustrating our interpretation of this, very similar to what you're saying. Mind you, back then there were both Minor and Major Deficiences, a Minor halved said Art when using it for a Total, Major halved the entire Total.
So we rules thet you needed a score of 5 to avoid giving the apprentice a new (Minor) Deficiency, something the master did not have. A score of 10 was needed to avoid passing on a Minor Deficiency the master had. A score of 15 was needed to reduce a Major Deficiency the master had to only result in a Minor for the apprentice. A score of 20 was needed to completely root out a Major Deficiency the master had, so his apprentice suffered no ill efects.