PeCo base 40 : destroy a property of human: weight -> fly?

Hi everybody,

I was wondering: how do the birds fly in the medieval paradigm?

And after having thought about that, I was wondering: "and if with a Perdo Corpus, a Magus suppressed his weight. Could it walk in the air as on the ground?"

And here I'm, asking to fellows experts :slight_smile:.

Thanks for your thoughts about this topic!

I guess that you should have a Pe(Re)Co, and I you said, it would be base 40
+01 requisite rego so that you just don't float but can direct your flight
+01 concentration
it would be Pe(Re)Co50

if you want to do it in sun or at will, it should be a magic device, otherwise, you need a ritual
base 40
+01 requisite rego
+01 conc
+5 concentration by object
+10 as often as you want
+3 trigger to stop concentration
Pe(Re)Co68

I think not having weight would not equal flight, but rather work like it did in The Light Princess, by George MacDonald.

If you are not familiar with that work, you can read it here

http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/George_MacDonald/The_Light_Princess/

Perdo would be wrong for this because it is destroy. At the end of concentrating your weight would not come back. Muto would be better.

That's not the case for Perdo Terram, so it's not the case for Corpus. Those spell needs a duration.

But to have any control over your movement rather than floating away in the breeze you need a Re requisite and the level is higher than it would be for a pure ReCo flight spell so I'm not seeing the point.

A weightless human moves away from the perfect human form, so it is perfectly doable with Perdo.

Xavi

Actually, Perdo destroys permanently. Perdo with a duration greater than momentary keeps the destruction ongoing - preventing any "reconstruction", until the end of the duration. So a Perdo Terram spell that digs a hole in the ground always leaves a non-magical hole in the ground at the end of its duration.

But if you destroy a single quality of something that by it's essential nature cannot naturally be without that quality, e.g. a solid body and its weight, then that quality naturally regenerates and so comes back as soon as the Pe effect is not constantly destroying it. Just as it is a quality of visible things to have an image that generates species when struck by light and so as soon as the PeIm effect ends so does the invisibility.

That is correct, not all perdo is permanent. A wound that weeps spell creates a light wound but the wound will heal eventually. Destroy weight and when spell ends, weight comes back. This is the basis for the spell guideline in HoH:S

5: Destroy one aspect of Dirt, such as its weight or its cohesiveness.

and the spell

Hauberk of Supreme Lightness (HoH:S, p38) which removes the weight for sun duration

That's true (see corebook p.78).

Hmm, that's not quite right. Perdo imaginem permanently destroys the images generated by an object, it does not destroy a property of the object itself. It's just that the object keeps generating images, so as soon as the spell wears off, the object can be perceived again (see corebook p.146).

Its specifically listed as a Base Guideline as well.

Indeed. Personally i think this is another case of Perdo interfering with essential nature, so i would have weight come back at the end of the spell. Ie. if you shatter a piece of glass, it remains shattered, but if you destroy the solidity of the glass, you´re doing something abnormal, and the effect will be gone when its no longer upheld by active magic. This also makes things like Perdo Mentem spells slightly less overpowering.

But how do you make that coexist with the hauberk of sublime lightness spell in HOHS flambeau section? it has a sun duration because it only last to sun. besides, here you destroy one aspect of dirt, not the dirt substance.

It's the same as PeMe spells which have a duration, because after the end of the duration, the mind can by itself recover...

AM5 p.78 :

"destroying properties that a thing cannot naturally lose falls under the Limit of Essential Nature and thus cannot be permanent, the properties return by themselves at the end of the spell's duration."

So your weight would definitely return by itself at the end of the duration.

Lots of people play that as "no it cant, ever, no matter what". I dont like that version as it gives, for example PeMe waaay too much power.

Thanks Halancar for the precious quote about rules. I knew it existed, I was just unsure where :slight_smile:.

Now that the "it's a killing idea" debate is done, what about the effect itself? :smiley: I was thinking that if you have no weight, air can support you and you can walk in 3d, thus, fly.

No guidelines handy, but I would allow it. With a second (low base) rego spell you can direct yourself to move in whatever direction you want for Sun duration. Now, since you have no weight, something hitting you will send you tumbling a few hundred paces unless you have a ReCo spell in effect. Being weightless and being in control of your movements are not the same thing :slight_smile:

But yes, it is another way of skinning the paradigmatic cat of fast transportation.

Cheers,
Xavi

Beware, you certainly wont be walking(or swimming) anywhere. But you WILL float up and up and up and... until you reach the edge of the atmosphere, because weightless but still with mass in any environment except vacuum means you will be floating like a very effective balloon.
You NEED something constantly pushing you down just to stay in one place. So, definitely need a Rego component or additional Rego spell to get where you WANT and not go playing Sputnik.

I am sorry, but air has no weight. The only way to be pushed upward is to be made of lunar material and therefore naturally gravitate toward the Lunar Sphere. I know you like to apply modern physics to Ars, but I'd rather be living in the past.

This is not a matter of modern physics or not. It doesnt matter wether air has weight or not in THIS case.