I am curently in the beginings of building a new saga and have recuited a player that tends to like ceribral games and moral puzzles. So I came up with a interesting vis source with him in mind. It is a tempal of Hephstis that is you meditate on an item on the alter during the equinox you esentaily enter the items "spirit" and solve puzzles or moral delemas pertaining to the object in question. If you find an adiquat solution the item becomes more perfect and gains creo vis, if you fail the item is destroyed and becomes predo vis. I worked in a tradeoff that if you take the creo out it returns to it's less perfact state.
Now my question, what would a perfect item be? Now asumeing we go with the HoH:TL a perfect human has +5 in all stats. Can we assume that if you add +5 to all a swords statistics it is perfect? a piece of armor? a leg of lamb? I'm trying to aviod the idea of a +5 sword here and still statisticly find a way of determining when an item has reached it's peak. I know most of this is story teller disresion but I would like opinions on what constituts perfect. A.I. Food is more filling and nutishing, swords are sharper, lighter and better balenced ect.
Actually, I'd just go off and say use the Verditius Quality Items rule. It'd be somewhat overpowered if the item in question was a sword (as that gives +5 to harm humans) and armor (giving +7 to protect wearer) but it'd be thematically fitting.
If you don't have the mystery cults book, what you do is to just pick a material or shape bonus and add that to any roll pertaining to the bonus in question. So a Perfect Sword would do the swords damage +5 vs humans.
Maybe as an alternative approach to perfection in terms of magic in generel and Creo in particular, could be to focus on the perfection of the idea rather then the function of the sword...
Since I reckon that the foremost importance is the availability of a creo vis source rather than the crunching of specific numbers and bonusses, this might also relieve you of deciding upon power caps etc.
Many see the art of Creo as drawing upon the classical philosophical concept of the realm of ideas - thus creating perfect unmarred objects. Though a functionalistic approach would want perfection to be regarding function, this isn't neccesarily the only way to go. Thus sword doesn't need to have a long range of functional bonussses - but rather be the perfection of the "idea" of the concept of swords... How to interpret this is an open range. One idea would be to make the sword a perfect specimen for gaining knowledge on forging (remember that many craftsmen would strife to make perfect specimens of their craft - to test their skills and to show the world their ability, e.g. making swords they would never dream of using, but for "demonstrating") - making it a travel destination for ambitious smiths. Or it might be possible to expand you skill with a blade considerably simply from studying or training with this sword. Heck - in the same line of thought it might even be of such perfection that the idea itself could spur philosophers themselves helping them to perfect their scholastic insight into the world. Or what of making it of use to those who study Creo itself...? Most obvious for the magi with Study Bonus. Or you could even give this perfect sample of the Idea of sword non-game mechanic traits inspired by philosopher's thoughts or made-up arguments on the principal attribute of the sword - perhaps like justice, nobility, keen (like solving the gordian knot) etc....
That's just my thoughts - I'd prefer to dodge the "+5 swords" in favor of a richer flavor and greater possibility for interesting spin-off stories.
An intriguing idea, my good dane... I'll give some numbers to the thought though; In Covenants (btw, what's the abreviation for that book?) in the Library chapter, there is a paragraph about Phenomena. That is; items or events that function as a book. Sort of. You could let these items work in such a way, either as a (still using the sword as an example) study object for Craft Weaponsmithing, or for Single Weapon or maybe for Creo itself. Or Perdo as a sword is rather destructive. Or even leadership.
This source is quite exciting I must say, especially if one could study the item and then afterwards harvest the vis. Buuut that'd be somewhat overpowered. Perhaps. Depends entirely upon ones campaign.
I just read the section in Covenants yesterday night - after seeing your post (it seems that I really soon should get into reading that book!) - and you're right; my idea seems interestingly in line with the thoughts there. Btw I don't know about the abreviation for Covenants - I can't recall seeing anyone abreviating it, which isn't odd because the title is so short compared to most other books - but maybe it could be called COV? Or more appropriately COW ( ) recalling that the book is very much about micromanaging a medieval settlement and that soo many useful things can be made from having cows....
It really depends on what stories you wanna tell - I think there plenty of great stories in Werebore's ideas on spiritual puzzles and moral dillemas. The ambition of my ideas was to expand on that and think in line of more spin-off stories. Concerning powerlevel you could easily find solutions to it, if it would unbalance your saga. For example you could say that these objects as a crystalisation of the realm of Ideas, and actually conjured as magic vis, might gradually degrade in the real world losing their inspiring Ideal character - in plain english: studying it evaporates the vis (which is a dilemma of many vis sources I guess) - using the vis destroys the object or at least it's ideal proponent.
Buuut that'd be somewhat overpowered. Perhaps. Depends entirely upon ones campaign.
) recalling that the book is very much about micromanaging a medieval settlement and that soo many useful things can be made from having cows....