Possible Hermetic Breakthrough, Balenced?

[JadeFox]

So, the time will soon come for my Magi to finally start his original research, and I'm thinking of what he should actually shoot for. There's a lot of good options already in the books: Fertility magic, the Mechanica of Alexander, Divination, etc. Many of these can be acquired by means other then original research, but given how I'm stated, research is my best bet.

However, Original Research does allow whole new discoveries, and so I have been tempted to invent one, inspiration came from one of the unusual books our covenant paid considerable points to start with:

In the Everlasting Pursuit of the Quicksilver'd World by Oxandriust. Level 20, Quality 15, Muto
A copy of perhaps the most definitive text on Muto to enjoy anything resembling circulation, Everlasting Pursuit nevertheless stands as a testament to a towering ego whose bounds knew few, if any, limits. Oxandriust (originally merely a Sarah) disdained everything that came before her as impotent, and sought to change the world, devising her own language (it is, perhaps, a blessing she did not write the book in it; some suspect she simply never could settle on a single alphabet) her own culture and customs (the cult dissolved shortly after her disappearance,) and, eventually, an attempt to change humans themselves so fundamentally there would be no resemblance, yet not in any way that had been done before. Some suspect she succeeded, and still lives somewhere, utterly alien to any known existance.

Leading to this possible hermetic breakthrough:
Oxandrist's Legacy
Description:
Most of the Order of Hermes remembers Oxandriust as a crank. An arrogant, questionably sane, intolerable and largely amoral Magi with a serious overspecialization in Muto. Among some Magi, however, especially those who likewise specialize in altering the forms of their fellow creatures, she has an almost mystic standing. Rumors of what incredible feats she accomplished rush about such circles, and if one believed they all, they would be forced to come to the conclusion that she made 10 or 20 hermetic breakthroughs over the course of her life. It is certain that the majority of the stories are false, and likely that all of them are, but that hasn't stopped Magi from trying to replicate her legendary feats -- including the one that finally took her from the world of human understanding.

Rules:
This breakthrough gives the player access to a new Laboratory Activity, the Ritual of Ascension. Upon completing the ritual for the first time, the player becomes a Might 1 Magical Creature, and their Might can later be raised (see below). Performing the ritual requires an absolute minimum of 10 Magical Theroy, and a MuCo Lab Total of at least 120. Experimentation is allowed as a means to reach this lab total, but it is strongly advised against.

Researching the ritual to allow for it's first use requires four seasons of lab work, culminating in the ritual itself. Over the span of this time, the magi employs 10 Pawns of Muto Vis and 10 Pawns of Vis that can be Corpus or Vim. These are all considered to be used in the last season (thus the requirement of 10 Magical Theroy). This research produces lab notes, but they are not useful to anyone but the magi -- the ritual only works for the Magi who researched it. Magi may not research rituals for other people. A magi in possession of his own lab notes can perform the ritual in one season instead of four.

Upon performing the ritual for the first time, the Magi takes two warping and enters Twilight. A mage may resist entering twilight as normal, but if they succeed in doing so, the ritual simply fails. Once in twilight, the magi rolls for comprehension as normal. If they fail to comprehend the Twilight, they suffer the usual negative effects, and the ritual fails. If they succeed, they reappear as a Might 1 Magic creature when they return, and also gain the usual positive effects.

Performing the ritual future times is considerably easier. It does not require entering twilight, and takes only one season. Each time the ritual is performed again, the magi's might increases by one. Performing the ritual in this way costs New-Mightx2 Pawns of Vis, which must be Muto, Corpus or Vim.

As magic creatures, Magi effected by this ritual do not suffer from Warping, although any negative effects induced by warping they already have remain. They likewise do not age, although negative effects from any aging rolls they have already rolled remain. They otherwise retain all their abilities.

As "dual natured" creature, that is, creatures with both Might and Arts, Magi effected by this ritual are subject to several unusal rules:

1. Their Parma-Magica and Might stack for determining Magic Resistance.
2. While they do not have Warping, any effect that could send them into twilight if they did have warping may still send them into twilight. They add the magnitude of their Might to their rolls to comprehend twilight.

As usual, creatures created this way may receive new abilities every time their Might advances a magnitude, starting at 5. Exactly what they get should be handled with the storyguide.

[YR7]

No, I don't think it's balanced. It doesn't sit well within the framework of other paths to immortality. Allow me to quote others from another thread:

@Wanderer

Well, if you look at the big picture, there is a nice balance between the features of the various immortality methods: Ascension offers the maximum security and the minimum freedom of movement: they are essentially indescrutible, secured in the Hall of Heroes, but they only can (apparently) roam the earth in their Aspects and grow in power when they are summoned. Alchemical immortality, faerie Becoming, and Bjornaer Great Beast Twilight remain on Earth, can study to advance in power as much as they like (even if they have to through an additional loop to reatain what they gain), but they can killed or destroyed as easily as any other magical or faerie creature. Becoming is rather inferior to the Great Elixir because the mage inherits the crippling faerie inability to create, which magical immortals do not have, so the mages that take that route are advised to postpone transforming the mind as far as possible. Living Ghost are a middle of the road option, since they are rather more difficult to slay, requiring PeVi magic, but they can only exist wholly safely in a fixed location, and can only roam at manageable but considerable risk, and can advance themselves as easily as Elixir and Becoming users.

Guardian of Nature and Immortality of the Forest, differently from the above, belong to the lesser immortality methods, where you are freed from age, but eventually felled by Twilight, and they have a strong difficulty to leave. The former gives a dtrong protection from harm, where the latter gives no special protection. To this category belongs Goetic Binding, which leaves one free to roam, and gives no special defense. Neither gives any difficulty to learn, which is the hallmark and the balancing price of the greater Immortality methods, which bestow full agelessness.

Bjornaer apparently have managed to pull quite a unique trick, namely turning the ultimate end of Final Twilight into a new beginning. All the greater immortality mysteries turn the mage into one type of supernatural creature: magical humanoid creature, humanoid faerie, magical beast, ghost, spirit. As for Criamon, their Path of the Body has two stations which correspond to lesser and greater immortality, with none of the usual limitations to learning and freedom of movement, but come with crippling and strict limits to behavior, which more than enough balance them .

@Ovarwa

I think a lot of attention has been given to the immortality virtues, but I find these more flavorful than powerful.

Great Beast: You can attain this early in your career, and quite neatly, without the contortions required by other seekers of immortality. However, your character has become a powerful NPC of a kind that has not been seen in Mythic Europe in more than 50 years. Congratulations on your ascension, and please think about your next character.

Ascension to the Hall of Heroes: This seems to be the prize of prizes; not only are you immortal, but you cannot even be killed. Unfortunately, you can never earn and keep an experience point of your own ever again, but must depend on a tiny cult to invest vis in you. Without human attention, you are likely to be forgotten by all. Although you can theoretically boost your Might Score arbitrarily high, if you actually do so, no one will be able to summon you. Effectively, you get to choose between being weak but available, and being strong but out of the saga. In any case, you no longer have a laboratory and cannot do lab work, further weakening you. This is also the hardest immortality option to pull off, providing the best immortality but poor opportunities for growth and play.

Haunt of the Living Ghost: Were it not for the pesky inconvenience of having to kill yourself and the further inconvenience of becoming a prisoner, this is the best of the immortality options. You can still use fatigue but take no penalty. You still have a lab. The ritual will give you a very good Might score, and is simple. You are invulnerable to slings and arrows of misfortune, which pass right through you. But your range of motion is restricted. The right character might be perfectly content with this. Perhaps he is a Verditius or Bonisagus who never wants to leave his lab anyway, or perhaps he Haunts a vast, enchanted ship that can take him places, and is willing to possess crewmen.

Alchemy: You have complete freedom of movement, and you have the same advancement opportunities as a Living Ghost. However, your body is just as vulnerable as ever. Your Might will be less than a Living Ghost, at a higher cost of ascension.

Becoming: It is difficult to achieve a decent Might. Using your spells is the most expensive, because you pay Might per magnitude. Your spontaneous casting is pretty much gone. However, within limits, you can continue to gain lots and lots of experience, far more easily than the others.

Criamon path of the Body: Probably the best compromise, except you're so enlightened, so harmonious, you've gotta be an npc.

Any of these either end a career or stall it.

In addition, consider how hard it is to gain said immortality. The benefits always are cooresponding to how difficult it is. Ascension to the Hall of Heroes requires a whole cult of magi to work for your ascension - it offers great rewards (total safety), but is extremely hard to obtain. The Elixir requires less assistance, so offers less reward - you can still die if poked trough the chest with a sharp object, you're just immune to aging that's all. Living Ghost you can do on your own, so you gain even less - not only can you get killed, but you're limited to a small prison, unable to (safely) roam around. (Serf parma on this, I'm without the book - but I remember the principle works like this.)

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Your suggestion offers the advantages of the Elixir without the costs needed to develop it, plus even greater advantage in the form of stacking MR. I think you'd do better to drop the MR thing and require more - you'd do better to adopt the Elixir rules.

[Erik_Tyrrell]

For the most part I agree with Yair.

The breakthrough seems like you're integrating something very much like the elixir but you've got odd mechanics.

Parma staking with might why? What's your motivation here to break the "MR's don't stack" rule that's held everyplace else? (That's a question not a criticism)

You've got a 24th magnitude ritual but you're powering it with 20 rather than 24 pawns of vis. Why? What's to be gained from the inconsistency?

If I read correctly, these folks become for the most part magical creatures but they still learn like humans. That's the point isn't it? To be a bit of both. They don't gain warping points yet they still have to fear final twilight on a bad roll. of course if the character has a warping score eight (that's up to 224 warping xp) they'd need to double botch the comprehension roll to see final twilight with less than eight it would be almost impossible. So this character really doesn't have anything to fear from final twilight if their warping score isn't putting them on the boarder of final twilight already. (perhaps that wasn't the point).

Have you considered researching a simple agelessness technique similar to Sayoshyant's elixir (from RoP: Divine), immortality of the forest (from Guardians of the forest), or the Criamon path of the body; station of spiritual nourishment?

In any case your question is prompting a new thread from me about brainstorming research projects.

[DIREWOLF75]

Without the Parma/Might stacking, i might be convinced to allow it in a game, but its a stretch and would require a very good story or character concept i think...