So, it has been mentioned in passing that perhaps there should be an option for Permanent Muto magic. I must admit, this intrigues me, but it would be a somewhat major House Rule if it's implemented. So I thought I would throw it out here for discussion, to see if it would be too unbalancing or an otherwise Really Bad Idea.
4th edition did have a D: Permanent, which was defined as "The spell lasts forever, but remains forever magical. Thus, it could be dispelled at some point in the future. This duration is only available for spells which have magical effects: natural effects are Instant duration instead." The D: Permanent was one Magnitude higher than Year, which would make it +5 Magnitudes.
My idea is this: * That D: Permanent is, by definition, a Ritual spell and thus always requires Vis.
That the effects of a Permanent spell are magical and thus can be dispelled at some point in the future.
That the target of a Permanent spell is subject to Warping (p. 168).
That this Duration be limited to Muto magic. Creo already has something similar (Instant with Vis), and a D: Permanent Perdo would be just hellish. I'm hard-pressed to come up with reasonable uses for Permanent Intellego or Rego magic.
Looks fine to me, just make it a Breakthrough, not a House Rule. If it has "always existed", then you have to rewrite your whole setting to deal with the ramifications. Making it a Breakthrough, your players do the work for you.
I think this works as a breakthrough also, and it would then neatly conform with the 5th edition rules as listed here.
Now then, having said that, many magi (and players) might ask the question, is it worth it? There are disadvantages to this; the vis, that it can be dispelled, and the Warping especially.
Plus there already is a method to make a Muto effect permanent without a breakthrough or a Mystery. An enchanted item can effectively have a permanent effect on its target using the constant duration add ons (2 uses/day + Sun duration + environmental trigger). It uses vis and also would Warp the target and be dispellable.
This shouldn't discourage magi/players from trying to make this breakthrough, but would likely be brought up in any discussion of this new wonder.
It would have to be a Order shaking breakthrough as it is going against the Limit of Essential Nature. That just sets a baseline for the Original Research Breakthrough points. If the troupe agrees it would be worth a shot.
I think it would not be worth it unless it was a weapon because it can cause warping.
It would have to be a Order shaking breakthrough as it is going against the Limit of Essential Nature. That just sets a baseline for the Original Research Breakthrough points. If the troupe agrees it would be worth a shot.
Or perhaps a modification of the rules of essential nature- maybe some aspects of the nature are more essential than others. There might be limitations within this new combination as well that have to be discovered by trial and error.
If you have Rival Magic, you could have someone managing to Integrate the Perpetual Duration from the Sorcerers of Soqotra. It is treated as duration Year in terms of Magnitude, but doesn't necessarily demand a Ritual.
I don't really like the idea that Muto magic cannot change essential nature. It has that cool Aristotelian vibe to it, but it is wrong thematically. I want powerful magical events to change characters. When you undergo an initiation, when you experience Twilight, when you are granted a Virtue by a Great Beast... these things add to your Virtues, permanently and instantly changing you. To then go around and say "but Hermetic magic can't change you", seems wrong thematically to me.
I'm in favor of allowing Rituals cast with raw vis with Momentary duration to instantly change the object's essential nature, just like Creo. This, of course, doesn't mean that Muto can suddenly be used to grant Virtues or experience and so on, but it works better thematically.
I feel that this is a good reason that it could be a breakthrough candidate. Non-hermetic magic can already do it but nobody ever figured out how to could do it.
But to have it just available as a ritual feels off for me, your examples are all either poorly understood, incredibly powerful, or both.
I feel that there is a difference between Creo rituals creating a nonmagical thing permanently and a Muto ritual creating a permanent magical effect and there needs to be some work or research to bridge that gap.
The tricky bit is defining what is a given person or object's essential nature. The definition of a human left a lot of space of alterations without changing essential nature.
All human beings are essentially human; mortal creatures with reason, senses, and the ability to move and reproduce. The basic shape of the human body is also part of the essential nature, although bits can be cut off. Men are essentially male, and women essentially female,and some people have other factors in their essential natures. For example, some people are essentially blind, whereas others are blind merely as a result of chance. As a rule, any disability purchased as a Flaw at character creation is part of the character’s essential nature, while disabilities acquired later are not.
That leaves a lot of space for facial alterations, fixing teeth, changing hair color, &etc. Simply correcting the damage from pox, tooth rot, and visible scarring would make a huge difference on appearance, and it is right out of the Creo Corpus guidelines. (Level 20: Heal the debilitating after-effects of a disease, poison, or injury.) And the Persona skill--most common in the Tytalus, of course--allows significant changes, including gender, without incurring warping from a long-term effect.
(So does the Criamon mystery virtue "Immortal Ascension As Repose", but that's a non-Hermetic effect, so breaking a Limit isn't unprecedented. They'd happily explain how it works, but you'll never understand what the h*ll they are talking about.)
Is a boulder 'essentially' a boulder? So grinding it down into sand and dust -- which every miller does, every day, with their mill-stones -- is a change in the 'essential nature' of the stone.
Is clay 'essentially' clay? Slimy, soft, and formless -- yet it becomes a delicate dish when fired, singing faintly when tapped. That is another change to 'essential nature' which mundanes do every day.
Sand becomes glass; rocky ore becomes metal; animals and plants become clothes -- or food, or 'night soil'; wood becomes furniture -- or smoke. A mundane can dye their hair, or trim it into a new fashion. Are all of these changes to 'essential nature', impossible to magic? But magic can make fire, and that fire can transform rock-like wood into air-like smoke -- which is an essential change, and forbidden.
I can tell you that house Flambeau gets a LOT less fun to play if Essential Nature is defined in too restrictive a manner.
One thing you could try is to use the non-standard durations (core p114). I'd go and try for "Decade", which would, obviously, have a base of +5 (+4 year, +1 for *10), and then 1 additional magnitude for being non-standard, so, final change +6 magnitudes.
Also available: Century
There are also faerie durations like "until", as well as infernal and divine ones that exceed a year, if you are willing to take that route. A breakthrough that incorporated the until duration into hermetic magic would be massive in terms of world impact.
I think we can already use non-standard duration at the cost of +1 mag. The regular hermetic "Until" duration would be + 4 +1(non-standard).
Corebook p.114 - "Formulaic spells, on the other hand, can be invented with ranges, durations or targets that are not listed here. This is usually slightly more difficult than if the closest category were used..."
Apart from rule-mechanical objections, I think it would be thematically wrong to be able to do actually permanent changes with Muto. In nearly all fairy tales enchantments can be broken. It may be difficult to break them, but it can be done and then things return to normal.
Permanent-until-dispelled could be possible, but not Permanent-and-done.
Which implies no actual changing of Essential Nature with Muto.
