Pushing the Boundaries of Ritual Magic

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Salve sodales!

I've recently fallen in love with Mercurian/Ritual magic. In part due to the truly staggering potential that Rituals let you tap into. After all, Ritual magic is the only way to cast Year duration and Boundary target spells. I will confess, I am underwhelmed by Year duration. Most effects I'd want to last for a Year can probably be better done as invested devices that are then renewed daily by the item. You can also break the 50+ level limit on enchantment effects.

However, to my knowledge, you can't put Boundary level effects into enchantments. Thus, I've decided that if I were to run a Mercurian mage that I would try and "push the boundaries" as much as possible. I already know that permanent Creo rituals are seen as one of the more optimal uses of Mercurian magic but I'm curious to experiment with other ideas.

I would love for all of your knowledge, opinions, and ideas regarding Boundary rituals. It's an area I had neglected in my previous readings of the rules until I started considering a Mercurian mage. My sincerest apologies for the size and meandering nature of this post. I got a bit over enthusiastic.

The Hibernian Tribunal encompasses the island of Ireland... could you create a spell that affects the entire Tribunal? According to what I've found in my reading, 1 pace is roughly 3 feet or 1 meter. Ireland is roughly 480km tall thus our target diameter is 480,000 meters/paces. My math says this would require only a +4 size modifier as 100x10x10x10x10 would allow you to affect an area with a diameter of one million paces.

By my math this would only cost 40 levels (20 from boundary and 20 from size) and 8 pawns before accounting for effect and duration. Halved to 4 pawns, I'd call that a bargain to perform Tribunal-wide magic. Is my math right? This sounds suspiciously cheap.

What are some other viable massive boundaries? Islands are obvious choices, one could theoretically do to Britain or Sardinia what they could do to Ireland. I'm playing in an upcoming Rhine Gorge saga and I've been wondering if it would be feasible to design boundary spells for the valley of the Middle Rhine. Please correct me if this is overly ambitious or otherwise a misinterpretation.

Can you delineate a boundary using multiple types of border/barrier? Iberia is separated from the rest of Europe by the Pyrenees and surrounded by ocean. Do the two borders cooperate or would it need to be surrounded solely by mountains or sea? Likewise, could you affect only Loch Leglean by targeting everything north of Hadrian's wall? These are extreme examples, of course. On the smaller scale this would apply to a small peninsula blocked off by a single wall/gatehouse.

If you need a singular type of border then could you magically create something like the Kiel canal to then allow you to target Jutland with Boundary magic? I've pondered using Momentary Creo Terram Rituals, a la Conjuring the Tower, to enable the application of Boundary rituals afterwards. For the Jutland example, I presume you'd need to use a Perdo spell with a large Size modifier and Part target.

While we're manufacturing boundaries with magic, can sensory borders be used for boundary rituals? For example, could I create an illusory outline on the ground with Imaginem and then target everything in that perimeter? Or an illusory wall of iconic species? Or do Boundary targets have to be something tangible?

Intellego is one of my favorite Techniques but I don't quite understand how many Intellego effects would scale with Boundary target. Intellego Imaginem, for example. InIm at Room level allows you to see inside a Room... but how would that scale to something as nebulous as a Boundary? I imagine sensing the rough locations or directions of things (i.e. people with the gift, certain items/creatures, etc) would be obvious effects. Perhaps a variation on Inexorable Search that causes marks to appear on the map where each instance of a human, animal, vegetable, etc is?

One of my favorite Intellego effects is the one which allows you to speak to certain types of objects such as Stone Tell of the Mind That Sits. Would a Boundary ritual allow you to speak to every rock in the Boundary for the duration of the spell? If so, it might be worth making that Year duration... or maybe just put the regular InTe effect into a device. I'm particularly confused about this would interact with Intellego Mentem effects. How does one sense the thoughts of everyone within a Boundary? That sounds like a recipe for a headache.

I've asked a lot of questions about Boundaries themselves but frankly, the most important question is: what are the use cases for boundaries? What are the scenarios in which a boundary, and thus a Ritual, is uniquely called for. I've got a few ideas rolling around in my head: finding large numbers of Gifted children, commanding hordes of animals, mass teleportation, etc. But I'm curious about how you all have used Boundary.

I have quarantined the Olympus rant in a block quote. Feel free to skip this one, my train of thought gets a bit messy here and it's frankly a ludicrous thought exercise.

One of the examples for Boundary target is the bottom of a mountain: presumably affecting everything on the mountain. Could you create a Rego Terram spell that affected the mountain itself using Boundary or would you need to use Part? Mt Olympus has a diameter of 26 km or 26,000 paces. Meaning we'd need only a +3 size modifier for Boundary target.

However, I feel that this doesn't make sense for affecting the mountain itself since it fails to address volume. I calculated the volume of a cube whose sides were equal to Olympus' highest elevation as roughly 27,000,000,000 cubic meters/paces. Using the base Terram size guidelines for stone, 1 cubic pace/meter, we'd require +11 size modifiers to affect Mt Olympus (or rather a solid cube the height of Olympus but better to overshoot than undershoot).

The final magnitude comparisons would be (4 + 3) = 7 for Boundary vs (2 + 11) = 13 magnitudes for Part. So 45 levels versus 65: a large gap but honestly not as big as I initially predicted. For comedy's sake, let's finish the level calculation presuming we're slinging Mt Olympus (Base 3 "Unnatural Movement", +1 Stone, +4 Arcane Connection, +0 Momentary, +X Target, +Y Size).

So 20 levels before applying our calculated Targets plus Sizes. Our final spell levels would be 65 vs 85 with respective prices of 13 and 17 pawns. 7 and 9 if we're Mercurian. The previous crudely drafted ritual spell would allow us to hurl Olympus. If we added another +5 levels to make it Duration Concentration, we could levitate Olympus for half an hour. No additional pawns needed if we're Mercurian! (If I remember the rounding rules correctly)

Honestly, I still feel this is absurdly possible for what it does. Not easy but more plausible than I'd initially expected. On the high end, we're looking at a total only 10 above Hermes Portal to chuck a mountain at something/someone. Forget Fenicil's Rituals, gather together the Magvilus Council and chuck Vesuvius at the poor bastards.

However, the level 85 Mountain Hurling spell effect isn't Boundary. It's only a Ritual due to spell level. So it'd probably make more sense for this to be the magnum opus of some insane Verditius instead of spending a ton of pawns to do this once.

Which raises the question, what to do when you can target anything and everything on a mountain? Perhaps InTe to find ore deposits? Or using ReTe to levitate every stone on the mountain? We've got an extra 20 spell levels vs the Part version of the ritual, so theoretically we can close the gap with a meatier effect. But would we need a separate size modifier to increase the size of rocks/boulders we could affect?

2

Take a look at Transforming Mythic Europe. The Island of Wizards chapter uses Boundary spells to create the island and do all kinds of terraforming. You’ll find it interesting.

3

Yeah, I find the rules make affecting extremely large areas too easy for my taste. But them's the rules.

I'd personally be lenient in allowing such Boundaries, but I'm not sure if that's by-the-book. Or what Transformating Mythic Europe has to say about such things.

I won't allow Imaginem delineation of the boundary, though. It has to be physical features, like walls or so on. Could be seas and walls and mountains and so on in a mix.

I once suggested that you could sense everything in the area, but that this is quite dangerous to your mental health.

Guardian of the Forest

InAn 100 Ritual
R: Arcane Connection, D: Year, T: Boundary
The caster gains complete insight into the mind of every animal within the boundary (up to about 3 miles in diameter), no matter where he is at the moment. He can read all their thoughts, emotions, and memories, and is privy to all their sensations. The caster is constantly aware of any animal within the boundary, and of what each is feeling and sensing. This is focused on the boundary, and not on specific animals. This awareness even extends to his dreams, which are filled with fragments of their sensations.
The sheer strangeness of the experience leaves the recipient harrowed. The spell is always considered to be a constant, high power, effect not designed for him (even if he invented and casts it).
This dubious spell was supposedly developed by the renowned Derrezan filius Bjornaer. It is said it was this spell that drove him to his insanity, as even he was unable to endure the multitudes of perceptions flowing through his mind. This spell is rumored to exist in the library of Crintera, but none has used it in living memory and the Bjornaer do not even admit to its existence.
(Base 20, +4 Arcane Connection, +4 Year, +4 Boundary, +4 size)
Contributor: Yair.

Alternatively, you could be able to sense from a certain locale, and to be able to change that locale to any point in the Boundary.

4

Base problem with your math is that the Boundary target is not 100 pace, but a 100-pace-diameter circle (roughly). If you add 1 plus size, that multiplies the target by 10. But the target is an AREA.

An area 100 PACE in diameter is 50x50xPi, circa 7850 square pace. Adding plus 1 Size means 78500 square pace. That is a circle with a diameter of 158 pace.

So generating a roughly circle shaped Boundary with a diameter of 480 000 pace needs +19 Size, to improve the diameter to 594 950 pace.

This adds 95 extra levels to the already calculated spell level...

5

Another possibility worth considering is the discovery of additional Targets based on territorial or political units.

The City Target presented in Rival Magic (p. 104) is an interesting example. It does not simply represent an area of a certain size; it represents a settlement socially recognized as a city. This allows a ritual to affect an entire city, regardless of its actual size, without requiring additional Size modifiers. The ritual must, however, be designed for a specific city.

Following this principle, could a researcher develop other Targets such as Fiefdom, Province, or Kingdom? These could allow rituals to affect territories defined by political or administrative boundaries rather than physical barriers.

For a Mercurian ritualist interested in large-scale magic, discovering new Targets along these lines might be just as interesting as pushing the limits of Boundary. It would open up possibilities for rituals affecting entire political territories without having to rely on enormous Size modifiers.

6

This is already there in one form with the special target for the spell the Bountiful Feast [page 339-340 ArMDE].

7

A magus looking to research effects that target political units might investigate divine Interdiction. Interdiction reduces the Dominion aura in the entire city or kingdom by 1 every year.

8

I can't believe I haven't gotten around to reading Transforming Mythic Europe! Thank you so much for the suggestion, I took a look at the Island chapter and was absolutely stunned by the presented ideas. A lot of interesting and useful ideas for rituals. It also demonstrates the utility of using magic to create your own boundary for future rituals.

9

Aha! So it was my spotty math/geometry skills at play! Thank you, RP, that sounds a lot more sensible for a ritual that targets the entirety of Ireland. I'll keep your math in mind when doing future Boundary calculations. Distance vs Area vs Volume was always a weak point of mine in school.

10

An excellent and ambitious avenue of research to improve the efficacy of ritual spells. I have to imagine that deliberately inventing targets for mundane political borders would be... suspicious from a Code perspective. Inventing it isn't itself meddling with the mundanes but it definitely would facilitate some serious abuses: great fodder for story seeds!

The only issue is the incredibly nebulous nature of fiefs and kingdoms. For example, directly after the Norman conquest of England, would a hypothetical Kingdom ritual affect Normandy? Would it affect England since William is, from the French PoV, a vassal of France? I think there's multiple ways to flesh this out.

You could argue there's something tangible to be targeted due to the divine right of kings, and lesser nobility, being an observable supernatural property derived from the Divine. We also have some of Fenicil's rituals in-canon but then you need to answer 2 questions:

Is it possible to integrate the targeting aspects of Fenicil's rituals into Hermetic Theory? And more importantly, would there be opposition to leaking one of House Guernicus' secret weapons? Again, a lot of cool story potential here!

11

Fascinating. I should really go over the Definitive edition with a fine-toothed comb. That's a really interesting ritual. I wonder if the "special" target means this is a pre-Hermetic ritual (like Scrying Pool and Hermes' Portals) or if this is a unique target for other reasons. I've always wondered how possible it'd be to replicate some of the kooky "exception" spells that utilize Mercurian/pre-Hermetic rules. Thank you for that example, it's good food for thought.

12

I think the idea that political units are areas that you can draw a border around is fairly modern. When you're a medieval noble, you have a number of villages with their fields, rights to a forest and a bridge etc. AFAIK there is no notion that you have a territory with borders. Villages and cities have borders, but most kingdoms do not (with the exception of island kingdoms).

13

If you read the first few pages of spells chapter, you will realize that all the 'standard' R/D/T are actually pieces of a meta Spell Design system also with an in-game purpose.

Meta or mechanic purpose is helping new players to design their spells, and make spontaneous casting easier and countable.

In-game purpose is to give an answer why you can't do everything with spontaneous magic. Bc it is a scaffolding, a simplification.

All in all the chapter says you can deter from the standard R/D/Ts as along as 1.You follow all the Limits of Hermetic magic; 2. The troupe agrees.

In you formulaic spells you can determine special targets, and there is a plenty of examples in the book. Wind of Mundane Silence is also one good example.

And rituals are especially capable of bending the standard R/D/Ts. Bc they are powerful and expensive (for normal magi).

14

A canon character has a Major Magical Focus (enemies of Persia), so it is possible to magically define a country and its borders.

(Also, and more troubling, it is apparently also possible to determine an enemy without some use of Intellego or Mentem effect.)

15

I really don't see how you arrive at that conclusion (the borders part) from the premise. Could you spell it out for me?

I agree that it's a very questionable focus.

16

I think that there is a distinction between geographically defined boundaries and socially defined territories.

While a conventional Boundary Target can be understood as an area delimited by recognizable geographical (physical) landmarks, the descriptions of City Target and Bountiful Feast spell suggest that hermetic magic can also recognize territories whose extent is determined by social, cultural and/or historical relationships.

City Target can accept physical landmarks (like walls) to delimit the Target, but also accepts the social delimitation created by the target population by using the traditional bounds to mark the edge of the area. However, in my view, the principal factor is that there needs to be collective social recognition (the territory population must think the settlement as a city to the spell have effect) that establishes the identity of the territory being target.

Bountiful Feast puts even more emphasis in the social delimitation of the Target, it could affect non-contiguous areas; their inclusion is determined by their relationship to the participants, through ownership (or socially recognized lands belonging to those people).

My interpretation is that these examples suggest that Hermetic magic can affect territories no only defined exclusively by geographical continuity or physical landmarks. Social/cultural/historical/political relationships can also establish the boundaries of a territory, potentially allowing magical targets to encompass areas that would have no obvious geographical connection.