So when you are inside a regio you are sort of in a higher plane. You can in some instances "look into" a regio, with a spell or other means. But being inside of one "looking out" so to say. What do you see then?
I have been going with a dull/grey and foggy version of what actually is there. To play up the vivid colors and sounds a little bit more. But so far I have not found anything hinting what, if anything you actually see? Is it just nothing unless you use the same spell to look back?
If you are able to look outside of a regio, that would have some practical implications. For instance if you need to escape some one you could pop into a regio and just wait for them to go away (if popping in some place and popping out another is not doing it for you). Also you could use a regio as a good way to ambush some one.
And another question. Being able to see into a regio. Do that mean you are able to cast a spell into that regio? Ans also when inside, would you be able to cast a spell to the outside?
the short answer is that it depends on the regio.
Regios are higher planes the same way the second floor is higher than the first, except instead of being "up" they have a direction defined by realm alignment, and the aura goes up accordingly. If you ask if you can see into or out of a house it depends on whether it has windows and what type- same with a regio- it is about the properties and structure of the regio. Generally you don't see into or out of them, and when you do there isn't some sort of filter which gives one a greater preference of being real to the other. However those rules can vary from regio to the next, so such effects are certainly possible.
How do the type of regio matter? They are all describes as "higher planes of existence". So the type should not matter they should in these aspects function pretty much the same.
Either you should be able to look inside and out or you can not. =/ It is pretty clear that you can use a spell to "look into" a regio thus being able to enter it. But it say nothing about what you see when inside a regio. Is it like a wall of nothing when you look to a lower plane?
The other questions also are left, like are you able to target something outside/inside a regio when being on the other side of the border?
The type of regio matters, because in Against the Dark where it discusses the covenant of Tablinum, there is a section on casting spells like Leap of Homecoming across regio boundaries to transport in and out, and that some regiones (like Tablinum) allow you to do this with an Arcane Connection, and some don't. Not all regiones have the same rules about what spells can cross boundaries.
I find a regio easier to visualise if you picture it as its own reality, and that any ways in or out don't appear to exist unless you have the magical senses to detect them. With those magical senses, you can detect these entrances and exits. Whether this detecting entrances allows you to see much beyond the entrance is unclear - 5th edition corebook p189 says to enter a regio voluntarily "involves seeing into the regio and then crossing the boundary", but in 4th edition p245 it says "Voluntarily entering regiones involves seeing the next level of the regio and then entering it", so there's a slight difference in the wording between editions. I'm not sure anywhere makes it clear if you just detect the presence of a different level and then have to cross over to see what's beyond, or whether you actually get to see clearly what's on the other side.
I know Calebais deliberately doesn't let you see the covenant until you've crossed all the way through by following the complicated ritual, but I don't know if there are many other canon 5th edition regiones that give clear guidance on whether you can or can't see anything through the regio entrance.
@daniel Jensen- the problem is that what the book means by a higher plane of existence is not what you are reading into the phrase- there is no higher consciousness involved or transcendence of being, it is just another place that exists one quanta "upwards" towards one of the four realms (though infernal probably gets visualized as being downwards). As I said, the same way the second floor is on a higher level than the first, only with a difference in direction being "heavenward" for the divine , towards the magic realm for magic (and boy does that have variable rules for variable locations...), towards the three faerie realms for faerie etc.
in sci-fi terms it more closely resembles a quantum gradient bridge between multiple realities than a higher state of existence.
It is important to understand that regiones are not all alike. Some behave very differently from others.
And Hermetic Theory cannot currently fully explain or predict their behavior.
@silveroak nop I am not. What I am basing my question around is that in the book they say that "lower" level or regios differ very little from the mundane plane. And the higher you go the more extreme/unique do their world become. And in the level 10 you literally go to heaven, hell or Arcadia (or Elysium or Eudokia). For me that implies a connection to the mundane world that is weaker and weaker until it is hardly there any more. Same with the rules making it harder to go into higher regios straight away. So no trances or any funky things like that. Would be kind of very dangerous tho to be in a trance when you enter a regio, any one would be able to walk up to you and do pretty much anything. Just wait for sunrise/sundown and your parma magica would be 0 as well. Especially with the whole time not necessarily working the same. Also high chance of starving/thrusting to death if the animals do not kill you first. ^^
Also until you go to the actual place, regio 10, they are limited in there area in how big they are. So it would stand to reason that when you are on the edge you would be able to see something further (if there is just emptiness that is also perfectly fine, but I would find that very strange).
Another way would for it to look just like it goes on and on but in fact it do not. Personally I find this very unappealing and one of the worst solutions.
So there are a few ways to be able to enter, get invited and so on. One of them is you are able to see into the regio (I assume you do this at the border). And there even are several ways to be able to see into the regio, ability, spell or potion. It also would stand to reason that, at the very least, if you are in a regio you could use the same method to look "out". And if you are looking in or out, are you able to cast a spell on a person/thing that is on the other side?
Ans if you see the mundane world but a distorted version, would you be able to directly use magic from the inside out?
I thought the books talked about seeing the boundary and seeing pathways through the boundary, but not actually seeing into the a regio itself. Second Sight specifies seeing the boundaries. Intellego Vim specifies seeing the boundary, and if you use Vision being able to see the pathways through it, but not being able to see into the regio. Seeing a boundary, using the above analogy, would be like being able to see the ceiling. Seeing the pathway, using the same analogy, would be being able to the see the staircase that leads past the ceiling. But seeing either of those doesn't mean you can see what's on the other floor.
But I see what you're referencing. In one paragraph on p.189 it talks about seeing "into" the regio. Of course, two paragraphs later it switches to seeing the regio, which matches the several other references in the book. I think I would lean toward all those other paragraphs over that single paragraph that states it differently.
The whole section "Entering and Leaving Regiones" they talk about seeing into regios. They even have a Regio Sight Roll for allowing you to be able to use a ability to see into the regio. So I think you are downplaying the "seeing into regios" part.
RoP:Faerie p16-17 have more information and descriptions of Faerie regiones, with the caveat that "Faerie regiones are often far easier to enter than regiones of the other Realms".
"A character almost always enters the regio by performing an action [...] for many regiones, the action is simply walking through a symboilic doorway, but it may involve defeating a particular menace or solving a riddle".
The descriptions of how to enter the Faerie Realm in the next chapter are also very varied, and whether or not you can see into it depends on the nature of the threshold, the action required to pass it, how far along you are into accomplishing the action, etc...
And that's just one Realm, so I don't think that the variety of regiones and how they work can be understated.
i.e. the SG should design every Regio separately, with its own rules
It isn't that whole section. It's the two paragraphs (I missed one "into" earlier.) and those formulas. The next paragraph it switches to "see the next level of a regio," no longer talking about "into." Meanwhile, for instance, the InVi guideline specifies:
Note how RoP:M distinguishes what Hermetic magic can see before crossing a boundary v. after crossing. You can't see the other vestiges there until you're inside, but you can see the connections between vestiges and boundaries from outside:
The example spell does say "into," but neither of the specific guidelines say anything about "into," either.
There is also this:
and the formulas attached to it don't specify anything about actually seeing what's on the other side, just about travel.
RoP:F restates this section with "into" from ArM5 specifically for Faerie, including the formula as
Notice how it's written as "read how to enter..." instead of "see into," which is consistent with the description of Second Sight. It then continues with InVi:
which agrees with the guideline.
I'm not going to keep scouring through books. I'm just showing that through most of ArM5 and the supplements, the rules descriptions are fairly consistent about seeing boundaries and about seeing ways into, not seeing directly into. This one spot in ArM5 seems to be the only place. I'm not disagreeing about the information being contradictory. I'm just saying there are so many things suggesting differently than this one spot, that I would favor the many. I would read "see into" in this one section as "see a way into" or similar.
You are standing on the edge of a finite demi plane and looking out. What do you see?
A) That seems like a very profound question about the fundamental makeup of the multiverse in ars magica. So there is no canon answer and you saga may vary.
B) You would probably need a research breakthrough to look into the metaphysical space where Regio's are stored. Again not canon but totally cool!
C) Mundanely speaking you probably can't. It would vary by Regio. My covenant's second layer is entirely inside a tower, there is no way to look outside. Another one simply loops back onto itself. Manual of the Planes (the D&D book) has a section on demi planes that might give you some ideas.
D) Mundanely speaking, even if you found 2 Regio's that all had non-boundary endpoints. I doubt you would see the same thing looking out of both of them. It would vary by regio.
I am not sure, but it looks like there is some confusion. So I will try to clarify.
You have a entrance to a regio in front of you. You take one step and enter the regio. You then turn around, facing the edge of the regio. What do you see?
This depends on the regio.
In some cases, you'd see mists. In some cases, you'd see the place you were just standing. In some cases, you'd see the case you were just standing, but it would look odd and blurry, like you were seeing it through hot air.
But you cannot know ahead of time*, because each regio is distinct and unique, as has already been mentioned in this thread.
unless you have some other source, like prior experience or a description from some other person, be it written or otherwise.
I could also imagine examples where you'd see just more of what's inside the regio. The entrance might not let you in at the edge of the regio, you might appear in the middle - with no discernible way out, since this may be something completely different than the way in.
let me use the floors metaphor again. You climb a ramp to a new floor- you may be at the edge, or at the middle. If you turn around and look back you will see the floor you are on unless you look down- which may, in our metaphor, not be possible depending on the rules for the floor and the slope of the ramp- it may look at each end simply like the floor you are on. If you stand at the edge of the floor you will probably see a wall- though with regios the wall may simply loop arround to the other side of the regio. Unless there is a "window" you won't see the lower floors.
It's kind of like asking what you would see if you traveled to the edge of the world and looked out, just a smaller world, and they come in varieties.
I had a regio where you had to jump down a well and land on a lily pad in a lake in the regio. You would see a waterfall.
We had one where there was just a door so you look back and it is just like looking back through a door.
There was another one in my game where the entrance just left you in a clearing. You couldn't go out the way you came in. So looking back you wouldn't see anything.
Generally speaking if you were using the same magic to look into a regio as you were using to look out of one then you would see basically the same types of things. An exit is just an entrance to another place so I hardly think the distinction really matters.
I'm not sure there was confusion. I was just pointing out that nearly every reference says there is no general thing that just lets you see right through a boundary to observe the other side. There is just that one section that says it differently. If we accept that that one section isn't stated quite properly to be in agreement with the numerous other sections, then we come back to the descriptions of regiones that others are mentioning, that it really depends on the regio. Maybe you turn around and see the path leading back. Maybe the path to outside is totally different and you just see stuff inside the regio. Maybe the regio has a big window to the world and you can see everything just outside it. It all depends on the regio. Think of this as giving you a ton of freedom as an SG to design a cool place that functions as best fits your story or your ideas for the locale. There are plenty of very different examples in literature. For example, consider the wardrobe in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; that can give you one great visual of how you can't see the other side either way while you can see the path (when it's open) as well as having a regio that functions very differently compared to the outside world.