questions about magical item creation

  1. Can an effect have multiple different trigger actions?
    i.e. I want the same effect to respond to a word and a separate gesture.

  2. Is this a reasonable spec for the spell to "send a word" to the talisman?

This looks like the outcome of the thread: (Rego Imagonem 5 = Base 1 to send a single spoken word/phrase. R:Arc +4, D:Mom, T:Ind)

  1. Then to return the item to you?

Rego (whatever form) 25 = Base 25 for teleportation to anywhere via an AC. R: Per, D: Mom, T: Ind

  1. Assuming I'm looking to enchant a cloak made of treated/processed animal skin, then how/what are the guidelines for making the talisman as indestructible as possible? Firstly from Mundane tear, breakage, damage?

I've read the breakage rules in the Lords of Men and the additional rules for that, but not where something is made indestructible by mundane means. Looked to the MuAn15, p118, Doublet of Impenetrable Silk as a start which uses Base 4, but I am not sure that is strong/tough enough.

Enough is a story consideration, but I'm looking for a good basis to chat to my SG from.

  1. And then I'm interested in protecting it further from magic. I know that an item shares Parma Magica if it is a talisman or held/worn, but what about further protection?

Is this getting into the ReVi guidelien for (gen) surpess a spell cast by another with level less that half the (level _5 mag) of the vim spell? Will a bespoke ReVi affect be peudo-parma?

I assume you to a word or to a gesture, with only one of them being necessary? (Sorry, English is not my native language)
If so, I honestly don't know. I don't see why not, but I do tend to assume the most restrictive for my own use, and see if I can work around it. In this case, we can, easily enough, at the cost of about 10 levels of space in the device (assuming it's an invested device/talisman).

So it would appear, though I'm personally leery of it.
I vastly prefer the ReVi trigger method from LoH, also mentioned in that thread.

That would be Re(Fo) 35, by analogy of the ReCo 35 guideline on ArM5, p. 134.
It was generalised on p. 107 of TME, though for some reason beyond me, they are all easier than the ReCo version.
So strictly by that reference, assuming a wooden staff, ReTe 25 would be correct.

MuAn base 5, change something made of animal products in a major unnatural way?
But really, re-read the description of Doublet of Impenetrable Silk first - it looks pretty tough to me.

There is curretly no way to grant magic resistance independantly of Parma Magica via (Hermetic) Magic*. Only the Divine and Infernal Realms have that power.

  • coughAutomatacough - try to forum-dive for this one. I've seen a few suggestion involving binding spirits into items to give them MR that might work. But generally, this is a no-go.

Lately I've been obsession on Antimagic wards - you could try for an PeVi "Winds of Mundane silence at Personal range. A low level version of this can prevent simple "destroy wood" effects; however it will also prevent YOU from casing similar techniques - so you may need to put some sort of surpress effect in it; ie "my talisman grants me 15 levels of generalist antimagic, unless it detects that I am casting; in which case it doesn't affect me.

You could do a variation of the Flying Castle enchantment, in which the Device, rather than being a continuous effect, "pulses" every second, for a moment: if a magical effect is identified as yours (or likely more easily "was the Talisman used to cast this effect?"), then it doesn't shoot it out of the air; if it is not identified as yours, then it cancels it out. (Note that this requires the device be able to InVi magic.)

Nothing specifically in the rules about it one way or another afaik. But the general description (p 98, mid-col iii) says "conditions", and "sunrise or sunset" are one of the "environmental triggers" - to me, those open to the door to a more liberal interpretation.

Otoh, "1 trigger" seems to be assumed, and it's +3 levels for an Environmental Trigger. A SG might allow it, or reasonably rule "+1 Level" (not magnitude, but just +1 to final level) for each additional trigger - or flat rule against it.

It's often not hard to put a continuous Creo-Form spell to constantly "heal" the item back up to full, original value. This plus a Mu-Fo effect for "hard as magically possible" seems to cover it reasonably well.

How much spare room you got?

List is exhaustive. At what point does filling it with protections stop being productive since "it" does not have room left for anything of any great value? Remember - Hermetic protections often must be different against each different Realm of magic - daemonic, faerie - urgh. But if you wanted to protect it from, say, FIre (esp any predictably mundane level of heat) - that would be pretty straight-forward.

I want to say(???) that it takes a specially targeted spell to sweep away Parma, but I could easily be misremembering.

I'm not sure if I'd allow it to "pulse" every second, but "pulsing" every sunrise and sunset is certainly within the rules (it's an Environmental Trigger). To get higher frequency pulses, I'd probably make the device with some moving part, have some other effect cyclically move that part, and use that as a Trigger. It need not be an effect invested in the device. A Ring spell that constantly turns a circular dial on the magical item, with a rune inscribed at some specific point on the dial, would work, with the trigger being that the rune is at a specific point.

Thinking too modern.

Midnight and noon are additional clearly marked points, but there is no (canon) reason that every diameter that passes throughout the day is not a potential "environmental trigger". An eclipse can be predicted to the minute by a (really good!) astronomer - there have to be existing gradations already available in the existing astrological clock.

Just claim that you're linking your 5 uses/day (o whatever) to the movement of the heavens ("environmental trigger, +3"), as broken into appropriate parts (which really don't even have to be "equal parts", if you don't want), and call it good. As a SG, I ~might possibly~ add some levels for complexity, but not many past the base +3, depending.

The flying castle disk is built so that the Levitation effect is Diameter, but it has unlimited uses (+10); with a spell trigger of "the effect is not active"(+3) - so basically it can re-levitate the disk whenever the effect stops, either by naturally running out every couple of minutes, or else if someone tries to shoot it down with a PeVi effect.

Clockwork powered by a spring (a little anachronistic, but house Verditius has access to the basics) with a trigger rune which goes off whenever a matching rune touches it. Said matching rune is on the teeth of the gear-wheel. Or steal the Hermetic Generans spell from Changing Mythic Europe, and make a perpetually rotating gear which you have the same basic design on (the rotating spell is a duration ring with the gear itself being the ring). How fast the gear rotates is controllable when you design it, and therefore you can set how fast it pulses.