So for Ranulfâs last season of this 15 year period I had a few ideas, none of which really stand out to me:
My original plan (OK plan B, plan A was the selective WoMS) was a muto mentem spell that made the target speak Latin, thus allowing Ranulf to compensate for not being able to cast thoughts within babble due to his intellego deficency. This, as I wrote above probably falls afoul of the restrictions on creating memories in HoH Societates so it is a no go. I then thought about finding a way use fire to act as a translator. Ranulf already knows words with the flickering flame. If he can turn a target into a fire he can arguably speak with them. (Does anyone want to take the âno he canâtâ side of that argument? Iâd appreciate being alerted to arguments that I havenât thought of.) It turns out that Ranulf already has a range personal spell to turn himself into a fire and just a few seasons ago he learned wizardâs reach corpus at level 50 so it appears he already does have a way to turn other people into fires so for certain this isnât what heâs going to do for the last season.
Here are three not particularily exciting but sensible things for him to do here (plans D-F, plan C is later)
Ranulf could Invent a creo mentem ritual to help alleviate his atrocious perception score. Certainly he has an chanted device that casts eyes of the eagle and eyes of the hawk from projects is a non-fatiguing spont for him so despite his poor eyesight flaw he can function a bit , but getting his perception from -3 to 0 or +1 would be a sensible use of his time.
Ranulf might enchant Artisanoâs bond so that he can be enveloped in a flame of ridiculous heat Atisano has immunity to fire so the damage level could be high without risking injury to the fellow(heâd want to dump his enchanted devices someplace where he could retrieve them before using it) this would certainly dissuade other creatures from physically attacking him.
Ranulfâs lab is now well over 100 years old and it is made of wood. Ranulf has had the ability to cast a range touch target room version of shadow of spring times departed (an enchantment from his talisman that is in Magi of Hermes) by ceremonial magic for the last 75 or more years, so I think that the continued existence of the lab can be explained. But even if he only casts this spell once every two or three years, Ranulf is still eventually going to botch and cause himself problems. A formulaic version could be cast with a simple die and be a safer choice.
Here is what would be more fun (plan C) but seems a little questionable to me
What Iâd like to do is find a way to find regio boundaries without intellego (and probably with ignem). Yet a spell with target room that makes all regio boundaries glow or burst into flames or some such strikes me as an intellego spell rather than a muto spell, buta spell to make all animals in a room burst into flame or to color all of the people in a room blue doesn't strike me as an intellego spell. Can we draw a distinction some how then use this distinction to design a spell to indirectly detect regio boundaries?
My thought process is that a rego corpus spell with target room which causes every person in a room scream loudly would work to detect people and the spell would do it without using intellego. Is there some observable thing that a regio boundary could do that would serve to identify it? Regio boundaries donât naturally scream but they do open and close. Could Ranulf use a target room or structure rego vim spell to open boundaries and then reliably observe the movement of something into or out of them (like smoke)? It seems speculative.
Ranulfâs Vim score is good enough that he could learn piercing the (realm) veil from lab notes and heâd be able to cast it (with stamina drain) about half of the time despite his intellego deficiency. That seems like a more reasonable approach but it isnât nearly as fun.
I'm open to suggestions (Plan G?) or different ways to think about the intellego -not intellego question for detecting regios.