IMS i play a creepy Criamon quite taken with spooky looking magic.
He wants a teleport spell that lets him step into a sufficiently dark shadow and step out of another one within a certain distance.
Shadow is an absence of light and is thus covered under ignem, would the spell therefore be ReCo(Ig). Certainly that would be the case if he was leaping from bonfire to bonfire.
Further, how would he ascertain where he could leap out? Would a simple Intellego prerequisite work?
If he can sense the target shadow he can just jump normally. If he can't... then this seems like the InAq Scrying Pool spell, which uses water as arcane connection to other bodies of water. That's Mercurian and has not been generalized, so what you want seems like it'd need a breakthrough. Or a customized virtue acquired in Twilight, perhaps.
At the old forum we discussed this sort of magic in length. I can't find the thread right now. I'll look for it again as it would shed a lot of 'light' on the subject.
Do you want to walk through shadows, or do you want to teleport and simply appear to be walking out of the shadows? Those are two very different effects.
For the first, I think an Ignem requisite that doesn't add magnitude would be needed-- this is purely cosmetic. Whereever you were teleporting to would become a little darker for that moment that you appeared, almost like the manifestation of a sigil. The imagery for it is very cool, I think... shadows gathering unnaturally in a room's corner, dimming the candle's light, and then the tattoo'd man strides purposefully from the darkness and the light returns...
The second would be non-hermetic for a single spell, I think...InIg wouldn't help much unless you were perhaps casting in a castle with a structure target, then you'd know the shadows of the building for that moment? ...so, InIg 2 base, +1touch, +4vision, +3structure... InIg25, you'd know all the shadows within the structure. Then you could try a spell as you suggest, but if the shadow no longer existed, I'd imagine the spell would fail. Still, to do what you want seems like it would require two spells-- the first to learn of the shadows, then the second to travel between them?
thoughts?
-Ben.
Cosmetic additions (like teleports happening between shadows), requires no requisites at all... So the actual spell in question would most likely be a variant of Seven league stride, or Leap of homecoming. This would be a nice sigil, in fact...
Detecting a shadow would be a InIm spell, would it not?
Ignem, page 139, says that "Light and heat fall within the domain of this Form...also includes relative absence of heat," which would imply absence of light...
plus, Imaginem, page 143, says "Imaginem cannot affect light, as that is a part of Ignem," so I'd keep an Ignem requisite, but leave it completely cosmetic, so long as you just want to appear to walk out of shadows, rather than actually travel from shadow to shadow.
-Ben.
The character in question has as his sigil as shadows and darkness (again with the creepy theme)
He already has Leap of the homecoming.
In reply to Leonis_Bjornaer, what i am after is really walking through shadows. The character can already teleport to an arcane connection.
The mental image i have of the spell is of the magus stepping into pools of natural shadow and then stepping out of one not far off. The obvious way to do this is with ReCo. However, to limit it to only shadow rather than just whenever he wants seems to actually ADD difficultly to the spell. Same thing if the magus wanted to step into a tree and appear out of another, or into a bonfire and out another.
The idea of the spell is to create an easier but heavily limited version of simply teleporting as per the ReCo guidelines. Is this possible?
A version of 7 league stride may work...or some thing that lets you step between shadows you can see.
To step to any shadow you'd need extra magnitude to compensate for the missing arcane connection....Or 1 IntelegoIgnem to scry out the shadow(gain the connection?) then a second to step there
Ignem would indicate you're looking for darkness - but you're looking for a shadow.
As for the limited versjon of the seven league stride, it sounds like a spell with a exagerated sigil, or perhaps minor flaw.
Offcourse, if he could introduce "shadowmagic" as a supernatural ability, (major breakthrough?) then he might add that to such a spell...
I think for this you would need a minor breakthrough to create a new range. Either that, or two spells, one to learn of all shadows within the range of the first spell, and then the second to transport to them, basically as a sort of (very) limited arcane connection. Although, like I mentioned before, I think the second spell would fail if the shadow had disappeared between the casting of the first and the second.
To pursue it as a minor breakthrough, you could start with an item that combines the two spells. I would suggest a bronze sash, to have a sufficient size for the vis necessary and it would provide the shape and material bonuses for (+2 move self) and (+5 ignem). Although, if you wanted to skip the ignem bonus, you could make it a silver pendant and have enough "space."
The two effects you could instill would be the InIg 20 Find-a-building's-shadows, and the ReCo 30 SLS...may as well make it a 3/day item for the inIg effect and 6/day for the ReCo effect, so a total of 55 levels of effects...
one season to open the device for 10 pawns of vim, or six if it's a silver pendant
then, entering experimentation mode
one season to instill the InIg effect, requiring discovery
one season to instill the ReCo effect, requiring discovery with the same modifier as above
then lather, rinse, repeat for two seasons doing the exact same process... and get 11 breakthrough points...enjoy the warping...
and you'll only need 19 more breakthrough points... a kind SG might just let you repeat the above process twice more... and then, you'd have your new range of "shadows," that you'd get to describe appropriately.
at least, that's what I'd suggest.
-Ben.
Or simply add +5 to a formulaic spell level 
That does bring up the question, is shadow its own substance, or is it the darkness produced by the absence of light? I would say it is the absence of light within the Hermetic framework, and perhaps its own substance for a nonHermetic framework.
another wrinkle to consider for this concept.
-Ben.
Hmm First cast:
Sense the Darkness
InIg25 R:Personal/Sense Shadow D: Sun T:
With this spell the Caster can feel/sense all dark areas with no or nearly no light in a range up to 7 miles, after the spell is cast he instantly knows where a shadow is, if he wants to cast a spell affecting or involving a shadow.
(Base 2, +2Sun,+5 "Sense Shadow" (4 magnitudes for sight and one for a non-standart-hermetic range))
After this you should be able to use your new shadow-sense-ability to sense a shadow in the teleport range and use a standart teleport spell.
Remember that shadow is the absense of the image, countered with a CrIm spell in the same way a CrIg can bring light or warmth.
Note that NO purely hermetic spell can affect anything you cannot sense without an Arcane connection.
The primary target of the spell is the caster, like other Intellego-Spells, and a magical sense allows you to sense something you normaly coudnt sens like infravison or a doglike smell or the InHe spell that allows you to hear arrows flying towards you... you could say that light (or darkness) also makes an supernatural noise/smell or something you can sense with a spell like this.
Like the much Shriek of the Impending Shafts (Page 136), in fact this is the spell I had in mind when I invetend to spell above! A normal wooden thing makes no noise (and it defenitly do not shreeeeeek!) so thsi spell gves you the ability to sense something extremly unnatural, like the InIg spell i created (which could also be at level 15, like the InHe i think).
Out of curiousity, where are you drawing that distinction from? No hostility intended, I just don't recall that description of shadow in the Imaginem header, and personally, I don't think you can have shadows without having light... in my mind, shadows are where there is no or little light, rather than no or little image, and that would make them Ignem. To have no image would be invisibility, not darkness or shadow. If there's a clearer reference on this I'm missing, please let me know.
Lucius: I can't think of a single canonical spell that allows a nonHermetic target/range/duration for a bump in magnitude.(Serf's Parma!) Any that did something obviously outside Hermetic Laws are usually labeled Mercurian and given a magnitude of "that's-the-way-it-is." If you could just throw in a new target/range/duration for a magnitude bump, why would you ever try to research a breakthrough? I don't think you can do it the way you describe.
Two items that came to mind to further the research into a minor breakthrough that I think a Range:shadows would be are:
A bronze mask that has two instilled effects:
InIg 30 (as above but with concentration duration), +5 item maintains concentration
and
InIm 25 (Base 1, +3 sight, +1 concentration, +4 vision) and +5 Item maintains concentration.
This would let a user see all the shadows in a structure and then look out from those shadows as he desired. Basically a "the-walls-have-eyes" sort of effect.
a set of pan pipes with two instilled effects:
InIg 30 (from above), +5 to maintain concentration
and
CrAn 30 (Base 5, +3 sight, +1 diameter, +1 size) +5 for 12/day? (serf's parma)
this would let a user see all shadows in a structure and then create 10 big, hairy, dinner plate sized spiders to pour out of those shadows and do spidery-type things for 2 minutes before disappearing. I would guess that for the appropriate S&M bonuses to apply they should rats, but I think spiders are creepier.
these two items, if completed appropriately in the breakthrough dance, would provide 12 and 14 breakthrough points respectively, and after the first item I suggested, you'd have enough there to get your new range:shadows.
Over all, I think range:shadows could be very cool. I'd likely put it's magnitude bump at +3... like duration:sun ... it has strengths, but also weaknesses; it might be impossible in an area under the effect of a CrIg spell that destroys all shadows... (Or would it be a PeIg...or as Ulf describes it, a CrIm effect? Hrm.) I'd allow the caster to have his effect emanate from any shadow within a naturally occuring boundary, like a forest, or a structure, or a town... on a plain at noon this range would likely be very short, but at dusk, it could be much better... I think it's further than sight but definitely less than arcane connection ...and not worth a +4 bump, but that's just my thoughts on it.
-Ben.
See Page 114 in the core book:
But even with normal hermetic paramters you can make this:
Hear the voices of doom
InIg25 R:Personal/Hearing D: Sun T:Individual
With this spell the Caster can "hear" all dark areas (a dark, creepy noise) with no or nearly no light in a range up to 7 miles, after the spell is cast he instantly knows where a shadow is, if he wants to cast a spell affecting or involving a shadow.
(Base 2, +2 Sun,+3 "Hearing",+2 greater Hearing range )
Based upon "Shriek of the Impending Shafts" (Page 136), btw 7 miles because 7 is such a nice magical number 
Fair enough, that seems to allow for what you've presented (and I do like that second version you suggest!) but I think you can also do what you've suggested there with this:
See the Shade's cool respite InIg 35 (Req: Au)
(Base 2, +3 sight, +1 diameter, +4 Vision, +1 aurum requisite)
This would combine the Sight of Air(?) InAu spell that allows one to see regardless of intervening objects and sense shadows out to the range you suggest.
I have to admit, I guess I'm not comfortable with the increase in magnitude as you suggest it-- mainly because it relies on a storyguide adjudication, and that is where ymmv. Doing it this way, you obviate the need for a SG call. It's a tougher spell, and that's a bummer, but there's less chance of someone disagreeing with your mechanics.
This problem seems to be another case of many-paths-to-the-same-destination... mmmm, that pesky flexibility of the magic system that we all hold so dear.
-Ben.