Shape and material bonuses for cloth and other worn material

I'm interested in the S&M bonuses for cloth, wool, leathers, skins, silks, hemps, and other worn materials. The reason is I have a magus who might make a talisman from his cloak, but the selection of stats on the PDF are (I think) missing wearables.

I'll be looking at cloak clasps for metals and gems, or perhaps even an animal or beast skin.

IIRC the PDF is quite comprehensive. If you want suggestions:

Clasp: +2 hold something in place

Silk: +3 impress, +1 protection (Mongols used to wear silk undergarments since arrows would not pierce it and so removal opf piercing wounds was much easier and healthier)

Beast skin: +4 self transformation. +1 main behaviour/personality characteristic of animal (+1 Bravery for a lion pelt, +1 cunning for a fox pelt, +1 fear for wolves... and all the usual topics and oversimplifications that appear in medieval bestiaries)

You can also enchant the embroidery. That lets use use all sorts of ductile metals and fancy gems, for their form bonuses, and patterns, for their shapes. See http://www.spectator.co.uk/arts/arts-feature/9033391/english-embroidery-the-forgotten-wonder-of-hte-medieval-world this article for ideas.

BTW, how do you embed a link behind text?

Remember you can also enchant buttons, as they are, at the time, expensive materials, small in size, and 'hot swappable' :wink:

Integrate the jewish "Worn" duration and you'd have an incredible portable toolkit.

I asked this same thing long ago, and was told by Authors that the operating canon assumption was that that list was (more or less) "current and complete", and anything else needed to be researched (or had not been made public by any who had already done so).

Nothing stopping your Troupe from adding (or subtracting!) from that list, but that's the starting point.

For what it's worth, I don't think the list is exhaustive, and unless the statement that the list was more or less complete was uttered by the Line Editor, it's irrelevant.

Also...I hate the virtue Vulgar Alchemy. I think it should be far easier to invent/discover new shape and material bonuses.

I'm tempted to say that the "discovery" of a rather obvious bonus which is minor (meaning not a +7 or greater) and well referenced historically can be done as part of the enchantment process. I'll have to try to convince my SG. :smiley:

I like the suggestion of lowering the target for discovery too. Something like silk seems easy to justify.

I agree. I'd suggest a modified version, doesn't need vulgar alchemy, functions like original research, but with a thematic bonus to your progress to breakthrough (or an easier breakthrough, in more mechanical terms) based on a troupe and SG decision of how thematically appropriate the material is, and a more difficult breakthrough if you're going for a higher power bonus on the S&M table.

make it so a +1 or a +2 is something that a truely gifted bonisagus might be able to pull off as an apprentice, and any junior bonisagus SHOULD be able to, though it's unlikely they'd be inclined to do so (why do something so unlikely to get you much house acclaim?)
A +3 to +5 is the realm of either the gifted junior or the middle aged magus
+6 to +7 is the realm of the gifted middle aged, or the senior.
+8 upwards is a gifted senior or an archmagus.