After catching a lot of flak for some of the stuff I'd tried to pull off in some of my games, I thought I'd post up here what I was attempting and see what sort of reaction they get.
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The Loyal Assistant
MuMe 35
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind
Req: Corpus
This spell creates a human body out of the caster's mind. The caster can see through both pairs of eyes and can control both bodies simultaneously.
(Base 25, +1 Touch, +2 Sun)
This is obviously a variation of Inmost Companion (AM p149), but its clearly more powerful. Originally I had intended this spell to be enchanted into a large Craftable cabinet (container) augmented with alabaster/mercury or whatever else was appropriate, usable twice a day - the mage would walk into the cabinet, activate the effect and gain a copy of himself for the day that would assist him in lab activities.
So, then there's the following options which I didn't really explore further:
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Making it Touch range if the mage is good enough and bypass the need to craft it as an item
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Add Intellego, Perdo and Vim requisites so that the spell instantly deactivates when the image is touched "violently" or by magic in order to prevent the main drawback of the effect, which is that if your mind dies, you die. When used this way it has to be in an item, but it also is pretty powerful in that if you were good enough you could make it last Moon and then stay home most of the time and send out your simulacrum to do things for you.
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Read two books at once? Conduct a lab experiment and read? Use two labs simultaneously on separate projects?
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Can the simulacrum cast spells?
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Considering that you retain your mind after casting this, can you have multiple copies of yourself active?
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The Helping Hand
ReVi X
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind
This is a variant of Maintaining the Demanding Spell (AM p162) whose purpose is not actual use as a spell, but as an effect in an item with unlimited uses per day with a simple physical trigger that can be performed without hindering spellcasting. Blammo, all your spells are Sun duration. The way that these sorts of effects are presented you can theoretically make it duration Moon without affecting the magnitude, since it works on spells of its level or lower.
Toss in an unlimited use PeVi effect with an Intellego requisite to turn off any lingering effects in a hurry, though the description of Maintaining the Demanding Spell implies that you can take back Concentration from the spell whenever you want which in turn implies that you should be able to turn off these effects individually without bothering with a PeVi effect.
This is a good argument why such booster effects need to only work on spells of levels equal to or lower than the Base Level used to craft these spells - Maintaining the Demanding Spell (AM p162) works on extending Conc duration spells but has a Diameter duration and Touch range. At a minimum, the base effect is 2 magnitudes below the target spell, implying that Maintaining the Demanding Spell boosts spells whose levels are 2 magnitudes higher than its own base effect, but it doesn't really go into this. It just says that it boosts spells its own level or lower.
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The Infinite Libram
This is actually a series of magical effects that have to be enchanted into items to get them to work right since they interlock so much.
The idea is that its possible to create a copy of something, but maintaining multiple copies is problematic. Therefore, The Infinite Libram attempts to sidestep this by creating just one extremely large, single book. Instead of copying books individually, the books are copied and added to the Infinite Libram.
The effects work like this:
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A work to be copied is placed next to the Infinite Libram
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When activated, the Infinite Libram copies the blank pages of the work into the back of itself with The Perfect Medium (EFFECT #1)
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The Dutiful Scribe (EFFECT #2) copies the ink portion of the work into the newly-added blank pages from step 2.
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Maintaining the Pages (EFFECT #3) and Maintaining the Ink (EFFECT #4) then cast themselves, ending their previous incarnations and replacing the old Infinite Libram with a new Infinite Libram (now with the added contents of steps 2 and 3).
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Pages of the book are hidden and the book itself resizes to fit whatever tome within the Libram is currently being examined.
EFFECT #1
The Perfect Medium
CrAn 35
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Group
Requisites: Intellego
This spell copies the pages of a book you are touching, placing the copied blank pages into the Infinite Libram.
(Base 5, +1 Touch, +2 Group, +2 intricacy, +1 requisites)
EFFECT #2
The Dutiful Scribe
CrTe 30
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Group
Requisites: Intellego
This spell copies a book that you are touching into the Infinite Libram, duplicating exactly the written text and illumination; any mistakes or damage to the inked parts is copied exactly.
(Base 1, +1 Touch, +2 Group, +5 intricacy, +1 requisites)
EFFECT #3
Maintaining the Pages
CrAn 30
R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind
Requisites: Intellego
This spell copies the various pages of the Infinite Libram, duplicating exactly the sizes and materials.
(Base 5, +2 Sun, +2 intricacy, +1 requisites)
EFFECT #4
Maintaining the Ink
CrTe 25
R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind
Requisites: Intellego
This spell copies the written contents of the Infinite Libram, duplicating exactly the written text and illumination.
(Base 1, +2 Sun, +5 intricacy, +1 requisites)
EFFECT #5
Hiding and Revealing the Bulky Contents
MuAn 25
R: Per, D: Conc, T: Part
Requisites: Intellego, Terram
This spell hides the unused pages of the Infinite Libram, condensing each tome individually down into two pages (a readable title page and a hopelessly compressed and unreadable contents page) and causing only the currently-viewed tome of the book to reveal itself fully. Additionally, this causes the Libram to resize itself to fit the currently-examined book.
(Base 5, +1 Conc, +1 intricacy, +2 requisites)
EFFECT #6
Maintaining the Bulky Contents
ReVi 25
R: Touch, D: Dia, T: Ind
This spell sustains concentration on Hiding and Revealing the Bulky Contents through the sunset and sunup transition periods.
- 2 uses per day, +1 level
- environmental trigger (sunrise and sunset), +3 levels
EFFECT #7
Hauling the Tome
ReTe 4
R: Per, D: Sun, T: Ind
This spell makes the tome an easily-managed weight by causing its protective shell to hover and be as light as a single book.
(Base 2, +2 Sun)
- 2 uses per day, +1 level
- environmental trigger (sunrise and sunset), +3 levels
These series of effects are based on the ritual Twinning the Tome (HoH: TL p101) and its intricacy guidelines. It got me thinking about why do it all at once as a ritual, once per tome, when you can just create an uber-tome that houses everything? The initial vis investment is high but you can theoretically house every book at Durenmar in this thing.
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Minor Magical Focus and Verditius crafting
Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults has a section on Mystery groups among the Verditius, called Confraternities. When discussing these, they have the following intro:
"Each confraternity has a unique Inner Mystery available to its members, a less specialized Virtue that mirrors a common Hermetic Virtue..."
It goes on to list a few of these Confraternities, but what's notable about them is what 'less specialized Virtue that mirrors a common Hermetic Virtue' some of these Confraternities get, and the implications of that.
The Confraternity of Roland "have developed an Ordeal to impart the Minor Hermetic Virtue Minor Magical Focus (Swords)."
The Confraternity of Himinis the Mad use "an Ordeal to teach his Initiates the Minor Hermetic Virtue Minor Magical Focus (Wooden Wands)."
The implication is that choosing a Minor Magical Focus that is based around the final product of your Verditius construction project "mirrors a common Hermetic Virtue" - basically allowing a Verditius mage to take Minor Magical Focus (whatever specialization of Crafting I'm using for this character).