Some Help with Imaginem spells

Hi all,

I am currently building a magus heavily invested into imaginem.
There are some effects I try to build and I struggle to do so.

The first is called "Shedding the Serpent's Skin".
The idea of this spell is to be a very powerful escape artist tool.
My mage has deft form(imaginem) so he does not need any gestures of voices to cast his spells.
The Idea of the spell is that he "disconnects" his image (Sight and Sound) from his person.
It allow him to move invisibly while his "image" continue to distract whoever he was engaged with. (Hence - Shedding the "Skin").
Now I have began to base this spell on Image of the Wizard Thorn (ArM5 147) which is a Rego Imaginem spell.
The problem here is that the Image is still a reflection on the caster and hence copy him,
While I need the image to act independently.
One solution I though about is to add the "Move at your Command" (+2) from the Creo Imaginem description.
The other is to take the spell from the Rego domain and turn it into a Cr(Pe) Im spell - at the same time destroying his image (and per veil of invisability) and creating a new one. thou this seem overly complex.

The second is a Thematic spell which Idea is to "steal" someone's voice.
For the duration of the spell - the target cant use his voice to create any sound, while the caster can speak in his exact voice if he wishes.
I thought about basing the spell on the "Make the object(sound) appear being attached to another object"
However, that does not let me to control the voice - just make it appear to come from the caster.
Here again I am led to think a Cr(Pe) Im effect would work better then Rego.

Lastly, a small question I had is regarding manipulating shadows using Ignem.
The major flaw of every invisability / misplacement spell is that the shadow is still cast of the original object.
It is hinted that Ignem might be used to manipulate the shadow to match the effect.
What kind of effect do you think would be appropriate to do so?

Thanks in Advance,
Simuran.

Well, shadow is light blocked by objects, so a shadow shifted from position a to b to coincide with an invisible maga moving would be ReIg, possibly with an Imagonem prerequisite. It would also require concentration, which could cause issues.

Quoting ArM5 pg. 146

I take it from here that you need only ignem to manipulate shadows.
I also dont see why would you need the concentration duration - the spell keeps doing exactly the same thing.
Here is what I think the spell might look like:

Banishing the Treacherous Simulacrum 10
Creo (intellego) ignem
R:Personal D:Sun T:Individual
The spell uses light to suppress the caster's shadow.
The intellego component allows the spell to adjust itself based on the current lighting.
While this spell is too weak to perfectly suppress the shadow on a bright day, it still goes a long way to conceal it.
(Base 3, +2 Sun, +1 intellego requisite)

The base effect is "Create a light as bright as torchlight"

As for the main spell I was thinking about, here how it looks at the moment.
please comment if you have something to say:

Shedding the Serpent's Skin 25
Rego Imaginem
R: Personal D:Concentration T:Individual
This spell disconnects the casters image and sound from his person, as per The Image of the Wizard Thron ArM pg. 147.
However, the distance the image may be away from the caster is only 100 paces. The caster uses his own senses from his own location.
And finally, the caster can control the image independently from his person. leaving his person to move about invisibly and silently.
Since the spell's duration is Concentration, doing complicated actions (with his person) require concentration rolls to maintain the spell.
(Base 5, +1 Concentration, +1 Additional Sense, +2 Move at your command)

  • If you cast the spell while affected by Banishing the Treacherous Simulacrum (above) your shadow is suppressed while invisible.
  • It is a possible to add a corpus requisite the add a short range teleportation effect to your person, giving you a head start.

I've seen the shadow issue come up a couple of times in saga's I've run with players looking for 'true invisibility.'

Be careful you don't get lost in this one detail.

The real issue is trying to remove all indicators of the magus' presence - which is a much bigger problem than just a shadow. The problems are:

  • most animals don't use sight as their primary sense, so invisibility isn't going to bother them. If the invisible individual is Gifted this can be a real problem.
  • Second Sight is common enough that you have a medium chance of coming across someone who is just going to see right through your illusion
  • Footprints, disturbances in snow, holes in water, etc. are all still going to happen in addition to a shadow. People leave many traces of their passing. Covering all of these up too is going to be a lot more work than just some CrIg - you're going to want Rego Everything as well.

Spells like Breath of Winter or Clouds of Summer Snow are phenomenal invisibility-counters (though the last one is a tad overkill). Combat invisibility can be achieved much more successfully using True Sight of the Air combined with a Creo Fog effect.

The best bang-for-buck to overcome all these limitations of invisibility is a few xp invested in Stealth. HoH:S has a lovely table in the Flambeau chapter that details how invisibility and stealth play together.