Spells with parameters from Faerie magic

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

It occurred to me that in fifth edition we don’t yet have any examples of faerie spells. We have a list of new ranges durations and targets that are useable by Merinita but no examples of them being used.

I decided to create some examples to get a handle on them. I choose to use range road, duration bargain, duration until, target bloodline, and duration fire. I did not choose to use duration year+1 because it is so similar to duration year that I didn’t immediately see any way in which it would be used differently.

I made three spells for each of the five new characteristics. I more or less randomly chose three tech + form combos for each parameter and tried to fit a spell into each combo. On four of my fifteen tries nothing particularly cool or practical came to mind so I switched to something I liked better.

2

The road range spells tended to be low enough to spont and particular enough that they don’t look like things that your magus would want to study as formulaic. Also all of the spells look like they might fall afoul of the limit of arcane connections.

A glimpse of the day ahead
Intellego Aquam 10
R road
D momentary
T group

The caster receives a momentary awareness of places where the road is wet or muddy and understands exactly how wet or muddy the road is at each location.
(base 2, +2 road, +2 group)

Road’s revenge
Perdo Corps 15
R road
D momentary
T part

The feet of the target become too sore to walk upon without great pain. This damage heals as a light wound.
(base 5, +2 road, +1 part)

Calling a Conveyance
Rego Animal 10
R road
D sun
T individual
This spell creates an overwhelming desire to travel along the road to the location of the caster in the target animal.
(base 2, +2 road, +2 sun)

3

These are all rituals so they’re all expensive to cast but likewise they’re all quite mean. The description of the parameter “must be cast on someone who has just made an agreement with the caster” makes things tricky. After all these spells aren’t nice, getting someone to stick around so you can line up a curse for them doesn’t sound like the easiest thing to do and for the most part casting these spells at arcane connection range would make them prohibitively high level. I decided not to worry about it and make them range eye.

There is also a bit of weirdness that I missed at first. The person upon whom the spell is cast is not necessarily the target of the spell. (Certainly their magic resistance applies to the spell but here are many spells where the magic resistance applies where the subject is not the target, take pillum of fire for example.)

It later occurred to me that a caster could create positive effects for the oath breaker after they’ve sworn a marginally silly oath. For example “I will not proclaim three times in a row that the magus who cast this spell is the best dressed and most well groomed person on earth because I know that if I do the terrible fate of turning into a brown bear until sunset will befall me.” This strikes me as not being abusive because the vis cost for this sort of arrangement will be far higher than creating charged items, and it is also almost certainly going to be a source of warping.

Oath breaker’s remorse
Creo Mentem 35
R eye
D bargain + moon
T individual

The target will feel an overwhelming sense of guilt and regret over breaking their agreement. The target must pass a personality test with an ease factor of 9 every day to resist the temptation to go to the magus and explain and apologize for their actions.
(base 4, +1 eye, +3 moon, +3 bargain)

Last breath of the betrayer
Muto Auram 45
R eye
D diameter + bargain
T part

After breaking the bargain the air that the target breathes will change into a vile poison as the bargain breaker breathes it doing +15 damage per round for the duration of the spell.
(base 15, +1 eye, +1 diameter, +3 bargain, +1 part)

Deceiver’s desiccation
Rego aquam 35
R eye
D bargain + moon
T individual

If the party that is subject to this spell breaks their bargain for the period of a moon any water or other liquids in their mouth will forcefully expel themselves. This will prevent the bargain breaker from consuming any liquids in a natural way.
(base 4, +1 eye, +3 moon, +3 bargain)

4

These are big rituals. According to p. 93 these spells can not be dispelled until their condition comes to pass. I don’t really like this personally I’m toying with the idea of dispelled as if they were twice their actual level instead of just making it impossible. I definitely will say that it is an In Vi spell of base level 2 to determine what the condition to undo the magic is.

The Sword that knows its master
Creo (muto) terram 35
R touch
D until
T individual

A sword of supernatural sharpness is created (as edge of the razor) that will endure until it is swung against its creator.
(base 5, +1 touch, + 4 until, + 1 muto requisite)

The Attentive Parens
Intellego corpus 35
R touch
D until
T individual

The caster will be aware of the target’s physical condition until target takes the hermetic oath after passing their gauntlet.
(base 10, + 1 touch, + 4 until)

Bastion of the True
Perdo vim 45
R touch
D until
T structure

Any faerie glamour magic that is inside the target structure is dispelled unless it is an effect of greater than 35th level. This protection will endure until the faerie of greatest authority in the area swears obedience to the dictates of the caster’s covenant.

5

This one was the hardest to design spells for when I randomly choose techniques and forms. I found that I was more tempted to create spells to target bloodlines of animals than bloodlines of people as I can more easily imagine a big clan of dogs or horses to be available to the caster than a family of people.

Taste the Assassin’s Gift
Inellego herbam (aquam) 30
R touch
D moon
T bloodline + taste

The target and all of his or her bloodline will taste any poisonous plants or liquids as a substance too repulsive to be consumed.
(base 3, +1 touch, +2 sun, +3 bloodline, +1 aquam requisite)

Instilling Respect not Earned
Muto mentem 30
R touch
D moon
T bloodline

The target and all of this or her bloodline will feel great respect for all faeries until the duration of the spell elapses.
(base 3, +1 touch, +3 moon, +3 bloodline)

oops, out of time for the morning. I'll post my fire spells later.

6

Fire spells

This target is very limited in scope considering that the target can only be a fire. Still the spells I created seem to be useful and possibly spontable for the right character.

Fire of the Icy Glow
Muto Ignem 20
R touch
D fire
T individual
The target fire radiates cold rather than heat. A fire a pace in diameter chills sufficiently to take a standard room below freezing. Well or poorly insolated rooms will react accordingly.
(base 4, +1 touch, +3 fire)

Lamp of Displacement
Re Im 15
R touch
D fire
T individual
The light given of by the target fire will show images of things to be one pace away from their actual locations.
(base 2, +1 touch, +3 fire, +1 moving images)

7

I guess it's too powerful, but I made the following during an attempt to size out the "power limits" of Hermetic magic.

Curse of the Desert Lands
PeAq (req: Au) 95 Ritual
R: Touch, D: Until, T: Boundary
This spell curses a land (up to 260 miles in diameter), making it as dry as a desert. Rivers will dry up, lakes will dwindle and disappear, and rainfall will drop to null.
This spell was cast by Lancer of Merinitia, who was not satisfied by the limited area and duration of the more traditional Calling the Odious Drought, with the aid of two inferior magi. He cursed the land to wither and die until a “king that has never sinned” sits at its throne. He was very pleased with the results, even if his tribunal wasn’t, and the curse was broken by his death. Although the spell was discovered in his laboratory’s charred remains, he is not generally believed to have been able to develop it. Some of the Flambeau suspected infernal intrigue, but no further evidence for such was ever found. Although the curse was broken, some rivers and numerous springs failed to revive and the land is still lacking for water.
(Base 20, +1 Touch, +4 Until, +4 Boundary, +6 size)

The spell can be found in my so-new-it-isn't-announced-yet ArM spells wiki, btw. Feel free to add to it :wink:

8

Great idea and laudable effeort Erik! I must have a try at making faery/merinita spells myself
And a wikipeda versjon of Net Grimoire, what a tremendous idea! Even though many of the spells there are prohibitivly highlevel. A wikipedia over enchantments could be useful too, now that the rules for making enchantmenst are so much improved, and lesser enchantments should be quite common.

9

Why, thank you :smiley:

Yes. They came about from a "project" of mine to explore the high-limit of Hermetic power. You are of course invited to correct this problem :slight_smile:
Although come to think of it, their power is actually weak. Cannonic ArM5 magi can whip up even stronger spells.

You are right, I should add such a section to the wiki.

10

Here's two spells I wipped up, almost from the top of my head with the target Road. They are very simple and relativly low level, but I think they might be useful aswell. The namesof the spells are rather unimagitatve, I invite anyone to come up with better sounding titles, as well as finding any fault with them. And do make other examples of Faery/Merinita spells of course!

Faery Merinita spells

Intelligo Imaginem

Level 20

Eyes of the Path
R: Road, D: Conc. T:Boundry
Lets the Merinita see along a road or path he is on. He can scan along the road for any distance so long as it is the same road he is on.
(Base 1, +2 Road, +1 Conc, +4 Boundry)

Muto Imagonem

Level 25

Hide the Path
R: Road, D: Sun, T: Boundry
The Merinita makes the path or road he is on indecernable from the rest of the terrain. This makes it difficult to follow the road for those who aren't intimately familiar with it or the terrain.

Base 1, +2 Road, + 2 Sun, +4 Boundry

11

I should think the arts scores these spells would require is the main problem. How can a magus gain scores which would enable him to invent spells above level 80 or so. I guess it would require scores of at least 30 in both arts? Assuming he doesn't have lab texts to work from.
I can see that designing high level spells is no problem, it's just a question of starting with a high base effect and pouring on the R,DT's. But inventing/learning them, that's an other matter. :wink:

I might contribute the lesser enchantments made in our saga. Over a period of five years game time, the 6 magi made 10-15 different items, most with 70 yaers time expiry, and most with 20. to 30. levels modified effect. I've written up most of them with a form I found on Sanctum Hermeticum, which I think Niall Christie wrote.

12

Looking over my spells again I have two notes

First, is that I didn't include my third fire or bloodline spells as they weren't really appropriate. however if any of you can come up with a useful rego Auram target bloodline spell or a useful creo imagonem duration fire spell I'd be glad to see it. In both cases I ran into problems with the target. The target of a rego auram spell really should be an amount of air or a weather phenominon, not a bloodline, the target of a creo imagonem spell must be the fire upon wich it is cast (So I can perfect the image of a fire, how can I use this?).

Second is that lamp of displacement isn't a legal spell either. it targets images upon which the light from the lamp has fallen it does not target the fire itself.

This is not to say that an effect like lamp of dispalcement isn't apppropriate for Hermetic magic or even hermetic faerie magic, just that using non standard parameters is going to create a higher level spell (p. 144).

13

I'd feel more free if I could find a way to log into it so that I could add my spells.

how does one do that?

Edit: found it on the front page.

14

Yeah, I liked these, but upon closer reading something seemed a bit off. The need for AC might be fixable though.

This one seems unproblematic. Target group might be a bit low though. But if you plan to spont it several times during a days travel it should do.

Here I would require target boundry, and it should not require an AC I think. This one could also be made as a MuTe spell, to affect the road itself. So that it becomes near impossible to travel on the road because of jagged rocks and so on. Or isn't it possible to target the road, only things on it?

Here I see the problem wit AC. I can see this as a spell to call several animals if you make the target group. But if this parameter: Road should be useful, I would allow it without an AC on target Ind. On might considder using it after a scrying spell or two.
I'm beggining to worry that I've misunderstod the entire target road thing...

15

I think that one alternative would be to add an intellego requisite to the latter two spells and bump them up a magnetude, so the the spells become "self tarteting".

16

There is a level 1 intellego Imagonem guideline "use one sense at a distance"

So the merinita could cast Calling the Conveyance or Road's Revenge just after casting:

Traveler's Awareness
Intellego Imagonem 4
Range road, Duration diameter, Target individual

The caster can see as if they were standing at any point along the selected road. By succesivley moving his or her point of view to the furthest loation on the road that he or dhe can presently see, a caster can scan a road for many miles in a matter of seconds. the caster can not choose to view from a location ona road that he has not seen (either by passing by the spot or use of this or a similar spell).

Or should it be target vision and therefore level 20? I think it is properly put together above but I'm eager to hear counter arguments.

17

Yeah, I used that one on my two road spells, posted earlier in this thread. But I put Target boundry, and forgot that makes it a ritual, which I find rather useless.
And I am inclined to prefer your example as I feel that this effect looks best as a low level spell. I don't think it has to be Vision.

I like that too. As long as the Base intelligo effect isn't higher than the base effect of the original spell.

18

Greetings,

Since someone mentioned my name, I'll delurk briefly. Without meaning to rain on YR7's parade, I would remind you that we also accept submissions of spells, magic items and the like at SHR, so please feel free to send them along to us as well if you wish: sanctumhr@yahoo.co.uk

That said, my life is pretty hectic at the moment, so I can't promise that they'll be posted immediately... :slight_smile:

Niall
Webmaster, SHR

19

I actually disagree with Njordi and believe that this is a typical spell for a "Vision" target. There is of course a way to circumvent this, found in the spell "Prying Eyes". You can touch the road and declare it an arcane connection to the road, and thereby avoid the "Vision" target.
HOT

20

I've never understod when to use those sense targets anyway. But isn't it something about giving the caster a magical sense. A pure intelligo scrying spell (like this one) dosen't neceseraly do that, does it?