Hope the title grabbed you. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, he makes a reference to the spine marrow of wicked men spontaneously generating snakes. In my solo saga, I am playing an asp-focused magus whose ReAn combined is about to reach 40. I am considering using this to create some truly brutal spells using the already-existing spontaneous generation guidelines for ReAn—plagues of locusts on my foes, enraged swarms of mosquitoes, the classic intestinal worms. But having read this, it gave me the idea for a ReAn spell to generate a serpent inside a foe’s body from his marrow.
Considering I don’t have a troupe to run this by, I thought I’d bring it to the forums. This would need a Part target, correct, given that I’m trying to hit the spine specifically? A Corpus requisite certainly, but is Muto or Perdo required as well? One must assume that the newborn serpent would immediately try to escape the body—what kind of damage do you think that would do?
Does the spine marrow of living men definitely generate snakes? I ask because bees are only generated by the dead carcasses of cattle rather than living ones, so I suspect the same applies here - you need the corpse of a wicked man to generate snakes.
“'There are, who think the marrow of a man,
Which in the spine, while he was living, ran,
When dead, the pith corrupted will become
A snake, and hiss within the hollow tomb.”
you’re quite right! I think I somehow didn’t absorb the “when dead” part, likely, because the possibility sort of entranced me. Still, my magus is a Rego specialist and has a decent Corpus for longevity rituals. There is potentially some value in the use of walking corpses filled with snakes.
As an aside, it just occurred to me that I also can’t use the ReAn spells that inflict people with intestinal worms, as they have a Perdo requisite. Being a Beast Master is hard!