Spirit Magic Confusion

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

It seems like there are two schools of thought with respect to spirit magic, summoning, controlling, and otherwise affecting spirits. In Core and some of the early books it seems like the general idea was that Spirits fall under the Form of Mentem, no matter the Form of their Magic Might while in later books there is something of a shift towards Spirits fall under Vim and the form of their Magic Might. So here is an overview of the guidelines I've found:

Core Rulebook: p150-151

  • MuMe 15 Make a mind or spirit visible (Imaginem requisite)
  • MuMe 25 Make a mind or spirit solid. (Requisite of the Form of the shape.)
  • PeMe Gen Reduce a spirit's Might score by the level of the spell + 10, as long as the spell penetrates the spirit's resistance. (implied from Lay to Rest the Haunting Spirit PeMe Gen)
  • ReMe Gen Ward against spirits belonging to one realm (Divine, Faerie, Infernal, or Magic) with a Might less than or equal to the spell level. (Touch, Ring, Circle)
  • ReMe 5 Control a disembodied spirit.

This Core rulebook guidelines uses more specific language, calling the affected being a ghost rather than a spirit.

  • ReMe 15 Summon a ghost. (Ritual)

Mysteries: p28

  • Re(Form) 5 Control a disembodied spirit of (Form)
  • Re(Form) 15 Summon a disembodied spirit of (Form)

Realms of Power: Magic: p111

  • Re(Form) 5 Control an Airy Spirit of (Form)
  • Re(Form) 15 Summon an Airy Spirit of (Form)
  • ReVi 5 Control an Airy Spirit of a specific Realm
  • ReVi 15 Summon an Airy Spirit of a specific Realm

In the last 2 days I've seen two disagreements around Mentem spirit affecting magic and I don't really know why that is. It is in the core book, there are no errata affecting those guidelines or the spell that implies the one guideline. Is there something I've missed that makes folks believe that spirit affecting spells are only Vim or (Form), rather than Vim, (Form), or Mentem?

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2

Note that the core rulebook don't really talk much about spirits other than ghosts, and ghosts fall under Mentem in either case.
Most of the spirit-affecting spells in core talk specifically about ghosts, no matter what the guidelines may say. Lay to Rest the Haunting Spirit is an example of this.

For some types of effects, Mentem affects all types of spirits. For some other types of effects it does not.

Mentem can also affect the
“bodies” of noncorporeal
beings, such as ghosts, as these are maintained
in the physical world directly by a spirit’s will.
Core book, p79

The MuMe guidelines you mention are examples of this - spells affecting the "body" of a spirit.

Controlling a spirit (or other being) with Intelligence can be done with Mentem. Spirits without Intelligence cannot be commanded by Mentem. (See TM:RE p28)

HoH:S p114, which is intended to gather all the published warding guidelines into one place has a different general guideline for Mentem than core has.
Core:

General: Ward against spirits belonging to one realm (Divine, Faerie, Infernal, or Magic)
with a Might less than or equal to the spell level. (Touch, Ring, Circle)

HoH:S

General: Ward against beings associated
with Mentem from one supernatu-
ral realm (Divine, Faerie, Infernal, or
Magic) with Might less than or equal
to the level of the spell. (Touch, Ring,
Circle)

It is unclear if the guideline from HoH:S is intended to replace the one from core, or not.

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In Core, there is a ReFo Gen guideline for all forms (except Imaginem and Vim) of the form "Ward against [creatures associated with Form] from one realm (Divine, Faerie, Infernal, or Magic) with Might less than or equal to the level of the spell (Touch, Ring, Circle)." The ReVi guideline is more powerful, which is stated there explicitly.

In Core, the affected creatures are:
ReAn: animals
ReAq: creatures of water
ReAu: creatures of the air
ReCo: creatures associated with Corpus
ReHe: creatures associated with wood
ReIg: creatures of fire
ReMe (Core): spirits
ReTe: stone creatures

In HoH:S, this was unified to "beings associated with Form" and it was extended to cover Imaginem as well. So I believe that the HoH:S guideline merely clarifies the Core guidline,

4

The HoH:S guideline and the core guideline are not the same thing. A spirit may be associated with something other than Mentem, but its body is still spiritual and so is affected by Mentem. You can use Mentem to ward against things associated (Might aligned to) with Mentem (HoH:S). You may also use Mentem to ward against spirits.

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5

The overview in HoH:S states "Here are the various guidelines for warding the different Forms in Ars Magica Fifth Edition." That seems to imply are not additional guidelines.

HoH:S p.99 says: "Mentem spells (using the Rego Mentem guidelines, ArM5, page 151) can command any spirit with an Intelligence score, but some spirits have no Intelligence, and those are affected by Rego (Form) spells." I don't know of any rule that says "spiritual bpdys" fall under Mentem. A fire spirit without Intelligence would be affected by ReIg and not by ReMe. An intelligent fire spirit would be affected by both.

Whether an intelligent fire spirit is affected by a Mentem ward is up to you. I'd say no, because it would make Mentem too powerful. The ReVi wards are the universal ones.

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6

How about the primary original explanation of what the Form of Mentem covers?

7

I read that to mean that if you can affect a ghost/spirit with Mentem, then you can also affect its body. Not that every noncorporeal body (such as that of an airy spirit) falls under Mentem. If a spirit is associated with Auram or Ignem, then so is its body.

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8

Read it again. It's pretty clear and explicit:

Mentem can also affect the “bodies” of noncorporeal beings

Here, it says "such as ghosts," meaning ghosts are but an example.

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9

See for example the spell Vision of the Haunting Spirits (Core p150). It is a Mentem spell which affects all kinds of spirits, making their "bodies" visible.
That is one example of Mentem being able to affect all types of spirits.

But Mentem can't be used for everything concerning spirits.
It can, for example, be used to command some types of spirits (those with Intelligence, or who are associated with Mentem), but it can't be used for commanding all types of spirits. (TM:RE p28)

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10

The HoH:S guideline and the core guideline are indeed different.
But the list of warding guidelines in HoH:S is supposed to be just a collection of all the already published guidelines, not new ones.

Which means that one of the following must be true:
a) Someone made a mistake when writing the warding guidelines in HoH:S
b) The Mentem guideline from HoH:S is intended to replace the guideline from core.

In either case, it seems like an errata candidate.

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11

I prefer to think the mistake was in HoH:S and one ward guideline was left out. I believe this makes for less retconning of characters built completely with Core than the other way to interpret this discrepancy.

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12

I think that's most likely.

I also think however that it's actually preferable to follow the HoHS rules as they limit the domain of Mentem spells more.

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13

We also have an effect for Spirit Familiars that makes their spiritual bodies corporeal. It's MuMe, with a requisite to match whatever Form their corporeal body takes on, with Mentem there as the primary Form because Mentem covers their incorporeal body.

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14

I think the wards guideline in HoH:S was intended to remove the "spirit" language, because the word "spirit" is too ambiguous. This was explained in RoP:M, p. 100:

However, the term confuses two quite distinct phenomena. There are the spirits that were created as such, and the spirits that were created as human but have since ceased to be material beings.

To me it seems that in the Core book, the authors just thought about animi/ghosts when they said "spirit" in the wards guideline. HoH:S offers a very simple guideline: When you want to affect all beings of a Realm, you use Vim. To affect beings associated with a Form, you use the Form.

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15

So you wouldn't let Ward Against the Beasts of Legend (core, p.120) work on all animals of Virtue, even though all of their bodies are moved about, controlled, changed, etc. by Animal?

16

Why would Ward Against the Beasts of Legend not work on all Beasts of Virtue? It's ReAn and the Beasts of Virtue are "beings associated with Animal".

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(Realm) Might: The creature’s Might
Score. For mundane creatures, this line is omit-
ted. The Form with which the creature is asso-
ciated, for warding purposes, appears in brack-
ets after the Might Score.
Core, p 191.

Some Beasts of Virtue are associated with a Form other than Animal. For example, the Salamander of Virtue (RoP:M p62) is associated with Ignem.

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18

That's my question. You're the one arguing against it, as not all Beasts of Virtue have Might associated with Animal.

19

So your point is that "beings associated with Animal" and animals are not the same thing? I think you're right there, the Ward Against the Beasts of Legend (based on the guideline from Core) would work differently from a similar spell based on the guideline from HoH:S.

I noticed that the salamander is associated with Ignem, but Varkos, the fire-spitting Fire Drake that can be harvested for Ignem vis, (p. 75) is associated with Animal? Can anyone explain the logic behind that to me?

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And if Ward Against the Beasts of Legend works as written, then why not a Mentem ward against spirits?

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