the cats are in ROP:M. I'm really looking more for the how than the who- trying to figure out what PCs and their allies can do and how.
One though is that if the Gruagratch "until" is long enough it might well remain in the bloodline- for example give unaffected by the Gift to a group of horses "until the covenant betrays our alliance" might last through multiple generations...
Hi,
For me, this isn't a matter of "how do I make this work," but "how might I make this work."
Any of these approaches might succeed because it is plausible, but might also fail because it is not sufficiently plausible. Depends on the circumstance. On the story. On the saga.
What works of one magus even within the same saga does not always work for another. Perhaps something subtle went into the first attempt missing from the second. Perhaps it was just the wrong time and place. Perhaps you must start with a dog named Fifi, you need the Blatant Gift, and even then it's not guaranteed.
In other words, this kind of development ought to involve stories and obstacles as much as rules. Because there is no rule for this: It's outside a magus' usual competence.
Anyway,
Ken
Well, I do think it's a useful first step to ask "has this been done before in the rules?" - although I do agree that the answer is "No, not quite - at least not in game mechanics, although narratively the results of which seem to implicitly have been in a few places."
Growing Lesser Enchantment Vis (RoP:M p.119ff) via Viresculture is in the rules, namely in LoH p.72ff Legacy. It required a Major and a Minor Breakthrough, which Hérisson both has achieved and fully integrated into Hermetic theory before 1000 AD, and which can be learned mainly by investigating (ArM5 p.100) the Enchantments in his garden, following LoH p.91f The Garden as a Source of Breakthrough.
Hawks, horses and wolfhounds like those of Lambaird (TCI p.62), if they naturally contain some vis each, can be just treated as Lesser Enchantment Vis wrt Viresculture and bred by this means, so that their offspring also becomes Lesser Enchantment Vis with the desired features.
Cheers
Also
the awakening mystery from HoH: Mystery Cults page 104 is a specific set of rules to give mundane animals intelligence, magical might, and powers.
The Magical Garden of Hérisson, chapter 4 of Legends of Hermes (which I see One Shot beat me to)
While this discussion gives some interesting ideas for story/saga I'm worried about letting players do such things and became OP. Something like a super rich vis farm.
To balance things what you guys think we can do? Make the cows produce magic milk (Animal vis) if fed with a Vim vis supplementary diet?
I wouldn't worry TOO much about characters getting overpowered - Ars Magica is broken from the get-go, in that regards. The Order of Hermes is anachronistically strong and well-organized, and Hermetic magic is powerful enough that if any of the PC's tried, they could probably break Mythic Europe. The general solution is to just roll with it, and make interesting stories about
In fact, there's an entire book (Transforming Mythic Europe, or TME) dedicated to doing exactly this. It's an interesting read mainly for the discussions of "OK, what are the consequences of developing magical teleporters for every major noble in the realm?", and things like that. Essentially, "speculative fantasy" - taking a semi-serious look at what would actually happen to a medieval society if it was suddenly faced with (say) effectively free shipping costs.
If you are fine with ArM5 p.94 Vis Extraction, the Viresculture from the LoH p.72ff Legacy of Hérisson is unlikely to cause problems with the available vis in your saga.
That is one of the reasons, why it is phrased as a general rule to follow with all types of Stirps, including Lesser Enchantment Vis (see LoH p.73 boxes).
Lámbaird's lineages of hawks, horses and hounds (see TCI p.62) do not breed vis, so the authors are less restrictive there.
Cheers
By pure chance it happens last weekend.
As part o the initial saga they are discovering a source of perdo vis in a cavern full of big spiders.
The spiders being the source fo the vis. They just killed all (with a epic 1-1-1-10 roll! spontaneous ignem spell).
By luck they got a few eggs before that and now are "farming" spiders.
(they even tried to use it as a source of food!)
In this particular case they just ended getting the vis/year I had previous planed for the covenant.
But I see how easy things can get out of control with smart industrious players 