By the way, I have been checking ways of keep arachnids (or even animals) away from Aeric's Sanctum.
It seems that the best way of doing that is not with Perdo. I have been thinking about enchanting perhaps the inner core room of the sanctum with an effect based on this guideline:
PeAn 4 - Cause a beast pain, but do no real damage.
Increase to room target (level 10), infinite uses (level 20), and environmental trigger: when an animal is in the room +3 (level 23 in total).
For a normal character would be enough, but for an anti-arachnid paranoid... I was thinking in something that could be created as a permanent magic item.
I'm not sure "when an animal is in the room" qualifies as an environmental trigger. How will the device know that?
But create a device with D:Sun, 2 uses/day, environmental trigger (sunrise/-set) and it's always on. Basic ward against mundane animals is easy. If Aeric is so paranoid he fears supernatural spiders as well he'll need to add Ward Against Beasts of Legend. But then it gets tricky, because how high Might creatures does he want to affect, and how much Penetration will he want?
Maybe Corvus could help him? He has a decent Animal score and a lab good for that, even though he is outside both his focus and potency.
I am aiming towards common vermin at the moment. If I create the Perdo example in a room with the duration that you suggest:
PeAn 4 to cause pain to all animals (or exclusively to arachnids) + 2 mag to affect Room + 2 mag duration (Sun) +3 enviromental trigger plus +1 for an additional use for a total of 29, that creates a room in which any animal that enters suffers pain. Or only animals that are present at sunrise and sundown suffer the full effect for a day or night?
What happens with warping? I understand that only the animals are affected, aren't they? So only animals gain warping in that room, but it is likely that they will avoid it due the pain. If a magus works in the room for a season (and it is not a bjornaer in heartbeast), he won't be considered under the effect of a continuous spell, will he? And if he is a Bjornaer but his parma protects him, he won't gain any warping.
I know that probably is easier just with a ward with Rego (base 1 or 2 I think).
Edit: I think that with a ward the warping applies because it is you who is warded against animals, not the room. While the Perdo options seems worse but only affects animals, and it does not give warping.
But if the sanctum has an effect causing pain in animals, why should it warp humans then? The humans are inside active magic, but the magic does not affect them.
Are magi Warped by being inside an Aegis? I think not, but then again that spell defies normal theory.
If the sanctum has an effect to heat or cool the room I don't think it should warp.
Agreed.
But causing pain is not as effective as straightforward warding, and a circle of beast warding effective against all mundane beasts if only level 5
Since the Lab has a negative safety, there's a slight chance of botching every season of lab work, in this case 8 seasons for this period. Is this something being hand waved as extraneous to the Covenant/Magi-building exercise?
Thanks! (Following the Caepernum thread in general with interest, and Aeric's development in particular, as am currently playing a Perdo Vim-focused Pralician)
*edited, nevermind : with a Refinement of 1, Base occupied size of 0 (size 0 lab , Refinement 1, minus 1 Minor Virtue, Minor Flaw 0 = 0), Base safety is 1, - 1 from Labyrinth = 0, actually
I am going to increase the number of warping points of Aeric to match the 2 per year “standard”.
Also, since Aeric has twilight prone, I will have special attention with his twilights. I will publish two twilights with the corresponding scars for each period of 15 years. I have been planing those twilights and I think that that is a reasonable number for a character prone to twilights that at the same time won’t make the character a quirky unplayable creature.
I will follow the following guidelines for balance:
I won’t add any xp for positive experiences nor will I subtract from negative ones. I suppose those xp compensate and consider them into the 30xp per year.
I will add one positive or neutral scar for each negative one.
When I add a virtue or a flaw, I will compensate it in a latter twilight with an equivalent opposite one.
I will tend to put positive or neutral twilights early and negative ones latter, as twilight experiences are increasingly difficult to comprehend because of warping.
So these are the twilight scars and effect for Aeric in the first 15 years:
That seems very reasonable and balanced. I know have a tendency to control Twilights (it is a great time to spend Confidence!) and avoid bad results. But even though one gets extra exp for good results over time the 30 exp per year should still be ok. I mean, even if the magus gets a free level in an Art, the entire season's work may be lost due to time spent in twilight.
I also like it that you intend to balance virtues with flaws. I would perhaps have allowed 1-2 more virtues than flaws, because a Twilight Prone magus may be better than average at riding out the storm.
I don't think that mystery virtues are better or worse than the normal ones. They are less common, perhaps.
And, also, they were discovered in some way. Of course, the Forest Lore route is the most known route to new virtues and I suppose that hermetic breakthroughs is the other. But I don't see why twilights cannot be the other route for some of them. We are not talking about very strange virtue here. The fluff in the section about spirit magic in The Mysteries says:
Virtues gained from Twilight need to be appropriate to the magic causing the Twilight.
I don’t see any other criterium making Spirit Familiar inappropriate. Being “too good” is not an argument IMHO. Especially since you intend to balance with flaws over time.
I think "too good" can be a legitimate concern - balance is a thing people care about for a reason. That said, whilst Spirit Familiar provides some very nice snackies for a minor virtue, it's probably not going to seriously unbalance the game*.
Where I do think the "too good" comes in, is that it devalues mystery cults if players* can choose for their magus to pick up a specific mystery virtue without all the rigmarole of joining and serving a cult and learning their lore. I'd be happier about a case where a Story Guide assigned it to a character, or where it and the consequences (i.e. the mystery cult wanting to know how you'd learned its secrets) was a key part of the character concept.
Mystery Virtues are also not usually that well integrated into Hermetic Theory - teaching them tends to require a minor breakthrough, and I'd expect the result of a Twilight not to be non-Hermetic (there's no evidence you can come out with a Folk Witch virtue, say).
*I appreciate we're not actually players in a game here, but I feel most of the same principles should apply, and we should be if anything stricter if we're trying to make characters for general use.
I think that Spirit Familiar is fine to pick up from Twilight.
It's a reasonably good virtue, but not one of the game's very best.
I also notice that Mystery Virtues, by and large, are not better than normal virtues. Like normal virtues, some of these are very good, but most are not. If anything, the vast majority are not worth the investment.
RAW, you need to be part of a Mystery Cult to pick up any of these. Of course, who know what you were doing during your Twilight? /2 Or who/what you met? Spirit Familiar might be especially apt.
As for devaluing Mystery Virtues, I think nothing devalues them more than their not being present at all in a game because no one wants to bother.
I see what you mean.
So Aeric will have to act as the "SG" to the character he's designing, to ensure any virtues gained fit a theme and not just be the best ones. A Mystery Cult should have a more or less set order for virtues following an selection which makes sense for the cult. However Aeric is not in a Mystery Cult, he is merely gaining virtues and suffering flaws due to uncontrollable and more or less random Twilight. So IMHO for these to follow what this situation would look like in actual play, the V&Fs would need to be connected to the magic actually being Botched. And this is most likely the magic of the magus' speciality and main field of interest. Statistically speaking, that is - the player ought to be rolling more often for this mind of magic than compared to something else, and should also Botch more often mere. However personally I tend to roll double Botches with some random, low level support spell cast on the way to do great stuff with my specialty magic..
/2 Or who/what you met? Spirit Familiar might be especially apt.