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
Aeric already has the circle. But turning this into a Room spell brings some problems:
In this case, you probably are being warded by the spell. The spell affects you, not only animals. Now that I am thinking:
If wards affect the thing that they ward and not the thing warded against, then I think that continuously used circle also warps...
Hi!
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
Thanks for the note. I have corrected it. Somehow knew it, but I don't know why I finally put -1.
About Twilights and warping.
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:
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'm not sure about getting a mystery virtue (Spirit Familiar) from Twilight - I don't think it's explicitly impossible, but it seems a bit too good?
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.
Hi,
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.
Anyway,
Ken
Technically they do not. But it does seem most appropriate if they are.
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..
Well, consider me surprised!
However reasonable it seemed, it was just our local convention and habit then.
I was thinking 2 twilights in each 15-year advancement phases, for a total of 12 scars in 90 years. Most of the twilights should be things that counter themselves if we have an equal proportion of good and bad twilights (gain xp, lose xp, gain spells, lose spells). So perhaps one minor virtue and one minor flaw, or, at most, two of each or one minor plus another major virtue, and one minor plus another major flaw. No room for much more.
I mean, I wasn't thinking to fit a grand theme with two elements. I thought that spirit familiar was related to the spells invented in this first period (to control magic and faerie spirits) and that botch story like the one of that twilight was reasonable. I also was thinking of a low-level Jinn for Aeric's familiar, but a magic dog would do equally fine and probably won't be as difficult to design (I have been fighting with the Magic Realm book recently). I had thought of the next period to add the balancing minor flaw, two more periods without virtues/flaws, and one virtue and one flaw for the last two periods.
Indeed.
Ultimately, it doesn't look like other people agree with me that there's a problem, I know my opinions tend towards the more restrictive end of things and I don't think it's a matter of a clear-cut right or wrong, so I'll drop the issue.
You are not alone, Salutor.
I also think that this kind of exercise should always follow the most restrictive path to suit the most people, but shrugs not my character!
I thought I'd respond to this here rather than in the central thread, to avoid cluttering that one.
Apologies for the delay - I'm starting to think about Eleutherius' 15 - 30 period now. My current plan is for him to go after Solomonic Travel.
What Eleutherius has produced for Aeric by the end of the 0 - 15 period is a couple of Magic Theory tractatus on manipulating Sihr and Solomonic Astrology (as well as another tractatus on the Order of Solomon's Organisation Lore). Reading the Magic Theory tractatus should be enough to enable Aeric to develop spells to manipulate Sihr / Solomonic Astrology respectively.
One thing that Eleutherius hasn't done at the moment, but could early in the period if there's interest, is to write up lab texts of his naranj (so that they can be used as sources of Insight - he's deliberately chosen some spells which cover things Hermetic Magic doesn't do / doesn't do well). These will have to be in Arabic (as I assume as with Hermetic magic it would take a minor breakthrough to adapt to a non-standard language). It will be a bit inefficient, as he doesn't know 100 levels of naranj.
The key thing Eleutherius is interested in from Aeric over the 15-30 period is ways to fool Solomonic Astrology - probably via means of spells similar to Shell of False Determinations, although he'd also be interested in other options.