Would a specific Form of the Temperament Heartbeast work? Base 5 T:Touch D: Conc/Diameter T:Ind. This is 15, T:G is 25, 1000 birds 35. For a measly +1 to Dex.
Hmm, the Unicorn in Faith and Flame has a Righteous Fury power, does not say "Non-Hermetic", +5 to all Attack and damage rolls, MuAn40, Base 25, +2 Sun +1 Size. So for crows, Base 15 might be 1 crow +3/+3, and the rest follows.
As a slight tangent, my home-game companion actually uses some of the tricks that were mentioned here - I'm keeping particular eye on this thread for fun ideas. My pirate-lord Companion has skinchanger/crow and Command Animals/Crows, and regularly uses crows as sacrificial soldiers to tear up sails and rigging, and uses clouds of crows as cover and as messengers and scouts. He has the advantage of not needing to design spells, since he just has mind-controlled minions.
The description says the bonus is due to “razor sharp hooves and alicorn” it sounds like an animal version of Edge of the Razor. So unnatural but not supernatural. It it also mentions “infused with the power of the Lordy” which is supernatural.
To make matters even less transparent the bonus is “ +5 to all Attack and Damage rolls” which is different than the bonus Edge of the Razor and the like gives, which is a bonus to Dam stat!
But if a MuAn base 25 will yield an Attack bonus, Corvus will go for that.
I’m thinking about some new spells. Corvus already developed a spell to grant a raven human-like Intelligence. But since he usually works in groups of 1700 birds at a time:
And would this work?
I see no reason not doing as non-Ritual and with a duration. That is, other than inflated spell levels and Warping. But this hardly matters for magically created birds.
But did I miss some reason that this is invalid?
Will the spells stack, like the rituals?
After the discussion about the effects of being effectively blinded on fighting ability:
I like this spell more and more
Hmm. I think whether this can be done requires a lot of troupe judgement. We would not allow it, as written.
Check out A&A pp.31&32. Basically, it tells you that animals have qualitatively the same "wits" as humans, but in animals memory and cognition (two of the five "wits") are far weaker.
According to A&A p 32 the way Mind of the Beast works is by "making a mind so consumed by one of the wits that reason does not get a way in". That's why it's MuMe.
On the other hand, to give a beast the mind of a man, you would need to significantly enhance its memory and cognition, which ought to be Creo (again, according to A&A).
Hmm.
I'd probably do it as follows. Forget Creo, the above notwithstanding. I'd look at the MuAn base 25 guideline(s) "Radically change an animal in an unnatural way (for example, give a horse wings). Give an animal a “magical” ability, such as the ability to breathe fire (requires a requisite for the ability)", and make the whole thing Base MuAn(Me)25, +1Circle +1Conc, for a final level of 35.
The only thing I would disallow is the one striked out. "Repeated castings are additive" only because the outcome of each is non-magical, so magic can "build" upon it. You cannot "stack" CrMe spells, like you cannot "stack" multiple instances of Purification of the Festering Wounds or Gift of the Bear's Fortitude.
I think it could work. But would obviously stop affecting any crow that left the circle. Or all crows the moment concentration dropped.
Nor is it a given that they would be able to interact with their "pre-intelligence" memories in a sensible manner, once sentient.
I have to give this one to ezze.
Note it's T:Circle, not D:Ring!
I noticed.
T:Circle is defined as:
Why does the effect end when the ravens leave the circle?
It is D:Ring effects that end when the target leaves the ring.
That sounds reasonable. And a 7th rather than a 5th magnitude spell does not deter Corvus
Yeah, I though this would be possible since the rituals do this. However it is because they are rituals that the effects of the first casting becomes natural before the second one. And therefor they don't stack, because repeated use of the same effects don't stack - and so it should be.
Since there are no guidelines in RAW where a single effects gives more than a +1 modifier to a stat, these intelligent ravens are limited to having their -3 Int increased a single time to a measly -2.
Why even bother? I mean, the whole 'ravens with human-like intelligence' is an exercise in futility. I'm okay with the limited usage of mundane ravens, tailored to specific actions as done by the myriad of spells from Corvus' year +15. Maybe they would be of more general use and be more flexible. But I think it requires a fair amount of suspension of disbelief to accept them. It's a fantasy game, and intelligent ravens do exist in mythic europe, just like talking dragons and an almost unlimited number of odd beings. But it could be difficult for us, mundane real-life humans to imagine how a raven with human intelligence (albeit a -3) thinks and reacts. I try not to complicate things and just assume they function ok, even if a mundane raven with animal mind suddenly gets a human like mind. I don't think their minds would implode under the added stress, simply from the argument that this would be boring in a game and the other alternatives would be more fun. I'd rather assume that with human intelligence comes human foibles. So Raven A doesn't work well with Raven B, because it eats with its beak open. Raven B hates Raven C because he stole his mate. Raven D is lazy and Raven E is a bully.
And about a raven's access to memories from before it was granted human intelligence? Are we talking that a mundane, animal.minded raven experiences or witnesses something, and then subsequently is granted human intelligence - then how does it interpret and understand the old, animal-like memories?
That's an interesting point. I'm sure it has these memories, but it may have difficulties understanding them. There are some CrMe spells to enhance memories, which Corvus needs to look at. Maybe I can see if some MuMe can transform the animal-memories to become more understandable with human intelligence: "Well, master, you ask about the Sahir ...I did see a guy with a beard and a staff draw on the ground, and then a transparent person appeared...that's it, right?"
I could definitely see the crows having trouble deciphering their pre-sentient thoughts. A few weeks ago I found an old notebook from late high-school/early collegiate with a mix of creative-writing and D&D notes, and I definitely had no idea what I was trying to do way back then....
As far as T:Circle, the book does imply that individuals can leave the circle after the initial casting without interrupting the spell... unless that counts as 'breaking' the ring by having someone step in or out of it.
If the ravens have been made intelæligent before they go spy on things I don't see a problem.
If they witness things with animal minds and suddenly find themselves intelligent and questioned about I do see a challenge. Corvus has this ideas to help with this
As for "beraking a circle" I interpret this as destroying or disrupting the physical circle. I find it counter intuitive that T:Circle should affect the duration since it is a Target parameter rather than a Duration parameter. And it clearly says under D:Ring that if the target leaves the circle the effect ends, and this is not mentioned for T:Circle.
Anyway, I've bumped that one Circle spell of Corvus' up to Group instead - in his 31-45 year period me might as well hit the books a bit before inventing. Most of the lesser spells I'm fiddling with here he can invent with his stats for year +30, but some are harder. Luckily he has time to raise his arts as well.
We're mostly in agreement with how things should work; I have a bit of a cautious approach to corner cases and arguments though. I also think that managing to bump things up to group would be very, very helpful because he doesn't have to worry about making the birds all behave properly and sit in the circle. I think someone crossing the circle DURING casting would cause trouble, but that might be just my mystical interpretation of how circle should work. If I cast a circle-target spell, and something is only partly in the circle, is it affected? Is only part of it affected? Would birds flapping out of the circle mid-spell mean the half-in birds are not affected, or partly affected, or the spell is ruined?
It seems we agree then, because I don't mind that the use of T:Circle is a bit fiddly.
If the intended target moves out of the circle - even partly - during the casting, then that target won't be affected. Or if the intended target isn't in place fully inside the circle when the casting starts. I don't think the spell fails, because other targets staying inside the circle fulfill the requirements to be targets. If there is only that one target, which then moved even partly outside, I think the spell is cast but since there is no legal target the spell has no effect - so does it even matter if it was cast or not?
As for the difficulty of keeping birds inside the circle a simple Circle of Beast Warding should do the trick. As long as we're talking mundane beasts.
I actually think the same goes for T:Group. Any individuals not clearly present and close to the others in the defined group when casting starts, or who wander off during casting, won't be affected. The spell still goes off, any individuals in the group are affected. Someone wandering into a group duriong casting won't be affected, because they should have been there from the start and to the end of the casting. However for non-Ritual spells this isn't a very long time, but with Ceremonial Mastery there is the option of Ceremonial casting and with this time is an issue.
I just checked my notes, I’m only 5 seasons short of Corvus’ development to +45 years.
I just read through this, I hadn't looked at any of the Capernum characters since January. I had some thoughts about the early spells, (Flurry of Black Feathers only needs range touch, range is computed to the closest part of the target, the expand the Raven's [thing] lore spells should probably have a note that the caster needs to know the information he wishes to create in the raven's mind. It seems obvious but you never know) but as I went on I dropped he editing instinct and I just really enjoyed it.
I very much like how you're going about his development.
But Corvus is veeeery specialized, and I have had difficulties with findign ways for him to controbute to the covenant's physical site or the economy. I suppose we could have fresh down-filled pillows and duvets every day...
His original idea was spying, and now he is gradually becoming more and more nasty in the offensive department.
You want to do more spying with your crows?
I'm guessing that you've already taken a look at the 136-150 period for Adelbert? It started with the Aviary of the Watchful Covenant two posts down from the post I linked, I spent a fifteen year period developing tools for gathering information and projecting magical power mostly through magically created and controlled crows. The character was more than 100 years older than Corvus at 31-45 but there might still be some inspiration in there.
Still Corvus has got crows that posses reasoning minds and the ability to control them. He's got a great number of tools to get his little darlings to spy for him, and now he's got tools to let them kill for him as well.
I don't necessarily want Corvus to travel down a similar path to Adelbert but being able to open up intangible tunnels to your crows to let not only Corvus but also the rest of the magi throw their spells all over the middle east sure would be convenient.
Crows that are large enough to haul freight might be nice, or alternately develop some magic where you transform anything that you wish to move into a flock of ravens, and then your cargo flies itself to the destination of your choice and turns back into the original stuff. That second option would be amazingly mythic.
Along the same lines how about turning a pile of rocks and logs into a flock of crows, having them assemble themselves into a structure and then turn back into rocks and logs but now they're a building. That would be near impossibly difficult, it's totally something a magus should devote themselves to
Invisible crows are simple thing for him to work out at this point. he could do iron plated steel clawed battle crows that would be simple and fun, but you've already got a whole bunch of battle magic. Is there a way that you could have the crows deal damage to a target in a way that bypasses magic resistance? Something like giant ravens dive bombing with rocks, or something more dangerous.
Hi Erik
Initially when we started the project I browsed your magus for inspiration, and quickly saw some things I’d have to do differently.
My current notes for +45 includes some more and some nastier offensive spells, as well as humongous ravens.
I really like your ideas about changing things into Ravens in order to move or build. That’s something for +60 I think