However dull I find it, to design a character with mostly standard spells, it does in fact make better sense. Even though this project is about spell design, the characters also need to be useful and plausible.
Back to the old drawing board then
Well, it uses guidelines for "an inclination towards something" not powerful commands
My concern now is that even if the bird is magically inclined to seek out "the village of XX" it might to magically be fed the knowledge of where and what that village is, so it can understand it in terms of its own animal intelligence.
This is the question that stopped the magus Bjornaer in my saga. When you ask a person to deliver a message, that person has the ability to recognize faces, the ability to ask for directions or about the identity of a particular person, etc. It is amazing the long list of abilities that we humans have "by default". So you don't need to give that person a lot of complex instructions to make that person find his/her target. Usually, the person that sends the message does not have all the information that is needed to deliver the message, just broad indications like "finding a person named Joe in the third red house of the WhatTheFuck street of WhoCares city".
But how do you convey all that information to a crow? My take is that you cannot. You need to give the crow temporary human intellect and human abilities to act as a messenger.
That was just my reflection. Perhaps you would find something better. Something with an arcane connection, perhaps?
I disagree. Animals can be trained to this, to recognize people or places. I understand that commands and directions can't be as complex and specific as for people. But this is also a fantasy game, where animals are characterized in other terms than modern day, scientific terms. Especially when you can - with magic or animal ken - actually speak with animals.
I can buy the different characterization than by modern science, but, as far as my knowledge goes, when birds were used to deliver messages, they were trained to deliver to specific places. And birds are monsters remembering specific places and remembering how to reach them. They are very good doing that.
But I think that you want to go more like medieval whassap kind of thing, reaching people that you don't necessarily know where exactly they are. And that is good because magic should be able to do that. I just say that it seems to me like a really big problem and that I will be lurking over here to steal your ideas related to it.
Well, the messenger ravens will be fairly simple to begin with. Just sending them to specific villages again and again will help a lot. But very complex commands, very flexible ones, may need more intelligence than they possess.
I'll start out slow and simple.
It's a specific person (that it need not have seen in advance), and a specific place that, again, it need not be familiar with beforehand. That's very complicated and very specific.
Agreed. Without granting the animal intellect I can’t see how they’re able to reason and problem solve enough to meet the desired effect as stated at present.
If the animal was tracking to a scent and needed supernatural tracking it would be ok, or if it knew the person and destination already, or if an AC was used, but it seems the animal needs human-like reasoning.
Perhaps the caster must implant their own detailed memories with a description of the message recipient and location into the animal?
If I was an SG I’d ask the spell to either define the ability being granted to be closer to what an animal can normally do, or require a Mentem req and baseline.
Hmmm. Is it an MuMe(Te) or InTe(Me) to give someone a homing beacon to a geographical location? (Me=>An in this thread's case) Or some other combination? I think granting someone else a supernatural sense like this is within hermetic Theory.
You absolutely could use InTe to grant the ability to home towards a specific location - but that would normally require an Arcane Connection to said location, no?
... but this spell makes no such requirement!
Hi all, love these projects and follow them as much as I can!
One detail I noticed: all of Corvus's spells are Touch, so is he going to be lugging around a tiny cage or 2 of trained creatures, + empty ones? Even if he creates the raven he will then command, he still has to touch it, as there's no Re prerequisite to keep it quiescent and ready for the spell barrage (including probably multiple Maintain the Demanding spells), and instructions to follow, so the cage better be tight! This might be rather farcical, as Corvus has to create the raven, then maintain concentration, cast, and touch the raven again, to make it last a day, cast another spell, touch the raven, Maintain the Demanding spell, etc . A ReAn Sight or Voice spell that compels ravens to get closer and be amenable to your touch might also be in order.
He could also use a R: Sight version of Opening the Intangible Tunnel too, so that his R: Touch spells get around that too.
Even right out of apprenticeship, his control raven casting total if he can grab a sick is 34 in a 0 aura. so level 7 or so with non=fatiguing or 20 with fatigue as a spont. So some of these spells are available even if he doesn't know them.
Props and aura within the covenant mean that level 25 rego crow is easy, level 30 isn't out of the question for ceremonial magic.
Hi,
That's easiest, but there are other ways. However...
... but this spell makes no such requirement!
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... This spell doesn't need any such requirement, because it only inclines the raven to seek out a place. It provides no homing ability, no ability to recognize said place beyond the raven's usual cognition, no ability to seek out that place beyond the raven's usual ability.
So the raven now has some inclination to do something, and probably has no clue how to do it or recognize that it has done it.
This is going to be a very unfulfilled raven for the duration!
Fortunately, the spell guideline does not compel the raven. So, while it might be inclined to seek out this nebulous place (CrMe to implant an idea of a place in a human mind, so CrAn would be needed to do the same here if the raven does not already have an idea of the place, such as "my nest"), it will be easily distracted by more important things, like finding food, evading predators and the like. You know, Squirrel! Or maybe, Shiny! Hawk! Yummy! Etc. So it does get to have a life. And it isn't likely to take the straightest path, since while it is inclined to do this, it still has priorities, which is good, since this spell does not help the raven follow its inclination.
If the raven is actually intelligent, of course, this spell requires Mentem rather than Animal.
In a nutshell: The spell does not specify the person or the place. This information must be provided in another way. Otherwise, the spell works about as well as a spell that inclines a raven to build a cathedral. It has the inclination, but has no idea what a cathedral is or how to build one. Adding an AC to a place does not solve this.
Anyway,
Ken
This was actually the point I was trying to make. Sadly, I'm not very good at doing so, so thank you for spelling it out for me 
But then how would you identify the place to the raven?
Corvus has Gentle Gift, Animal Ken and Animal handling, so if he spends time talking to local ravens he should have no trouble finding some cooperative ones, or get them to sit on his hand for casting spells. Although in retrospect Deft Animal may be a good idea.
The spell to create a temporary raven is mostly for emergencies. Otherwise he maintains a rookery at the covenant and wants to use mundane ravens as messengers first, later on as spies as well. The intent is for a network of mundane agents to be at the receiving end, so the raven will have met these people. So the ravens won't be given, abstract, complex, flexible commands.
My basic assumptions are that animals are fairly knowledgeable of their locale. I believe that animals in the medieval mindset were understood in human terms, but with simpler minds. They aren't completely dumb, they take note of what is important for them, in their simple animal way. This is how RoP:M describes speaking with airy spirits, and I assume animals are the same. They'd know where there is food and water, where there are threats, know about terrain and weather. Most birds don't shy away from human settlements, they adapt and take the necessary precautions. So local ravens should know about local villages, and I don't believe it would take much manipulation or explanation to send one to a specific place, unless it's completely new territory to it. If the ravens are kept safe and fed at the covenant they'll remember, and should not feel disinclined to return. They should develop some kind of homing instinct. Not with a supernatural wayfinding ability, but just by knowing where to fly.
I image the process, in tiny steps to be:
- Make raven able to memorize a message given, including a location and receiver. Raven doesn't need to understand the words. This is an accelerated process of something a few bird types can do.
- Give raven the ability to actually speak the message. Raven still doesn't need to understand the words.
- Make the raven keep the message a secret, except for the receiver
- Give the raven the inclination to deliver the message, plus take a reply back
- Get a sense of what the raven knows about the locale
- If needed, give the raven the necessary geographical knowledge, in the way a raven understands
- Give it knowledge needed to find the location and receiver, and return home afterwards. Not complex but "the village you know as by-the cherry-orchard to the-bearded-guy-who-feeds-you". I think a somewhat smart bird like a raven should be able to follow instructions like this, if you speak with them on their terms. I think you should be able to explain to a bird which direction it needs to fly
8 ) Give the raven the inclination to fly in the designated direction and seek out the location
[edit: a space insert between "8" and ")" to avoid it looking like a smiley with sunglasses, curse that auto-emoji-nonsense!]
I think this should be able to work.
Otherwise it would be the arduous route of needing to give the ravens human intelligence, and still have to feed them all the information as above, but needing to use Mentem for this.
Animal Ken allows one to speak with animals as they are humans, and by extension of this you must be able to convey information and give orders like you could with a human, only adapted to their animal intelligence. And if a Supernatural ability can, so should magic. Animal Ken by itself does not guarantee cooperation, but I assume birds can be bribed with food, or - for ravens - shiny stuff. But magic can order them around, give them inclinations etc.
Well, there are old stories of talking ravens. I believe some of them predate the medieval periode (and possibly christianity).
Now that you point that back, why does he have Gentle Gift? If it's just to be able to spare crows from the effects of The Gift, maybe it would had been a good idea to pick Inoffensive to Mundane Beasts and maybe Alluring to Mundane Beasts? You could even cut these virtues down to only affect crows. That would probably make him to be followed by a flock of friendly ravens most of the times, while freeing you a virtue point (like Deft Animal!).
(I'm sorry for having put you down to the mud of boring, common starting spells before, by the way. I know one of the main points of such projects as this is to develop new spells, but I also enjoy them most when they are designed in game, not bought with starting points. By doing them during advancement, you could experiment and get some fancy side effects for some of them. I always miss side effect examples in spells).
Those are quote good ideas, and initially I did start out with just Inoffensive to Animals, but then I thought it would be nice if he could also manage his mundane people spies. And not that he desires to be in the field, he is still able to visit villages as well as deal directly with the Templars.
You mention cutting down virtues by limiting them to ravens...do you have a source for that?
Maybe there is enough wriggle room in some of the Magical Blood virtues, which may add a free minor virtue as part of the benefit-package, for some sort of combination Inoffensive to-/Alluring to-/Speak with Ravens?
BTW there needs to be a Strong Magical Blood virtue, like Faerie blood comes in to sizes!
And apologies accepted, and are in fact not necessary. As annoying as it is to get sent back to the drawing board, as beneficial it ends up being, by getting other people's opinions and input. This is the point of the exercise (not a game!).
And they are also characterized as sinister, so it wouldn't be a stretch IMHO to imagine using them as messengers and spies.
In ME animals seem to be very characterized in a very generalized way . almost as caricatures - so a raven should have a natural inclination to being devious.