The Covenant of Caepernum: Eleutherius of Tremere

[AericExMiscellanea]

The problem is that... as written, that guideline only foils Intellego spells. There is also this in the general text of Vim:

"The guidelines below refer mainly to spells. This is for the sake of brevity, as Vim spells can affect magical effects proceeding from magical items, magical creatures, or demons."

If you can affect creatures' effects, I suppose that you also should be able to foil other things, but with creatures is so easy to discern what is an Intellego effect because the effect is constructed as if it were hermetic. Are all Solomonic Astrology effects assimilable as Intellego effects?

[AericExMiscellanea]

What about Perdo Mentem spells with duration? You could wipe your true allegiances for sun duration and recover them at sunfall. It seems more effective than the Creo Vim shell, that needs to be of very high level to work prperly

[Salutor]

I suppose I'd been thinking of an analagous guideline rather than strictly that guideline.

It depends exactly what you mean by "assimilable as Intellego effects" - you might not be able to exactly replicate some of them as a Hermetic spell, but as divination, Solomonic Astrology seems pretty Intellego-y to me. If it helps, Hermetic Divination (pg 59 of The Mysteries: Revised Edition) is explicitly stated to "provide results equivalent to casting Hermetic Intellego spells of any Form".

I think Perdo Mentem spells could cause unintended consequences. It's not entirely clear to me whether loyalty would come back automatically at the end of the spell duration or not; associated memories definitely wouldn't. If he were going down that route, Muto would probably be the better choice (except that then he's loyal to the Suhhar for the duration of the spell, which could cause all sorts of problems). They're also blunt enough that he'd have to apply them selectively, which means there's a high risk he wouldn't have it up at the appropriate time.

[Christian_Andersen (Christian Rosenkjaer Andersen)]

@Salutor

I think Perdo Mentem spells could cause unintended consequences. It's not entirely clear to me whether loyalty would come back automatically at the end of the spell duration or not; associated memories definitely wouldn't. If he were going down that route, Muto would probably be the better choice (except that then he's loyal to the Suhhar for the duration of the spell, which could cause all sorts of problems). They're also blunt enough that he'd have to apply them selectively, which means there's a high risk he wouldn't have it up at the appropriate time

It's an interesting question, what happens to the person while his emotions are changed? If his loyalty is changes from OoH to an other organization, you would need to work for the other side while the spel lasted. If his loyalty to OoH was removed for a time, what then? His memories of being part of the Order is still there, so he knows what side he is on - he just doesn't feel anything for or against ir?

[Salutor]

It's been a while since I've posted here, but I haven't completely forgotten about the project.

I'm now leaning towards having Eleutherius learn Solomonic Physic during his second period rather than my original plan of Solomonic Travel. The key reason for this is that most of the stuff I want to do with Solomonic Travel is too high level for him to learn easily, so I want to learn more Summoning first. Solomonic Physic is also attractive from a point of view of being vaguely combat capable (and at first glance for the Sahir's longevity stuff, although that can actually be made with any of the main 5 Solomonic Arts).

A few ideas for the next period:

The Market Place's Gossip
CrMe 15
Imparts the trait "Gossip +2" onto the target for the duration (or modify an existing trait by +2) if they fail a roll against EF 6. This spell is designed to be held whilst carrying out a conversation. Note that the personality trait created could be +5 whilst remaining at the same level; however, Eleutherius wanted to keep the effect relatively subtle.
(Base 5 + 1 Eye + 1 Conc)

I'm also considering statting up the following jinn, who has one potentially contentious aspect which I thought I'd run past people:

Rwh Shifa' Alma' (The Spirit of the Healing Waters)
This jinn is the genius locus of a pool noted for its healing powers.

In addition to giving it the Healing ritual power, and probably a Chirurgeon's Healing Touch equivalent and some version of Noncombatent, I'm also considering giving it the Lesser Benediction (minor virtue) the Eider Ducks of Virtue have (pg 60, Mythic Places) - namely, being aligned to Divine auras as well as magical ones. The idea would be that in the past some holy man blessed it for the aid it gave to mankind / him.

I'm trying to work out whether this works for Jinn. My biggest problem is that spirit of a healing pool seems more or less by definition magic, but magic jinn are more or less by definition pagan (or at least, largely ignore Islam). I'm not therefore sure how much sense it makes to have one that's been blessed by a miracle.

[Salutor]

No one has said anything, so I've had an initial go at statting out the healing pool jinn.

Al-Maealij, the Healer
Magic Might 20: Aquam
Season: Summer
Characteristics: Int +1, Per +3, Pre +2, Com +2, Str 0, Sta +2, Dex -2, Qik -2
Confidence: 4 (9)
Size: 0
Virtues and Flaws: Magic Spirit; Jinn; Ways of the Still Waters, Second Sight, Lesser Benediction: Aligned to both Divine and Magic; Magical Air*, Vow: Pacifism, Compassionate (major), Restricted Power (Waters of Healing)
Qualities and Inferiorities: Ritual Power x 2 (Theriac), Greater Power x1 (Presence), Lesser Power x3 (Donning the Corporeal Veil, The Physician's Eye, Purification of the Festering Wounds), Gentle Air, Improved Powers x 2, Improved Confidence x 3, Magical Meditation, Vis Mastery; Major Flaw: Greater Malediction: Honour Bargains, Limited Movement, Reduced Abilities, Slow Power: Waters of Healing.
Personality Traits: Compassionate +6, Calm +2, Determined +3
Combat:
Dodge: Init -2, Atk n/a, Dfn -2, Dam n/a
Soak : +2
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead 21+
Abilities: Arabic 5 (afflictions), Awareness 3 (patients), Folk Ken 3 (patients), Magical Meditation 5 (maintaining concentration), Second Sight 5 (spirits of disease),Theology: Islam 1 (jinn)
Powers:
Donning the Corporeal Veil, 1 point, Init -12, Aquam
Al-Maealij can form the physical body described under Appearance to house her spiritual form; when doing so she acquires the physical characteristics, size, combat statistics and Wound levels listed earlier. She cannot become fatigued. This body lasts until she decides she no longer needs it. Killing the body does not kill Al-Maealij.
Incorporeal, 0 points, Init Constant, mentem: Al-Maealij is naturally both invisible and intangible, and cannot be influenced by the physical world. Magic can only directly target her if the caster can sense her existence. In this form she has no physical statistics or combat scores. Without taking a corporeal form, Al-Maealij's physical characteristics are only used when dealing with other incorporeal creatures.
Presence, 0 points, constant, Mentem:
Al-Maealij is aware of everything that goes on within her haunt. This power needs to penetrate to perceive beings with magic resistance.
Purification of the Festuring Wounds, 1 points, Init -12, Corpus
As the Hermetic spell of the same name.
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh, 0 points, Init -6, Corpus
As the Hermetic spell of the same name.
Waters of Purification, 5 points, Init -20, Corpus, Ritual
Heals any disease subject to mortal medicine. As part of the Restricted Power flaw, the recipient of this cure must bathe in the pool at the centre of Al-Maealij's locus, and the cure happens gradually as they do.
(Base 35 + 1 Touch + 1 Size)

Vis 2 pawn of Aquam vis form each year in the pool that makes up her Haunt. If slain in physical form his body yields four pawns of Aquam vis.
Appearance
Al-Maealij rarely manifests outside of a body of water if she can avoid it; instead she crafts out of water the body of a human female with her head and shoulders just rising from the surface, as though the pool itself was rising. Sahir intending to be polite will therefore summon her next to a suitable water feature; something sometimes easier said than done in parts of the Middle East.

Al-Maealij is the spirit of a pool that has long been known to have healing properties. The jinn's compassion on those who came to her for cures led to her being blessed by a visiting holy man such that she could live and do her work even in the burgeoning dominion that followed his presence.

Both of Al-Maealij's healing powers require Might; points in the case of Purification of the Festering Wounds, but score for Waters of Purification. She will cast Purification of the Festering Wounds readily on anyone who her Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh shows her needs it. Once her pool is drained, she will meditate to restore her Might; locals have observed that during this time her pool goes unnaturally still, before returning to movement when she has finished, and therefore usually time their visits to the pool to co-incide with the moving waters.

She will cast Waters of Purification more rarely, usually only when Purification of the Festering Wounds is unlikely to work (although Sahir can bargain for the instant cure regardless). Where possible she uses confidence (possibly fuelled by vis - she can exchange up to four pawns for four of the five points needed); however, if this is not possible then the Compassionate spirit will spend her Might.

Waters of Purification will only affect those diseases which would usually be responsive (at least in theory) to mundane medical practices; in particular, it will not affect diseases originating from supernatural curses. Resolving such a disease is an example of a Heavy Duty that the jinn might place upon a Sahir; an example lighter duty would be to provide for the material needs of those travelling to her for healing for a period of time.

The inspiration for the character should be fairly obvious, although she's not currently intended to be the spirit of the actual Pool of Bethesda. I'm not entirely sure about the physical manifestation at the moment - I really want her to "manifest" by animating an existing body of water, which would also make the change in its movement when she's meditating fit better.

[Salutor]

One thing I've rather belatedly twigged: it's actually relatively easy for even fairly young sahir to summon powerful jinn if they know their true names.

If you have a true name, you can invent a summoning naranj which is only level 5. Casting this should be trivial.

Penetrating with it is slightly less trivial (you need summoning total + Penetration Bonus > Jinn's Might), but still not that hard due to being able to multiply your penetration score by 6 due to knowledge of the true name. You can also spend an extra 15 minutes, a long term fatigue level and take an extra botch die in exchange for a +5 Penetration bonus*.

The fun bit is then successfully making a bargain with the Jinn. That's going to need a total of:

Comm + Bargain + Summoning Total - Jinn's Might vs EF 18 + modifers.

Actually reaching a successful deal with a high Might Jinn (rather than just annoying it by wasting its time) is therefore going to need a lot of modifiers. But hey, accepting a bunch of heavy duties couldn't possibly go wrong, right?

Edit: *Actually, the +5 to penetration might only apply if you're doing the summoning without using a summoning naranj. You can still get a pretty decent penetration fairly easily using the multiplier, though.