The "Forgotten" Spells

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

CREO HERBAM

Restore Plant: Gen
THEN: Touch, Inst, Ritual
Cancels the effects (shot of death) of a malign herbam spell, if you can match the Level of the spell on die + Level.
NOW: Level: Gen, R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind , Ritual
(Base Gen, +1 Touch)
NOTE: Vim can do it better, but sometimes you go with what you know. I now note that the Vim version of this spell is not a ritual, I assume because it cannot undo Momentary Perdo effects. Should this spell be Ritual? If it is can it undo Momentary Perdo effects?

Conjure an Apple: 5
THEN: Reach, Sun/Inst
Creates a beautiful apple without seeds or core. It leaves the eater well-satisfied.
NOW: Level: 4, R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind
Creates a beautiful apple without seeds or core. It leaves the eater hungry and grumpy, cursing the gods of magic that his spells can lay low the mightiest armies, but not conjure a decent bit of nosh.
(Base: 1, +1 Touch, +2 Sun)

Bear Bountiful Fruit: 15
Then: Reach, Inst
Causes a single tree, a single plant, or a 2 pace square patch of small plants to come into fruit. The time required depends on the type of plant target, as follows: Seasonal-½ hour, Bushes-1 hour, Trees-6 hours. The plants affected will not bear in their following fruiting season and cannot be made to bear by use of this spell for another year.
NOW: Rego Herbam Level: 20, R: Touch, D: Special, T: Ind
Causes a single tree or plant to come into fruit. The time required depends on the size of plant and number of fruits delivered, but no more than 2 hours for the largest affected cherry tree. The plants affected will not bear in their following fruiting season and cannot be made to bear by use of this spell for another year.
(Base 3 (-4 magnitudes for momentary effect vs. 2 hours as Creo guidelines) +1 Touch, +2 Sun (nearest), +2 size)
NOTE: Given the name of this spell, perhaps another can be designed along the lines of Muto Animal with a Herbam requisite. Then again, by rearranging the letters of the first word, this spell could remove the skin from a fruit, or cause a wizard’s robe to flip up. But maybe that would only be in Xanth.

PERDO HERBAM

Despoiler of Life’s Sustenance: 5
THEN: Reach, Inst
Molds up to a bushel of vegetable food or fodder, making it inedible.
NOW: Level: 15, Range: Voice, D: Mom, T: Group
Molds up to 10 bushels of vegetable food or fodder, making them inedible.
(Base 3, +2 Voice, +2 Group)

REGO HERBAM

Whip of Thorns: 5
THEN: Near, Inst, Aimed
A small branch whips itself at some object close to it, as you direct. A thorny branch can cause +0 damage, but most branches are relatively harmless. You must target the spell to hit with the branch.
NOW: Level: 10, Range: Voice, D: Mom, T: Part
A branch whips itself at some object close to it, as you direct. A branch causes up to +4 damage, with a possible bonus if it is thorny.
(Base 3, +2 Voice, +1 Part)

NOTE: While looking over the Perdo Herbam spells, I noticed Treading the Ashen Path constantly recast itself at a +1 mag “fancy effect” while not requiring a casting roll or fatigue rolls. Is this a misprint? Certainly such an effect is far beyond 1 magnitude. Why would one ever use Concentration?

42

I think that usage of CrCo to cancel PeCo effects has indeed been removed from the game. Can't give you a specific quotation, though.

Well, there's a spell with that name in 5e, but it is different now. Accounting for R/D/T, ArM4 had "stabilize one wound" at level 3 and "stop the progress of disease" at level 4. Plus, ArM5 guidelines treat wounds and diseases equally (although with different spells, Chirurgeon Healing Touch vs. the new Gentle Touch of the Purified Body). So I would leave the base guideline at 3, like "stop wounds worsening", rather than add a magnitude.

Yes, it should be target Part. The guideline used for Eyes of the Cat is "grant a minor ability", which can be taken as applying to the individual as a whole. The Falcon's Hood also has Individual as a target. Conversely, Evil Eye and Twist of the Tongue explicitely try to affect a specific body part, rather than just "disfigure" or "mute" somebody. Subtle, but a possible distinction.

Why the switch from 7+ to 9+?

The spell still exists.

See Awaken the Slumbering Corpse.

43

Sure, you can permanently "heal a plant" with a Creo ritual.

But look! It's one level easier now!

I'm not sure about the 4 magnitude drop, nor really about the one a year limitation.

"Fear Bountiful Fruit" would make a nice Mentem spell.

The spell target is a rather large group (10000 base individuals). I don't think the spell really is intended to be "recast" every round, but rather the actual group destroyed is defined by the magus walking, with the plants being killed as he passes by. It is fancy in that respect - the magus doesn't have to see the whole group at once, nor fully specify it at the time of casting.

44

Hey angafea,

have you given up on me on the nourishment debacle? :cry:

45

Maybe you should start a separate thread.

46

Well you are right, of course. Would have been a better course of action, earlier on, but now I think instead I will let it pass by. This discussion was already on the topic in the earlier Creo Cheese thread and back then it also came to a halt, seemingly it might again. If there weren't more interest in it then, there probably arent now either.

47

The Creo aspects are that non-vis created food is not nourishing.

With Muto , spells like Digestion of the Contented Cow ,
which would enable a person to eat grass and be nourished by it.
The spell would have to run longer than sun duration ,
and you would probably have to do something to make the grass tasty for a human.
(the methane by-products of this digestion may be hazardous in labs)

Though there are side aspects to the Creo option.
If i create non-vis Salt , it does not nourish me if used as food ,
but can be used with existing food to improve taste.

Can this non-permanent salt be used as a preservative?
Say i want to make brine and pickle vegetables or meat.
I make it year duration.
At the end of that time , all the salt vanishes.
Does the meat (or vegetables) immediately decay ,
or are they in the same state prior to being soaked in brine.

Suppose i am making Jam with seasonal fruit.
I create non-vis sugar to use for the process.
Again choosing a year duration.
Do i end up with a Diabetic Jam (no added sugar) or just cooked fruit pulp?
(the acid & the pectin in the fruit reacts with the sugar during the cooking process)

48

See, imo, this whole "no vis, no nourishment" thing is digging a big hole that the above is pointing at. The whole idea is breaking the Medieval Paradigm, if at the same time patching a broken part of the rules.

Something burnt by Magical fire is still burnt after the fire is gone. Something squashed by a magically conjured rock is still squashed after the rock disappears. An item scarred by magical acid, likewise.

So long as the change is enacted by a magically created or altered substance or item, and not affected by magic itself (Muto, Rego), it seems that this holds true.

(Ex- A mage Muto's a piece of meet to become "burnt", duration Diam. After a couple minutes, it changes back. But, to expose that same meat to magical fire, it's a done deal, the meat is burnt, permanantly. If that "meat" is instead a living being, then healing, or infection, might then progress normally.)

Ergo, items and substances interact "normally" (read "as expected") with magically created items and substances, and retain their last state after that magical item is removed from the equation. (Tho' what happens in the time that follows would be a natural progression from that point onward, re healing, further deterioration, whatever.)

(Note- be careful to follow the Medieval Paradigm. They knew about sugars and burns, but not "chemistry", "cellular biology", or other modern paradigms of detailed interaction.)
:wink:

Keeping that Paradigm in mind, and how the ME world "sees" things, "water" is pissed out again after a half day or so, so maybe water with any duration longer than 12-24 hours serves its purpose and works just fine to quench thirst.

Food is similarly expelled in a day or so, so maybe any food with a duration longer than a couple days is likewise perfectly functional to achieve what we, today, call "nutrition". After it's gone, it's gone - 100% past tense, no metabolism to worry about, no "calorie absorption" or "vitamin intake" or other "long duration" effects. You eat, you crap, the food's done its job, the "nourishment" has already occurred, when do we eat next?

The only question, then, is whether that breaks the game, whether "making food" then becomes far too easy. But, by the Paradigm and the RAW, it strikes me that the above is how it "should" work.

49

Actually, it would cause a humor imbalance, since that's what the food is converted into.

50

LoL, Fruny you crack me up. Thanks for all the help.

Furion, I am convinced that the rules favor your stance reguarding the creation of food, however I still think it should be changed to the "hunger suspended" guideline, like other Creo spells.

51

Well - quite to the point Fruny. And the Cause and Cure adventure for 4th edition, regardless of not being 5th ed material, has a lot of in-setting inspiration on imbalances of the humor.

I know, and I see where it is coming from. My reservation would still be as given above that this, the ability to create nourishment without vis, to me would radically change the setting of ME and the OoH. But there is also another technically argument against putting wounds and the need for food side by side. As time pass wound get better as you heal. This natural healing is suspended by a CrCo spell while you use magic to completely heal the wound temporarily. A reasonable trade-off btw. As time pass the need for food kills you. Even moreso for water. It doesnt get better, it gets very very worse. No food you die. No healing, you will just resume your natural healing later. See the difference? So even if seeming comparable it actually isn't easily soo.

52

Cuchulainshound you raise some interesting questions in your post - for sake of brevity I haven't included it all.

Setting integrity and rules integrity can clash. I think both are important but I do tend to lean mostly toward the first, if they clash. By the first I mean both that it is in sync with setting philosophy - as in the ME paradigm - but also that the setting seems reasonable logical given the rules. But having said that I really dont neccesarily feel that there is such a clash in the question of nourishment by Creo spells.

The RAW, with Ravenscroft help and sharp eyes, state explicitly that non-ritual food is not nourishing (p. 77 and p. 136). My argument has mainly been that to do otherwise would be a problem because the ability to make food out of the blue would significantly change the face of ME. I think you put a brilliant case with you post and I agree that a modern notion on nutrition, cellular biology and biochemistry and similar cannot be applied. I know some raised that banner in the other Creo Cheese thread - personally I have never agreed with it as an argument in this discussion. So I do agree with your argument but I still don’t think it is applicable. I do think it is able to argue the opposite case and still be within ME paradigm.

Why? Because the crucial point isn’t whether, within ME paradigm, when, or how humans get nourished by food. Rather it is whether it is within the possibilities of Hermetic Magic. And Hermetic Magic is restricted by the Limit of Energy as well as the Limit of Creation. This might be argued, in-paradigm terms, to be because creation and energy are basically within the realms of the Divine, perhaps on accord of the divinity having created the world and that creation and sustaining life/existence thus being divine forces. Or it might simply be an error in hermetic magic. Therefore it is a general flaw in the kind of magic used by Hermetic magi that makes it impossible for them to create nourishing food. You might say that even though within ME paradigm food would nourish people even if it only exists for a set period before vanishing, the food created by hermetic magic will not. It is sterile, non-fertile, impotent or simply just flawed – whatever word you find fitting. This flaw can only be overcome by using vis in the process. Maybe vis adds that creational force missing, or maybe that is just how Bonisagus patched his theory together.

Two things would follow from this line of thought: 1) that it very well might be possible for other kinds of magic (or powers gained from the Faerie, Infernal or Divine) to make temporary yet nourishing food, and 2) that it might be possible to make a breakthrough in Hermetic magic that would remedy this flaw. That would be fitting since the ability to make food without vis – and thus potential the ability to feed plentitudes of people – would change ME and thus be a rewarding and interesting long term plotline or event.

53

Ravenscroft, I think your example of changing the person rather than the food is a good example on how the manage and go around the impossible. I would have no reservations toward it - just as with the turn to stone spell mentioned earlier by Angafra - since it is only with magical created food I have issues. Also I dont see it to contradict the integrity of the setting - how many people would willingly be half cows and live of grass on a daily basis? Or anything alike it?

Concerning you other examples I would think that the normal perception of Creo magic holds true, as also stressed by Cuchulainshound, that the effects created or influenced even by temporary things remain so. The salt would still preserve and that preservation wouldnt be undone - it would only stop when the salt no longer exist. Things created by Creo and invovled in what we today would descibe with modern chemical, or other, terms, would still do what they do and the effect wouldnt be undone. I wouldnt let the jam become "unjammed" (in lack of a better word :laughing: ) but I would describe it as less sweet or maybe even sour or salty depending on the situation, when the magical created ingredients disappeared.

My only reservation is toward the nourishment if solely living off non-ritual Creo food. There might still be plenty of ways to use Creo-magic in the kitchen or just to spice up the experience of eating food.

54

Hmmm... a point not without merit.

I can accept this, and am comfortable retracting my previous reservations. And thanks for the concise and well written counter-thesis. The dialectic rules!

Interesting extrapolations as well! (Perhaps that's the true reason that the OoH is fighting all those evil Skandihoopian runic wizards!)
:wink:

55

Thank you for your kind words.

I do not know what thoughts might have influenced the developers, but I do like to dabble with ways to bridge setting and rules. Especially if it also sets the field for possibly interesting plots. Dialectics, or more fittingly scholastics, can be interesting challenges - especially with something as elusive as the paradigm of a fictional mythic setting based on distant pasts.

Ahh... the always evil Skandihoopians! As a real life Skandihoop myself I am looking forward to see whether 5th ed. will reintegrate some kind of northern rivalry to the OoH.

56

If temporary food isn't nourishing, why are we so convinced it is temporary nourishing? Could it not simply be that it does not nourish at all? Kinda like trying to live off non-sugared marshmellows...

If this would be the case, it would simplify everything a lot...

57

We aren't. We have been discussing it because we disagree.

58

Sifting through this post - or rather seeing the spell in the sticky thread - I had a few comments.

Firstly I think this spell is mostly made redundant in 5th ed. because the PeAn spells, and PeCo, have all been given a corresponding wound level. This sets the time needed to heal it naturally and it sets the level needed to heal it with Creo magic. Nice and streamlined.

Secondly I was in doubt about the Vim reference. If something is damaged with Perdo, probably with a Momentary duration, the damage will be permanent and non-magic. In that light I wondered how the Vim spells could make a difference?

59

Now you speak up, full of ideas now you have risen to the plum perch of Grand Mastery!

As always, you have a good point, however just because an effect "heals" as a heavy wound, does that mean that a CrCo spell designed to restore lost body levels will heal it? Or would a special spell be needed, like with poison and disease? Perhaps the levels need to be listed within the spell.

As to the second, I will conceed there are few ongoing Perdo Corpus spells listed, but they are certainly possiable, as in Grip of the Choking Hand.

60

Hehe 8) - before I was blind - now I see. And the first thing I saw was this spell. And I still think you did a marvelous job on the translation of all those spells.

I would certainly say so.

I do not think that it needs a special spell, but I would either judge case by case or maybe consider to make a house ruling whether damage from Perdo spells are seen in that regard to be poison/disease or injuries.

The level is equal to the the Creo guidelines, with respectively Animal or Corpus, to heal a Wound of the specified level, so it is not needed.

Which is problematic spell in this regard. It causes Fatigue and Fatigue cannot be removed with magic, so that alone makes it impossibe to counter with a gen Creo spell. But as a general notion Perdo spells might be given a duration, for some reasons, and there a gen creo spell might be usefull.