Hello,
I've been wondering about the ghost of Hypatia of Alexandria, as presented in Ancient Magic pag.86
My issue is that I really hate what has happened to her and the consequences that she suffered in canon. And so I began to think to what could a motivated Hermetic Magus do to at least restore her mental sanity as a ghost.
There could be several goals to be pursued. A maga could just want to simply give her finally peace. Or she could want to have her as an advisor, or a teacher for the Mechanica of Heron.
I don't want to just strip her of her Might. That would be somewhat easy with a might stripping spell, but it would also be like yet another torture for an already tortured soul.
I'd say that, in her current state of madness, no peace is possible for her until everyone she blames for her death has paid the price for it. The church that condamned her, the scholars that abandoned her, the mob that killed her and so on. In practice, nothing would be enough for her.
I was therefore thinking about an Hermetic Ritual, or a series of rituals, designed to (simbolically?) restore the integrity of the ghost.
I am not aware of guidelines that could be suitable, so I'll just have my maga experiment with something like Original Research. I also know that, being a magic spirit, she is locked in the current state and she would be resisting the changes.
The first step would be to deal with the circumstances Hypatia's death. She died in a horrible way, and she is conscious of that. I'm thinking about two rituals that could deal with these first two issues.
The first one would be something like this one:
Incantation of the Spiritual Body Made Whole
CrMe 40
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind, Ritual
In analogy to Incantation of the Body Made Whole, this ritual heals all wounds that the spiritual body of a ghost manifests, restoring the spiritual body of a ghost to the true form she possessed while alive.
(Base 35, +1 Touch)
The second ritual would be something like this:
Drinking the Right Measure from the Lethe
PeMe 20
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Ind, Ritual
Named after the underworld Greek River of forgetfulness and oblivion, from which is said that everyone must drink when they cross the Threshold, this ritual erases from the spirit it is cast upon the memory of the circumstances of their death.
(Base 15, +1 Touch)
My questions now:
- Would these two rituals be enough to restore the sanity of Hypatia ?
- Would they be permanent ? (especially the first one)
- If the rituals were successful, do you think more vis than the technical requested for it would be required, to overcome the spirit Might (25 Mentem) and its resistance to change (RoP:M) ?
The rituals would of course have to penetrate Hypatia MR, I'm just assuming the caster will have sufficient Penetration for them.
After that, assuming that indeed is possible to restore Hypatia sanity, I am thinking that she could become a Haunt for the place she is.
If the maga wanted her to be finally at peace, what could Hypatia want to finally move on ?