The long road made short, an idea for a new spell

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

As a covenant we wish to travel. Even though we are in a swamp, someone is vehemently opposed to just making a magic boat for that (we did that in our previous campaign, and another troupe has one too). While walking might have something for the pilgrims amongst us, I am of lesser patience when not in a lab or interesting conversation. TMRE has Road magic as part of the Mercurian Magic tradition, but few examples how it would work with regards to Rego Corpus. I could not find it in the netgrimoire or the forum's grimoire.

I am okay with original research for this, since a way to travel quickly without needing endless finesse rolls or arcane connections will help greatly. Another thing is that one of our party is looking into the faerie roads that speed up travel, and I wish to use the roman road network to visit the more educated parts of the world. It also would be an interesting way to travel, you'd naturally have to stop at every major crossroad, and since you'll likely travel at night to avoid encounters, you might just get them.

I'd say you'd be able to compare this to the Leap of Homecoming, with its second range of arcane connection replaced by an end of the road, as selected by the caster, the prerequisite road magic enabling this. One could also state that it'd be two magitudes easier, to account for the difference in ranges as described (the teleporting second ranges should, in my opinion, just be added there, or in the spell magnitude calculations)

so:

The long road made short Re Co 45 or 35
R: Touch(road) D: Mom T: Group
This spell transfers a group of people from anywhere on a road to another point on the road, as decided by the caster. The caster does not get an image of the desired location before casting, and might be inclined to do so in another way, as roads tend to be crowded. To travel somewhere, the caster must have seen that place, know the mile marker where he wishes to be transported to (on roman roads), or have a map that shows the road. The spell will not be more accurate than the map, but an intellego imaginem spell with road range could provide insight. Whenever a major crossroad is encountered, the spell stops, as will it when the road ends.

What do you think, is this a viable, and more importantly, interesting spell? Should it need hermetic research or can it be researched like a normal spell?

2

I really like it. Useful and simple. If the caster has access to the Road target due to virtues then I don't think a discovery is needed, it could just be invented. If the caster does not have that ability then you'd need to either go the discovery pathway, or increase the mags and say it is a custom Range.

From memory there is nothing stopping a magus creating a spell with non-standard R,D,Ts but they are harder and subject to the whim of the troupe to adjudicate. Obviously the new R,D,T is subject to the essential limits of magic.

3

Thank you, getting road magic should be doable, it may take some time and politics, but politics should be something I am good at, and the time spent will be better than original research, more interaction and shorter. I was thinking of trading it for the completed spell, when I finish it (my magus has always paid off his debts as soon as possible, I could also trade it for quite some Vis, but where's the fun in that?).

Secretly I hope to experiment and have a limitation that it only works on the old Roman network, but I have no idea how to make that happen. This will mean that my mode of transportation intersects less with other ways, and we'd need the covenant together for some trips.

4

Sounds like a sensible one to me. You could introduce another advance method: crossroads. YOu can make the group move forward to the next big crossroad as you mentioned, even if you have never been there. In my past sagas we use to travel by magical boat, by magical brooms and by shapeshifting into peregrine hawks. The road one I really like as an alternative to hermes portals. Careful though: it causes warping!!

Xavi

5

Warping and another, i would add one Terram requisite, i made the samee spelll more on "ninja/assassin" concept with shadows adding Ignem requisite.

6

Hmmm, Terram would make it from interesting to impossible (deficient Terram), and since we do not need requisites for regular teleportation I don't quite see it, Road Magic already implies roads. Warping is an issue, but all teleportation shares that, I could just design it for the current troupe, which will make it somewhat harder for new magi (they could rent me for a season or two to redesign it however).

Technically, jumping from crossroads to crossroads is one of the things this does, but traversing the roman roads fits my character better then having to do with crossroads. A limitation off the roman roads network might be that they have the mile markers needed to use a finer granulation, and other roads don't.

7

I can see a team of grogs burying mile markers all along the usual routes taking by the covenant troupe in a 200 mile radius and to the most important centres in the OoH and cities in mythic europe!

Xavi