Nice to have this confirmed. But that was not really the issue. We were discussing which game benefit, if any, is bestowed from having initiated Names of Power by itself, without Invocation Magic, too, since Erik perceived none. I hope there are some, indeed. IMO, required precursors/prerequisites that are useless by themselves are ugly and annoying to the player and one hallmark of a flawed game system. Can you shed some light on the issue ? From the Ill-Fated Meeting spoiler, I was under the impression that NoP gave a spell bonus benefit that was limited to theurgical spells, while Invocation Magic should (I think) work for any spell that is within the thematic purview of the used Name of Power.
Hmm, this causes me to wonder to which degree the various bonuses from Invocation Magic, Charm Magic, Consummate Talisman, Celestial Magic, and the Synthemata Virtues are stackable. If they do, the Mystery specialist might indeed be able to bring down a demon prince
I definitely second the suggestion for Leisuregames. They are very professional and quick at their mail-order deliveries. Over time, they have become my non-local FGS of choice for all the stuff I wish to get reasonably quick, and they keep a complete catalog of everything. Being an EU location, you nicely sidestep all custom painful delays and outrageous charges.
Since both TMRE and RoP:I are books I wish to have a backup copy of, I've also ordered a copy at Warehouse23, wishing to chekc whether they are quicker than Leisuregames (they are indeed very quick, shipping within half a week, but generally their distributor takes a couple weeks to deliver for non-WW, non-WoTC stuff) or not.
Alternatives ?? This may be true for Merinita, who are described as rather laid-back in their attitude to their proprietary Mysteries, and indeed most resemble the experimental, individualistic and customizable approach of TMRE to Mysteries (that's a definite plus IMO for the author of the Merinita chapter). This is definitely untrue for Bjornaer and Verditius, who look like much more regimented and conformist (and paranoid) with their Mysteries, and completely out of the question for Criamon, with the "get a tattoo and I'll show you the beauties of being a brainwashed pacifist celibate vegetarian monk with cosmic delusions" ego-trip approach of the author (ego-trip as in, since I'm the author, I'll nail and pigeonhole the character concept splat down to my specific gaming style preferences and personal interests).
Well, I'd say this is a necessary development of the way initiation works (I know you deliberately made it this waybecause you goal was to privide flexibility and customizability to players and SG), since, really, all that a clever mystagogue needs to have his or her mystery develop and branch out in a wholly different magic type is to experiment and create initiation scripts for an handful of new Virtues. Mysteries have endless capacity for development and variation. Theoretically, a single Mystery could be developed enough to provide scripts for all of the Virtues that are thematically compatible with the lore of the cult, on one hand, and on the other, there are countless possible ways that different specific cults may provide the same concept of magical improvement. Again, this is a huge gaming bonus in flexibility that I have to heartily commend.
A question: does the book provide one or two examples of initiation scripts for pretty much each and every virtue, as it was in HoH:MC ?? Creativity is all good, but players and SG may relish having some source for inspiration provided by the authors to guide their efforts.
CHEERS mate! Great info! I have family in London as well (yes, yet another brother...) and therefore go there once a while, and I've been looking for decent FLGSs but to no avail, so maybe that's why I haven't thought of it. I know many fellow danes order english material like books and film from England, compared to tyhe US, because it's cheaper! My brother, from London, will actually be home for a weekend in August so now I'm rather sorry that I didn't had it mailed to him from Leisure Games....
You see the problem is that the Danish postal services doesn't only rate you the taxes they also take a fee for doing it, which is then taxed futher!! But maybe I'll get lucky and they won't pick it out this time (which they didn't when I ordered HoH:TL and GoF).
So if your character comes at it the other way then it isn't a (temporarily) useless virtue, it is an improvement of consumate talsman or Hermetic Theurgy. I hadn't thought of initiating in it first.
There are four virtues in the hermetic spirit magic chapter
Hermetic empowerment, minor the magus instills one or more ritual effects into a device then instills another power into a device that traps a spirit. The spirit is then used to power the ritual(s). The sprit is slowly destroyed by this process. I haven't worked the numbers but depending on the spirit and the number of times it can power the ritual, this doesn't look like a good way to save vis and may in fact end up costing vis. It also takes up seasons of laboratory time. The payoff is of course that the rituals can be set off with a mere triggering action allowing them to be cast quickly and by someone else.
Spirit Familiar, minor like a normal familiar but it's a spirit. the cords have minor added benefits
Inscription on the soul, minor The magus enchants their own body and mind as their talisman. This more or less follows the normal talisman rules but the magus can add other materials to his body so he can have more attunements (at the cost of warping). This is done by instilling additional effects into the talisman.
Living Ghost, major live forever as a spirit bound into an area.
I think the issues with Names of Power is while it is a minor virtue you learn it later, not first. It stacks with other mystery virtues, as noted in the description... It is actually VERY potent.
Erik I am delighted to see you are now a Grand Master!
Thanks for the detailed reports. I know what is in the book obviously, but I have enjoyerd reading them...
cj x
I wrote some, and suspect they are included. We had to cut maybe 20% of our work, as we were hugely over the maximum limit, otherwise there would have been MANY more examples and much more fluff and advice text. We decide it wa smore important to keep as much cruncy goodness as possible.
Several example cults were cut, as were many other sections, but you may see anything really fun in the future, perhaps as a .pdf Neil and I have talked about it a lot, and he has written an excellent tournament demo...
cj.23 I think I will enyoy the book away and it is on my buy list. I am a magick system junkie and buy every hedge magick, alternetive magick system and so on suplements I can get my greedy little paws on. I do the same other places. If I buy a rpg boo or a fantasy book, i paw through the pages to find out how the magic system works first.
I partially recant my objections for splitting spirit magic from theurgy, I can see some reason for separation. I just took "spirit" as in otherwordly magical creature, instead this type of magic mostly refers to the mage's own spirit (though there is still significant overlap). This magic type sees the return of some time-tested old theurgy and miscellaneous tricks (from WGRE, too) and some new developments. Interesting but not exceptional stuff.
Hermetic empowerment gives an alternative way to boost enchanted items. Seems interesting, must check details of system to adjudicate its full value. Another nice trick in the lab rat's arsenal.
Spirit familiar is a nice comeback. I'm rather curious to compare this with the similar Merinita ability to bind faeries and to boost the cords' power. I'm also curious to see which benefits having a spirit familiar provides, although the most significant is obvious: having an invisible, insubstantial pal that can roam unseen and is diffficult to trap and harm. Appealing to all kinds of mages who have interest in spirits.
Inscription upon the soul. Be your own talisman. Well, this the obvious Criamon signature trick, but besides them, appeal and usefulness of this ability for all kinds of mages is obvious, from the paranoid types who do not trust putting a significant amount of their power in an external trinket, to mages who wax philosophical about making magic a part of oneself. I'm curious to see how adding more attunements plays out <has visions of gemstones embedded in one's hands and forehead> and my inner power player is already making noises about combining this with Consummate Talisman. Shut up, you tempter!
Living Ghost: funny, I had expected something like the magical version of Becoming, instead that one is granted by the major version of the alchemical Elixir, and this seems to be much like Immortality of the Forest and the Merinita mystery that allows to become a genius loci. Little to say, we have already seen something similar in hermetic mysteries. The pattern and theme to longevity and immortality in ArM is clear: mages can either escape the ravages of age and keep their full human abilities but eventually be felled by warping and Final Twilight, or they can find full immortality, and give up and essential human characteristic as the price: creativity, humanity, or freedom of movement. I wonder which is the price for using the major version of the Elixir. Creativity again ? Something else ? Erik ? Neil ?
Again, thank you a lot for these nice spoilers, too.
Argh, it is really a pity and a waste you had to cut 1/5 of your work, but your advice was sound, me and, I guess, nearly any other gamer would rather prefer irreplaceable crucny goodness over nice but unnecessary fulff or advice that we can try to puzzle out ourselves, or at worst, pester authors about in forums
It would be more of a signficant loss if this cut would have caused some of the book's virtues (if I reckon correctly, we are up to 21 and we have some chapters still to be spoiled, WOW you have been prolific guys 8))not to have its own example of an initation script, since such examples allow gamers to better understand the author's intent and have a guideline for devising in-theme scripts of their own.
I hope this leftover stuff eventually sees the light. Have John and David given their blessing for its release ? Is it going to be free (like book of mundane beasts) or to be bought at rpgnow ? I would suggest the first solution since I don't think the demand might justify pricing it. I've read Neil's demo, it was the source of my spoilers, and I agree with your judgement, it's really excellent, I hope to run it soon once I get to master the book.
I like some of the new inmortality themes they are interesting. But yes, the magi must sacrifice alot to live wery long, I mean they can perhaps reatch 400 or so whit Longavity posions.
Spirit familliar seamns like fun that sounds a bit like what you have in Mage.
Actually Living ghost is as least as close to becomming as the great elixer is.
Now that we've seen seven* different ways to stop ageing entirely. I'm tempted to say that the first one (longevity of the forest) is the one for the minmaxers. The Path of the body is the most mechanically powerful but it has enlightenment problems. Part of me now wants to run a game set in the fourteenth century with a covenant of one eyed archmages living in a small section of the black forrest.
the options as I see them
Longevity of the forrest (GotF)
Path of the Body : threshold of corporial repose (HoH: MC)
Becomming (HoH: MC)
Gaurdian of Nature (HoH: MC)
Great elixer (TMRE)
Assension to the Hall of Heros (TMRE)
Living Ghost (TMRE)
Unusually, none... It's probably the only one which is purely designed to work with others.
Start with Hermetic Theurgy, or with Consummate Talsiman, then add Nams of Power, or go for a bundle of NoP + Invocation Magic.
Yes: if you have Theurgy and NoP you can use any Name that you know, which is related to the Theurgy spell being used, for Theurgy spells only.
With Invocation Magic, the same Name can be used with any related spell.
Dunno about Charm Magic;
Invocation Magic & Consummate Talsiman can both use Names of Power - and the limit would be "all combined Names of Power limited by your MT score". (The Talisman can have other MuVi spells with different limits).
Celestial Magic is independent, so stacks.
Synthemata clearly stack - heck, in Hermetic Synthemata you start with Pen having a bonus equal to Might - so you ought to be able to Penetrate! If you can't Penetrate, it's only 'cos the Aura, Wounds, Voice/Gestures etc Penalties are working against you ...
If you have all these Virtues together, you are a very powerful magus;
if you had spent those years instead studying Arts & Pen, and acquiring AC to things, you would ... be a very powerful magus!
Spirit Magic is the formularised, systematised, anstracted and Hermeticised magic of ghosts & other spirits. You can claim to only work with elementals and vessels of magic, and maybe get away with it vs the Chruch.
Name magic is all based around Names, and all require spoken names and summoning, and is more likely to be frowned on by those nearby when spells are cast, and less easy to justify theologically.
It's also the one for those Ye Olde Grimoires...
Change - you have to really, really work at it to change, incluing any learning or improvement you want. The upside is that in being unchanging you tend to revert to your "norm" no matter what happens to you - you are Immortal, after all...
Hmm, this I can understand. NoP needs one of those other Virtues already in place to be useful at all. Now, I dunno about affinities between the Major Talisman Virtue (rather, I see spirit and theurgy mysteries to be very thematically affine, so I would expect a lot of theurgists to have Inscription on the Soul as well), but even if formal outer mystery virtues only exist for House Mysteries (and only because of tradition, I surmise) I guess that most theurgy students begin their exploration of this magic type by initiating Hermetic Theurgy, so they should have it already when they initiate NoP. Am I right ?
As for the "bundle" option, I was unaware of the possibility of initiating two mystery virtues in the same initiation ceremony (since NoP is the prerequisite for IM, there cannnot be any other way to get them together). Is it instead possible ' Do the rules cover this occurence ?
Glad to have this confirmed. It clarifies things. I assume Names are those of godlike spirit entities -pagan gods, archangels, demon princes- like Isis, Thor, Hermes, Lug, Michael, Uriel, and carry the same thematic scope as the occult correspondences and mythological portofolios of those archetypes. Would the Name still work even if in the ArM setting it corrisponds to faerie, divine or infernal entities, not magical ones ? Since you are aware that one of the biggest chores for the enterprising arM player/SG is to establish whether a given pagan entity is magical or faerie. I hope the book carries a set of example correspondences for the most common Name choices, such as pagan gods of the major European pantheons, mystery religions, and archangels.
I assume Names are learned like individual MuVi spells (since it is likely there are many additional layers of meaning anf additional epithets to any Name, so many different versions of it with diffferent magnitudes may be learnt) and that Synthemata, once discovered with either of the Syntemata Virtues, do not change over time, so they can be re-used in a subsequent encounter. Am I right ?
So very true. One of the beauties of the ArM 5th ed. system is that there is plenty of justification both for the magis that specializes in Mystery initiations, for the one that pursues Arts and Arcane Abilities, and for the one that equally splits time and efforts among both. Both IC and OOC they look like valid and justifiable choices. Arts without Mysteries miss some very important options, and Mysteries without Arts are ultimately powerless. However, at gut feeling, IMO a magus that is especially eager to discover magic secrets or to accumulate occult power would be especially likely to split efforts among both options. And let's not forget the third option, researching for breakthroughs... And for the undertalented or lazy mages that still harbor ambition, I guess that diabolism can likely allow to raise Arts and get Virtues
In other words, Great Elixir works just like the magical version of Merinita Becoming, needing specialized rituals to allow any sort of significant change, like a metal statue that has to be re-forged. I spoke about creativity, but actually mages_turned_faeries have trouble fixing any sort of signficant change, including learning or personal improvement. Does Great Elixir work in stages, like Becoming, or in a single step ? I hope it does not require constant maintenance, like the older 3rd ed. version.
I think I can see the greater pattern now, correct me if I'm mistaken:
Immortality Methods:
*Great Elixir (TMRE)
*Becoming (HoH:MC)
You become a fully immortal magical or faerie humanoid creature, but you lose the human faculty to learn and improve. You need magical rituals to accomplish any kind of self-improvement.
*Inner Heartbeast (HoH:MC)
You become a fully immortal magical sentient animal creature, but you lose your human body and the ability to learn and improve. You need magical rituals to accomplish any kind of self-improvement.
*Living Ghost (TMRE)
*Guardian of Nature (HOH:MC)
You become a fully immortal spiritual ghost-like or nature-spirit-like entity. but you lose freedom of movement. Your lifeforce is bound to a fixed location, that you cannot leave.
*Immortality of the Forest (GotF)
You get full immunity from age, but you are fixed to a geographical area (albeit larger in scope than for LG or GoN) and you ultimately face earthily demise in Final Twilight.
*Elixir (TMRE) or Longevity Potions with very high lab tot
You are almost, but not quite, immune to aging, and you keep all human qualities including learning ability and freedom of movement, but you ultimately face earthily demise in Final Twilight.
*Path of the Body : threshold of corporial repose (HOH:MC)
*Shaoshayant's Elixir (RoP:D)
You get full immunity from age, but you bound to a very strict code of behavior, and you ultimately face earthily demise in Final Twilight.
*Ascension to the Hall of Heroes (TMRE)
Dunno about this. Is the character still playable after it becomes a daimon ? I doubt it.
As it can be seen, with Mystery Initiation any mage that despises aging or the afterlife and is hungry for unlimited time on Earth and immunity from death can rather easily overcome the Limit of Aging and get full immortality under an array of options, but he must still accept that he will meet ultimate demise in Final Twilight or give up a fundamental human quality (freedom of movement, freedom of action, human body, unlimited potential for change) or a combination of both. Cool, nice steup. Much, much satisfying than making the Limit of Aging an impenetrable barrier, IMO.
I especially appreciate the fact that under this system, if a mage is really willing to pay the price, he can even cheat God and the Devil of one's soul. Of course, one might state that a mage turned faerie/spirit/magical creature is not really escaping the Divine's judgement at the end of the world, or that (more likely) the Divine ultimately lets the mage have the kind of eternal existence that the mage really wants, but the (thematically very important IMO) point is that the game system makes the Church provably wrong and that Hell is not the inescapable afterlife fate of all those who reject it. Of course, one might even argue that the soul goes to its preordanied (sp ?) destiny and Hermetic magic, even empowered and broadened by the Mysteries, can only have dominion on the body and mind of the magus. This cannot be disproved, as it cannot be disproved the alternative explanation that the Divine simply leaves the soul free to go or stay where it really wants to be. This is left to the individual troupe to decide, even if I think the second solution is much more rewarding for most players: of course, my opinion may be biased by my intense loathing of Middle Age Christianity/Islam.
Shrug OK, if you wish to emphasize that kind of distinction, fine. But in that case hermetic theurgy should be part of spirit magic. I guess I'm rather uncaring and unmindful about distinctions like these because I'm intensely disliking of Middle Age Christianity and generally prefer to have irreligious, secular, or pagan characters that treat the Church as an enemy anyway. The only good inquisitor is a dead inquisitor
err "no".
The "Spirit" in "Spirit Magic" means the spirit of Ghosts, Elementals, Genii Loci, etc, not that of the Magus. The spirits it deals with have mostly no name, nor need they have any individuality - they are dealt with in an Abstract manner, like much of the systematic Hermetic Theory.
Name Magic is more like Old Magic, pre-Hermetic stuff, and relies on Names and Imprecations, and even Offerings.
I think folks should remember that TMRE comes "first", "before" HoH:MC. TMRE sets out to give generic V/F, and some samples of "how to" build a Cult;
HoH:MC builds on top of TMRE and defines 4 large, complex and specific Cults (the 4 Mystery Houses) which are all more formal than most (small!) Mystery Cults.
Thus the Immortality paths in HoH:MC are all tuned to the House that offers them, where TMRE is not.
So Living Ghost is pure spirit/ghost magic;
Great Elixir is pure Alchemy;
Ascension to Hall of Heroes is pure Theurgy. ... no trappings beyond that. The sample cults who offer the Virtues show how they can be used (or misused...!)
It stacks with other mystery virtues, as noted in the description... It is actually VERY potent.
