Tranquillina Bonisagi, filia Maximianus

I agree, in this version a simple CrIm would do the trick - even if Bell B spoke the words "Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K" instead of dongdonging - as long as it was a fixed message decided upon when the bells were enchanted.

"Surely he means tiger-bear? Or bear-shark?"
"It just says 'bear' on the flyer."
"Weird."

Note that the mountaintop may, in fact, be infested with giant untamed man-eating spiders.

I'm really not familiar enough with Imaginem spells. I'm still flipping through the MRB, looking at examples. I'm frankly not much use at spell design beyond the elements, so I was waiting for others to respond.

For example, I don't understand why we'd need the ReIm spell in this example.

My understanding is that the illusory stone over the murder hole would block the species coming from the other side, so you would need a Rego element to move the species to the inside where they could be seen.

You would think that one-sided illusions would be easier...

I would think they'd be more difficult. In a way, you're combing creating an illusion (CrIm) with destroying the illusion's property of blocking species from coming through from the other side (PeIm). Not like one-way mirrors are that common in period, as far as I know. Unless you CrIm an incredibly sheer fabric that you can see through, like a lace curtain or something.

I proposed a unidirectional illusion earlier in this thread:

....and now I finally have time to look it up! ~reads~

So, by this argument, it should be possible to create species that only travel in a single direction. Or even teleport the species so that the space between two flat surfaces (for example, an arrow slit and the wall behind it) never shows in that single direction (Rego-in-Bibracte for the win!).

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Yup, those are "miniatures" (HoH:S page 67) :mrgreen:
Tranquillina's better at Perdo, so she might prefer the Ambush analogue (but scrying?). Keep the ideas coming though!

"We're building them inside our covenant as a defensive system against future Guernicus attack. You're worried we might be charged with scrying?"

All right all right, checkmate :laughing:

Hi everyone,

I had some initial ideas about a course of original research for Tranquillina, and Jonathan suggested we get more eyeballs on the protoplan. I'd be interested in your thoughts, reactions, and suggestions.

She's a Corpus specialist trained by a magus who has written books on Medicine as well as Corpus; the local aura is Rego-aligned; and she's a physically frail person who is susceptible to maladies, yet is not aged by the passing of years. It stands to reason that she would be extremely interested in magic that helped prevent disease, or more broadly, magic that duplicated the benefits of someone trained in Medicine - a bit like craft magic.

Since there aren't standard mechanics for the chance of catching disease, I don't know what good a literal disease-prevention spell would do. But a closely related goal could be to use Rego Corpus (possibly with a Creo requisite) to modulate the balance of humours in the body in the same way that a medical regimen would (Arts & Academe pages 58-59). In other words, this goal would be to invent a Hermetic ReCo spell guideline(s) like Give a character a +X bonus to her Living Conditions modifier (or directly to Aging Rolls perhaps).

I went through the sections in A&A on diseases and medicine, and came up with some examples of spells she might experiment with along the way to such a discovery, starting with canon spells and working her way out from there. (The first few spells are CrCo spells; she could either experiment with them to try to incorporate more humour-balancing mechanisms, or perhaps try to invent ReCo spells that mimic these CrCo spells. I don't think that's too unbalancing, since presumably almost all such ReCo spells would require a Finesse roll.)

  • Diagnosis/prognosis: this is already amply covered by Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh, so she could start by inventing that spell with experimentation.
  • Bonus to disease recovery rolls: a version of Purification of the Festering Wounds can provide a bonus. (Note: the spell text in ArM5 page 129 says that the spell can provide a recovery bonus to both Wound and Disease recovery rolls, but that contradicts the first paragraph of the sidebar on page 57 of A&A which says that different spells must be invented to address diseases versus wounds.)
  • Curing disease: Gentle Touch of the Purified Body and variants
  • Resolving an Aging Crisis: Cheating the Reaper
  • Chirurgy: lots of ReCo spells can be invented to duplicate these procedures (sidebar on page 60 of A&A). Certainly she would want spells that mimicked the effects of phlebotomy (bloodletting) and cautery/cupping.
  • Spells to promote sound sleep or a regular sleep schedule. These might be Mentem spells (such as Call to Slumber of course), or they could be ReCo spells that mimic effects of ReMe spells by manipulating the humours and faculties.
  • Spells to duplicate the effect of exercise on the body - ReCo for sure.
  • Spells to aid diet ... not sure about this one. If we open ideas up to all TeFo combinations: InAn/InHe spells to grant a magical sense of smell that guides the target towards food that is best for their health that day (could it be MuCo?); ReMe to make the target choose the best food for them; InCo for them to instinctively know what foods would be good for them, and let them choose to act accordingly or not?
  • Therapy: I think the point of using ReCo to manipulate humours is that one wouldn't need to go through the "middleman" of the apothecary's potions. However, one could possibly try some CrHe spells to create ingredients and/or ReHe spells to mix them. (I can't find an Ease Factor for apothecaries mixing potions, so I don't know if Craft Magic is appropriate here.)

PS: A maga who had a spell with this hypothetical new guideline wouldn't need to know any Medicine or Chirurgy to use the spell successfully. But it might be thematic for Tranquillina to need to learn a modicum of each Ability before undertaking her research. This would require either obtaining mundane summae, or (an even crazier, story-suggesting idea) time spent as a student in a medical school.

Thanks,
gerg

What is the breakthrough she is trying to achieve? Would it be a virtue to all spells?

I might recommend getting a weasel for a familiar. If not she will end up talking to Paion. You might also look at Hedge magic in the Elementalist section. They have form of medicine that deals with controlling the humors. It might be helpful or not.

tl;dr?

I don't know enough about Paion (or weasels) to understand why this would be helpful....

I think, what jebrick is asking, and what I'm asking, or trying to figure out...what's the guideline being invented, including a description of the base and level?

Paion is Korvin's familiar and is a weasel of virtue. I'm suggesting a weasel because they are the experts in medicine for animals of virtue. "The weasel has an understanding of medicine and can even revive its own young if they are killed." Paion has a medicine score of 7. I could have cranked it up higher if I wanted to.

JL is correct in that I can not figure out what the spell guideline is for the Original Research. It sounds like a minor breakthrough. That is described as a new range or duration for spells. Korvin is working on Major Breakthrough in an improved LR that allow non-gifted characters to divide by 5 rather than the current 10 years. It would end up being a Hermatic virtue He could then teach the virtue to others.

To me, it seems that if you just want to improve your living conditions modifier, you could just research spells to cast to improve the conditions around you ( and others). Not really breakthrough research because you are not pushing the boundaries of Magic theory.

Okay, fair enough - I'll throw something more specific out there - a provisional idea, but easier for you all to react to a concrete proposal.

New Rego Corpus spell guidelines

  • Level 20: Grant a +1 bonus to a character's Living Conditions modifier.
  • Level 25: Grant a +2 bonus to a character's Living Conditions modifier (with an Intellego requisite).
  • Level 30: Grant a +3 bonus to a character's Living Conditions modifier (with Intellego and Creo requisites; must be a Ritual).

I was thinking Minor Breakthrough as well; I don't know if a single Minor Breakthrough would encompass the whole trio of new guidelines or just one of them.

Example spells

Therapy of the Medicus
Rego Corpus 35
R: Personal, D: Moon, T: Individual
The caster's bodily humors are regulated in a way that helps to avoid diseases and ill health, as if she were a patient under the care of a doctor. If the caster is under the effect of this spell for more than half a year, she gains a +1 bonus to her Living Conditions modifier; note that this does cause Warping as a continuous effect. A character may be affected by both this spell and an actual doctor's regimen, but only the larger of the two bonuses applies.

Regimen of Salerno
Rego (Intellego) Corpus 40
R: Personal, D: Moon, T: Individual
As Therapy of the Medicus, except that the Intellego requisite increases the ability of the spell to regulate the humors well, granting a +2 bonus to the Living Conditions modifier.

Wizard's Eucrasia
Rego (Intellego, Creo) Corpus 55 (Ritual)
R: Touch, D: Year, T: Individual
The target's bodily humors and faculties are regulated and amplified in a way that helps to avoid diseases and ill health, as if she were a patient under the care of a highly skilled doctor. If the target is under the effect of this spell for more than half a year, she gains a +3 bonus to her Living Conditions modifier; note that this does cause Warping as both a powerful effect (unless designed for or cast by the target) and a continuous effect. Characters affected by this spell cannot also be benefited by following an actual doctor's regimen.

I don't think these spells should require Finesse rolls (certainly not any spells with Intellego requisites). I kind of WAGged the spell guideline levels, based on what I thought the final spell levels should be; but it did fit reasonably nicely as being higher than the existing Level 15: Direct the flow of bodily energy.

PS: With her vis allergy, Tranquillina ain't really the familiar-havin' kind o' gal :cry:

I do not see the breakthrough. It looks like spells. I would make them all rituals that last since they only effect one roll a year. You are basically asking for new guidelines to be added which is not part of breakthrough but part of game play.

Warping...

Agree, which is why it might not be such a good idea to choose ReCo over CrCo, especially as it leaves you open to a botch :confused:
Also, CrCo gives you sinergy for Longevity purposes.

This is surely a difficult question, and you may need more than one spell for this. You need:

  • InCo to know the body's needs
  • Either mundane knowledge or InAn/InHe to know what food acts on what humor. Target smell would be great for that.
  • If you want to force people, ReMe, but do you really want to?

And yes, JL is pretty right about warping :-/ Maybe try to create spells that help to know a food's properties, and spells that enhance them? Avoid spells that act on the magus if you can.

I have other tastes. People can certainly see things your way, which seem to roughly be that, if it doesn't contradict the laws of hermetic magic, then you don't need any special work to do it, just troupe consensus that it's possible, and hop! New guidelines!

It's no more wrong or right than mine, and the 2 could very well coexist, but I prefer to see published guidelines as what is currently possible to magic, with newer guidelines being the result of more recent research. Things outside of this are not impossible for hermetic magic, but no one has figured how to do it, yet. This is in part supported by these rare examples in the books where you have guidelines that, despite not requiring any special virtue, are explicitly not available to basic hermetic magic, such as RoP:M guidelines..

This, IMO, is more realistic, as it helps the GM to say that all these centuries of research that bonisagi have yielded results, even if none of them was groundbreaking. It also gives players something to strive for, just like what gerg is doing here. So, for example, a game set in 1200 might have the guidelines in A&A as off-limits, for example, and a GM might use a new book to showcase players the results of hermetic (minor) breakthroughs by hermetic seekers and theorists.

Thanks for the initial feedback, non-consensus though it might be. Apart from Jonathan's acknowledgment of my acknowledgment of the Warping, I got some opinion that those ReCo spells could be invented right now, and opposing opinion that they would comprise a Minor Breakthrough. I think both possibilities are quite defensible, depending on the troupe's decision ... what should we do in our saga?