All of your example spells would not cause warping if they were made for Tranquillina. I've also wondered if it would effect her personality as it is keeping the humors in balance. Anger is related to sangerious (sp?). I think melancholy is bile, ext...
Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults has some Bjornaer spells on page 36 that, effectly, realign the humors which, in turn, give the subject bonuses in certain areas. That might be something worth looking at, too.
Sanguine gives +1 Quickness, +3 to negate the natural fear the caster instills (basically cancelling the effects of the Gift in animal form), and gives the Cheerful Personality Trait at +3.
Choleric gives +1 Dexterity, +3 to all rolls to follow a trail or find something that was hidden, and the Brave Personality Trait at +3.
Melancholic gives +1 Stamina, +3 to all rolls to communicate across a language barrier, and gives the Creative Personality Trait at +3.
Phlegmatic gives +1 Strength, +3 to all rolls involving intuition and memory, and gives the Cool-Headed Personality Trait at +3.
That is why I was looking at the Elementalist in the Hedge Magic book. Their Medical ability does most of the same things. It is just for ideas of what can be done. With more balanced humor you might have no personality trait over +1 or -1 ( brain storming here ).
Those references to HMRE and HOH:MC were really great, thank you both. (Also reminded me there's a difference between Hedge Magic and its Revised Edition....)
The Bjornaer stuff definitely implies that Muto Corpus can affect emotions by rebalancing the humors. It's possible this could be done with CrCo or even ReCo as well. That might be a different line of research, since it would mean using Corpus to cause effects usually under the purview of Mentem.
I looked at the Elementalists, and it certainly says that Elemental Summoning can do much of what Medicine can do (although diagnosis is part of Elemental Divining; also Elemental Controlling can affect emotions like the above Bjornaer stuff). In theory one could attempt to integrate Elemental Summoning into Hermetic Magic Theory with one's research.
While interesting and workable ideas for other characters or times, I think in the end they don't have much direct bearing on the proposed plan of research into ReCo medicinal spells. I couldn't even get anything but a rough idea of how the power level for the Elemental Summoning spells would translate to spell levels for ReCo: an Elemental Summoning total of 30 is enough to cure basically any disease in a human (that corresponds to the proper Elemental Form), and this could probably be reliably achieved by a 50-year-old Elementalist character. Anyway, I think the proposed spell level guidelines still seem okay to me.
The proposed spells would indeed cause warping, although magi learning these spells for themselves wouldn't have to worry about it. To me it seems useful but not crazy beneficial. I'm kind of liking the idea the more I think about it. How do others feel about this as a viable original research program in our saga?
I wasn't even thinking about that warping, but of continual mystical effect :-/
But you're all giving me an idea.
What if you searched for a breakthrough that, not unlike form bonuses, allowed a magus knowledge of Rego Corpus to give him naturally balanced humors?
Like, you could take 1/10 of his ReCo total and apply it as both a living conditions modifier, non cumulative with medecine, and half of that as a "penalty" to personnality traits that differ from 0.
So, someone with Angry -3 and ReCo 41 would have a 4 points bonus to living conditions and see his personnality trait reduced to Angry -1.
You could also develop your new guidelines that, while not cumulative with this or medecine, would allow you to duplicate the same effect in mundanes (or in magi whose ReCo is too low)
Once I find time to finish Halvard, that is exactly what he is doing 
And he would be a member of a vassal
A few laboratory-related items: this is a summary of my plan to finish off Tranquillina's lab customization, and I just want to record things here to give the SG / troupe a final chance to raise objections or questions.
- Tranquillina has two reasonable potential sources for an enchanted item that would bestow the Magical Heating virtue upon her lab. First, amul had put enchantments of exactly this type on the magi planner for Viscaria; second, Tranquillina almost brought such an item with her from Nigrasaxa, made by her sodalis Thamik (i.e., I planned on spending build points on it, put it on the wiki, but eventually allocated the bps elsewhere). It's a lesser enchantment with a level-20 CrIg effect; the standard Verditius cost would be 6 pawns of vis. My plan is for Tranquillina to pay that cost from her personal vis allocation (after the Tribunal is over), thus acquiring the item and installing the virtue.
- The young man Loys (a literate covenant resident), who has appeared in a couple of stories, has a crush on Tranquillina and will soon be owed a debt by her. He's going to ask to become her full-time servant; while she's a little uncomfortable from his puppy love, she does see the benefits of having a dedicated lab servant. Tranquillina plans to spend a season (probably 1227.4) refining her lab once again; I propose that during this same season she can also train Loys to be her lab servant and thus gain the Servant virtue. (A little rationale: to me it seems a reasonable interpretation of the RAW that Tranquillina could bestow Training XP upon Loys during a season of refining her lab with him present. That would be enough to get Loys to a score of 1 in Magic Theory. Technically a Servant doesn't even need the Magic Theory skill, but it seems like this minimal score would serve to indicate the ability to help out in the lab.)
- Finally, at that point Tranquillina will have done three seasons of refinement on her lab. The Covenants rules (page 110) say that a character can make a "Tidy (or other relevant Personality Trait) roll" to gain the Spotless virtue. I submit that Tranquillina could make such a roll with her Patient +2 personality trait (and I seek your agreement or disagreement). If so, then she does indeed gain Spotless.
Minor uncertainties about the rules.
- Tranquillina has the Waster of Vis Flaw: "When you use raw vis you waste one quarter (rounded up) of the pawns you apply.... You must use a third again as many pawns as usual.... This Flaw applies to all occasions on which you use vis...." Suppose Tranquillina spends three weeks in a row fixing three Arcane Connections. Normally that would cost 1 pawn of Vim vis each, for a total of 3 pawns. For Tranquillina, does this cost 4 pawns total? Or does each one require 2 pawns (like it would if she were only fixing one), for a total of 6 pawns?
- Suppose Tranquillina had a MuVi spell, like Shroud Magic or Wizard's Reach, that was Duration: Diameter (and Range: Touch). Would it then affect all spells cast by Tranquillina for the next two minutes?
Waster of Vis affects each individual item, so it would take 6 pawns.
I think, and anyone is welcome to chime in, that each MuVi effect affects only one spell. I'll use th Sun duration Wizard's Communion for ritual spells as my example.
Oh man, I just realized that MuVi has to affect only one spell each. Otherwise in combat I just cast a MuVi spell that affects incoming spells, with long Duration, and it protects me from all of them. No way, I'm with JL. (on both counts)
Edited to add: But if it had Duration: Diameter, that would at least get rid of the Concentration roll for casting both spells, right?
Yes, but it would change the calculation, subtracting 5 from the level on what other spell it can effect to account for the the Diameter duration.
aye aye on the above.
A few new questions:
- Bonisagus House Acclaim (HoH:TL, page 21). One of the items is "Invent an original spell". What qualifies as "original" here? Any spell invented without a Lab Text? Or only spells that aren't in canon sourcebooks? Or, more stringently, only spells that we decide have never been invented by any magus ever before now?
- Speaking of House Acclaim: you get 3 points/magnitude for stabilizing a breakthrough, presumably during Original Research. So on the way to a typical Minor Breakthrough say, which takes 30 Breakthrough points, one would accumulate 90 House Acclaim points (plus whatever is gotten for the original spells). Then the table says 15 House Acclaim points for the Minor Breakthrough itself. But ... on the next page, the sidebar implies that one you get to 50 House Acclaim points, more don't matter at all. Is that accurate? If so, why even bother with points for Breakthroughs themselves? If not, what's the benefit of having say 105 House Acclaim points (which would be an Acclaim score of 6)?
- Speaking of original research: let's say one performs multiple lab activities during a season - say inventing two spells, one level 10 and one level 20 - and wants to try original research during that season. The Extraordinary Results Chart is rolled on once, with the result applying to both spells (ArM5 page 102). If the roll results in a Discovery that is later stabilized, will the number of Breakthrough points earned be equal to the total magnitudes of both spells? It seems so to me. (In other words, the choice to invent a level 10 spell + a level 20 spell, versus a single level 30 spell, doesn't affect the chances of a Discovery at all nor the number of Breakthrough points earned.)
Here are my best guesses as to the answers for the above questions. I'll take them as acceptable unless I hear otherwise.
- Let's take the middle option: if it's not a canon spell (or a "similar spell", as per ArM5 page 101, to a canon spell), then it counts for House Acclaim.
- While a Bonisagi with a House Acclaim score of above 4 wouldn't hold a rank above Dendrophori (HoH:TL page 22), the higher score would still add its full value to relevant rolls, such as influencing other magi of House Bonisagus.
- Original research combines all lab activities for that season together into one chance for a breakthrough; the effective level of the breakthrough is the same as if it were combined into one spell (both for Breakthrough points and Warping points).
Currently the plan is for Tranquillina to invent some canon CrCo spells that resist/cure diseases, then go on to invent ReCo versions of the same spells, experimenting/doing original research on both sets of inventions. If there's any reason why this plan isn't workable for her eventual goal of a ReCo spell that adds to a person's Living Conditions modifier (by simulating the regimen of a trained doctor), let me know.
Sorry I missed these questions!
- It has to be a spell that hasn't yet been invented. If you're not feeling inspired, we can talk about some of the spells on the Net Grimoire...
- The only rank above Dendrophori is Primus, so...yes.
- I don't see any benefit from doing multiple things in a season devoted to research. I suppose you could spend a season inventing 3 2nd magnitude spells hoping one of them yields a Discovery, and then in the subsequent season you're only trying to stabilize the Discovery from one of those spells. The stabilizing season is devoted to one and only one discovery, and low magnitudes will just means it takes longer to make a breakthrough.
Sounds like we're in agreement on the first two points. My desire was to clarify what "hasn't yet been invented" meant: one could possibly take the stricter view that lots of non-canon spells - such as a spell to change the appearance of a cloak - would still have been invented by someone already (in the view of the players), and thus not count for House Acclaim, even though we can't point to a specific canon spell that does it.
On the third point: let's take the Tillitus example from HoH:TL, page 30. He has a Lab Total of 20, so he could invent two different level 5 Wizard's Reaches (say Animal and Aquam) in a single season. Let's say there's some in-character reason that this option makes more sense than a single level-10 WR (maybe his breakthrough is trying to create a WR that works on all Forms, or something). Can he still choose to treat the entire season as one 2nd-magnitude opportunity for making a breakthrough, so that he gains 2 Breakthrough points rather than 1? He would have to stabilize the pair of spells, he would get 2 Warping points, etc. Or must he choose one spell per season and say "this is the only one that qualifies for a breakthrough"? (Or are both options open to him?) Note that in normal (non-Original Research) experimentation, one roll on the Experimental Results chart applies to all activities, which supports the idea that the season's activities as a whole can be taken as one high-magnitude OR project.
PS: When experimenting for OR, it says the Risk Modifier is not added to the Lab Total (like it is for normal experimentation) - but the simple die roll is still added to the Lab Total, isn't it?
And in this situation, can one declare that he's "rolling up" for some aspect of the spell, like "I want to create this spell at the highest Duration that my roll-enhanced Lab Total allows", like we do for spontaneous spells?
Hasn't been invented yet is still kinda vague. It's possible that another magus has invented the spell you've submitted, but that magus is not a Bonisagus and doesn't share it. To be recognized for inventing the spell, you must have shared it somehow, to be included as part of the Folio...or that's how I see it. Does this mean that Bonisagus are taking credit from other magi and magae? Perhaps, but, you're publishing your original work as a Bonisagus. If they wanted credit for inventing the spell, they should have published! 
I think it's simpler, then, to just focus on one discrete thing being invented. If you're inventing a mess of spells to do something and treating the whole season as the experiment that leads to a discovery, you have to invent all those same things again... I'm not sure I see the benefit, except having more spells, I guess. That's more of a troupe call, if the troupe's fine with it, I don't have a problem with it.
I don't think you get a simple die roll (and don't see how it helps) to add to the Lab Total for Original Research. The idea is to discover something knew. Am I missing something?
Oh, I realize I never mentioned one reason why it would be nice to be able to treat a whole season's worth of multiple spell creations as a single Original Research item: this possibility takes away an OOC incentive to design spells in stupid ways.
For example, let's imagine a maga is working towards a Breakthrough in Intellego Corpus (solving murder mysteries or something...), and she wants to gain Breakthrough points as quickly as possible. She wants to invent the level 20 InCo spell Tracing the Trail of Death's Stench (like The Inexorable Search but for corpses). However, her InCo Lab Total is 70, high enough for her to invent 35 levels of spells. A lame way of doing this would be to artificially inflate the level of Tracing the Trail of Death's Stench to 35, by adding Size modifiers, changing the Target to Group, or similar things - things for which there's no good in-character reason to do, but the player knows it will yield more Breakthrough points. It would be nicer if she could just invent a second spell during the season, say a level 15 Instant Autopsy spell, and treat the package as a single 7-magnitude opportunity for Original Research - that seems more in-character than the artificial-inflation method.
As for the simple die roll, that's part of normal experimentation (end of ArM5 page 107); I'm just trying to confirm that it applies also to Original Research, which seems (HoH:TL page 27) to be a special case of experimentation with a few explicitly described differences.
((On the other point, I'm down with the "publish or perish" argument 
))
Here's a thought...
Ahh... And now I'm clearer. There is an incentive not to push for the maximum level, though. Warping gained from stabilizing one's research. Level 35 spells will give 2+ points of warping on an average die roll. Say it with me: Twilight check.
I understand that the simple die roll is part of normal experimentation. My point is Original Research is not like normal experimentation. The researcher is pushing the bounds of magic, not themselves. The experimenter is trying to find the best method to get his work done, he wants the task done faster, takes some shortcuts, etc. The Researcher is a bit more meticulous in their method...
The ArM(pg 108) rule seems to suggest that you would roll 1 simple die to add to your lab results for experimenting but roll twice ( for two spells) on the Extraordinary Result table. Basically you could get between 0 and N breakthroughs in a season where N = the number of experiments you perform.
Yep, I understand that there are both incentives (quicker Breakthroughs) and disincentives (Twilights) to going for higher magnitude effects. The question still stands though: multiple spells in a season as a single Original Research chance - yea or nay?
The way the section on Original Research uses the word "experimentation" is unclear, I agree - it could go either way, like target/Target. The specific sentence (page 27) that makes me suspect the die roll should be added is (my emphasis added): "Since you are searching for clues aimed at surpassing regular Hermetic theories, you must experiment, using the rules found in the Arcane Experimentation section of the Laboratory chapter, including choosing a risk modifier for your experiment and rolling on the Extraordinary Results Chart."
The explicit rule to this effect is not in a helpful place: at the end of page 102, it says (although with less ironclad language than I remember ...) that there's one Extraordinary Results roll even if multiple spells are invented in a season.