Using Magic to Cheat Libraries

I was wondering after a comment made on the following spell:

Opening the Mind of the Tome
InIm 20
R: Touch, D: Moon, T: Group
Perfectly creates a memory of the contents of one book within the mind of the caster. The memory remains perfect for the duration of the spell and then fades normally.
This spell was invented by Acquisitus of House Bonisagus, who successfully used this spell to acquire a great many of the tomes in the library of Durenmar.
(Base 1,+1 Touch, +3 Moon, +2 Group)
Contributer: Ed Campbell.

The comment was basically that cheating the library of Durenmar shouldn't be so simple. I agree, but I'm wondering about the usage of spells to cheat and use libraries in general.
Should Durenmar be worried about such spells? It could, for example, have all the books behind cabinets and lids so that they could not be targeted so simply. But spells could be developed that use Room or Structure targets to "copy" entire libraries. Should libraries be worried about cheating in such ways?

Two ways out of this that I see.
Firstly, it can be claimed that such copying without consent is using magic to spy on the librarie's owner magi, and is as such a High Crime against all the covenant members. That should immensly reduce the desire to develop and use such spells.
Secondly, this particular spell may be impossible altogether. It can be claimed that inside of a book, while not exposed to light, releases no species to be detected by magic. I think that's way too harsh, though - it renders InIm far less useful. I don't like this solution.

One can also assume a paranoid Order where no one is allowed to go near another's library, and books are loaned rather than read at or even browsed at the library... but I don't like that at all.

Well, this is the second suggestion lately that seeks to 'Cheat the System'...
...but I digress...

  1. How the heck did anyone get at the books in question???? One would think that the library would be guarded with every protective idea known to both Hermetic magic and mundane skill.... I find it highly unlikely that anyone could 'just walk in', select a book, cast a spell on it, and walk out. I would think that there is a librarian who takes care of the books, and guards them with his life....perhaps the library IS his sanctum...Anyone found in there would be "Disiplined" at once... :astonished:

  2. In principle, I suppose the idea is correct, but it lets people (players) get away with too much....

  3. The mage is going to 'cram' an entire book into his mind with one spell???
    One would think there would be some sort of stress check on the spell...

my $.02

Hmm ... I think the spell is a bit too low for the effect you want.

Group is about 10 individuals (10 pages?) and besides, how much of a book will you be able to scribe during the course of a moon? :wink:

Opening the Mind of the Tome
InIm 30
R: Touch, D: Year, T: Group, Ritual
Memorizes the contents of one book (up to 100 pages long). The memory remains perfect for the duration of the spell and then fades normally.
This spell was invented by Acquisitus of House Bonisagus, who successfully used this spell to acquire a great many of the tomes in the library of Durenmar.
The caster of this spell receives 1 Warping point as a result of the strong mystical effect over the course of the year.
(Base 1,+1 Touch, +4 Year, +2 Group; Size +1)

This, I would suggest, would get the Bonasagi in a tiz :wink:

AFAICS, Durenmar will have a very simple policy, perhaps written in iron letters over the main entrance of the Great Library:
Guests. Use. No. Magic. Here. Ever.

Violations leading to expulsion for a decade or two in trivial cases, or to just about anything - including many to one Wizards' War - devious old magi jealous of their library can come up with in the others.
They will certainly monitor any magic use in the library: and if a user balks at that - well, he is not obliged to consult it, is he?

The good thing about this is, that in evaluating Opening the Mind of the Tome we need not concern ourselves with such exploits.

Kind reagrds,

Berengar

Opening the Mind of the Tome
InIm 30
R: Touch, D: Year, T: Group, Ritual
Memorizes the contents of one book (up to 100 pages long). The memory remains perfect for the duration of the spell and then fades normally.
This spell was invented by Acquisitus of House Bonisagus, who successfully used this spell to acquire a great many of the tomes in the library of Durenmar.
The caster of this spell receives 1 Warping point as a result of the strong mystical effect over the course of the year.
(Base 1,+1 Touch, +4 Year, +2 Group; Size +1)

This would work. The copyist must fisrt read the book once (1 season) & then can copy it without having the book handy. For each season after which the spell duration ends, substract 3 to the quality of the work.

While the book is memorized, the copyist is obsessed with its content & all exposure xp is gained in the covered field(s) of the book.


As for the protections, I this that a wind of mundane silence in a ring ritual with much penetration could be required in some winter concenants. Only mundane scribes could be allowed.

The 'No Magic Sign' is a good Idea also with associated wizard marches if not respected.

I like the spell, and I think it would work on mundane books, but I don't think it would work that way on magical ones. Consider: A Summa is an instruction manual. To gain the Experience from it, you have to perform the various experiments, and exorcise your gift to lean how to do it...{You don't learn martial arts by sitting down. You have to practice the kick or punch to learn how your body (gift) works)} One season of study in a Summa doesn't get you all the way through the book. If your copying the book (memorize), you are skimming the book. This would not allow proper usage. I would suggest, that if you choose to allow this, the caster would only gain Exposure experience at best...Of course, further study of the completed text would be different....

Certainly to learn from the book (gain experience) would take a season - if only to cogitate, reflect upon and absorb the lessons within. It certainly would not give you the knowledge associated with the book - simply a mental copy of the book from which you could learn or copy.

Creating knowledge (which probably breaches a Hermetic limitation) would be CrMe rather than InIm anyway ...

The idea behind the spell is that a magus gets access to a book from a library for a short period of time, casts a spell to capture a perfect mental image of the entire contents of the book, then uses a memory refresh (memory perfecting spell) to keep the memory around long enough to copy the book.

The spell is InIm because it captures all of the species emitted by the pages of the books, so a long perusal, or original read is unnecessary. The duration of moon is sufficient because you can create a memory refreshing spell of duration moon to help extend the lenght of time the memory is a perfect representation of the book. What is more relevant is the potential need for a size increase to allow more pages to be memorized in this manner.

The spell, of course does nothing for actually learning what is in the book, it just allows the caster to be able to copy it out at a later date, so no creation of knowledge is actually going on. After physically copying the contents of the tome into a new volume, the magus would then be able to study it.

Ed C

What he said.

I think it simply needs a few extra magnitudes for complexity. It is a set (group, maybe large group if more than 10 'pages') of very complex images that can not afford to get even the smallest penstroke wrong in case it is critical (eg guilt becomes quill, which could be very awkward when casting a ReMe spell...)

Corbon

What he said.

W

Ok, given the comments above...
Opening the Mind of the Tome
InIm 40
R: Touch, D: Moon, T: Group
Perfectly creates a memory of the contents of one book within the mind of the caster. The memory remains perfect for the duration of the spell and then fades normally. The spell is accurately captures the species generated by each page in the book, thereby creating a perfect rendition of the book in the mind of the casting magus.
This spell was invented by Acquisitus of House Bonisagus, who successfully used this spell to acquire a great many of the tomes for the library of Durenmar. He used this spell in conjuction with one to perfect the memory of each book, thereby allowing him to write out copies of the books he encountered on his journeys.
(Base 1,+1 Touch, +3 Moon, +2 Group, +2 Size, +2 Complexity of image)

Ed C

Pardon me for possibly being dense, but why do we think that the magi are so jealous with their findings?

I guess there are three perspectives: those of the writer of the book, the owner of the volume to be memorized, and the magus to memorize the volume.

Perhaps magi are averse to people reading their books, but where I come from, writers like to be read. Especially academics, whose lives are largely spent in the pursuit of prestige, want their works to be read as widely as possible. So most writers will want their books to be copied, memorized, and so forth, and so wouldn't have any objections to people using the memorization spell. There might be exceptions — a magus comes up with a spell or insight that he only wants to share with his closest friends — but then the volume is unlikely to make it into a library.

The magus to memorize the volume obviously wants to memorize the volume.

Now how about the owner? Well, the owner might want to become famous for having the best library, and so be jealous of people copying his books. That is, it's possible that the Order librarians have a problem with the dissemination of knowledge. (Mind you, that strikes me as very unlikely, but we'll go with it.) But, since neither producers nor consumers of books will be interested in librarians' prestige, they'll collaborate to get around censorious librarians. I imagine that the Code would contain instructions requiring that all books be available to anyone who swears by the code, thus thwarting the librarians. People might even cast spells on their books, making them self-combust if anyone ever tries to prevent anyone in the Order from reading, memorizing, or copying them.

If spells like this are possible, then physical texts become much less important. A magus could carry around the whole library in his head, refreshing the spells periodically. Instead of reading the physical volume, he would reflect on his perfect mental image. That would take just as long as studying from a physical book, but wouldn't require a library.

Here's an alternative. Maybe knowledge is dangerous.

  1. Since a whole lot of the books that people would want to memorize and/or copy contain mystical formulae with great inherent power, whenever you write a book, there's a spell you cast on it that's sort of a parma magica that keeps magic from interacting with the book. That way opening the book doesn't let demons into the world, or whatnot. (Some of the rules for Jewish texts, in one of the old Kabbalah book or the new Book of the Divine, would lend themselves to this way of thinking.) The mental photocopier spell would have penetration of the copyright spell built into its very structure, and that might add, oh, I don't know, three levels of magnitude, thus making the copy spell level 55 and a ritual. That might make copying a book magically sufficiently difficult as to ward off attempts to do it by any other than the greatest and most powerful archmagi.

  2. For the same reason, having an entire book in your head might be destabilizing. Perhaps the mind can only handle so much internal magic — memorizing even a fairly large number of spells might not do it, but memorizing entire books might. Maybe the ad hoc limit to build into the spell is that the memorizer gains a warping point per memorized book per moon.

That said, the level 40 version of the spell seems like a pretty effective deterrent already. But if we really want to keep physical volumes important, it seems like we might want to go beyond just making it bloody hard to magically copy books — we should make it virtually impossible.

Just a small question on the works of your spell.

Do you:

1- Just need to touch the book
2- Need to look at the pages one by one
3- Need to read the book once.

For your effect to work?

W

This might memorise the book - but do you intend that the person can then scribe the book from memory?

If so, I'd still say 'moon' seems too short a time period for anything useful to be done with such a memory.

I assume you don't intend that the person 'knows' any spell, art or knowledge from the book? Surely it would take a season (i.e. 3 moons) to be able to consolidate such knowledge and be able to use it. So again, the duration seems too short.

I think that he want's to make use of CrMe to keep the memory fresh & perfect untill the project is finished.

I call it a ritual for the poor :stuck_out_tongue:

W

As yes, I'd forgotten that bit. Given it's now a L40 spell, I suspect few would be able to use it.

As a storyguide I'd probably push for a ritual simply because of the complexity of the effect. I'd probably also be tempted to suggest to the troupe that the caster picks up some warping or bizarre personality glitches just so they aren't tempted to take the p*** with it :wink:

You are aware that people using magic in the Great Library cannot only memorize books, but also copy them, alter their contents, leave traps in them, destroy them, teleport them out, and athousand other nasty things, are you?
So they can do a lot of things reducing the value of the library.

The Durenmar magi will - of course - not wait until that happens. But they can also not waste time on tricky and unreliable a posteriori checking of each spell cast in the library. So AFAICs they just make known that every magic use by guests is forbidden inside, period.

About surreptitiously memorizing a book to copy it: reading GotF you will see, that access to the library of Durenmar is not free, and visitors copying books by any means require explicit permission of a librarian.

Kind regards,

Berengar

OK, I have to ask... Where is the big deal if people copy books? BSG magi swear to share there knowledge of magic with other members of the order, so the great library should INVITE magi to copy books. OK, there may be exceptions for particular tomes, a "restricted section" if you will. It's not like access to the library is free after all. You need to pay with either books (a new book they don't have is worth 2 seasons) or Vis (3 pawns per season, IIRC). I am running a GoTF campaign, and one of the magi just spent a full year in there copying sume and tracticus quickly. No, he could not copy the parma magica books, and they woudl have said no to some of the demonic lore texts, but art sume?

It's not as if any other library could ever HOPE to match the great library in either bredth or depth. It's position as the greatist storehouse of magical knoweledge is safe. Why put sky-high obsticles between magi and the tools to improve their skills?

If the reason is game ballence, then simply restrict what is availible: "Oh, I am sorry, all the Quality 14 Level 18 Perdo sume are in use by more senior magi this season. Can I intrest you in this Quality 8 Lvl: 11 one instead?"

Since it is InIm, I would assume that you would have to turn each of the pages, so that you would be exposed to the species emitted, so you would at least have to look momentarily at every page.

Ed C