Vis as an Arcane Connection?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Would you consider vis to be an arcane connection back to the vis source or other vis generated at the site?

I'm thinking of trying to recover some vis that was lost deep in a body of water. (Could we also try to go under the water and manually retrieve it? Yes, but we don't really have an aquam/corpus/aurum specialist handy, and we do have a Rego Vim specialist.)

We have some vis from the site still, and control the site, but we're looking at a rook of Intelligo Vis that would be nice to have back.

We also had a ruling against us at tribunal that prevented us from going to a site for seven years...this spell would let us harvest from that site without violating the ruling.

ReVi 30 Summon the Fruits of the Magic Realm
R:AC T:I D:M

With an arcane connection to a collection of vis in a location, you can summon that vis to you.

I think this has a basis to work, considering ReAq effects where you can draw water from one location to another using some of the initial water-- like the salt generating items discussed earlier.

Thoughts appreciated.

-Ben.

EDIT: The spell would probably only pull through a pawn at a time, and would require an appropriate container available to have the vis arrive within, but...

2

Your question echoes a recent discussion on what, exactly, one can have an AC to; and, of more concern here, what creates the connection that allows it to become a formal AC. (Arcane Connections & Places)

On page 84, we can read......Something, the connection, is an Arcane Connection to something else, the target, if the connection was very closely associated with the target...So, in your example, is one vis "very closely associated" with another? Maybe... if they were all fruit from the same tree, perhaps, yes. If, on the other hand, they were all separate toadstools growing in a ring, then... mabye, not so much - despite sharing the ring, they were separate. Trees in a forest are probably not connections to the trees next to them, so...

And it is, obviously, a judgement call, for each SG/Troupe, and for each instance. No examples can define which are and which aren't, only point in a general direction.

If the vis was all from a single unicorn horn, then... yes. But if they were extracted and separated decades ago, then... maybe that association has lapsed. Fish in a pond would not be necessarily be associated to each other, but dragon eggs or hatchlings might well be, if they are still a close family. As opposed to grown cats from the same litter - cats are notoriously independent, and so the "association" would have faded long ago. Magical bees might well be, as the hive associates them closely, or multiple vis taken from a hive of magical honey, but magical butterflies from the same tree... not so much.

And so on.

So, ~my~ answer is... probably not, unless there is a clear "association" between the vis-things themselves, something more than a convenience of original location.

However...

There exists a line of reasoning (see thread link above for Pro & Con), supported by spell descriptions, that ~could~ make these vis an AC to the place, if they had a close association to that place (grew there, lay there for centuries, etc.) With that, you might be able to cast Open the Intangible Tunnel, and then cast a more direct "grab the vis" type spell.

(Flirting with disaster re the Tribunal, eh? Respect, and GOOD LUCK!) 8)

3

The obvious answer that you probably don't need to hear is that it is if it makes for a better story and it isn't if it doesn't.

The rules-ey answer is from the arcane connection table on page 84 of the core book. Look at the list and decide which category your vis falls into. If it is water bubbling up from a spring it might only have a duration of hours, if it is a honey comb created by magical bees it could have a duration of weeks. What is the nature of the vis and how was it produced by its source?

4

(Yes, 100%! Easily as important as any thin rules distinction!)

5

Certainly! I'd be the first to agree to this. However, we're chest deep in a pair of other storylines at this moment, so this becomes more a matter of labwork and mechanics.

While I can see the paradigm regarding the nature of the source and the duration of the arcane connection the container has to its source, it sharpens the question:

Is vis contained within a thing part of that object's essential nature?

I would argue that it is not-- vis is a secondary, independent substance, for which any other object might contain it. The material of that container might limit the amount of vis it can contain, but the vis itself is its own object.

I liken it to a spring, bubbling up out of the magical fabric of a place. What collects that flow is dependent on the area, and it may or may not influence the nature of that magic, but it doesn't change the essence of that magic-- it's still the very stuff of magic, almost an element in and of itself.

If the vis is a part of the essential nature, that creates a bit of a wrinkle in hermetic magic and the use of vis. Not a large one, but certainly, a wrinkle. To shift the vis from an object would destroy it, to shift vis into an object would reforge it as a completely new object-- because in either case, we would otherwise be altering the essential nature.

Perhaps this will be discussed further in RoP:M, but until then, am I alone in this interpretation of vis? Does it seem inaccurate, based on canon and RAW?

thanks,

-Ben.

6

I'd agree that the vis that an object contains is not a part of that object's essential nature. But you'll have to explain to me why this has any bearing on the question of the vis being an arcane connection to its source. Has the vis been transferred to another object in the interim? (My feeling would be that transferring destroys any potential for the vis being an AC to its source.)

Tell us about the specifics of the source and vis. My opinion is that the best way to determine the answer is to compare the specifics to the chart on page 84 to determine if the vis is still an AC to its source (Which is I guess to come down on the side of saying "yes" it is an AC at least temporarily immediately after its creation. but very likely only for minutes or hours)

7

(We're talking "raw" vis, here, right, in its natural state - I'll proceed on that assumption)

I'd take the opposite stance, depending on the object.

A unicorn's magical horn is part of the unicorn's essential nature - the horn, and the magic in the horn. Taking the magic out would, imo, kill the unicorn.*
(* A thread on naturally replenishing vis and harvesting same was kicked around lately - other opinions were presented.)

"When raw vis is used... its substance often changes - dissolving, whithering, crumbling, shriveling or otherwise degrading - in whatever way is normally appropriate to it. This normally doesn't happen if the vis has been magically transferred to another receptacle (p 94), and never happens to such artificial receptacles. (p 80)

To me, the "crumbling" implies that the vis can indeed be innately tied to the object - tho' the fact that it doesn't always happen may mean it varies. Fish that absorb vis from a magical pond probabaly don't have it as part of their EN, but magical fish that are born that way would.

So, not every item has it as such, but many would. As with Virtues or Flaws, it depends on the exact relationship of the vis to the thing, whether it was "born" that way or not.

8

I'd say it isn't possible pourely because its obvious to magi to do this, and yet none of them have. That being said, I did run a game where a covenant had small magic items that attacked and used up pointlessly the vis sources of rival covenants. I see no reason, if this spell works, that you couldn't have automated harvesters scouring the land for vis in evcer increasing spirals.

9

For this discussion, I think the vis must remain in its original container. I would agree with you that shifting it from the container it was collected in would destroy the connection as it is removed from its original context.

We've got a terram source that's a standing stone. The vis is collected from pebbles on the ground around it.

We've also got a herbam source that's a pine tree. The vis is collected from large pine cones.

However, why is the nature of the container important? If we both agree that the vis is not part of the container's essential nature, then isn't the vis part of the greater vis flow of the site? Like a fountain of some liquid with a slow rate, it pours out X pawns of vis every year...

If a pawn of vis isn't part of the object that contains it, but is its own independent substance, then it seems to me that it should be related to its fellow pawns...

Really, based on this discussion, it seems that it's not a question of the vis being an arcane connection to the rest of the vis, but rather: "How long does the arcane connection last between vis and its source?"

If the container does matter, why?

-Ben.

10

Based on that quotation, then yes. I would have to shift my opinion-- raw vis is a part of the essential nature of its container, having become a part of it as it is deposited in the object. That would probably change the duration that pawn of vis remained an arcane connection to the source.

In which case, that spell should work so long as the arcane connection back to the source remained viable.

As far as automated vis collectors are concerned... I guess you could have such items that destroyed or collected vis, but I would expect that such automata would draw the attention of knights, or opportunistic magi, or even just huntsmen. I don't know how long they might remain viable, but I would think that they very well may exist-- certainly being discovered as the creator of such a device is a sure way to getting Marched by the Tribunal. I don't think they're not possible, but rather an item or a spell not used without caution for fear of accusations of depriving another magus of magical power.

-Ben.