What's your favourite Form?

In (canon) Mythic Europe, there's no understanding of the modern energy concept - sounds isn't waves, thus there's not intensity proportional to the square of the amplitude of the wave.

Sounds can deafen, that's about it.

Did i say that? No, illusionary light wont ever physically hurt someone. But the sensory overload it creates can keep a person in bed for weeks. Theoretically it can kill, but thats unlikely.

I dont know for sure and i dont care. If i create sound by means of an illusion, the sound is still real.


Yes but the actual physical damage isnt there, "just" the reaction to it. Which is another kind of "cruder" attack spells with CrIm, pain-spells. Nasty and low level but cant really cause a lasting impact, once the pain is gone/spell duration ended its likely to be just a matter of moments before the target is reasonably ok again(exception being if the target was rendered unconscious.


Correct. It makes things ever so much easier.

Im not sure on this really. It depends on how much you twist physics and what you use to define "mythic".

Nah, that would be boring and leave Imagonem without any direct attack abilities.
And otherwise it can also be argued that you wouldnt be able to make an illusion of a person without a Corpus requisite.


As always, that depends on whose mythicness you base ME on.
library.thinkquest.org/C005705/E ... istory.htm
In the 6th century BC Pythagoras of Samos observed someone playing a stringed instrument and as he observed the string being plucked, he related the amplitude of its vibration (which he saw as the width of the blurred area the motion of the string produced) with the perceived loudness of the sound. He also noted that when the vibration stopped altogether, the sound stopped as well. He even saw that the shorter strings vibrated more rapidly, and that this more rapid vibration seemed to produce a shriller, higher-pitched sound.

And here you have your shockwave concept, by Aristotle no less, and then the Romans gets in on it:
[i][b]Around 350 BC, Aristotle observed that the vibrating string was actually striking the air. He also concluded that each bit of air struck a neighboring bit of air, which in turn struck another bit, and so on. From this Aristotle hypothesized that air was needed as a medium through which sound could be conducted. He further postulated that sound would not be conducted without a medium; that is, it would not be conducted in a vacuum.

Realizing that a vibrating string strikes the air many times in a series of blows, not just once, 1st century Roman engineer Marcus Vituruvius Pollio suggested that the air not only moved, but vibrated. He thought that it did so in response to the vibrations of the string. He maintained that it was actually these air vibrations that we heard and perceived as sound.[/i]

And then:
It was not until about 500 A.D. that the connection between the motion of sound and the motion of waves was suggested. The Roman philosopher Anicius Manilius Severinus Boethius specifically compared the conduction of sound through the air to the waves produced by dropping a pebble into calm water. Though today we know that sound waves and water waves represent two distinct types of wave motion, (longitudinal and transverse, respectively) the realization that sound moved as a wave at all was an important step in the study of sound.

So, over half a century earlier we have the notions of fairly realistic physics when it concerns sound.
Which basically means im just sticking to REAL mythics and anyone disallowing it is out running in lala-land. :mrgreen:

:wink:

Ignem....

Light is versitile, heat is vital, fire is a weapon and cold is both weapon and tool.

mastery over fire gives you a means of fighting, and undoing fires both natural and otherwise.

You don't need to learn 3 different forms (Animal, Corpus, Herbam) to effect living things with it.

A

You misunderstood me.

I didn't mean you needed knowledge of a form to create illusions of that form. That'd make Imaginem pretty useless.

But I meant that, to create the sound-explosion you want, you could need knowledge of auram (after all, this is just a BIG gust of wind). Without it, you'd just have a big noise.

Likewise, to create light enough to blind, you could need Ignem, because Ignem is light. Without it... Well, I've never been blinded by a picture, whatever the colors in it (although sometimes it did hurt).
Now that I think of it, I seem to recall that Imaginem cannot create light by itself. That is, if you create an illusion of a sun in a dark room, it won't light anything. This is explained somewhere IIRC, maybe in the Jerbiton chapter?

Anyway, this don't make Imaginem useless. This makes it, well, illusions, instead of uber. Although YMMV

Nope. I understood what you meant. What i meant was something along the line of "to make it really and properly look like a person you have to know Co"...

A big noise IS a "big gust of wind".
And, as i linked, it was known far earlier that sound IS "particles hitting particles", ie what could be called an explosion if taken to the extreme.

Yeah but a picture isnt an illusion.

Eh? Now that would cause lots of problems. I sure havent seen it and i most certainly wont be playing it.
I also see no good reason for it.

Dont forget though that there is still a size restriction on illusions. Even if you can raise it a bit very easily thanks to the Base 1 start, its not a "free to do anything" allowance to use illusions.

:open_mouth:
Where did i make illusions uber? They cause absolutely puny damage compared to any other Form. The only exception being sound attack spells aimed at huge crowds, but the damage per target hit is still very low compared to spell level.

True. I was thinking aloud how you could do damage using Imaginem. Since you are using modern physics, do you use infrasound to make people sick? Infrared species creating heat? And if you accept explosions, would you accept lasers too? With these, Imaginem looks more powerful than with mythic philosophiae.

Using the mythic paradigm, I think more species doesn't make it louder. You need louder species for that. Yeah it doesn't make a difference for magi.

Heat is Ignem. Or if we´re using it, infrared light(ie. intangible/invisible) heat can also be Aether.

Someone needs to figure it out first. Also, infrasounds, how do you make an illusion of something you cant even tell if its there? Definetly not an easy thing to come up with.

Actually, i accept sound as it was known a thousand years before the AM setting. That the sound causes what essentially IS an explosion is a sideeffect.
And furthermore, explosions wasnt something unknown at the time, so if you DONT accept explosions, you´re out of sync with time.

Illusionary light doesnt carry energy so you can put together as strong an illusion of laserlight as you wish, it still wont cause physical harm. Although the blinding effect would be totally nasty.
And would anyone be able to think up the concept of laser? And what would it be, Cr(Re)Ig?
A laser attack spell would certainly not be an illusion, as that would make it powerless.
Sound attack spells only works because an illusion of sound IS sound. While the illusion of a fire will give light but not heat.

:unamused:
Why do you automatically assume "powerful" just because im saying "possible"? Let me say it again, the damage caused from sound spells is puny compared to that from fire spells of the same base level.
That doesnt make it powerful, it just means that a Imagonem specialist can choose to use their primary Form for direct attack spells, even if they´re mostly very inefficient.
I dont have any example here right now but IIRC i think we used something like Level/2 -5 as base damage for sound Illusion attacks. Compare that to fire which is Level+5.
So a Level 20 sound based PoF equivalent would have a damage rating of +0.
To get +15 damage would require a Level 50 spell. Oh yeah thats just SOOOO overpowered right?
The only advantage it has is that its an area effect "for free". A PoF with Target Group and +15 damage is still just Level 30. Sure you MAY be able to hit more people with the sound spell, if they´re packed together well enough, but its a lot more chancy. And of course, as always its up to SG to improve or reduce effectiveness according to situation.

I think thats a complete rubbish argument. Try looking at the "history" of knowledge of sound. What was known even 3000 years ago says you´re wrong about that.
And this is exactly why i loathe not using real physics as far as possible, because otherwise you limit the game to a SINGLE perspective of how SOME people MAY have thought at the time.

Wouldn't that be the provision of Ignem as well? I thought Light was ignem, so you can't create true light (one that illuminates the stuff around it) with imaginem. I think that you can only create something that REFLECTS the ambient light. In other words, I would say that visual Imaginem is useless in the dark. if you want to create light you use ignem. It is one of the clear cut differences in canon, I think....

EDIT: AH! Found it!
ArM p.143. Last sentence of middle column

Xavi

I think Imaginem is my favorite because it covers such intriguing abilities like illusion, disguises, and invisibility. However, it doesn't do much beyond that once you've mastered it, so from a standpoint of usefulness, I would choose either corpus, terram, or mentem.

Yeah sure, but that only says that light created somehow, cant be manipulated by Im, nor that Im can directly create light. But it isnt Im creating light, its the illusion you create with Im that creates light, as much or little as you want, up to however you choose to limit it based on the individual size restriction.

Light is Ignem. And Im doesnt create light, the illusion does. But if you create the illusion of a candle in a dark room, according to your take, there is no light coming from the illusion, meaning that its a failed illusion.
Meaning that by your interpretation of rules, any illusion of something that should emit light will obviously be fake, and that defeats the reason for illusions to exist at all.

Thats actually not what it says. And it would make a lot of illusions impossible without an Ig requisite, well actually it would make the spell Ig with an Im requisite rather whenever you want more light than equal to moonlight due to Im being base 1 most of the time(single sense).

My guess is that if you create the illusion of a candle you can't read a book from this light (but you can still make a fake book page with the text you choose)

The restriction on light also applies to shadows you cast while invisible, if you want to get rid of it you need a Ig requisite IMHO.

OK, so I didn't do my research. The modern concept of energy (not the word 'energy' which may well have existed) didn't exist, and your argument is still based around the A*A intensity.
I still don't buy it.

Well, I do not buy that explanation. It seems stretching imaginem to me. YSDV :slight_smile:

Cheers,
Xavi

Being responsible for derailing my own thread, I'll happily dive in :slight_smile:

Well, by the same argument, you could say that any illusion of a solid object that isn't actually solid will obviously be fake, and that defeats the reason for illusions to exist at all.

I believe your argument has a flaw. Illusions obviously have limits that make them unable, in certain circumstances, to replicate "reality" (or there would be no different between reality and illusion). Under these circumstances (a "solid" wall giving way when pressed, a "burning" fire that does not consume wood etc.) the illusion can be detected. This does not "defeat the reason for illusions to exist at all".

If I remember my Ars Magica physics correctly, when light hits a (non-transparent) object, that object emits visual species. You can make the illusion of a candle, and it will look bright. However, it will not be shedding light and thus will not illuminate its surroundings (which will not be emitting species themselves). If you want the illusion of a candle illuminating a room, you have to create the illusion of the candle AND that of the illuminated room. Otherwise, it will look a little like a crude modern-day photomontage, with the picture of a candle cut-and-pasted over the image of a dark room. Note that even then it takes a certain amount of ingenuity, particularly from people with little knowledge of magic, to figure out that the candle is an illusion because it does not illuminate. Most people who notice the inconsistency will just think that it's a really creepy candle "that burns bright but sheds no light" - or that it's a really creepy darkness, so thick that even candle light cannot breach it.

Or include some sort of ignem requisite for the additional effect (as ever, there are multiple ways to get what you want in ArM),

Indeed, there are ignem spells that already illuminate - maybe they would simply need an imaginem requisite to incorporate the illusion of a source,

That would seem to fit the existing spell framework (and indeed, the spells) more than the alternative, regardless of the mythic perspective,

The thing is that DW75 was saying that you can create light WITHOUT ignem at all. We are not so sure about it.

Cheers,
Xavi

I was agreeing :wink:

My favorite is Vim, because this is the form that rules the others.
True, it is not as directly useful as the others, but it allows you to affect magic directly, either to strengthen (make your enchanted horse last a month rather than a day), to weaken (the big fireball becomes a miniature one), or just change (the bolt of lightning became a thunderclap).

I also have a weakness for the power of illusions, but not for their ability to harm (which I really don't think an illusion should have at all), but rather for their ability to cloak and misdirect.

Thats very different. Illusions arent meant to be solid for one matter. You can make it FEEL solid, but you cant MAKE it solid anyway.
But an illusion which is obviously fake just from a momentary glance at it, thats a failed illusion.

And that flaw would be?

You CAN make an illusionary wall feel solid but you cant make it solid. You can make an illusionary fire "burning" but you cant make it actually cause injuries just as it wont be burning anything up. This is not something that is obvious.
An illusionary fire that doesnt give light, thats so obviously fake that its impossible to not see.
That an illusion can be detected is one thing, that even a quick glance tells you its a fake is a very different matter.

In the same way that you can make a fire seem hot without giving it real heat (how to kill someone in winter...), you can make a fire seem to glow without it being the source of light. Light doesn't really need to have a source (see lamp without flame - the light fills an area, but without a source). When lit up, the illusion of the flame will appear to glow.

The problem comes with modern physics, which really kills imagonem dead as there is no species.