So running with that line of logic it would be a Major Breakthrough creating a Hermetic Virtue, let's call it Animal Enchantment? With this virtue would the resulting animals be considered Magical and receive a Might Score or would it effectively be the same as any other enchantment.

I would look at Awakening (HoH:MC p.104) and the Hrools (BCoC). The Hrools are probably a better place to start as they are based off of a discovery.

So I went and looked into them and Awakening is a pretty awesome thing that I will have to consider if I ever make another Animal magi but its beyond the scope of what I'm attempting to do. Awakening allows the magi to instill a Magical animal, which already possesses a Might score, with additional effects. I want to instill a mundane creature with a magical effect, not necessarily give it the discretion in which to use it of their own free will.

It is essentially just removing one step because instead of creating say a collar that grants the effects to that animal, the enchantments are done directly to them.

I just meant to look at them to see how they function for mechanics for whatever you do. I would note that Awakening allows you do to this with a non-magical animal, as you can give it Might in the first place. As I mentioned, Hrools are probably better to look at (p. 92 of BCoC). As for not having a power under the animal's control, it's probably a constant power, so you could use those methods and make it constant instead of activated at will.

Spell Mastery Questions:

Given:
Fast Casting - The maga may Fast Cast the mastered spell according to the rules for Fast Casting Spontaneous spells, on page 83. The maga still takes the –10 penalty to Casting Score and risks the extra botch dice, although the botch dice will be partially offset by her Mastery Ability. (ArM5)



Question 1: If the magi has the Deft Form, Quiet Magic, and/or Subtle Magic Virtues, can they use the Fast Casting mastery ability and still use these Virtues to cast without words or gestures?

Question 2: The the magi also has the Quiet Casting and/or Still Casting mastery abilities in addition to the Fast Casting mastery ability, can they use those mastery abilities to Fast Cast the spell without words or gestures?

Given:
Magic Resistance - Your Magic Resistance is doubled against the mastered spell, and against any spells or powers that count as similar. (See “Similar Spells”, page 101.) (ArM5)

Question: If I have the Magic Resistance mastery ability for Pilum of Fire, that would double my Magic Resistance against Ball of Abysmal Flame as well, correct? What about vs Arc of Fiery Ribbons?

So for those who have played Necromancers in the past I have a few questions.

1. Do undead created through magic have Penetration? Is it determined by the casting total of the spell used to animate them? Also if multiple spells are responsible for their existence which one applies, if any.

2. Can undead be improved (skills primarily since you can always bump attributes) or is that beyond Hermetic magic?

3. Can a spirit familiar be enchanted to possess a mindless undead and how does this affect spells cast on the familiar? Does it affect the possessing body as well?

Yes, they have to penetrate. But a mundane sword swung by an animated corpse does not need to penetrate.


It depends. Magic beings like revenants and ghosts can improve like other magical beings, which means rarely but it is possible. Faeries may have an undead role, and then they can potentially improve like other faeries. But just an animated corpse generally does not improve. However, there are two options for Brawl for animated dead: set it at 3 or set it at the caster's Finesse. If you use the latter of those, you could stop the animation spell and then animate the corpse anew after your Finesse increases.


I highly suggest looking at The Living Corpse in Hermetic Projects. That will show you how you can do the possession and how the spirit and the body become treated as one much of the time.

Sorry I missed this a while ago.


Given that the rules acknowledge that you could theoretically cast your spell without words or gestures and say you can't choose to do that, I would not let characters just avoid words/gestures in those cases. I might well still allow a mute character to make his/her usual noises at the usual penalties since it's enough of a burden already; but I haven't had to make that call yet and I'm not positive.

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Given that Pilum of Fire and Ball of Abysmal Flame are essentially identical except for the "cosmetic effect" and the different name, they're more properly classified as different levels of the same general spell. They're even closer than just similar. So Magic Resistance would certainly apply. As for Arc of Fiery Ribbons, I would rule the effect the same since they both create damaging fire and the different levels of damaging fire could just be written as a single guideline, so it's the same use of the same guideline, just with T: Group. So I would consider them similar spells.

Would it be legal to have a Failed Apprentice with Heartbeast? I'm thinking he underwent the Ritual of Twelve Years early in his apprenticeship and then a few years later something happened and his Gift was lost.

House Bjornaer would probably accept the character as a full magus. He did complete their Gauntlet. The rest of the Order wouldn't.

Would such a character then be able to initiate into the Mysteries of the Inner Heartbeast?

Part of justification for this character concept is:

This message was last edited by the player at 05:49, Fri 25 Jan 2019.

I personally wouldn't permit a character with 'Failed Apprenticeship' to also be considered by his House to have passed his Apprenticeship.

If the House tells the Order that this Magi has passed his Gauntlet, then he will be accepted by the Order as a full member.

Maybe 'Dark Secret' would be more appropriate ... "You are haunted by something that would lead to shame, rejection, and possibly revenge if discovered. Hints about the secret continually arise, and there might be others who know it and could betray you. This makes you avoid certain places, dislike certain people, or fear certain things".

After all, if the Order ever learned that the House had deceived the Order like that, even just once ("... but how many times have they lied about this?  How many more of them are such?") the repucusions upon the House itself, let alone the character, would be an epic storyline.

The character could then take a combination of Flaws that limit his casting ability (both Spont and Formulaic) to represent the damaged Gift.

I'd allow it. What's the harm? Sounds like an interesting story.



While it's certainly possible to run a storyline where this happens, I prefer to imagine an Order stable enough so as not to be brought down by a single lie about a single person. Even a single suspicion of vote manipulation is not big enough. This is tribunal level drama at best.
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However, I think a more reasonable course of action in this situation would be to negotiate for such Bjornaer to be accepted as a Redcap. That neatly ties all the political problems. The issue of keeping the secrets of the Heartbeast is a separate one and can be solved in multiple ways:

1. House Bjornaer may not care about others learning its outer mystery, or campaign to have all full mages with its knowledge to be considered Bjornaer.
2. The apprentice can be hit with Perdo Mentem to wipe clean al Bjornaer Lore they'd need to initiate someone. Possibly even team up with Merinita, a Chthonic Magus or an Adjurer to make a complex Bargain or Forsaken spell ensuring this.
3. They may simply trust you to uphold the vow you made when joining the mystery cult.
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A big problem with an unGifted Bjornaer passing for a magus would be Parma Magica. All magi have magic resistance. The Bjornaer would either constantly hang out with a friend protecting them, or have their cover blown the second some Flambeau throws zero penetration CrIg "Hermetic Hello" at you at the tribunal and you start screaming in pain.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:14, Fri 25 Jan 2019.

With these Arts, is there a spell that can be cast on someone to let them understand all languages?
Is there a way to do it Spontaneously, Heck is there a spell somewhere that allows for the understanding of languages, besides THOUGHTS WITHIN BABBLE, is there a way to change the below spell around to let a Magus cast it on a Companion so they can understand people in the target area? Suggestions needed!

Arts: Cr 20, In 10, Mu 10, Pe 7, Re 14, An 5, Aq 5, Au 5, Co 26, He 5, Ig 5, Im 8, Me 9, Te 5, Vi 13

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
THOUGHTS WITHIN BABBLE
R: Per, D: Conc, T: Hearing
You can understand the speech of those
within the target area. Perception or
Communication stress rolls are needed for difficult
exchanges. You also understand people
who misuse a language that you do speak; you
know what they meant to say, as well as hearing
what they actually said.
(Base 5, +1 Conc, +3 Hearing)

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So I'm sure someone will come by with a more definitive answer but the spell doesn't seem to violate any of the Limits so the desired effect should be possible, although I'm not sure about spontaneous casting or even if a single spell would do the trick.

My thinking is that it's going to need Intellego to gather information about what is actually being spoken, Mentem to affect the mind, and maybe Muto to alter the magus/Companion's mind to speak the language once they comprehend what was said.

Intellego Mentem has a Level 5 guideline to "Understand the meaning behind spoken sounds" which gives comprehension but not the ability to respond. The Level 25 guideline to "learn all the information you wish from a person's mind" might be more appropriate for complete language comprehension.

Muto Mentem has a Level 4 guideline to "make major changes to a person's memory of a period of their life." Perhaps the spell rewrites the portion of the memory pertaining to the magus' Native Language learning. The affected would essentially change their native language to whatever the new language is for the duration of the spell.

In the end you have a Level 50 In(Mu)Me spell (Base 25, +1 Conc, +3 Hearing, +1 Muto requisite) if you want it to be equivalent to Thoughts Within Babble. Anyone you hear (or perhaps change that to +1 Eye for line of sight) has the memories related to learning the language extracted and implanted temporarily in the magus' mind.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:44, Wed 06 Feb 2019.

Hmm, dang.. Language barriers are getting my game distracted. I have a companion that wants to go and talk to a Magi, but Magi only speaks Hebrew, Italian, and Latin. The Companion is a native to the area that only speaks Welsh. Damn language barriers!

Yeah they can be complex.

If the game region is anything like real medieval Wales, there should be a fair number of clerics and scholars around who are bilingual in Latin and Welsh. Perhaps one could be found to be an interpreter. Any local parish priest should have some Latin skills, though the serious scholars would be more fluent.

Yeah, a translator is the simple route, but takes away from the one on one aspect the player is looking at having with the NPC. But I will figure it out.

In reply to Thruxus (msg # 40):

I grant that if the discussion is on magical topics, your player might be more comfortable not having to explain his interest to the magus through a cleric.

Or try the level 15 guideline in the core book instead of workarounds with the level 5 guideline. But, yes, you can give another person that sense using MuMe, as explained briefly on page 114.

My covenant has two omni-lingual companions. It is really nice.

I think this is the better place to have us guide someone through character creation.

When I started out I used the templates. They produce decent magi in my opinion. Not optimized but decent.

But also not really useful for learning the process.

Fair enough. Any advice for our intrepid learner then?

Figured they would get around to posting something eventually.

Hard to give advice with no baseline. Like "go read character creation in the book." Then it's down to reading comprehension.