Ask a simple question, Awakened edition

[Tessie]

Knit and Mend are lasting because they're based on direct damage spells which are lasting regardless of Practice.
Temporal Summoning does indeed use Temporal Sympathy, but assumes most injuries are gained within the timespan the subject is considered "unchanged".
Deny the Reaper is not lasting because Making/Unmaking spells are generally not lasting. Most Unmaking spells are merely suppressing what they're supposed to remove, causing whatever's removed to reappear once the spell ends.

[Isator Levi]

But Deny The Reaper and Temporal Healing would be Unmaking, which means the entropy or negative change were deleted altogether. In other words, much like healing with Life, the effects are Lasting, which is why they are Potency primary.

I would find healing effects of Life to be Lasting because they're expediting a natural healing process. Deny the Reaper and theoretical deletion of events from a person's past are much more impositions in a manner that is consistently dependent on continuing Duration.

The revival effect in Deny The Reaper is the only one that seems to have a set duration and it requires enough entropy to be reversed such that the corpse was in a state where it was within the spell's target interval (such as using multiple casts reverting the 200 year old skeleton to how they looked 3 months after death before they could be revived).

I think that there is no way that such decay reversal would be Lasting, and if it is not then your proposition runs into the fact that spells do not stack. You can cast as many such spells as you want on a skeleton, and only the one with the highest Potency will work.

Deny the Reaper is not lasting because Making/Unmaking spells are generally not lasting. Most Unmaking spells are merely suppressing what they're supposed to remove, causing whatever's removed to reappear once the spell ends.

Although the instant death spells are going to have Lasting effects. Like, you Unmake all electrical activity in a person's pattern, maybe it returns when the spell ends, but that won't change the fact that your vital processes shut down completely.

[Tessie]

Although the instant death spells are going to have Lasting effects. Like, you Unmake all electrical activity in a person's pattern, maybe it returns when the spell ends, but that won't change the fact that your vital processes shut down completely.

That is generally* true. The reason why Lasting isn't listed along Practices and Primary Factors in spell descriptions is because the term is literally just referring to the consequences of the spell. All spells have consequences, but whether specific effects are Lasting or not depends on what's part of the spell's effect and what's a consequence of that effect.

This is why Knit and Mend are lasting; they're making the body heal the damage, but when they stop making the body heal damage, the damage doesn't return. That's the same (but inverted) way direct damage spells work; the spell ending removes the source of the damage, but any damage already inflicted by that source of damage still remains.

This is also why Regeneration isn't Lasting. The spell makes the subject have a restored limb (or whatever) and when the spell ends the restored limb disappears with it. The way to circumvent this is to make a spell that causes the body itself to regenerate the missing limb, which would funnily enough be Weaving (or possibly Perfecting) rather than Patterning, but it would also definitely take more time.


*A theoretical spell that would Unmake your entire person would just restore you completely to your pre-Unmade state when it ends.

[Isator Levi]

That is generally* true. The reason why Lasting isn't listed along Practices and Primary Factors in spell descriptions is because the term is literally just referring to the consequences of the spell. All spells have consequences, but whether specific effects are Lasting or not depends on what's part of the spell's effect and what's a consequence of that effect.

This is why Knit and Mend are lasting; they're making the body heal the damage, but when they stop making the body heal damage, the damage doesn't return. That's the same (but inverted) way direct damage spells work; the spell ending removes the source of the damage, but any damage already inflicted by that source of damage still remains.

Well, we've got a sidebar along the general spell factors description giving the basic concept and usual terms in which it applies, and then a number of spells that give it as a Reach effect. In a lot of cases, I feel as though whether something comes with the option to make it Lasting comes down a lot to it being excessively inconvenient for it not to be (and other times when it's suitably dramatic).

The way to circumvent this is to make a spell that causes the body itself to regenerate the missing limb, which would funnily enough be Weaving (or possibly Perfecting) rather than Patterning, but it would also definitely take more time.

I think the best one ought to be able to do with Weaving is bestow a regenerative capability that already comfortably exists in nature, which is often going to be inadequate for human needs. Back in the day, you got a lot of people asking why you couldn't make somebody regrow limbs like a starfish; I proposed that you could let people do that... like a starfish. It's not something that's going to be able to handle bones or some of the more complex human musculature, you're not getting a functional hand out of it.

Plus stuff like the calories it's going to require

Bestowing a regenerative healing factor that fully rebuilds everything functionally like what werewolves have is going to be the Imperial Practice of Entities.

[Tessie]

Of course, the regenerative properties of an axolotl is fully capable of generating bones, cartilage, ligaments, muscles, and most other organs from scratch. A much better choice than a starfish.

[Isator Levi]

Well my priority is to proceed from an assumption that you can't make better regeneration than what the Patterning spell provides, so it would still look at such an animal as insufficient to restore something like the highly dextrous human hand, the sharp human eye, or incomparably complex human brain.

If I needed to reconcile that with other effects of Transform Life, it would be in an idea that those other traits are more direct in their capabilities, where the end results of an added animal regeneration end up being secondary to the addition of the regeneration itself. That is to say, it becoming part of your anatomy is magic, but it doesn't perform additional magical feats.

Would probably be very useful for integrating organ transplants, though.

[Tessie]

The Patterning spell is still instant. That's pretty good.

And yes, the kind of regeneration an axolotl has would indeed be sufficient to recreate the dextrous hand of a human, since it's not actually any more complicated than their own limbs. We've got more bones and everything is larger, but that's artificial complexity arising from the scale rather than any inherent difficulty in human anatomy. The fact that there's more to do only factors into the time it takes for the limb to regenerate. The same applies for eyes and other organs.

[monteparnas]

Axolotls are researched precisely because their regeneration triggers the wholesale formation of limbs and organs, so I have to agree that at this point it should be just complete regeneration.

Of course, it isn't actually without drawbacks, they don't form scar tissue and the whole process is time, energy and protein consuming, and they can't get a thing back if they can't survive until then. But it is complete regeneration.

[Isator Levi]

The Patterning spell is still instant. That's pretty good.

It isn't enough to maintain validity for the spell in possibly anything other than emergencies when the time it takes to cast it is compared against the efforts of making it last and the prospect of it being dispelled.

Besides, it's a four dot spell that can at best get two free Reach and might be the kind of thing where the risk of Paradox wants to be as minimal as possible. It seems that Reach is better spent on it being Advanced and Indefinite Duration than moving out of Ritual casting.

These are not conditions sufficient to keep it (and the dramatic potential inherent to it) from being rendered redundant by a lower dot spell, and I take issue with such a thing.

[Satchel]

It isn't enough to maintain validity for the spell in possibly anything other than emergencies when the time it takes to cast it is compared against the efforts of making it last and the prospect of it being dispelled.

Eighteen hours of ritual casting is preferable to a time probably measured in days at minimum for borrowed animal regeneration.

[monteparnas]

Eighteen hours of ritual casting is preferable to a time probably measured in days at minimum for borrowed animal regeneration.

Precisely and beyond that.

The regeneration of an animal would intrinsically bring a lot of issues since, as stated, the magic makes it work but doesn't work in a "magical" way, it follows natural rules as in the animal.

And even for the amazing regenerative abilities of an axolotl that would mean a very sensitive tissue (remember, no scarring), the natural-paced growth of a new organ or limb, fueled by time, energy and needed materials.

You can do a quick search on the internet to run the correct numbers or make shit up for the game, but as a rule of thumb nothing should grow in such a pace as to be more noticeable than your hair and nails growing, by mass, not perceived volume, and the quicker it happens it should require more energy and raw materials above regular nutrition requirements.

Since this is a complex internal process, you can apply on the fly tiredness and fever as symptoms along with the sensitive tissue, so keeping it at the fastest pace, while shortening the time with symptoms, would worsen them.

Finally, just as with axolotls, it may have potential side effects as regeneration may incur in errors by itself. It shouldn't be common, but extra limbs do happen and aren't as useful as it seems when your body isn't actually meant to have them.

[KaiserAfini]

In the case of Unmaking, isn't the principle behind Blink of an Eye to Unmake the time needed to execute actions ? The subject does not need to experience the steps of doing the actions later, so the destroyed time doesn't seem to come back once duration expires. Similarly, Annihilate Matter and Annihilate Spirit suggest that a subject is destroyed utterly and permanently. However, Corridors of Time seems to destroy the events entirely and allow the Fallen World to fill in the temporal vaccum based on the new actions. Due to these examples and the fact that page 125 of the core book does not expand upon this, I believe it can be inferred that the Practice allows for variation based on intent.

Regarding regeneration via Weaving, I think a mix of it and Perfecting would get rid of any anomalies. The biggest issues would be disguising a regrowing limb, explaining such a miraculous heal without causing Disbelief and maintaining the spell for the full interval needed for the regrowth. However, a master of Time could basically make a bubble with Veil of Moments (avoids nutrient deficiency) and Temporal Pocket to allow a subject to "instantly" complete the process.

[ewrygn]

Is it possible to access a person’s Oneiros after their death? Assuming there’s no ghost left behind them.

[Satchel]

Is it possible to access a person’s Oneiros after their death? Assuming there’s no ghost left behind them.

The Oneiros is the inside of the individual soul and the soul moves on after death, so probably not.

[TempleBuilder]

Hmm, this brings up more questions, like are ghosts represented in the Astral? Presumably in the Anima Mundi? If they are, think it would be possible to find the shattered “remains” of someone’s Oneiros? It probably wouldn’t be their actual Oneiros, but like the impression of one, much like a ghost, right?