Creative Thaumaturgy: Fallen World Edition

[WalkingEye]

Instead of requiring it to be used as a conbined spell, I would model it similarly to Hung Spell.

good idea. I will reword it more in that line.

[KaiserAfini]

Feast of Goibnui (Time •••)
Practice: Perfecting
Primary Factor: Potency
Withstand: N/A
Suggested Rote Skills: Crafts, Medicine, Science

Speeding up time for something as complex as a living being is difficult, but doing so to complete a predictable procedure is far easier. This allows any autonomous process on a non-living target to be sped up by up to [Potency] days. Images that would take days to process forensically can be completed instantly, food that must spend hours in an oven can be done in moments, medicine that takes days to synthesize can be made quickly available, etc.

This rote is fairly common for mages with a gastronomic or scientific focus. But it was originally created by the Libertines after the flu plague of 1918, as a way to accelerate research and rapidly stock vaccine banks, especially when faced with any other initiatives of the Raptor's servants.

+1 Reach: Potency instead speeds up the process by months of time. For another Reach, it instead does so by Potency years, allowing for things like wine and miso to be quickly made. For another Reach, it speeds up the process by any amount of time the mage wishes, but damaging objects requires a different spell.

[Tessie]

I'd personally go with halving the time once per Potency. It would get rid of the jarring days/months/years of progress in an instant. You can still use a (possibly repeatable) Reach option to double the rate of progress per Potency. Since Duration would be much more important with this variation (otherwise you'd get at most a few minutes of progress before the spell ends), I'd go with Duration as Primary Factor.

[KaiserAfini]

I'd personally go with halving the time once per Potency. It would get rid of the jarring days/months/years of progress in an instant. You can still use a (possibly repeatable) Reach option to double the rate of progress per Potency. Since Duration would be much more important with this variation (otherwise you'd get at most a few minutes of progress before the spell ends), I'd go with Duration as Primary Factor.

I followed that approach on my first design for the spell. But it would then require taking the original time the task needs, then figuring out what X value of Potency would be necessary for a new process completion interval of Y:

Y = (original value in some time unit, hours, for example) / (2 ^ X)

It would need enough Duration for the whole interval, and starts at Potency 1, so it requires yantras to be more useful.

The intent behind it can be expressed as "the caster wants to complete something that doesn't involve a living being (such as growing a tree) or direct input from one (like blacksmith or performing an operation)". The first draft seemed like a lot of work for a relatively minor utility effect.

So I simplified it, instead of thinking about it multiplicatively like Acceleration; I considered it as a blast of aging, akin to a bening version of Weight of Years. Now a mage who just attained Time 3 can speed things by days easily, or months by a ritual. An adept can do both of those easily, or years with a ritual. To a master, this is all trivial.

So now if a powerful spirit has a weakness to a potion containing something like aged alpaca cheese or a pickled armadillo, an Acanthus can help prepare the ingredients. Or aid a lab in mass producing vaccines when a menacing plague spirit sets their plan into motion. Or even buy a cheap wine and age it into a finer brew.

I think one more Reach after the stated ones could be used for whatever interval the mage wanted, so long as it was used to perfect the object (although I think wine to vinegar would be a valid application).

[KaiserAfini]

Time for a complex spell, inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe:

Valdemar's Gaol (Fate •••••, Time •••••)
Cost: 1 mana
Practice: Making
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Academics, Occult, Science

This suspends the target in a state of quantum uncertainty, both alive and dead (or broken and unbroken for objects). The caster can then name up to [Potency] keys that resolve this state in a given way, ending the spell. For example, at Potency 3, the keys could be: solving a given riddle returns them alive, they would return dead if the answer is incorrect or alive if a given melody is played on a pan pipe. The keys must be something the caster could perceive if they were present with the target.

The caster must also set a default resolution for when the spell ends, but it can be changed reflexively while he retains spell control.

Targets cannot move, do not require food or sleep, do not age or suffer wounds. Can they perceive anything in that state ? Yes and no, most Mind mages who look into the answer find it hard to explain. Without conjunctional Mind 2, the harrowing experience provokes a breaking point when the spell ends.

With conjunctional Mind 4, the target retains the ability to speak for the duration and is compelled to answer up to [Potency] questions truthfully and without omission.

+1 Reach: The caster gets a brief vision of the target when the resolution occurs.

+1 Reach: The caster can track the target until the duration ends - not by location, but as a sense of a path that will take them to them.

+1 Reach: The key can be something they could only perceive with Mage Sight.

[KaiserAfini]

Silence of Harpocrates (Fate ••, Mind ••)
Practice: Veiling
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Medicine, Stealth, Subterfuge

Sometimes all that is needed to guarantee an operation's success is for key witnesses to keep quiet. This curses the target to be unable to communicate. Sometimes they will lose their voice or bite their tongue, other times their hands will shake, rendering them unable to write or type, sometimes the idea or the specific words/signs simply "slip their mind". It is said this was originally used by the Arrow to quietly poison agents of the Seers.

+1 Reach: The caster can specify up to [Potency] specific topics or means of communication and the spell will only target those.

[Mrmdubois]

Silence of Harpocrates (Fate ••)
Practice: Ruling
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Medicine, Stealth, Subterfuge

Sometimes all that is needed to guarantee an operation's success is for key witnesses to keep quiet. This curses the target to be unable to communicate. They will lose their voice and their hands will shake, rendering them unable to write, type, etc. It is said this was originally used by the Arrow to quietly poison agents of the Seers.

I’d make that Life instead.

[Tessie]

Life could definitely do it, but I think it would be two spells in that case. One for disabling their voice, and one for degrading their manual dexterity until they no longer can write. Unless it's about degrading their body control until they can't do any physical actions without a penalty, which I feel is Fraying. Either way, the problem is that it's still possible to convey an idea if it's just Life; you just have to be creative about it, like pointing towards describing pictures or nodding yes or no to questions.

For Fate you could look to how Hexes can inflict Tilts, and inflict one that makes the subject mute, but that would not stop them from typing without two Arm Wrack Tilts as well, requiring three Potency to inflict and also not stopping them from conveying ideas through other means just like the Life spell.
A spell that would be similar to the concept of the original spell, though less powerful, could be Fate Compelling to give a penalty equal to Potency to the subject's attempts to convey any information, representing how they time and time again are misunderstood by others. Everything conspires against them as key words are misheard or misspelt or just drowned out by noise, bad phrasings leading to wrongful assumptions, the other party being unreceptive to certain concepts, and a general disconnect between what is meant and what is conveyed.

For replicating the spell as closely as possible I'd use Mind Ruling to make the subject be unable to convey one idea/fact/memory/concept per Potency. Upon trying they'll simply fail to put what they want to say or write into words due to a mental block. It's the subject being struck by a debilitating stutter when trying to explain something, or the subject staring at the empty email draft going "I have no idea how to start this mail."

You can also go all Cassandra truth on it and have absolutely no one believe the subject regardless of what they're saying or writing. Could be Fate (it's a classic curse), Mind (variation of Incognito Presence) or Prime (deals with truth), but also cost a Mana due to the effect affecting everyone else, just like Incognito Presence.

[RobinCoyote]

Freedom of Movement (Space •••)
Practice: Weaving
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: ???
Suggested Rote Skills: ???

A true wielder of space cannot be constrained by simple distance and direction. This spell isolates the space around the subject's feet allowing the subject to freely solidify the space into a platform at will that they can use as a stepping stone to leap or bound in any direction they please. This allows the subject to spend an instant action on their turn to create a single platform they can use to traverse space. Letting them bound across a gap they wouldn't have otherwise or giving them a leg up when jumping up to the top of a small ledge similar to a double-jump mechanic from a game.

+1 Reach: The mages no longer needs to expend an instant action to create a platform, and can do so freely with every step. This allows the subject to move vertically through space as if ascending or descending a staircase and to run horizontally through the air as if it were solid ground.
+1 Reach: Space is a lie and the distance between a space mage and his destination is negotiable. The subject gains a bonus to their speed equal to the potency of this spell.
+1 Reach: Freedom is absolute to the wielder of space, the subject is now able to freely bypass obstacles as per the Break Boundary spell (Mage p. 174) as well as any mundane bindings restricting their movement. Any bindings or restrictions that are magical in nature must bypass the offending spell's withstand with this spell's potency.
+1 Reach: Damage taken from a fall or from any other source of damage caused by bodily smashing into something at high velocity can be reduced or negated so long as the subject is conscious and aware of their fall by willing the space into softer, elastic platforms that absorb shock and slow descent. Any lethal damage taken is reduced by the potency of this spell to bashing damage. If all lethal damage is reduced, any leftover potency negates that much bashing damage.

- - -

An idea I've been kicking around based off the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr from Doctor Strange. They allowed Mordo to basically step on the air at will, the magic presumably supporting his feet somehow. They also allowed him to survive a significant fall by activating them just before hitting the ground, presumably capable of absorbing the shock so as not to break the user's legs.

I threw in a few extra reaches, but this is more or less an equivalent to Forces Levitation spell. I figure if Forces can freely and actively redirect the direction of momentum at will, then Space should be able to toggle the state of space between two states pretty easily. Honestly, though, I'm wondering if the spell's basic text should be a reach and the base text should be a bit more limited?

Open to suggestions on Withstand (if applicable) and Rote skills.

EDIT: Updated the text of the spell

[proindrakenzol]

(double post)

[proindrakenzol]

Scribe Schematic (Prime ••••)
Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Potency
Cost: 1 Mana
Withstand: Total Arcanum dots of all Arcana used in the spell being scribed.
Suggested Rote Skills: Crafts, Science, Occult

By means of this spell, the mage encodes a Rote in a way that makes it easier to create Imbued items of that Rote. This spell can be used in two different ways: to copy an existing Schematic or to inscribe a Rote the Mage knows into a Schematic.
Only a single Rote can be inscribed per casting of this spell, but a given Schematic may hold multiple Rotes at a time.
When this spell's Duration expires, the inscribed Rotes fade and cannot be recovered.
+1 Reach: For one point of Mana, the spell's Duration is Lasting.



New Merit:

Schematic (• to •••••)
Schematics are Grimoire like objects designed to aide in the creation of Imbued items. Originally created by the ancient Forge Masters to ease in the Imbuing of common items, a similar process using more modern notation was created by the Thaumatech Engineers for the same reason; the Thauamatech Engineers claim independent creation based on logical extrapolation from Grimoires, whereas many in the Forge Masters claim theft of proprietary secrets of their Legacy. Regardless of which version of this process is learned (or if it's developed independently) the results are the same, crafting an Imbued item while following a schematic doubles the interval required for Imbument, but grants the rote action quality to the Imbuement rolls.
Each dot in this Merit allows for the Schematic to contain one rote of any Arcanum rating.

[KaiserAfini]

Freedom of Movement (Space ••••)
Practice: Patterning
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: ???
Suggested Rote Skills: ???

A true wielder of space cannot be constrained by simple distance and direction. This spell isolates the space around the subject's feet allowing the subject to freely solidify the space into a platform at will that they can use as a stepping stone to leap or bound in any direction they please. This allows the subject to move vertically through space as if ascending or descending a staircase and to run horizontally through the air as if it were solid ground.

+1 Reach: Space is a lie and the distance between a space mage and his destination is negotiable. The subject gains a bonus to their speed equal to the potency of this spell.
+1 Reach: Freedom is absolute to the wielder of space, the subject is now able to freely bypass obstacles as per the Break Boundary spell (Mage p. 174) as well as any mundane bindings restricting their movement. Any bindings or restrictions that are magical in nature must bypass the offending spell's withstand with this spell's potency.
+1 Reach: Damage taken from a fall or from any other source of damage caused by bodily smashing into something at high velocity can be reduced or negated so long as the subject is conscious and aware of their fall by willing the space into softer, elastic platforms that absorb shock and slow descent. Any lethal damage taken is reduced by the potency of this spell to bashing damage. If all lethal damage is reduced, any leftover potency negates that much bashing damage.

- - -

An idea I've been kicking around based off the Vaulting Boots of Valtorr from Doctor Strange. They allowed Mordo to basically step on the air at will, the magic presumably supporting his feet somehow. They also allowed him to survive a significant fall by activating them just before hitting the ground, presumably capable of absorbing the shock so as not to break the user's legs.

I threw in a few extra reaches, but this is more or less an equivalent to Forces Levitation spell. I figure if Forces can freely and actively redirect the direction of momentum at will, then Space should be able to toggle the state of space between two states pretty easily. Honestly, though, I'm wondering if the spell's basic text should be a reach and the base text should be a bit more limited?

Open to suggestions on Withstand (if applicable) and Rote skills.

I think the main problem is not having something solid to step on or having a way to alter the forces to make up for it. That being said, I think this could be done with Matter. By using Ruling to levitate the subject's clothes and subsequently them. Although something like a diving suit or jump suit would be best if they need to move upside down.

Alternatively, you could use a Weaving of Matter to solidify the air around a target's feet (and in response to certain hand commands), which I believe is closest to what you are seeking.

[KaiserAfini]

Life could definitely do it, but I think it would be two spells in that case. One for disabling their voice, and one for degrading their manual dexterity until they no longer can write. Unless it's about degrading their body control until they can't do any physical actions without a penalty, which I feel is Fraying. Either way, the problem is that it's still possible to convey an idea if it's just Life; you just have to be creative about it, like pointing towards describing pictures or nodding yes or no to questions.

For Fate you could look to how Hexes can inflict Tilts, and inflict one that makes the subject mute, but that would not stop them from typing without two Arm Wrack Tilts as well, requiring three Potency to inflict and also not stopping them from conveying ideas through other means just like the Life spell.
A spell that would be similar to the concept of the original spell, though less powerful, could be Fate Compelling to give a penalty equal to Potency to the subject's attempts to convey any information, representing how they time and time again are misunderstood by others. Everything conspires against them as key words are misheard or misspelt or just drowned out by noise, bad phrasings leading to wrongful assumptions, the other party being unreceptive to certain concepts, and a general disconnect between what is meant and what is conveyed.

For replicating the spell as closely as possible I'd use Mind Ruling to make the subject be unable to convey one idea/fact/memory/concept per Potency. Upon trying they'll simply fail to put what they want to say or write into words due to a mental block. It's the subject being struck by a debilitating stutter when trying to explain something, or the subject staring at the empty email draft going "I have no idea how to start this mail."

You can also go all Cassandra truth on it and have absolutely no one believe the subject regardless of what they're saying or writing. Could be Fate (it's a classic curse), Mind (variation of Incognito Presence) or Prime (deals with truth), but also cost a Mana due to the effect affecting everyone else, just like Incognito Presence.

But how do we justify it being a Compelling rather than a Ruling ? The good thing is that Fate can detect their intent to communicate. How about Fate 1 and Mind 2 Veiling ? It detects the intent to communicate and veils the information in the corresponding part of language processing.

I really want to find a Fate based solution, if possible.
I'm trying to come up with new types of Acanthus shenanigans.

[RobinCoyote]

I think the main problem is not having something solid to step on or having a way to alter the forces to make up for it.

I'm of the opinion that the solidity/tangibility of something under the purview of an Arcanum is something that any Arcanum should be able to control with the use of Weaving. The wording of weaving is: that the mage "can alter nearly any property of a target" (...I probably should have made this spell weaving with that in mind.) But I believe solidity/tangibility should be one the properties of what you're manipulating. The precedent is already there with Shadow Crafting (Death ••• Weaving spell), and perfectly explains the presence of that oddball spell.

My biggest problem with the spell I posted is that it's too powerful to not require a Reach. Levitation needs a reach to allow for full, autonomous flight for instance. So in this case, I'm thinking, for the "normal" description of what this spell does it more or less allows you to probably create a single stepping stone effect with an instant action. But I'm just struggling to come up with a way to portray that mechanically. I'm beginning to wonder if I should just leave it at that, and just let the Storyteller/player decide what you can do with what is basically a real-life double jump.

[Gantolandon]

Devil's Whisper (Fate ••, Mind *)
Practice: Ruling
Primary Factor: Duration
Withstand: Composure
Suggested Rote Skills: Socialize, Streetwise, Subterfuge

This spell was originally created by a Claviclarius mage as a mean to weed out prospective candidates to the Legacy. It takes the recipient's Vice and provides them with opportunities to fulfill it – at the most inopportune moments. A Lustful person will get hit on beautiful people of his preferred gender – but only when their partner is around. A Hostile salesman will have a meeting with an important, but mean customer. Fate will keep the wound fresh for the Duration of the spell, arranging similar events or merely providing reminders of the lost opportunity. The character gets the Tempted Condition until the spell expires.

Condition: Tempted
Your character really wants to indulge their Vice despite the risk it poses. They get -2 to all rolls involving what they consider their obligation.
Resolution: The Vice is indulged.