Chapter 8: Laboratory

A magus spends much more time in his laboratory engaged in study and other activities than adventuring in the lands outside the covenant. There are Arts to study, books to write, spells to invent, and items to enchant. Time between stories is recorded in seasons, each of which is enough time to accomplish a single long-term laboratory activity. Each of those activities is described in this chapter.

The Laboratory in Play

Laboratory activities take up most of your life as a magus, so you should take some care in deciding both your individual laboratory activities and your attitude towards your laboratory and your creations. Your laboratory itself is an important reflection of your personality, as it is where you spend much of your time. Take the time to think about what your sanctum looks like and what's in it. Does it bear protective spells? Where do you sleep? What do you have in your lab, and where do you keep it? Do you hide your most prized possessions? Is your laboratory clean and well kept, or a disorganized mess where no one but you can find anything?

Answering such questions helps you define your magus, and is usually fun to boot. The rules for Laboratory personalization on page 286 explain the ways in which such descriptions can have an impact on the mechanics of laboratory activities.

Basic Laboratory Activities

You use one sum, called the Lab Total, frequently in calculating your ability to accomplish various laboratory tasks. This total varies from task to task because it uses the Technique and Form appropriate to the task at hand. For instance, your Lab Total when learning a Rego Terram spell includes your Rego and Terram scores. Spell requisites might also apply, as can other modifications, depending on the specific activity.

YOUR BASIC LAB TOTAL IS: Technique + Form + Intelligence + Magic Theory + Aura Modifier

The Lab Total for a particular Technique and Form is called the Technique Form Lab Total: for example, the Creo Vim Lab Total is Creo + Vim + Intelligence + Magic Theory + Aura Modifier. If an activity is based on a Lab Total, the magus needs a laboratory to do it, and there are also a few activities that do need a laboratory, but are not based on a Lab Total.

Creating a Laboratory

A laboratory is normally created in a space with at least 500 square feet of floor area, and a ceiling at least ten feet high, and it is normally well protected from the elements; normal canvas is not sufficient, but a wooden wall is. (Laboratories that do not reach these standards cause problems for work in them; see page 286.) A character must have a Magic Theory score of at least 3 to set up a laboratory, and overall it takes two seasons of work.

The first season creates a basic laboratory, which makes laboratory activities possible but imposes a -3 penalty to all Lab Totals. The second season completes the process, making a standard laboratory and removing the penalty. A maga can go on to personalize her laboratory, and the process of doing so is described at the end of this chapter.

Arcane Studies

Knowledge of Magic Theory and the magical Arts is important to magi — so much so that many spend their entire lives in study. Magi may increase their Art scores in several different ways. Each is described in turn in the "Experience and Advancement" section, which begins on page 375.

Fixing Arcane Connections

A magus who has an active Arcane Connection (see page 219) may make it permanent by spending a season of laboratory work and one pawn of Vim vis. The connection must be active at the beginning of the season, but need not be such as to naturally last for the whole season. This activity must be performed in a laboratory, even though it is not based on a Lab Total.

Vis

Manipulation of vis is a key pursuit in any magus' laboratory.

Vis Extraction

You can extract raw vis from a magical environment (that is, any area with a Magical aura) by focusing the magical energy into a physical form. For each season that you spend extracting vis from the environment, calculate your Creo Vim Lab Total. For every ten points or part thereof in the result, one pawn of Vim vis is produced.

VIS EXTRACTION: One tenth (round up) of Creo Vim Lab Total pawns of Vim vis

Vis Transfer

A magus can easily move raw vis from one physical form to another in his laboratory. This takes a day (from sunrise to sunrise), and can be done while the magus is engaged in another laboratory activity. It must, however, be done in a laboratory.

The maximum amount of vis that an item can contain is determined from the Material and Size Table on page 255. When moving raw vis into an item, rather than preparing it for enchantment, a magus may move any number of pawns up to the capacity of the item.

An item that has been opened for enchantment (see page 254, below) cannot contain raw vis as well.

Note that this changes the physical thing that the vis is in, not the Hermetic Art to which the vis is attuned.

Vis Use

The amount of raw vis that a magus may use in a single season is limited to twice his Magic Theory score. The magus cannot successfully integrate any more vis into a single project. In many sagas, vis will be rare enough that this limit will not come into play.

VIS LIMIT: Magic Theory x 2 pawns per season

Spells

Formulaic spells are a major measure of your power because they determine those things you can do easily and predictably. As a magus, you may invent new spells in several ways.

Learning Spells from a Teacher

You may learn spells from another magus who is willing to spend a season teaching you. These spells may be of different Techniques and Forms, so a magus could teach you a Creo Ignem spell and a Perdo Terram spell in the same season.

The number of levels of spells you may learn in one season is equal to the teacher's highest applicable Lab Total. If the teaching magus had a Creo Ignem Lab Total of 50 and a Perdo Terram Lab Total of 35, he could teach you a total of 50 levels of spells. The number of levels of spells of a given Technique and Form combination that you may learn in a given season is equal to the teacher's Lab Total in that combination.

The highest individual spell level you may learn is equal to your Lab Total in the Technique and Form of the spell. Thus, if you had a Creo Ignem Lab Total of 30 and a Perdo Terram Lab Total of 25, and were learning from the teacher described above, you could learn a CrIg 25 spell and a PeTe 25 spell, or CrIg 20, CrIg 10, PeTe 15 and PeTe 5, or any other combination adding up to fifty total levels (the teacher's Lab Total in Creo Ignem), as long as there were no more than 35 levels of Perdo Terram spells (the teacher's Lab Total in Perdo Terram), with no Creo Ignem spell over level 30 and no Perdo Terram spell over level 25 (your Lab Totals in the relevant Technique and Form combinations).

Even when you learn a spell from a teacher, it is your Wizard's Sigil that manifests in your version; you actually invent the spell yourself, but with constant guidance from the teacher.

MAXIMUM TOTAL LEVELS: Teacher's highest applicable Lab Total

MAXIMUM LEVELS IN ONE TECHNIQUE AND FORM: Teacher's Lab Total in that Technique and Form

HIGHEST LEVEL OF AN INDIVIDUAL SPELL: Student's Lab Total in the Technique and Form of the Spell

Inventing Spells

Inventing a spell by yourself is more difficult than learning one, but of course you don't need a teacher to do it. First, decide the effects of the spell you wish to invent, you may pick a spell described in the Spells chapter to invent, invent a variant of a spell listed there, or make up something completely on your own.

If you want to duplicate an existing spell, use the statistics given for it in the Spells chapter, but include your wizard's sigil (see "Sigils" on page 274)

If you create a variant of a spell in the Spells chapter (change its Range, say, or allow it to affect a different kind of Target), first refer to the spell that you are basing your spell on. Then determine whether you are changing the spell's Range, Duration, Target, or a combination of those. The new spell's level is determined based on how radically the new spell is different from the old one. The method for determining the new spell's level is described under "Changing Ranges, Durations, and Targets" on page 303.

When you invent a completely new spell you must describe it fully, both in terms of its mechanics (Range, Duration, and Target) and how it fits into the medieval paradigm. You must make sure that it takes into account the limits of magic (see page 210). To determine the new spell's level, you must first determine its Technique and Form. This should be a matter of common sense. Next, refer to the general guidelines for that Technique/Form combination, found in the Spells chapter. This will provide a list of what sorts of effects correspond to each spell level. Determine the final level of the spell by referring to the guidelines "Changing Ranges, Durations, and Targets" on page 303.

Once you have determined the specifics of the spell you are trying to invent, you must determine if you can actually invent it. Then, you must figure out how long it will take. You can only invent a spell if your Lab Total exceeds the spell's level. You get a bonus for knowing a similar spell (+1 per five levels of the highest level similar spell — see "Similar Spells" on page 260). Any requisites that the new spell has also count in calculating your Lab Total. For each point that your Lab Total exceeds the spell's level, you accumulate one point per season. When you accumulate points equal to the level of the spell, you invent it.

It is also possible to invent a spell based on another magus's Laboratory Text (see page 262). This is much faster, and most spells that magi know are invented in this way.

Example: Inventing Spells

Tillitus of House Bonisagus wants to invent some warding spells, as minor mystical creatures seem to give him a lot of trouble. General wards of this sort are Rego Vim (see page 370), and can be invented at any level. Semita Errabunda, Tillitus's covenant, has a Magic aura of 5, and Tillitus himself has Intelligence +5, Magic Theory 3, +2 for Puissant Magic Theory, his free Bonisagus Virtue, Rego 5, and Vim 5. Thus, his Rego Vim Lab Total is 25.
Consulting the Spells chapter, Matt, Tillitus's player, sees that a separate spell must be invented for each of the four Realms. He decides to start by inventing a good ward against magical creatures. He picks level 20, as this is less than his Lab Total.
Tillitus's Lab Total of 25 exceeds the spell level, 20, by 5, so every season Tillitus gains 5 points towards the spell. Since the spell is level 20, that means it will take him four seasons, a whole year, to invent the spell. Matt isn't sure that he wants to spend that much time on it, so he looks at a lower level spell.
If Tillitus tries to invent a level 12 spell, he gets 13 points towards it every season, and thus can invent it in a single season. If he tries to invent a level 13 spell, he gets 12 points per season, so it would take him two seasons. Matt thus decides that Tillitus will invent a level 12 ward against magical creatures.

Enchantments

Physical creations, as surely as magical knowledge, can increase your power as a magus. In addition to talismans, which you can use to concentrate your magical powers, you can create invested devices, which mimic the powers of spells; lesser enchanted devices, simpler versions of invested devices; charged items, which can be used a limited number of times; and longevity rituals, which extend your mortal life. Since magical enchantments are unique creations that follow the logic of individual magi, determining how to use one that someone else has created can be a lengthy and even dangerous process.

Magical enchantments are created through a type of ritual magic, and therefore require a great deal of time, effort, and magical resources. You must take the time to prepare your laboratory for the task, gather all the necessary materials and equipment, and then craft your work in earnest, exercising great care with the details of the enchantment. In the end, you have an item that is independent and that generates its own magical energies in order to function, but that is uniquely tied to your magical abilities. Your magical sigil figures just as prominently in the effects produced by your magical enchantments as it does in the effects produced by your spells.

Raw vis is often required to create magical enchantments. The process of enchanting an item transforms the vis, linking the magic power inexorably to the item in which it is instilled. Vis used for enchantments is thus transformed so that it is no longer usable for any other purposes, and it can never be extracted from the enchantment it is used to create. Magi sometimes refer to the magic of enchantments as "spun," rather than "raw," vis.

Effects matching those of Ritual spells may not be placed in any enchantment. The elaborate rituals needed to control that much magical power simply cannot be contained in an unthinking physical item. The exception is that spells that are Rituals only because the spell level is over 50, not because of Duration, Target, or major effect, may be placed in items.

Enchantment Summary

CHOOSE TYPE OF ITEM.

Invested Items: Must be opened to enchantment, expensive. Can contain many effects, which can be powerful.
Lesser Enchantments: Need not be opened, cheap. Can only contain one effect, and the creator must be able to make it in a single season.
Charged Items: No vis cost, can always be created in a single season. Run out.

OPEN ITEM FOR ENCHANTMENT (INVESTED ITEMS ONLY).

Uses a number of pawns of Vim vis equal to the product of the material base and the size multiplier, from the Size and Material table. A magus cannot use more than 2 x Magic Theory pawns of vis in a single season.

INVEST EFFECT.

Invested Items and Lesser Enchantments: For every point by which your Lab Total exceeds the level of the effect, you gain one point towards the effect per season. Once your points equal the level of the effect, it is invested. You must invest a Lesser Enchantment in one season. Uses a number of pawns of vis matching the Technique or Form of the effect equal to the level divided by ten (rounded up). Again, a magus cannot use more than 2 x Magic Theory pawns of vis in a single season.
Charged Items: For every five points or fraction by which your Lab Total exceeds the level of the effect, you get one charge.

INVEST FURTHER EFFECTS (INVESTED ITEMS ONLY).

You can use a number of pawns of vis equal to the number of pawns spent opening the item to invest effects. Once the number of pawns used to invest effects equals the number of pawns used to open the item, the item is full, and no further effects can be added.

Types of Enchanted Item

Enchanted devices come in three types: invested items, lesser enchantments, and charged items.

Invested Items

Invested items must be prepared for enchantment before any powers are instilled, but multiple effects can be instilled in one item. A magus may spend several seasons instilling one effect, and need not instill all desired effects in the item at once.

The total number of pawns of vis expended when instilling effects may not exceed the number of pawns of vis spent to prepare the item for enchantment. Once the two numbers match, the invested device is 'full'. It is not possible to remove an effect from a device to make room for a better one.

Lesser Enchantments

Lesser enchantments do not need to be prepared before a power is instilled, but only one power may be instilled. In addition, the creating magus must be able to instill the power in a single season; his Lab Total must be at least twice the adjusted level of the effect.

Investing an effect in a lesser enchantment costs one pawn of appropriate vis for every ten levels or fraction of the effect, just as for an invested item, but there is no need to spend any Vim vis to prepare the item. The total amount of vis needed is just the one pawn per ten levels or part required to instill the effect. The amount of vis that a magus can expend on a lesser enchantment is limited by the material and size of the object being enchanted (see page 255), just as for an invested device.

A lesser enchantment can never receive any further magical powers; once the magus has spent a single season on it, the work is complete.

Charged Items

Charged items do not cost vis, but can only be used a limited number of times. It takes a single season to create charged items.

Design the level of effect for the charged item using the normal rules for enchanted items, with the exception that you do not have to pick a number of uses per day. A charged item can be used as desired until the charges run out.

Once you have chosen the effect, you spend a season and compare your Lab Total to the level of the effect. For every 5 points, or fraction thereof, by which you exceed the level, you get one charge, but if your Lab Total is exactly equal to the level, you get one charge rather than none. If your Lab Total exceeds the level by 1 to 5 points, you still only get one charge. If your Lab Total is less than the level of the effect you cannot create charged items of this kind.

You may split the charges produced between as many physical objects as you wish, although each object must be identical. The objects could be arrows, which cast the spell when they strike the target, or potions, which have their effect on the person drinking them, or anything else you can imagine. You may also make fewer charges than your Lab Total would permit, if you so desire.

Charged items may be of any material or size, as they do not have to hold vis. Appropriate shapes and materials do grant bonuses to the Lab Total, as normal.

Charged Items Example

Mari Amwithig wants to make a wand that casts Agony of the Beast, but she doesn't have much vis, so she considers doing it as a charged item.
Agony of the Beast is a level 15 effect, and for a charged item she decides to leave it unchanged. She isn't planning to use the item against creatures with Magic Resistance, and it doesn't really matter if other people can use it.
Her Perdo Animal Lab Total is 15 (Perdo 12 + 3 from Puissant Art) + 7 (Animal) + 3 (Intelligence) +4 (Magic Theory) +5 (Magic aura at Semita Errabunda), a total of 34. As she knows the spell, she adds a similar spell bonus of +3, because the spell is third magnitude. In addition, a wand gives a +4 bonus to destroying things at a distance. This gives her a final total of 41. She could create the item even if she didn't know the spell, but she does get some benefit from her prior knowledge.
41 is 26 higher than the level of the effect, which means she gets six charges, five from the five fives by which she exceeds the level, and one from the one point that is the final fraction.
Neil, Mari's player, decides to look at making a lesser enchanted item instead, because Mari's Lab Total is a lot higher than the level of the spell.

Shape and Material

The first thing you must do for any magical device is choose the physical form of the item you wish to enchant — both the shape of the item and the item's material. Look at the Shape and Material Bonuses Table to see what sorts of items grant bonuses relevant to the types of enchantments you wish to place. An item with multiple materials and incorporating multiple shapes can grant several bonuses, and they do stack. However, the highest bonus that you can receive to a single enchantment is equal to your Magic Theory — this represents your ability to tie all of the correspondences into your enchantment. It is possible to place an effect in an item that does not give any bonus to that effect, and a magus may want to do so if placing multiple effects in the same item. For a single effect, however, it normally makes sense to choose a shape or material that does offer a bonus.

You should also pay attention to mundane criteria as well as magical. Enchanting a gold sword might appeal to you, but such an item would be too heavy and soft to use in combat. And while a diamond might be perfect for your ring, do you have a diamond? You might have to go out into the dangerous world to find your materials, especially if your covenant is poor.

Community Gloss
City & Guild maintains that artificial items should be of Superior quality; lower-quality results in penalties to the lab total. See City & Guild, Chapter Four.

Before you begin the process of enchantment, you must acquire the item you will enchant, and note its size and composition.

Enchanted Item Example

Mari turns her attention to making her wand as a real enchanted item. A wand gives a +4 bonus to destroy things at a distance, which makes it a good choice. Animal bone also gives a +4 bonus. Unfortunately, Mari's Magic Theory is only 4, so she would get no additional bonus from making her wand from animal bone. She decides to stick with wood, which is less conspicuous.

Material and Size Tables

MATERIAL	BASE POINTS
cloth, glass	1
wood, leather	2
bone, soft stone	3
hard stone	4
base metal	5
silver	6
gold	10
semi-precious gem	12
precious gem	15
priceless gem	20

SIZE	EXAMPLE	MULTIPLIER
tiny gem	ring, bracelet, pendant, any gem	x1
small	wand, dagger, belt, cap	x2
medium	sword, tunic, boots, skull	x3
large	staff, shield, cloak, skeleton	x4
huge	boat, wagon, human body, small room	x5

Preparation for Enchantment

Invested devices are powerful items that require special preparation before any effective enchantments can be performed on them.

Once you have the physical item to enchant, you must spend a season preparing it. To do this, you must simply expend the time and a number of pawns of raw Vim vis equal to the number derived from the "Material and Size Table" for the form you have selected.

Community Gloss
Note that making huge items, or ones using expensive gems or gold, can be prohibitive due to the Vis Use limit of 2 x (Magic Theory).

It is possible to enchant only part of an item. For example, you can enchant a ruby on the end of a staff. Because it is on a staff, the gem gains bonuses appropriate to the shape (but not the material) of the staff (see the Shape and Material Bonuses Table), and you don't have to enchant the whole staff. However, any effect that relies on the attachment of gem and staff for a bonus (for example, any spell in the gem that uses a Shape bonus for the staff) is permanently lost if the two are separated. When you enchant a part of an item, you must use the number of pawns of vis that would be required to enchant that part if it were a separate item.

It is also possible to prepare a compound item for enchantment, so that you get the shape and material bonuses from all the components for all effects. For example, you might want to enchant a wooden staff, shod in iron, with a quartz crystal bound on the top. There are two ways to do this, but you must select one when the item is first prepared, and the choice cannot be changed later. Work out how many pawns of vis it would take to prepare each component for enchantment. You may then either prepare it with a number of pawns equal to the sum of the pawns for each component, or with a number of pawns equal to the highest required by a single component. The example staff would take eight pawns to prepare the staff alone (a large wooden item), five pawns for the iron shoeing (tiny base metal item), and twelve pawns for the quartz (tiny semi-precious gem). Thus, the whole complex can be prepared at a cost of twelve pawns or twenty five pawns. A compound item of this sort may not contain more components than your Magic Theory score, as binding disparate things together magically takes some skill.

It is not possible to 'partially' open a single item. For example, a wooden staff must always be opened with eight pawns of vis, it is not possible to use fewer. It is possible for an item to have a vis capacity that makes it impossible for a magus to open it for enchantment, due to the limit on the number of pawns of vis he can use in a single season.

It is possible to prepare even larger items than "huge" items on the table. The multiplier increases by one for every factor of ten by which the item is larger than a huge item; for example, something one hundred times the size of a small room, such as a castle keep, would have a multiplier of x7. There are two problems that make this very uncommon. The first, which is less serious, is that the whole item must be opened, which requires the magus to handle a large amount of vis. The more serious issue is that the whole item must be inside the magus's laboratory. Even one factor of 10 makes an item too large to fit in a standard Hermetic laboratory; see page 286 for rules for making a larger laboratory.

An item that has been prepared for enchantment is useless for any magical purpose until it is attuned as a talisman, or instilled with magical powers.

Enchanted Item Example

A wooden wand is a small wooden object, and thus can only contain four pawns of vis. As Mari is making a Lesser Enchantment she doesn't need to open the item, but she can still only invest four pawns worth of effects. This isn't a problem; with a Lab Total of 41 the highest level effect she can invest is 20, which takes just two pawns.

Instilling Affects

The effects instilled in enchanted items are designed like spells, but they are not spells. In particular, a magus may instill an effect in a device even if he does not know a spell with the same effect. Designing an effect takes no time above and beyond the time spent to instill the effect in the item.

Designing the Offect

First, choose an effect to be invested in your device and determine its level. An effect is like a spell, and must be fully defined, as a spell is. You may base the effect on a spell from the Spells chapter, or may invent your own effect. If inventing a new effect, you must design the effect carefully, as if inventing a new spell. The level of the effect is the equivalent of its spell level. You should confirm your effect level with the troupe. Note the starting level of the effect. for future reference. This is the effect level, and is used when assessing the effects produced by the enchanted device — for example, whether they cause Warping, or whether a maga succeeds in dispelling one. Choices made in the rest of this process may change this level, determining the modified effect level. This is used when dealing with the enchanted device itself, for example when investing the effects in the laboratory, or trying to disenchant a device.

Although the effect is based on the spell guidelines, it is not a spell, and the magus need not know the spell that would correspond to the effect. On the other hand, he gets a bonus if he does (see page 260).

In general, enchanted devices may not mimic the effects of Ritual spells. There is, however, a single exception. Enchanted device effects may have a level over 50, as long as there is no other reason for the spell to be a ritual, such as Year duration, Boundary target, or major effect.

After laying out the parameters of the effect, you must decide how frequently you use the effect. Consult the "Effect Frequency Table." The number you choose corresponds to a modifier, which is added to the level of the effect.

Next you must specify the conditions under which the effect is triggered. A trigger can involve a command word or phrase, moving the item in a specific way (for example, waving or pointing a wand), a stance to be adopted, or anything physical that you can imagine. Most enchanted items cannot read thoughts, so the trigger action must be physical, not mental. By default, the trigger action must be performed by someone holding the item, although intention does not matter. Wands with offensive powers usually have very specific triggers, to make sure that they do not go off by accident; some other items trigger whenever they are put on.

It is possible to modify an effect (see below) so that it is triggered by conditions in its immediate environment. This might include an item that triggers at sunrise and sunset.

Effects can also be linked to a second effect (see below) so that they trigger depending on the result of the second effect. By linking an effect to an Intellego Mentem effect which works whenever the device is held it is possible to produce an effect triggered by thought or intention. Any number of effects can be linked to a single triggering, and may depend in different ways on the result of that effect. Thus, if two powers are linked to a mind-reading effect, one might trigger when the wielder thinks 'Fire' with the intention of activating the item, and the other when the wielder thinks 'Ice' with the same intention

Effect Frequency Table

FREQUENCY	MODIFIER
1 use per day	0
2 uses per day	+1
3 uses per day	+2
6 uses per day	+3
12 uses per day	+4
24 uses per day	+5
50 uses per day	+6
Unlimited	+10

Effect Modifications

You have some options on how effects in an enchanted device operate. They are listed below. These modifications change the "standards" for enchanted devices.

Penetration: You may elect to give the effect non-zero Penetration. For every level you add to the effect's level, that effect gets +2 Penetration. If there are multiple effects in a device, each must be given a Penetration score separately.

Concentration: When investing an effect, you can arrange to have the device maintain concentration on the effect for the wielder. This option adds +5 to the effect's level. Note that the wielder still needs to concentrate to change how the effect is used. For instance, a levitation belt that does not require concentration can hold someone in the air, but to move up or down the wielder must concentrate. Effects left to their own concentration start to wear off at sunset and sunrise. At these times the wielder must concentrate on the effect for a few moments to perpetuate it until the next sunrise or sunset, whichever comes first. This effect is useful for things like invisibility rings, which have their effect when put on, and then maintain concentration and invisibility until removed. This allows the wearer to end the effect at will, and start it again if the device still has uses left.

The item can only maintain one instance of the effect at a time, unless the same effect is invested in the same item multiple times. For example, a wand of invisibility that can make a person invisible six times per day and maintain concentration can only make one person invisible at a time. However, if the wand were instead invested with six effects each of which could be used once per day, and maintained concentration, then it could make six people invisible at once. This would require more vis, more seasons, and a different trigger for each effect.

Effect Use: You can restrict the use of a device's effect to a specific list of people (for example, to you and all your current apprentices) by adding +3 to the level of the effect. You work the identities of these people into the enchantment itself, so the list can never be changed, nor can the restriction be bypassed.

You may also restrict the use of the device to an undefined group, such as 'only women', or 'only people in my direct magical lineage' by using a linked trigger (see below).

Otherwise, invested devices can be activated by anyone who knows their trigger actions.

Effect Expiry: It is possible to instill an effect which will only work for a limited period. This period is counted from the first use of the effect, not from its creation. A single item may mix temporary and permanent effects. Limiting an effect in this way multiplies the amount by which the magus's Lab Total exceeds the modified level of the effect, allowing him to instill effects more quickly. It does not allow him to instill effects he could not otherwise manage. Effect Expiry cannot be applied to Lesser Enchanted Items or Charged Items.

ITEM LASTS	Excess Modifier
1 year	x10
7 years	x5
70 years	x2

Environmental Trigger: The effect is triggered by some feature of the item's environment, rather than a specific action. The item is only sensitive to major magical features of the environment. Thus, it can respond to the events that end spell durations (sunrise, sunset, phases of the moon, etc.), and to changes in the modifier applied to magical activities by the local aura. This adds +3 to the level of the effect.

Fast Trigger: The effect gains a +3 Initiative modifier. This adds +5 to the level of the effect.

Linked Trigger: The effect is triggered by the results of another effect in the same item. This is most commonly used to allow an item to activate on a mental command, or to limit the people who can use an item. An effect to allow mental activation needs to be able to read surface thoughts continually, with at least Touch Range. This is a base level of 15, +1 magnitude for Touch Range, +1 magnitude for Concentration Duration, +5 levels to have the device maintain concentration, for a final level of 30.

If a linked trigger effect is resisted, the item will not work, but the wielder can choose not to resist.

A linked trigger adds +3 to the level of the triggered effect. The level of the triggering effect is not altered.

Constant Effect Devices

An enchanted device can have a constant effect by giving the effect a duration of Sun, two uses per day, and an environmental trigger (sunrise or sunset). This adds two magnitudes (to raise the duration to Sun) and four levels (one for two uses per day and three for an environmental trigger) to the guideline given in the Spells chapter for the effect. Such a device has a truly continuous effect; there are no 'flickers' at sunrise or sunset.

Enchanted Item Example

Mari doesn't want any Penetration, and just wants the basic Agony of the Beast effect. That sets the base level at 15. Neil notes that he can raise the level to 20 without the process costing any more vis or taking any longer, so he might as well. The only addition that seems worthwhile is additional uses per day, so he decides to have Mari make a wand that can be used 24 times per day, as that adds five levels to the base fifteen, for a final level of 20.

Instilling the Effect

Once you have designed the effect that you want to invest in your device, you have to perform the ritual of joining. Your Lab Total (based on the Form and Technique scores appropriate to the effect) is compared to the total modified effect level. Several other modifiers apply to your Lab Total:

If the effect you are investing mimics a spell with casting requisites, those requisites apply to your Lab Total.
If any of the bonuses listed on the "Shape and Material Bonuses Table" for the material or shape of the device you are using matches the effect being invested, thoses bonuses are added to your Lab Total. For example, if you were enchanting a lamp to constantly produce magical light, you would add +7 to your Lab Total. Your total bonus from the shape and material of the device may not exceed your Magic Theory score. This represents the ability of the magus to tie all the correspondences into the enchantment.
For each effect already in the device that has a Technique and/or Form in common with the effect being invested, add +1 to your Lab Total. The bonus is +1 per preexisting effect, even if it matches both the Technique and Form.
If you know a spell that is similar to the effect you are instilling, add the magnitude of the spell to your Lab Total. You only get this bonus for the highest-level applicable spell.

You can only invest an effect if this modified Lab Total exceeds the modified level of the effect. For each point by which your total exceeds the level, you accumulate 1 point per season. When you accumulate points equal to the effect's modified level, you invest the power. Thus, if your Lab Total is double the modified level of the effect, you can invest it in one season. For lesser enchantments, your Lab Total must be at least double the modified level of the effect.

For every 10 points, or fraction thereof, of the modified level of the effect, you must also expend one pawn of raw vis of an Art matching either the Technique or Form of the effect being invested. This vis is expended in the first season you begin investing the effect. But remember, a given item can only hold a limited number of effects. If the amount of raw vis required to instill an effect brings the total amount of raw vis used above the total used to prepare the item for enchantment in the first place, the effect cannot be invested. So if you are enchanting a silver dagger (which takes 12 pawns of vis to prepare for enchantment), you can only put 12 pawns worth of effects in it. If the dagger already has 10 pawns worth of effects, an effect that requires 3 pawns of vis (that is, an effect of level 21 to 30) does not fit; you cannot put it in the dagger.

Enchanted Item Example

Mari has, as calculated before, a Perdo Animal Lab Total of 41, which allows her to invest a level 20 effect in a single season. She gets one pawn of Perdo vis and one pawn of Animal vis, and uses them to invest the wand. The process is automatically successful.
Wand of Bestial Agony: This plain wooden wand can cast Agony of the Beast 24 times per day, with 0 Penetration.

Using Enchanted Devices

Several rules apply to all enchanted devices, unless an effect modification has been made, and specifically states otherwise.

Effects produced by enchanted devices have a Penetration of zero.
The range of effects is measured from the device, not the user. Thus, Touch Range means that the device must touch the target, and Personal Range means that the effect targets the device only.
Unless otherwise specified, an effect that duplicates a spell requiring concentration to maintain also must be concentrated on to be maintained.
All Targeting rolls demanded by a device's effects are made by the wielder of the device, using the wielder's Finesse score.
If a person gains possession of your magical device and knows the triggering actions of its effects, that person may utilize the device. Even if the possessor does not know the triggering action, he may investigate your item in the laboratory to learn its effects.
You may perform one trigger action for an enchanted item in a round. In most cases, this will activate one effect, but some items may be designed so that one action activates multiple effects. You must make any Targeting rolls that are necessary, but do not roll for Fatigue. You use an enchanted device at an Initiative point equal to Qik + Stress Die.
If the enchanted device is broken, all its powers are lost.
You may use an enchanted item before it is "filled up" with effects and still add effects later.

Community Gloss
For rules on whether an item is broken, see City & Guild, Chapter Four. Note that Hermetic devices are usually of Superior quality, and the enchanted magnitudes also increase the item's durability.

Talisman Attunement

Talismans help you concentrate and extend your magical powers. A talisman is a very personal item that contains magics and materials that tie it intimately to you and that can be used as a channel for your magical power.

You can only attune an item as your talisman if you prepared it for enchantment yourself. Attuning an item takes one season, and can be done whatever your Lab Total. A magus can only have one talisman at once, and must completely destroy an older talisman before creating a new one. This means that the vis and time invested in the first talisman are lost. A magus cannot make a talisman for someone else.

A magus may attune an item with instilled effects as his talisman, as long as he instilled all the effects personally. An item which has been worked on by more than one magus cannot be attuned as a talisman. It is, however, possible to attune an enchanted item if the primary creator was assisted in the lab by another Gifted individual (see Help in the Laboratory, page 264).

Attuning an item as your talisman has several effects.

First, your talisman is considered to be a part of you as long as you are touching it. Personal range spells can affect your talisman, Personal range effects in the talisman can affect you, and you count as touching anything that your talisman is touching, so if your talisman is a staff your reach is significantly extended. This also means that your Magic Resistance covers your talisman completely as long as you are touching it.

Community Gloss
Note that Personal-range effects need not penetrate your Magic Resistance to affect you.

Second, you always have an Arcane Connection to your talisman, making it easy to find if it is lost (but also making it a hazard if it falls into enemy hands).

Third, even when you're not touching your talisman, it receives the Magic Resistance offered by your Form scores.

Finally, a talisman becomes very easy to enchant, and its capacity for enchantment is greatly increased. The capacity of a talisman is independent of its shape and material, and instead depends on the power of the magus to whom it is attuned. The maximum number of pawns of Vim vis that may be used to prepare a talisman is equal to the sum of the magus's highest Technique and highest Form. Unlike other items, the capacity of a talisman may be opened a bit at a time. A magus could open one pawn's worth every season if he wished, although that is inefficient.

When a magus instills effects into a talisman, he gets a +5 bonus to his Lab Total, reflecting his close connection to the item. However, it is impossible for any other magus to instill an effect in the device.

Community Gloss
Together with the Personal rather than Touch range, investing a power that affects you into a talisman thus may have as much as a +10 levels advantage over investing it in a familiar bond. However, the familiar bond also offers bonuses to a certain Techniqe and a certain Form, can be activated by the familiar instead as your action, and, critically, does not cause Warping.

In addition to the basic powers of a talisman, you may also open your talisman to one kind of magic attunement, based on the shape and material of the talisman, every time you prepare it for enchantment or instill an effect. Use the "Shape and Material Bonuses Table" to determine what attunements are possible. Your talisman may be able to accept more than one kind of attunement, and can hold more than one attunement, but you can only invest one new attunement per season. For instance, a magus can enhance his staff talisman by attuning it to spells that control things at a distance. He then gets a +4 bonus on his Casting Score for spells that control things at a distance (because that is the bonus listed on the Shape and Material Bonuses Table). He could further enhance it to give him a +3 to project bolts and missiles (for example), but that would have to be done while he was instilling another effect.

Bonuses from attunements only apply when the magus is touching the talisman, and only the highest bonus applies. They apply to Casting Scores for Ritual, Formulaic and Spontaneous magic, but they do not apply to Magic Resistance or any laboratory activities. There is no limit to the number of attunements a talisman can have at one time, though remember that you can only add one per season. There is no roll involved in giving your talisman an attunement bonus.

Investigating Enchantments

If you wish to determine the powers of someone else's enchantment, you must investigate it in your lab. You inspect the item's physical construction, investigate the Form and Technique with Intellego magics, and test to see how the enchantment responds to other magics. All of this indicates how the item was created, what its powers are, and how to unleash them.

You discover the powers in an enchanted device in order from weakest to strongest — that is, from the power of the lowest modified effect level to that of the highest. (A device's function as a talisman is treated as a level 20 power.) When you investigate an enchantment for the first time, you spend a season, add a stress die to your Intellego Vim Lab Total, and compare the result to the level of the weakest power in the enchantment. If you succeed in your roll to find the weakest power, you may roll again in that same season to identify the power immediately above it in strength. For example, if a device has three powers of level 10, 20, and 30 and you rolled a Lab Total of 25, you do not automatically find the first two powers. As your rolled Lab Total is over 10 (the level of the first power), you find the first power and may roll again in the season to find the second power (level 20), and the third power if you discover the second. Note that the level of a power in an enchanted device includes any effect modifications that apply to the power.

As long as you succeed in finding powers, you keep rolling to find more in that season. If you roll and find nothing, it either means that there are no more powers in the enchantment or that you did not roll high enough to find the next one. Only the storyguide knows for certain. In either case, you can keep trying as long as you want, but each failure to discover a power ends the rolls for that season, and you can do nothing else that season.

If you botch an investigation roll, many results can arise, and the storyguide makes the final decision based on the situation. You could misinterpret a power, thinking it does something different from its actual function. You could misread the triggering action of a power, making it useless to you. Or you could somehow disturb the enchanted item, setting off its powers. If you survive an investigation botch, your season ends there. However, you may approach the device again next season to properly identify the power that confounded you.

Magi sometimes use the Waiting Spell (see page 372) to guard their enchanted devices. The spell held in waiting is often released on anyone who magically examines the item. The Waiting Spell is not invested into the device, but cast on it for protection. You therefore cannot detect a Waiting Spell in your preliminary investigations of an item. If you do not cast a spell to detect a Waiting Spell, discovering it often means tripping it. Beware.

Similar Spells

A magus gets some benefit from knowing a spell similar to the effect he is creating. He gets a bonus to his Lab Total equal to the magnitude of the highest-level similar spell that he knows. Only a single spell grants a bonus; there is no laboratory advantage to knowing dozens of similar spells.

SIMILAR SPELL BONUS: Magnitude of highest-level similar spell known

A spell is similar if it meets one of the following requirements:

Same effect, at a different Range, Duration, or Target. All three may differ.
Closely related effect, at the same Range, Duration, and Target.

Two spells have the same effect if the rules description of the spell is the same, apart from the Range, Duration, or Target. Closely related effects include such things as doing damage with Creo Ignem, or turning a human being into a land animal. This is, ultimately, a judgment call on the part of the troupe. The similar spell bonus is not, generally, very large, so there is no problem with erring on the side of generosity.

Longevity Rituals

Your time to study and increase your power has an ultimate deadline: your inevitable demise. In their attempts to gain themselves more time in this world, the magi of Hermes have developed Longevity Rituals. Though death is still Longevity Rituals. Though death is still inevitable, these rituals can stave it off for a hundred years or more. Magi of two hundred years or older are rare, but not unheard of.

The Longevity Ritual creates a magical anchor, sustaining the vital life force of the magus, often by directly affecting the tissues of the magus's body. This anchor, however, prevents the magus from expending his life force in normal human fashion, so the magus becomes permanently sterile. The ritual takes a season, and culminates in some sort of focus, which is appropriate to the magus in question. The most common form of the focus is a potion which the magus drinks, but it could be a bath, a ritual in which the magus inhales the smoke of special incense, or even a magical fire that the magus stands within to burn away the impurities that cause aging. The focus is always something that can be repeated, and does not require continuing actions or the possession of an object. Magi who have a potion as a focus often refer to their longevity potion; magi with different foci use different terms as appropriate, but if they feel that the nature of the focus is too revealing, they might refer simply to the Longevity Ritual.

The Longevity Ritual takes one season to develop and perform, and the subject of the ritual must be present for the whole of that season. If appropriate, he may help the magus creating the ritual with his lab work (see page 264).

Every magus has a unique Longevity Ritual, though it is possible for a magus to create a Longevity Ritual for another. Indeed, many young magi hire older magi to devise their Longevity Rituals, as the older magus's higher Lab Total makes the ritual much more effective. It is most common for a magus to pay his parens for this, and in some parts of the Order this is almost an expected custom.

LONGEVITY RITUAL: +1 bonus for every five points or fraction of Creo Corpus Lab Total

LONGEVITY RITUAL VIS COST: 1 pawn for every five years of age (rounded up)

Normally, only Creo, Corpus, and Vim vis may be used in a Longevity Ritual. However, a Longevity Ritual is a very personal creation, and as such, it is uniquely tied to your magical abilities. You may, with the approval of the troupe or storyguide, substitute any type of vis that your magical talents are strongly associated with.

A Longevity Ritual's effect lasts until you suffer an aging crisis (see "Aging" on page 391). After this, the ritual loses its effectiveness and the focus must be repeated. You can invent a new ritual (following the normal rules for doing so), or perform the ritual from the old ritual again. This involves simply making a new investment of vis (of an amount based on your current age) but no significant investment in time. You must have the Laboratory Text (see page 262) from the original ritual to do this, and this is the only benefit from a Longevity Ritual's Laboratory Text. If your Longevity Ritual fails and you make aging rolls before you create a new one, you suffer the full effects of your age. You do not gain back any Aging Points or Decrepitude Points that you suffered when you were not under the effects of a ritual when you do finally perform a new ritual.

When creating a Longevity Ritual for the first time, you can increase its potency by adding extra vis to the ceremony. This vis is above and beyond that which you must spend for your current age. For each additional pawn you add to the ritual, add 1 to your Lab Total. This vis is invested when you originally create a given version of a ritual, but you must use the same amount of extra vis every time you perform the focus again after the ritual fails. If you reinvent the ritual to take advantage of increased Art scores, you can choose not to use extra vis.

You can perform Longevity Rituals for others, even for non-magi. To do so, you need a Creo Corpus Lab Total of at least 30. A Longevity Ritual made for another magus or a character with a Supernatural Ability functions just as if made for you (-1 to aging rolls for every 5 points of Lab Total). Non-magical people, however, are not as resilient as magi. The ritual you create for a mundane therefore only subtracts one from the character's aging rolls for every 10 points (round up) in your Lab Total. A Longevity Ritual performed for someone else also fails when the subject suffers from an aging crisis. If the subject is a magus and has access to the Laboratory Text, he may perform the ritual himself. (Vis usage is limited by the magus's Arts, as for a spell, which may make it impossible.) As the magus was present for the original creation of the ritual, and quite possibly assisting in it, he understands the shorthand. A subject who is not a Hermetic magus may not repeat the ritual. Any magus with access to the Laboratory Text may do this, no matter what his Lab Total, but a magus who was not involved in the initial creation needs an accessible Laboratory Text.

Laboratory Texts

When a magus creates something in the laboratory, he keeps a set of notes recording what he has done, what worked, and what didn't. With the aid of these notes he, or another magus, can reproduce the effect much more quickly, as he knows exactly what he should be doing.

One Laboratory Text is created for every effect that the magus creates. Thus, a magus creates a single Laboratory Text when he invents a single spell, or invests a single power into an enchanted item.

The most common Laboratory Texts in the Order of Hermes are those detailing the creation of spells. Almost every covenant has a substantial collection of these, as they at least double the speed at which magi can add new Formulaic spells to their repertoire.

Using Laboratory Texts

A magus who has a Laboratory Text for a particular effect may reproduce it in a single season if his Lab Total equals or exceeds the level of the effect. If his Lab Total is less than the level of the effect, he may not use the Laboratory Text until his Lab Total increases to be at least equal to the level. A magus may reproduce multiple effects if they are all of the same Technique and Form, and the total of their levels is no greater than his Lab Total. The Lab Total is calculated in exactly the same way when working from a Laboratory Text as when working without one.

This is an almost exact reproduction of the original effect. No features of a spell or enchanted item effect may be changed, and in the case of an enchanted item, the item itself must have the same shape and material as the one described in the text. However, it is possible to use a text derived from enchanting a power into an item with multiple powers to enchant that power alone. It is not possible to use the Laboratory Text from a lesser enchanted device to instill a power in a greater device, or vice versa, nor can any other magus make use of a Lab Text concerned with instilling an effect into a talisman. The main difference between the two effects is that your sigil, rather than the original magus's, is incorporated.

If the Laboratory Text is for a charged item, the magus produces an item with a number of charges equal to one fifth of his Lab Total, rounded up.

The Laboratory Text for a Longevity Ritual only allows the magus to reproduce the final ritual without needing to spend a season on the process.

It is not possible to experiment (see page 274) while working from a Laboratory Text. The benefit comes from following the procedures exactly, which is inconsistent with experimentation. It is, of course, possible to look at a Laboratory Text and then experiment to create an almost identical effect, but the magus would get no benefit from the Laboratory Text.

Laboratory Texts are not immediately useful to others, however, as they include all sorts of personal abbreviations and shortcuts that others cannot understand. (Remember that everything is written by hand in the Middle Ages.)

If you would like to copy a Laboratory Text of yours so others can easily use it, you can spend a season rewriting up to (Latin x 20) levels of Laboratory Texts to make them usable by others. Also, in one season, you can copy (Profession: Scribe x 60) levels of Laboratory Texts that are already written understandably. Note that copying is a different skill from writing from scratch. It is entirely possible for a skilled writer to be faster at writing than copying.

Any person who assisted in a particular Laboratory Activity, adding their Intelligence + Magic Theory to the Lab Total, understands the Laboratory Texts produced for that activity without needing to translate them, and may make generally accessible copies. This also applies to a magus who is the subject of a Longevity Ritual created by another magus, even if he does not assist. Assistants do not, however, create Laboratory Texts.

WRITING LABORATORY TEXTS: Latin x 20 levels per season

COPYING LABORATORY TEXTS: Profession: Scribe x 60 levels per season

Laboratory Texts Example

Carolus decides that he needs at least one combat spell, or he risks being in serious trouble if he gets caught stealing. Given his magical strengths, he decides to look at Perdo Corpus. His Perdo Corpus Lab Total is 10 (Perdo) + 5 (Corpus) + 2 (Intelligence) + 4 (Magic Theory) + 1 (Magic Theory is specialized in inventing spells) + 5 (Aura of Semita Errabunda), for a total of 27. He could invent a level 13 spell by himself in a season, but that wouldn't be much use.
Fortunately, the covenant library has a Lab Text for Grip of the Choking Hand. This spell is level 25, which would take him 13 seasons to invent by himself. His Lab Total is 2 higher than the level, so after thirteen seasons he would have accumulated 26 points, and thus invented the spell. Working from the Lab Text, however, he can invent the spell in a single season.

Casting Tablets

A Casting Tablet is a variant on a Laboratory Text that contains a simple series of instructions for casting a particular spell. Magi who have not learned the spell's intricacies through laboratory research may use a Casting Tablet instead. Casting from tablets is dangerous, because the magus is calling on power that he cannot control accurately. Casting from tablets is also an inflexible style of spellcasting.

Community Gloss
The original Fifth Edition core rules did not include casting tablets. This is therefore an addition to the core rules. Note that this new option cheapens learning spells and deters it. Consider whether you want to include that in your saga.

A magus casting from a tablet does not understand the spell's workings, and so may not tinker with decisions made by the author. The Range, Duration, Target, and size of the spell, the exact amount and Arts of raw vis consumed, and any single type of Arcane Connection to be used, are specified by the author at writing. Spells cast from tablets do not have Penetration bonuses unless they are built into the spell's level by the author.

Rituals may be cast from tablets. It is possible, but dangerous, for a magus with a tablet to lead a Wizard's Vigil. A botch by any member of the group causes the leader also to botch. An odd effect of casting from a tablet is that the sigil of the writer is preserved in the spell, and is visible along with the sigil of the caster.

When casting from a tablet, determine the magus's Casting Total according to the following formula, then subtract the spell level from the Casting Total and look up the result on the table that follows. Use this formula for both Formulaic and Ritual spells. The table replaces the normal results for casting either type of spell. For Formulaic spells, the Fatigue levels lost are short-term, and for Ritual spells they are long-term.

CASTING TOTAL: Stamina + Form + Technique + Aura + stress die (modified by Virtues, Flaws and requisites)

CASTING TOTAL - SPELL LEVEL:

Magi can only author Casting Tablets for spells they have mastered (see page 225), although anyone can copy tablets written by others. A character spending a season as an author or copyist may create Laboratory Texts or Casting Tablets from the same pool of levels. Casting Tablets do not aid magi to learn spells the way Laboratory Texts do.


0 or more	Spell cast, lose one Fatigue level.
-1 to -10	Spell cast, lose two Fatigue levels.
−11 to −20	Spell cast, lose three Fatigue levels.
−21 to −30	Spell cast. Gain a Warping point. Lose four Fatigue levels.
-31 or less	Gain Warping points equal to the magnitude of the spell, lose five Fatigue levels. If the caster gains two or more Warping Points, he must check for Twilight.

Translating Laboratory Texts

If you want to translate the Laboratory Texts of another magus whose secrets and abbreviations you do not know, you must work out his system of abbreviations. Every season you spend studying one of his texts, you accumulate a number of points equal to your Lab Total in the appropriate Technique and Form. Once you have accumulated points equal to or exceeding the level of the effect, you understand the text. This is a process of experimentation, and thus requires a laboratory.

Once you have understood a magus's abbreviations for one Laboratory Text, you may write up any of his Laboratory Texts as if they were your own (that is, Latin x 20 levels per season), as long as none of them exceed the level of the text you decoded. This is a simple process of translation, and does not require a laboratory. If you come across a higher level text, you must decode that separately, but you start with a number of accumulated points equal to the level of the highest level text you have translated. Note that Laboratory Texts cannot be translated into Casting Tablets.

As noted above, laboratory assistants automatically understand the Laboratory Texts for the activities with which they helped. This also helps them to translate other Laboratory Texts by the same magus. A magus may also teach someone his (or another maga's) abbreviations, by spending a season writing Laboratory Texts with that person present, and explaining the abbreviations. In that case, the student counts as understanding Laboratory Texts by that magus with a level up to the teacher's Latin x 20. Note that such students need not have The Gift, but must be literate in Latin and have a score of at least 1 in Magic Theory to write or copy Laboratory Texts without corrupting them (see page 380).

Multiple Laboratory Activities

Sometimes you may wish to perform laboratory activities that, though rewarding, are well within your capabilities. In this case, you may choose to perform multiple activities within a single season, splitting your time among them all. All the activities you perform in a season must be of the same type (for example, learning spells, instilling powers in an invested device, creating potions) and must use the same Technique and Form. Some or all of the activities may be based on Laboratory Texts. To perform multiple activities, simply add up the levels of all activities performed and apply your Lab Total to the total of the levels.

Community Gloss
It isn't clear how to combine lab activities that use a lab text and those that don't. A common solution is to add twice the level of effects that do not use a lab text, but treat the sum total as if using a lab text.

If the Lab Totals for the different activities are different, due to requisites, a Magical Focus, or similar, apply the lowest of the Lab Totals to the total of the levels.

If you perform arcane experimentation (page 274), you add a single simple die + risk modifier to your Lab Total, but any results rolled on the "Extraordinary Results Chart" apply to all activities performed in the season.

Help in the Laboratory

Though the Code of Hermes provides protection for magi who meet on neutral grounds, the sanctum of a magus (laboratory and living quarters) is a special place in which magi hold their greatest treasures and deepest secrets. Thus, the Code of Hermes allows for magi to exact any toll on magi who trespass within their sancta. Because one magus foregoes protection of the Code when in the laboratory sanctum of another, very few magi ever cooperate in laboratory work.

Nevertheless, there are times when magi receive help in their laboratory work, either from trusting magi or from apprentices. Anyone who has The Gift and a score of at least one in Magic Theory may help you to perform any activity that uses your Magic Theory. If you are being helped to perform some activity that uses your Magic Theory, you add the helper's Intelligence + Magic Theory to your Lab Total for the season. Any helper's Virtues and Flaws affect the Lab Total, in the same way as those of the primary magus. If this total is negative, the 'assistant' imposes a penalty on your Lab Total. If the assistant has some appropriate Virtue or Flaw, like Inventive Genius, that Virtue or Flaw applies to the primary researcher's efforts.

Thus, when two magi cooperate, one must always be the primary researcher and one must be the assistant. This research may take place outside the sanctum of either magus (see The Sanctum, page 297), in which case both parties are protected by the Code. However, the assistant is announcing to the Order that he considers the primary researcher to be his superior. This substantially limits the range of magi that most members of the Order are willing to assist. A magus is conventionally supposed to regard his parens as superior throughout his life, so helping your parens attracts no stigma, even for those magi who actually regard their parentes with contempt.

You may not normally have more than one helper in the lab, as it is difficult to coordinate several helpers with you and with each other. However, if people are exceptionally well-organized and cooperative, more can work together, each helper adding his Magic Theory and Intelligence scores to the primary researcher's scores. The total number of assistants that the primary researcher can make use of in one season is limited to his Leadership score (though he can always have at least one). The exception is that a magus with a familiar may always have at least one assistant in addition to his familiar; this does not increase the maximum if he has a Leadership score of 2 or more.

Lab assistants gain exposure experience, typically in Magic Theory, but do not gain anything else from the experience.

Distractions from Lab Work

The rules for what a magus can do in a season assume that the season is uninterrupted. Sometimes, however, magi take time away from their labs to travel and explore, and this lost time makes itself felt in their lab performance. You may miss up to ten days from any laboratory activity, and make up the time by working harder during the remainder of the season. There is no penalty for this. However, if you miss eleven days or more, your Lab Total is penalized by 10 points, plus two points for every day over ten that you miss, up to a maximum penalty of 30 when you miss twenty days. If you miss more than twenty days, you cannot perform a laboratory activity at all, as you lose your synchronization with the cycles of the heavens.

Familiars

Protective of their secrets and suspicious of any who might hold power over them, magi are notoriously distant from other people. They can find some companionship with apprentices, but the master-apprentice bond often atrophies after the apprentice becomes a magus, and sometimes former master and former apprentice become rivals. For longer-lasting and deeper companionship, many magi turn to a familiar.

A familiar is a beast that a magus befriends and then magically bonds with, instilling the beast with magical powers in the process and then using magic to merge its powers and abilities with his own. Though a familiar is very close to the magus who creates it, it always has its own will, and is not under the control of the magus. The familiar is the closest friend and ally a magus will ever have... but even friends fight occasionally.

Finding and Befriending an Animal

The first step in getting a familiar is finding an animal with inherent magic. With inherent magic, the beast is likely to have a Magic Might score, which may be assigned based on the scores of comparable magical creatures. The means of finding such a creature are ultimately left to the storyguide to determine. Wandering at random in search of a magical creature is usually profitless — magi generally follow rumors to the locations of the familiars they want. Some receive visions of animals that are somehow "meant" for them.

Once found, the animal must be befriended. You must genuinely admire or even love the animal in question, and it must trust you freely, under no coercion, magical or mundane. The animal can sense something of your nature when you are in close contact. If your natures clash, it rejects you. The need for mutual admiration between magus and familiar is why air magi, for example, often take birds as familiars, and why you can often tell something about magi by the familiars they have chosen and that have chosen them.

Enchanting the Familiar

Once you and the familiar accept each other, you take the animal to your laboratory and begin a series of enchantments. Enchanting a familiar is different from other enchantments. The bond between you and your familiar causes changes to you both, and you do not have full control over how the enchantment affects you. Your troupe and storyguide determine how you are affected throughout the enchantment, though you do have control over the changes your familiar undergoes.

Suggested Familiars by Art

The Arts used to bond a familiar must correspond to either the animal itself, or its powers. The following list gives examples of animals that may be suited to particular Arts.

Creo: beaver, eagle, lizard, pelican, weasel, any animal that can rejuvenate itself

Intellego: cat (tortoiseshell), crow, goat, raven, woodpecker, toad, any animal with keen senses, any animal thought to foretell the future

Muto: cat (white or tortoiseshell), fox, hare, moths and butterflies, toad, other amphibians

Perdo: asp, hedgehog, salamander, shrew, weasel, any venomous animal

Rego: badger, cat (black), cockerel, dog, lion, owl, wolf, any pack leader or similarly dominant animal

Animal: any animal

Aquam: coot, duck, frog, kingfisher, otter, swan, any amphibious or semi-aquatic animal

Auram: crow, kingfisher, spider, any bird or bat

Corpus: caladrius, cat, dog, goose

Herbam: beaver, monkey, squirrel, woodpecker

Ignem: eagle, hercinia, salamander, scitalis, very small dragons

Imaginem: chameleon (lizard), cricket, magpie, partridge, peacock, scitalis

Mentem: ape, cat (black or tortoiseshell), fox, owl, wolf, any animal with an Intelligence score (before bonding)

Terram: badger, hedgehog, ferret, frog, fox, mole, mouse

Vim: hoopoe, any magical animal

The Initial Bond

The laboratory total for binding the familiar is any appropriate Technique + any appropriate Form + Int + Magic Theory + Aura Modifier. Puissant Arts and foci may apply to this. A Technique or Form is appropriate if it corresponds in some way to the animal or its powers. Thus, Animal and Vim are always appropriate Forms for binding magical animals. Aquam is appropriate for aquatic or semiaquatic animals, and Auram for birds, or creatures with power over air or weather. Corpus applies to animals that can take human form, or with powers to heal or transform people. Herbam might be appropriate to arboreal creatures, or to beasts with powers over plants. Ignem is suitable for firebreathing or shining creatures, and Imaginem for those that change their appearance. Mentem fits any animal that has a true mind, or which can affect the minds of people, while Terram is appropriate to burrowing animals or creatures with powers affecting earth, stone, or metal.

The Techniques are more likely to correspond to abilities of the animal. Builders, like beavers, correspond to Creo, while destroyers, like serpents, link to Perdo. Creatures that change, such as butterflies, match Muto, and those that control others, like the leaders of packs, fit with Rego. Intellego is appropriate to animals with sharp senses, like eagles or bats.

Any magus should be able to find an animal that he can bind with his best Technique and Form, and such an animal will automatically be in sympathy with the magus's magic.

The level for the enchantment is equal to 25 plus the familiar's Magic Might plus 5 times its Size. If the familiar has negative Size, this reduces the level for the enchantment. For example, a familiar with a Size of –2 and a Magic Might of 10 can be bound as a level 25 enchantment: 10 for the Magic Might, plus 25, minus 10 from the negative Size. A magus can only bind a familiar if his Lab Total equals or exceeds this level. If it does, he can bind the familiar in a single season. This costs one pawn of vis for every five points or fraction thereof of the Lab Total. The vis used must match either the Technique or the Form used in calculating the Lab Total, and the magus may use both kinds.

FAMILIAR BONDING LAB TOTAL: Any Technique + any Form + Intelligence + Magic Theory + Aura Modifier

FAMILIAR BONDING LEVEL: Familiar's Magic Might + 25 + (5 x Size)

FAMILIAR BONDING COST: 1 pawn of vis per five levels or fraction of the binding Lab Total. Vis must match Technique or Form

The Three Cords

As part of the process of binding a familiar, the magus forges three mystical cords. A golden cord connects the magus and familiar's magical abilities, a silver cord connects their minds, and a bronze cord connects their bodies. These cords may be seen by someone with the Second Sight Virtue, but they are otherwise imperceptible.

The strength of each of these cords is rated from 0 to +5. To determine all the cords' ratings, divide the points of the magus's Lab Total among them however you choose and then use the points allocated to each to buy cord scores. A cord strength of 0 costs nothing, a strength of +1 requires 5 points, a score of +2 requires 15 points, a score of +3 requires 30 points, a score of +4 requires 50 points, and a score of +5 (the maximum) requires 75 points. The total cost of the cords you buy cannot exceed the magus's Lab Total.

Each cord has a varying effect (described below) depending on how well it is forged. These benefits also apply to the familiar.

The Golden Cord: The familiar helps you avoid magical errors, letting you roll fewer botch rolls when using magic. Your golden cord score is the number subtracted from the number of botch dice you would normally roll (though the Golden Cord cannot reduce the number of botch dice to zero).

The Silver Cord: You can apply your silver cord score as a bonus to all rolls that involve Personality Traits, and to rolls to protect you from natural or supernatural mental influence, such as a spell, intimidation, or verbal trickery. In addition, if your mind is ever overcome by another force your familiar may be able to free you. To be successful, it must roll 9+ on a stress die with the silver cord score as its bonus (one attempt per day). If the roll botches, the animal's mind is overcome along with yours.

The Bronze Cord: You can apply your bronze cord score as a bonus to Soak rolls and totals, to healing rolls, to rolls to withstand deprivation (such as to holding your breath or resisting sleepiness), and to rolls to resist aging. It does not help you withstand Fatigue.

The magus binds a familiar by forging the cords, so both the initial bond and the forging of the cords take place in the same season.

The magus may choose to strengthen the bonds after binding the familiar. He must use the same Arts as for the initial binding, and may buy bond strengths with the new value of the Lab Total. This strengthening also takes a single season, and costs a number of pawns of vis equal to one fifth of the magus's Lab Total, rounded up, minus the number of pawns of vis already spent on binding the familiar. This does not include pawns of vis spent on empowering the bond (see below). Thus, the number of pawns of vis that must be spent to get cords of a certain strength remains the same whether the magus does it all at once, or over several seasons.

The Bound Familiar

The familiar binding gives both the magus and the familiar the Minor Virtue True Friend, relating to the other half of the partnership. Thus, they also gain Personality Traits of Loyal (partner) +3.

The familiar will not die of old age as long as the magus is alive, and it only suffers ill effects from aging when the magus does. If it did not previously have human intelligence, it gains it, with a score of –3. It gains a score equal to the magus in any languages that the magus speaks; any familiar can understand and read the languages understood by its master, and can speak them if it has the relevant vocal equipment. Familiars can learn Abilities in the same way as humans. They cannot, however, learn magic, although they can learn Magic Theory and serve as laboratory assistants, even though they do not have The Gift.

The magus and the familiar are magically linked. Each serves as an Arcane Connection to the other. Neither needs to overcome the other's Magic Resistance in order to affect them with a spell or magical ability.

The familiar uses the better of its Magic Resistance or the magus's Form resistance to resist spells, but this resistance does not stack with a Parma Magica. The magus may choose to use the familiar's Magic Resistance, but this does not stack with a Parma Magica.

Both the familiar and the magus retain any abilities that they had before the ritual was performed.

Empowering the Bond

A maga may, at any time, invest powers in the familiar bond. This is a laboratory activity, and the rules are the same as those for investing a power in an invested device, with four exceptions.

First, there is no limit to the number of powers which may be invested in a familiar.

Second, the maga gets no bonus to the Lab Total from other effects already invested in the familiar. Instead, she gets +5 if the effect matches either the Technique or Form used to bind the familiar, and +10 if it matches both.

Third, powers are limited to effects which target the maga, the familiar, or both.

Finally, the benefits of Verditius Mysteries do not add to the Lab Total. The Mystery has nothing to do with familiars.

If the enchantment affects only the maga, it is activated by and under the control of the familiar. If it affects only the familiar, it is activated by and under the control of the maga. For the use of effects enchanted into the familiar bond, the maga and familiar are always considered to be touching one another.

Community Gloss
Although not explicitly stated, it appears the intent is that the powers invested in the bond also do not need to penetrate Magic Resistance in order to affect the magus or the familiar.

Foci that cover the familiar apply to the investment of all powers, no matter what they do. Foci that cover the power apply as normal.

Every time the magus invests a power in the bond both the magus and the familiar take on some minor characteristic of the other. This is a purely cosmetic effect, but should be stronger the more powerful the effect.

While this process does produce a Laboratory Text, that text only applies to investing the power into the bond of this magus and familiar, and thus is rarely of any use to anyone, including the magus who creates it.

Investing a power into the bond costs the same as investing a power into an enchanted device: one pawn of vis for every ten levels, or fraction, of the modified effect. This vis must match the Technique or Form of the effect.

One very important benefit of enchanting a power into the familiar bond is that the power does not cause Warping (page 389) as a constant mystical effect.

The Familiar in Play

You and your familiar will undoubtedly grow closer as the saga progresses, learning from each other and strengthening your common bond. Over the years, your familiar learns what you know, provided that you keep the familiar with you when you study and that you share your knowledge with it.

Your familiar ages along with you, generally dying a few days before or several weeks after you. The sudden death of your familiar is a warning of immediate danger. Should you ever die while your familiar remains alive, your familiar will experience a shock that may kill it, and even if it lives, it is reduced to a pathetic, devastated condition ever after. Likewise, if you survive your familiar, you may feel a profound emptiness in your life that lasts for months, or even years. Having a familiar is a personal, private thing, so only those more concerned with status than true companionship use their familiars as status symbols. You should hold the same level of protectiveness for your familiar that you would for a spouse.

You can only have one familiar at a time. Your familiar will be with you for a long time, so make it interesting.

Example Powers

Speech: Giving an animal the ability to form human speech is Muto Animal, with a base level of 5 (a minor change that makes the animal unnatural). The duration needs to be Concentration, with the bond maintaining concentration, and the range needs to be increased to Touch. This gives level 20. The maga needs to maintain the ability at sunrise and sunset, but can reactivate it once per day if she 'forgets'.
Mental communication: Two effects, each allowing one partner to communicate with the other. The effect is Creo Mentem, as one partner is creating things in the mind of the other. If only words can be transmitted, the base level is 3, plus one magnitude for Touch range, plus ten levels for unlimited use, which is 14. If more complex thoughts, such as images and emotions, can be transmitted, then the base level is four, plus one magnitude for Touch range, plus ten for unlimited use, for a final level of 15.
Shapechanging: The most efficient way to get controllable changes is to set the duration of the spell to Concentration, and then enhance the effect so that the bond maintains concentration. To change the familiar into a human, the effect is Muto Animal with a Corpus requisite, and the base level is 10. Add one magnitude each for Touch range and Concentration duration, and five levels for the item to maintain Concentration. The final level is 25, if the transformation can be done once per day. The level required to transform the maga into the form of her familiar varies. Both can also take on other forms, if the appropriate powers are invested.
Shared Senses: Looking through the other's eyes or hearing through their ears is an Intellego Mentem effect. The base level to share a single sense is five (by analogy from the guidelines), plus five for Touch range and five for Concentration duration. Another five levels lets the bond maintain the effect, for a total level of 20 if the sense can be shared once per day. Note that this sharing works only in one direction; a second power must be instilled for mutual sharing to be possible.
Location: The base level to find the partner is 3, which needs to be increased by one magnitude, to 4, for Touch range. This is Intellego Corpus to find the maga, and Intellego Animal to find the familiar.
Aura of Fire: Wreath the maga or familiar in flames, which do not burn her but do burn anything that comes within them. This is creating flame in an unnatural shape, so the fire does damage equal to its level. The Arts are Creo Ignem, with a Rego requisite. +5 levels to raise the duration to Diameter, +5 levels for range Touch, +5 for the Rego requisite, and +10 for unlimited uses. Final level is damage + 25.
Razor-sharp steel claws: The Arts are Muto Animal (for the familiar) or Muto Corpus (for the maga), with a Terram requisite. The Muto Animal base level would be 3, and the Muto Corpus would be 2 or 3, so the base level is 5, to create base metal. Add five levels for range Touch, and ten total for Concentration duration and concentration maintained by the bond. Because the claws are supposed to be magically sharp, the level is raised by five. Add ten levels so that the effect can be invoked at will, for a final level of 35.

The Participation of Other Players

The storyguide plays an important role in the creation of your familiar. If your troupe has someone who acts as storyguide for laboratory activities, that person may act as storyguide while you are creating your familiar. However, you may wish to use the whole troupe as the acting storyguide during this process, both to get more creative input and to make the familiar more acceptable to your fellow players, who may find it a challenge to deal with such a strange addition to the company.

Because you and your familiar are so close, you may roleplay your familiar as an extension of your character. After all, you may have similar abilities and personality quirks. However, you may also have another player act as your familiar. This alternative assures that your familiar is at least distinct from you, and is advised if you and your familiar don't get along very well.

Apprentices

In your pursuit of the art of magic, you are likely to want an apprentice. Though the Code of Hermes requires that you devote a season a year to teaching your apprentice rather than doing research, the apprentice in turn is required to help you do your lab work. In addition, an apprentice provides you close human companionship and the chance to leave a living legacy when you die. Your apprentice will likely be the closest thing to a son or daughter that you, as a magus, will ever have.

Finding Your Apprentice

Among the common people there sometimes appear rare individuals with The Gift — those who have innate magical power. Only these individuals can become apprentices and eventually magi. Luckily for those magi who seek them, these people inevitably stand out from the crowd. Most potential apprentices somehow attract supernatural attention to themselves. In many populations there is a youth who is prone to wandering alone at night, who is the subject of much town gossip, and who displays a precocious wit. Chances are that such a person is a potential apprentice.

Searching for an apprentice can lead to good storytelling and roleplaying possibilities, especially if the search is complicated by enemy forces or uncooperative members of the child's family. However, if you do not wish to make a story out of finding an apprentice, you may determine the results of the search with a die roll. For every season you spend searching for a potential apprentice, make a stress die and add your Perception. If the result is 9+, you find one. If you botch, you may think you've found a child fit to be an apprentice but are somehow duped, either by the child or by some power that replaces your child with its servant.

Your student should normally be at least seven years old, as younger children rarely have the ability to start Hermetic training. It is rare for Hermetic apprentices to be older than twenty when they are taken, but it does happen. Most Gifted people have learned other supernatural abilities by that age, making it difficult to train them (see page 270, below).

Being taken away by a magus to parts unknown is normally disturbing and frightening to a new apprentice, even to one excited or relieved to be free of a miserable living situation. Some children chosen for apprenticeship are kidnapped by their masters, some are coaxed away with promises of knowledge and power, while others are actually offered (or sold) to magi by families who cannot handle the youngsters' strange ways. Though most children chosen to be apprentices come willingly and freely, the Code of Hermes does not require that they do. Strictly speaking, magi are allowed to obtain apprentices in whatever manner they wish.

Training Your Apprentice

Once you have your apprentice, the training begins. The Peripheral Code contains a substantial number of rulings on the relationship between a magus and his apprentice. A magus claims an apprentice from the beginning of the season in which he opens the Arts. A magus must personally teach the apprentice for at least one season per year over the course of the apprenticeship, and the season spent opening the Arts counts as the first of these seasons.

A member of House Bonisagus may claim another magus's apprentice at any time, but other members of the Order may not interfere between a master and his apprentice. The apprentice belongs to the master, and may not choose to go to another magus unless his current master fails to give him enough teaching. Harming the apprentice is regarded as a serious attack on the master, and can be punished. Masters who abuse their apprentices are not well-regarded, but it is not against the Code to do so.

A magus may choose to pass an apprentice on to a second magus, provided that both magi agree to the transfer. The apprentice's consent is not required.

Use the rules in the Experience and Advancement section of the Long Term Events chapter to train your apprentice, remembering that you must spend at least one season a year directly teaching. Keep in mind that you should try to impart a broad base of skills — refer to the guidelines in the Character Creation chapter (page 25) to give you an idea of what level of apprentice competence you should be shooting for.

Since an apprentice without a Parma Magica would normally suffer a –3 penalty to all totals due to the effect of The Gift, the Order has ruled that failing to extend your Parma Magica to cover your apprentice during training is a violation of the requirement to train your apprentice properly. If your score in Parma Magica is three or less, it does not give you any bonus to Magic Resistance while shared, but it still deadens the effect of The Gift.

It is a good idea to have someone else teach the apprentice Latin, and possibly Magic Theory, before you start the apprenticeship, as this makes your apprentice more useful to you. However, until you open the character's Arts he is not your apprentice, and may choose to attach himself to another magus, or may be taken by another magus. Stealing potential apprentices who are obviously intended for magical training is frowned upon, and may be punished, but rescuing Gifted people who are simply being exploited as lab assistants is well-regarded. Indeed, a magus keeping a Gifted character as a simple lab assistant is normally required by a Tribunal to either start training him or to pass him on to a magus who is willing to do so.

While the magus must personally provide the minimum one season per year, he may have others teach the apprentice in other seasons, or allow the apprentice to study from books. Most magi do allow their apprentices some extra study, as it is rare for a magus to spend fifteen years without studying the Arts from a book, and apprentices are no help with those activities.

Opening the Arts

One of your seasons of teaching must be spent training the apprentice in the basics of Hermetic magic, and you can teach nothing else in that season. Thus, in this season the apprentice gains a score of 0 in all fifteen Hermetic Arts, but learns nothing else. This is referred to as 'opening the Arts'.

If you have a score of less than five in any Art when you open them, your apprentice automatically has a Deficiency (see pages 125 and 272) in that Art. Giving an apprentice Deficiencies in this way is normally treated as a Low Crime by the Tribunals of the Order, and attracts a great deal of social stigma. As a result, few magi train an apprentice until they have a score of five or higher in all Arts. (Note that this is far from the only way that an apprentice can gain a Deficiency, and most of the other ways are not under the master's control, and thus not Low Crimes.) You may teach Magic Theory before opening the Arts, but you may not teach Arts or spells.

If your apprentice already has some non-Hermetic Supernatural Ability, you can only open the Arts if your Intellego Vim Lab Total equals or exceeds five times the apprentice's score in the relevant Ability, and is at least 10 if the Ability normally derives from a Minor Virtue, or at least 30 if it normally derives from a Major Virtue. For supernatural powers without a linked Ability, you need a Lab Total of 10 for Minor Virtues and 30 for Major ones. If the apprentice has multiple Supernatural Abilities, add all the levels together to determine whether you can open the Arts.

If your Intellego Vim Lab Total merely equals or exceeds the level, the Supernatural Abilities are lost. If your Lab Total is at least double the required level, you may either preserve the Ability, or convert it into a Hermetic Virtue. The choice is the parens' decision. The Virtue should be a Major Virtue if the original Ability was, and Minor likewise. If converted, Supernatural Abilities must normally change into Hermetic Virtues that the parens possesses. This is similar to teaching the apprentice Hermetic Virtues (see later); only Hermetic Virtues possessed by the magus can be passed on, either through teaching or converting. While the parens need not know how to perform the Supernatural Ability, he must know how to perform the Hermetic Virtue. Alternatively, the parens may convert a Supernatural Virtue into a Hermetic Virtue he does not know, if the two Virtues are very similar. For example, Skinchanger might convert into a Minor Magical Focus with self-transformation or with the type of animal the apprentice could change into, or Magic Sensitivity into an Affinity with Intellego or Vim. In this case, the Supernatural Virtue was a feature of the child's Gift, and the parens merely turns that feature into a new, Hermetic channel. Neither the parens nor the child knows what this channel is, and the child is likely to believe that the ability has been simply lost. The troupe should decide whether two Virtues are sufficiently similar. If the apprentice has multiple Supernatural Abilities, you may save some and lose others, but you cannot open the Arts unless your Intellego Vim Lab Total exceeds the level determined by all the Abilities.

Once the Arts are Opened, the apprentice character has a 0 in each of the five Techniques and ten Forms. She can immediately cast spontaneous spells. She can read any casting tablets the covenant may have, providing she has a score of 1 in Artes Liberales and 4 in Latin. Barring some logical limitations — the apprentice can't cast Formulaic spells because she doesn't know any — an apprentice can undertake any magical activity a magus can. Simply use the applicable formula based on the current Arts scores of the apprentice for any magical activity she undertakes.

Opening the Arts in house Ex Miscellanea

Some Ex Miscellanea traditions rely on an inborn Supernatural Virtue as their Major Virtue. Members of those traditions do not need any minimum Intellego Vim Lab Total to preserve the tradition's Major Virtue when opening the Arts. Other Supernatural Virtues impose the normal minimums.

Teaching Hermetic Virtues

Teaching a Hermetic Virtue combines aspects of learning a Supernatural Ability (page 159) with learning a Mystery Cult Virtue (page 387). The instructor, typically an apprentice's parens, generates a Teaching Source Quality total that is compared to a required target level. Both teacher and student must be Gifted individuals trained in Hermetic Magic Theory. A magus cannot teach a Gifted hedge wizard a Hermetic Virtue because the two men do not understand magic in the same way. At the end of a season's instruction, the parens generates a Teaching Source Quality just as if he were teaching an Ability or an Art.

TEACHING SOURCE QUALITY: Communication + Teaching + 3 + bonus

The bonuses for the Instruction Total are the same bonuses that apply for every teacher (page 378). Like Arts, Hermetic Virtues can only be taught one-on-one, so every parens' Teaching Source Quality receives a +6 bonus. Virtues that affect teaching also apply.

An additional bonus can be included if the teacher includes a Hermetic Flaw along with the Hermetic Virtue. Mystery Cult initiations sometimes include Ordeals, which add a bonus to learning the Mystery Cult Virtue. In its roughest sense, an Ordeal is a Flaw. For whatever reason — magic being quixotic at its core — it is easier to teach a Hermetic Virtue if one includes a Hermetic Flaw. Including a Minor Hermetic Flaw adds a +3 bonus. Including a Major Hermetic Flaw adds a +9 bonus. A teacher can only include a Hermetic Flaw that he has.

Like Mystery Initiations and regular teaching, there is no die roll. The Hermetic Virtue is taught in a single season if the Teaching Source Quality meets or exceeds the Target Level.

TEACHING A MINOR HERMETIC VIRTUE: Target level is 15

TEACHING A MAJOR HERMETIC VIRTUE: Target Level is 21

The more Hermetic Virtues a Gifted student has, the harder it is to teach him new Hermetic Virtues. Learning Supernatural Abilities is also hindered by knowledge possessed in other Supernatural Abilities, and Hermetic theorists speculate that whatever nuance of The Gift so limits learning Supernatural Abilities also limits learning Hermetic Virtues through instruction. Each Minor Hermetic Virtue the character already possesses adds +3 to the Target Level, and each Major Hermetic Virtue adds +9.

A teacher can only teach a Hermetic Virtue that he has. If he decides to include a Hermetic Flaw in the instruction, to make the process easier, he can only include a Hermetic Flaw that he possesses. The student cannot instruct himself, another difference between learning Hermetic Virtues and Mystery Cult Virtues. Not every magus teaches Hermetic Virtues to his apprentice, although doing so does fulfill the annual requirement of one season of personal instruction due the apprentice. If a magus would rather teach Hermetic Virtues than Arts or Abilities, the apprentice may end up with less knowledge (fewer experience points) than his peers. Like most of apprenticeship, it is the parens' decision. It isn't unusual for a parens to teach Arts, Abilities, and spells during the required seasons of instruction, and spend additional seasons teaching the apprentice a Hermetic Virtue or two.

Training is not the only source of Hermetic Virtues; some Gifted individuals have Gifts that are naturally apt for certain areas of Hermetic magic. In game terms, they take the Hermetic Virtue before training.

Acquiring House Virtues

Every Hermetic House has one or more Virtues associated with it, and every Hermetic magus receives a free Minor Virtue based on his House. Players often refer to this Virtue as the "House Virtue," because it comes free with the character's Hermetic House. The House Virtue does not have to be specifically taught, although it can be. Often it is learned over time, assumed by the impressionable young apprentice as she learns magic during the prolonged teaching and laboratory interactions with her parens.

For over half of the Houses, it takes 10 seasons of one-to-one interactions with a parens for an apprentice to gain the free Minor House Virtue. Teaching Arts, Arcane Abilities, and spells and helping in the laboratory all count as seasons of one-to-one interactions. If an apprentice does not receive 10 seasons of one-to-one interaction, he does not receive the free House Virtue. In such a case, there would likely be other problems due to legal issues.

ACQUIRING THE MINOR HERMETIC HOUSE VIRTUE: Requires 10 Seasons of one-to-one Interaction with Parens

This rule pertains to seven of the twelve Houses: all four True Lineages, and three of the Societates. The fourth Societas, House Ex Miscellanea, is a special case because an apprentice of a House Ex Miscellanea magus receives a package of House Virtues and Flaws: one Minor Hermetic Virtue, one Major non-Hermetic Virtue, and one Major Hermetic Flaw. Because there are several types of Ex Miscellanea magi, the troupe should decide if an apprentice of a specific tradition learns the House Virtues and Flaws through one-on-one association or through a process similar to a Mystery Initiation like the Mystery Cult Houses.

An apprentice of a magus of a Mystery Cult gains the free House Virtue by undergoing an Initiation to learn the House's Outer Mystery. House Verditius Initiates an apprentice immediately following the opening of an apprentice's Arts. House Bjornaer Initiates an apprentice's Heartbeast at some point during apprenticeship, at the Ritual of Twelve Years (see Houses of Hermes: Mystery Cults, page 16). Houses Criamon and Merinita Initiate apprentices at various times, usually dependent on the master. Initiation into a House's Outer Mystery takes a season.

The apprentice must learn the same free House Virtue that his parens knows. In a House where there is a choice of House Virtues, the parens can decide which House Virtue is acquired, if he has both. House Flambeau, for example, has the choice of Puissant Perdo or Puissant Ignem. If the master has both Virtues, he can choose either as the apprentice's House Virtue.

Gaining Hermetic Flaws

Few apprentices purposefully gain Hermetic Flaws. A player can always select a Hermetic Flaw at character generation, and while this will develop sometime during the child character's life, that is different from gaining a Hermetic Flaw after creating the character. Hermetic Flaws acquired after character generation affect a character as soon as they are gained, their effects manifesting immediately. Hermetic magi have not found a way to remove Hermetic Flaws, and once gained a Hermetic Flaw is permanent, barring a story.

The two most common ways characters gain Hermetic Flaws are through learning Hermetic Virtues, and as a consequence of game play. As mentioned previously, it is easier to learn a Hermetic Virtue from a teacher if that teacher includes a Hermetic Flaw in the process. Hermetic magi do not fully understand why this is so, but like Mystery Cult Initiations, tainting the learning process with an incurred liability makes instruction easier. The second way characters gain Hermetic Flaws is through play. Uncontrolled Temporary Twilight episodes are a frequent cause, bestowing Hermetic Flaws on an apprentice in the same way they grant Hermetic Flaws to a magus (page 230). Gaining a Hermetic Deficiency Flaw during the opening of the Arts is another path to receiving a new Flaw during play. Some Supernatural creatures have the power to grant Minor and Major Flaws, and while these aren't always Hermetic, they can be. These Flaws are not necessarily permanent and many are temporary inconveniences. Realms of Power: Magic and Realms of Power: Faerie have details and example creatures.

Fleshing Out Your Apprentice

The basic benefit that an apprentice provides you is the addition of his Intelligence and Magic Theory scores to your Lab Totals (see page 264). If all you want is a lab assistant, you only need to keep track of your apprentice's Intelligence and Magic Theory scores, and after fifteen years, your apprentice becomes a full magus and leaves your service.

However, if created as a full character, an apprentice can be developed as the saga progresses into both a very important companion to your magus and a valuable member of the covenant. To create your apprentice as a character, determine Characteristics, Virtues and Flaws, and Abilities for a character of young age. Make sure that the character has The Gift, otherwise he cannot be taught Hermetic magic, and consider carefully whether to take any other supernatural abilities. Make sure that your magus can open the apprentice's Arts. Choose Abilities that the character learned in his childhood. As the saga progresses, update the apprentice's Abilities, magical Arts, spells known, and other statistics as you train him, just as you would those of any other character.

The Apprentice in Play

A fully developed apprentice makes a playable character. If you want to play an apprentice, keep in mind that you have no natural niche in the story. Grogs fight, companions provide skilled assistance, and magi have powerful spells. As an apprentice you are outclassed in all areas. Nevertheless, some stories are made exciting by an apprentice character or characters, as apprentices are interesting individuals, especially if there's no magus around to overshadow the apprentice's magic with his own. The Apprentices sourcebook covers these sorts of stories in much more detail, and gives more information on child characters.

When you are a magus and teacher, some of the best roleplaying opportunities for your apprentice arise when he is interacting with you. To encourage this, you may want to let another player roleplay your apprentice, or you may consider your apprentice a troupe character to be played by different members of the troupe at different times, much as a grog is (see Troupe Style Play on page 528).

The End of Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship ends with the 'apprentice's gauntlet', which is normally administered after fifteen years. This is set by the parens, and is intended to demonstrate that the apprentice is worthy to become a full magus. If the apprentice fails the gauntlet, he remains an apprentice, traditionally for another year.

If an apprentice fails three gauntlets, the Quaesitores set the fourth and subsequent gauntlets, to ensure that the parens is not setting impossible gauntlets simply to retain the apprentice's services. An apprentice who fails Quaesitorial gauntlets repeatedly will carry a reputation for incompetence with him if he ever does pass, but there is no other consequence. The Quaesitores do tend to set easier gauntlets than most parentes, testing basic competence only, so even those apprentices trained by Incomprehensible masters can normally pass.

Arcane Experimentation

The preceding rules assume that you are being careful with your alaboratory work and staying safely within the bounds of what you know how to do. If you wish, however, you can test your limits and experiment with new and possibly dangerous techniques. You can experiment when inventing a spell, creating any magical enchantment (device or familiar), or investigating an enchantment. In any case, you have the chance to perform feats that are normally beyond your capabilities, but you also run the risk of failing utterly, perhaps dangerously.

The Experimental Premise

At the beginning of each season, consider the project you're working on and decide whether you want to experiment on it. If you want to work from and benefit from a Laboratory Text, you cannot experiment, because you must follow the Laboratory Text precisely. If you do experiment, add a simple die roll to your Lab Total. This bonus represents the fruits of the risks you take. However, you must also roll a stress die on the "Extraordinary Results Chart" for each season that the project involves. If you experiment over multiple seasons, inventing the same spell or instilling the same power in a device, the chart results for each season accumulate and apply to the whole project. For example, if it takes two seasons to invest a power into your staff, you have to make a roll on the chart each season. Both results affect the staff or the power you're investing into it.

Exceptional Risk

You may choose to push your limits even further, adding from +1 to +3 (your choice) to the die roll; this bonus is called your risk modifier. When you do this, you must add the risk modifier to all your rolls on the "Extraordinary Results Chart," and you get a number of extra botch dice on your rolls equal to your bonus.

Extraordinary Results

Some of the results listed on the "Extraordinary Result Chart" require some interpretation. When interpreting these results, consider the magus's sigil, specialties, and weaknesses. Also take into account the type of spell or power being worked on, and the Laws of Magic. The more aspects of magic that you bring together, the more interesting the result is. The level of the effect is not changed by any extraordinary result, nor does it gain any requisites. This may result in a spell or effect that is more or less powerful than a conventional Hermetic effect of its

When referring to the "Extraordinary Results Chart," roll a stress die, adding your risk modifier (if any). If you roll a 0, roll one botch die, plus a number of botch dice equal to your risk modifier. You also get one additional botch die for each point in the supernatural aura of the laboratory, even it would not normally grant you extra botch dice (such as a Magic aura for magi).

If your creation comes out flawed or difficult to use because of your roll on the "Extraordinary Results Chart," you have two choices: live with the anomaly, or recreate the effect. If you recreate it, use the normal laboratory rules. However, you gain your Magic Theory score (your score at the time of your experiment) as a bonus to your Lab Total to accomplish the invention, having learned something from your nearly successful experiment. Thus, your Magic Theory score is applied twice to your Lab Total. The recreation process must occur in another season, and you need not experiment then. While this may often be a good option for spells, the additional costs for enchanted items make it less appealing there, and magi are more likely to choose to live with flaws, even quite serious ones.

Extraordinary Results Chart

ROLL	RESULT
Botch	Disaster
0-4	No extraordinary effects
5-6	Side effect
7	No benefit
8	Complete failure
9	Special or story event
10	Discovery
11	Modified effect
12	+Roll twice more on this chart.

Inventing a Spell by Experimentation

Points from the simple die, added to your Lab Total, might let you finish a spell sooner, or even invent a spell that is otherwise beyond your capacity. If even with the added simple die your Lab Total is still lower than the spell's level, you cannot invent the spell, and must still make a roll on the "Extraordinary Results Chart." Even though your experiment fails, it can still blow up in your face. Having failed to invent the spell, you may try again next season, and may experiment again. You do not gain your Magic Theory score as a bonus, however, as you did not nearly succeed.

Enchanted Items Created by Experimentation

Even with the added bonus of a simple die, your Lab Total may not meet the level of the effect you're investing. In that case, you lose all the vis involved and must still roll on the "Extraordinary Effects Chart." You may try again next season, though, and may experiment again.

If your Lab Total is high enough to invest an effect, but the effect turns out to be flawed (as determined by a roll on the chart), it still "takes up space" in your device, just like a normal effect. Thus, if you risk experimentation and make a mistake, you can permanently limit the effectiveness of your magical item.

Enchanting a Familiar by Experimentation

A magus would have to be insane to enchant his familiar by experimentation, as a mistake in any season of binding or instilling powers could taint the deepest bond he has. Still, some magi are insane. Experimenting on this activity adds to the Lab Total as normal.

Experimenting on Longevity Rituals

You may experiment on Longevity Rituals, adding the simple die to your Lab Total. This bonus increases the potency of your ritual, giving you greater resilience against the effects of aging. If your ritual is flawed by a roll on the "Extraordinary Results Chart," you may create a second ritual, which over-rides the effects of the flawed ritual, but this takes an additional season.

Investigating an Enchanted Item by Experimentation

The simple die is added to every roll made to discover an item's invested powers. If you cannot bring your Lab Total high enough to discover an item's powers, you still have to roll on the "Extraordinary Results Chart," though.

When investigating an enchanted item by experimenting on it, you take risks not normally taken, and may damage or destroy the magic item in the process. Any results from the chart indicating damage or changes to the project you are working on are applied to the magic item or one of its powers. It's possible, though, that a magic item's own protections can preserve it from the dangers of your experiments. If the level of an item's protecting power (like Magic Resistance or an appropriate spell) exceeds your Lab Total (including any bonus for experimentation), the item resists any damaging effects rolled on the chart.

Disaster: You fail miserably. Consult the following table for the result, depending on the number of zeroes rolled on the botch dice. Suffer the effect for the number you roll and for all lower numbers, unless explicitly told otherwise. For example, an explosion (3) also destroys the creation and inflicts Warping Points on the magus.

Zeroes	Result
1	Everyone in the lab gains Warping Points equal to the number of zeroes on the botch roll. Hermetic magi (and anyone else opened to the Hermetic Arts) must roll for Twilight if they gain two or more; members of other traditions may also suffer serious effects, as determined by their tradition. The season is completely wasted; see Complete Failure. If there are other results and magi choose not to resist Twilight, they enter Twilight before the effects occur, and thus avoid any personal damage.
2	Your creation is destroyed. If it is a single-season project, this is the same as a Complete Failure.
3	Your laboratory gains the Damaged Flaw.
4	Explosion! Your laboratory gains the Wrecked Flaw (instead of the Damaged Flaw), and anyone in the laboratory takes two Heavy Wounds.
5+	The storyguide picks one of the following: A story event threatens the whole covenant. This may arise immediately from the explosion (a mundane fire, for example), or may be a lingering after-effect of the uncontrolled magic, causing a story some time later. The explosion completely destroys the laboratory. The structure gains the Deformed and Unstable Flaws, and the whole laboratory must be rebuilt from nothing, rather than gaining the Wrecked Flaw. Anyone in the laboratory takes an additional Incapacitating Wound.

No Extraordinary Effects: Your experiment works without producing any unintended effects.

Side Effect: Your magical creation acquires a side effect. Roll a simple die, and work out the specifics with the storyguide.

ROLL	RESULT
1	Your sigil is exaggerated to many times its normal strength, becoming a significant portion of the effect.
2-3	The effect has a minor flaw. For example, a spell that allows you to communicate with animals causes you to retain some of the animal's speech patterns for a time after the spell ends.
4-5	The spell has a minor side effect. For example, a spell that controls an animal causes grass to grow under its feet.
6	The spell has a minor side benefit. For example, a wind spell has a pleasant smell and makes flying insects uncomfortable.
7	The spell has a major flaw. For example, a healing spell causes its targets great pain.
8	The spell has a major side effect. For example, a plant control spell attracts all birds in 100 paces.
9	The spell has a major side benefit. For example, a spell that transforms you into a wolf also lets you speak to all beasts while a wolf.
10	The spell has a fatal flaw. For example, an invisibility spell makes you glow.

No Benefit: Your experimentation produces no results. You lose the benefit of the extra die and risk modifier — recalculate your Lab Total without those modifiers. If your new Lab Total is too low to succeed in the project, it must be abandoned.

Complete Failure: You get nothing from your efforts, and your season is wasted. If you were working on a familiar or enchanted item, roll a simple die. On a 0, it is destroyed.

Special or Story Event: The storyguide picks one of the following.

The creation requires additional raw vis. The magus must spend a number of additional pawns of vis that match the Technique or Form of the project equal to the magnitude of the effect (including modifications) plus the risk modifier. If he is unable to do so, either because he does not have the vis, or because he cannot handle enough vis in a single season, treat as a Complete Failure.
The magus also creates a spell, with the same Technique and Form as the project, of any level that he could create in a single season. The spell is designed by the storyguide or troupe, and need not have an obvious connection to the project. The magus knows it, and can write up the Laboratory Text as normal, allowing other magi to create it as well. It is simpler if this spell does follow all the rules of Hermetic Magic, but that is not essential if the troupe is happy with the complications. Treat this as No Extraordinary Effects for the main project.
The creation is modified in some way that does not necessarily fall under the categories of Side Effect or Modified Effect, although it may if desired. This allows the storyguide to introduce any sort of supernatural effect — the creation could even be strongly affected by a different realm. The result may be positive or negative from the magus's perspective, but should be interesting for the troupe.
A story event happens. This can be anything, it could be used as an opportunity to introduce a major plot line, or as a brief and amusing distraction. It does not need to happen immediately, the uncontrolled magic might set something in motion, or it might be a result of using the creation in a particular context, some time later. The story event may be basically positive — the magus might attract the attention of a potential familiar, for example. Unless the story event requires otherwise, treat this as No Extraordinary Effects for the project itself.

Discovery: Roll a simple die and add your risk modifier. If you are engaged in Arcane Discovery (see page 277), you make a discovery that advances your project, and ignore this table.

Roll	Result
1–4	You gain 15 experience points in Magic Theory.
5–6	You gain 15 experience points in some Ability related to the experiment
7–8	You gain three experience points in one of the Arts used in the experiment.
9	You gain enough experience points to bring one of the Arts used in the experiment to the next level (or three experience points, whichever is greater).
10+	Roll twice, and reroll this result if it is generated again.

Modified Effect: Roll a simple die and add your risk modifier. If you were investigating a magic item, you have changed one or more of its powers.

Roll	Result
1–3	The spell or effect is reduced in range, duration, target, or potency.
4–6	The spell or effect's range, duration, target, or potency is increased.
7–8	The use of the spell or effect is restricted. For example, it fails to work in certain circumstances, like when it is raining.
9–10	The actual effect of your experiment is modified. For example, a spell like Curse of Circe (page 334) turns the target into a goat instead of a pig.
11+	The actual effect of your experiment is changed completely, save that the relevant Technique and Form remain unchanged, and the level remains similar.

Arcane Discovery

Hermetic magi can expand the possibilities of Hermetic magic through their own discoveries. It did not spring, perfect, from the brow of Bonisagus, and it has been developed and expanded since. The most famous examples are probably the development of the Aegis of the Hearth by Notatus of Bonisagus, the first Primus of that House, and the expansion of Vim magic to the Divine, Infernal, and Faerie realms by Conciatta of Bonisagus in the tenth century. (For more details on Conciatta, see Legends of Hermes.) Player characters may also attempt to expand Hermetic magic in this way, and while the immediate benefits of power are less than those of other laboratory projects, the gain in prestige may be far greater.

The Breakthrough

To achieve an arcane discovery, you must accumulate a number of breakthrough points determined by the type of Breakthrough your magus is attempting. There are three kinds of Breakthrough: Minor, Major and Hermetic. Note that it is recommended that the exact number of breakthrough points required may be varied, so the players do not know the precise number needed for the Breakthrough.

A Minor Breakthrough is a development that is immediately useful and applicable in the existing framework of Hermetic magic, such as a new Range, Target or Duration. It improves upon or adds to existing theory without truly reaching the limits of magic. A Minor Breakthrough typically requires around 30 breakthrough points. In many sagas, Minor Breakthroughs happen easily enough that a maga can expect to achieve this goal once or twice during her lifetime. Minor Breakthroughs could be more common, but are few because most magi Bonisagi have loftier goals. Why invent a new Range when you can attempt to break a Hermetic Limit? Grandiosity usually propels magi toward harder projects.

A Major Breakthrough pushes those limits, but does not break them; these include Hermetic Virtues for Gifted characters. Incorporating hedge magic into Hermetic theory is a Major Breakthrough, and the incorporation can then be taught to others as Supernatural Virtues. A Major Breakthrough typically requires around 45 breakthrough points. Notatus' development of the Aegis of the Hearth was a Major Breakthrough, a variable spell based on Bonisagus' Parma Magica. Major Breakthroughs make a magus famous. With persistence, a troupe playing in a fast saga could realistically see a player make a Major Breakthrough.

A Hermetic Breakthrough is research that breaks one of the Lesser Limits of Magic, for example a new Arcane Ability or the ability to cast permanent duration spells without vis. Hermetic Breakthroughs re-write the theory books; the only Hermetic Breakthrough in 450 years was the development of the Parma Magica by Bonisagus, which broke the Lesser Limit of Magic Resistance, a limit that still binds all known forms of non-Hermetic magic. A Hermetic Breakthrough typically requires around 60 breakthrough points.

A Breakthrough may be something entirely new, born from the imagination of a creative maga. It may also be based on a form of non-Hermetic magic, as a magus tries to make it possible for Hermetic magi to do something that non-Hermetic wizards do. In either case, the researcher may accumulate breakthrough points through experimentation, as described later. In the latter case, the magus may also study the non-Hermetic magic, seeking insights into its nature and applying them to Hermetic magic. Both of these approaches yield breakthrough points, and points from both sources may be mixed in a single project. In either case, the troupe must define the result of the research in advance and agree on the level of Breakthrough. Success will change the saga, and so it is important that the whole troupe is happy with those changes. Ancient Magic and Hedge Magic Revised Edition contain a large number of suggested Breakthroughs that would allow a magus to incorporate certain aspects of non-Hermetic magic into Hermetic theory. These can also serve as inspiration for Breakthroughs that are not linked to any existing tradition.

Experimentation

Once you have determined what sort of Breakthrough you would like to accomplish, you must invent something Hermetically that somehow incorporates your idea. This can be a spell or a magical enchantment, either a lesser enchantment or a charged item. Detail the effect fully, as per the normal rules. Since you are searching for clues aimed at surpassing regular Hermetic theories, you must experiment, using the rules found in the Arcane Experimentation section earlier, including choosing a risk modifier for your experiment and rolling on the Extraordinary Results Chart.

For your original research to be fruitful you must roll the Discovery result on the Extraordinary Results Chart. Fortune plays a large roll in the research process. However, you can hedge your bet with original research in a way that you can not with regular experimentation. Instead of adding your risk modifier into your Lab Total during the season, you use that modifier to adjust your roll on the Extraordinary Results Chart. The risk modifier still runs the range of +1 to +3, but you are restricted in your choice by your Magic Theory score. For every five points or fraction thereof of Magic Theory (including Puissant Magic Theory) you may choose a risk modifier of 1. Thus, to chose a risk modifier of +2 your Magic Theory must be 6 or higher, and a risk modifier of +3 requires a Magic Theory of 11+.

RISK MODIFIER: +1 per 5 points of Magic Theory or fraction thereof, up to +3

Consult the Extraordinary Results Chart as normal to determine the effect on your spell, including adding your Risk Modifier. However, you may also add or subtract all or part of your Risk Modifier in order to get a Discovery in addition to the normal effect of experimentation. Thus, if you had a Risk Modifier of +3, and rolled an 8, you would get a Modified Effect (from a total of 11). You could also subtract 1 to get a Discovery in addition. The effect of the spell is still modified. You cannot use the Risk Modifier to get a supplementary result other than a Discovery.

BREAKTHROUGH: Roll Discovery on the Extraordinary Results Chart during a season of Arcane Experimentation

RISK MODIFIER: Do not add risk modifier into Lab Total. Add or Subtract up to risk modifier again from the stress die rolled on the Extraordinary Results Chart

You are hoping for a Discovery. If you do not roll a Discovery, your spell or item is still affected by the Extraordinary Results Chart. Most likely you will end up with a slightly odd Hermetic effect. If your original research involved a spell and that spell is flawed or difficult to cast, you may reinvent the spell using the rules found in the Arcane Experimentation section. If your research involved an item and that item is flawed, you may attempt to reinvent that item, but all vis used in the initial experiment is lost.

If your spell or enchanted item research takes more than a single season to complete you must continue to roll on the Extraordinary Results Chart for each season. Having deciding how you will use your Risk Modifier in a previous season, you must continue to use it in the same manner for consecutive seasons. If you subtracted 1 from your initial roll on the Extraordinary Results Chart in your first season, for example, you must subtract 1 from every additional roll on the Extraordinary Results Chart in additional seasons until the item or spell is completed. You may accrue odd and weird results as your research progresses, but may continue to experiment providing you don't receive a Complete Failure or Disaster result.

If you do achieve a Discovery during your experimentation then the original research was a success. Ignore the Discovery sub-chart of the Extraordinary Results Chart; that chart applies to those not investigating the deeper mystery of Hermetic magic, instead discovering something more intimate about their personal connection to magic and the Arts. You, however, have found that elusive element of magic that you started your original research searching for. Now you must stabilize that experimental process to better understand your discovery.

Each spell or magical enchantment can only lead to one discovery. You may repeatedly invent the same spell or enchantment experiment until a discovery is rolled, even if the experiment was a success. Thus, you may accumulate many usable versions of the same spell in process of your research. However, once a specific experiment yields a Discovery, you may no longer explore that spell or magical enchantment for further discoveries.

Stabilizing The Unknown

After you have achieved your Discovery, you must stabilize that process through exact repetition. You must repeat the experimentation, continuing for the same number of seasons and using the exact Lab Total and risk modifier that you used to find your Discovery. If you used vis during your process you must repeat the amount used. You must roll again on the Extraordinary Results Chart, and you must modify your roll in the same direction as you did to make the Discovery. This means that if you added your risk modifier to your roll your must add it again, if you subtracted your risk modifier from your roll you must subtract it this second time.

During the stabilization season you do not need to roll a Discovery to succeed. As long as you do not roll a harmful effect (Disaster, No Benefit, Complete Failure) you stabilize your discovery. Ignore any beneficial result you might roll. If you do roll a harmful effect your stabilization process fails, although you may try again in a subsequent season.

If your stabilization season succeeds, you gain one breakthrough point per magnitude of the invented Hermetic spell or enchanted item. You also create a Laboratory Text that explains your discovery.

SUCCESSFUL STABILIZATION SEASON: Magnitudes of Stabilized Discovery = Breakthrough Points

As a side affect to this stabilization process, you receive Warping Points from your attempts to understand this new magic. The number of Warping Points gained is the magnitude of the effect minus a simple die. If you gain 2 or more Warping Points you must roll to avoid Wizard's Twilight (page 228). You can obviously mitigate the chance of gaining Warping Points by experimenting with lower magnitude effects. However, this lengthens your original research process, since it is your accumulated effect magnitudes that ultimately add up to your Breakthrough. Experimenting with higher magnitude spells hastens you toward your Breakthrough and increases your risk of Wizard's Twilight.

WARPING POINTS GAINED: The magnitude of the Stabilized Discovery – a simple die

You receive Warping Points whether you succeed or fail at stabilizing your discovery. If your stabilization attempt fails, you may spend another season and try it again. You may continue to stabilize your discovery until you succeed, providing you spend consecutive seasons until you succeed and you do not suffer some dire event along the way.

Integration

Insight can also be gained from studying some feature of a non-Hermetic magical practice. Every insight the magus gains allows him to produce a partially Hermetic effect incorporating some aspect of the magic in question. As he produces more of these effects, he gains the broader understanding necessary to incorporate that aspect into Hermetic theory as a whole.

The seasons spent gaining insight produce Laboratory Texts. Any magus may study these Laboratory Texts over the course of a season in order to gain the same insight for himself, even without direct access to the artifacts. Summaries of Laboratory Texts are not useful in this way, however, only the whole thing can be used. For purposes of copying, insight Laboratory Texts have a level equal to the typical number of breakthrough points needed for the type of Breakthrough in question.

There are three sources of insight: texts, relics and teachers.

Texts are books and tomes, symbolic wall paintings, or other explanatory sources which describe how to learn, perform or cast a magical effect. If the text contains the information needed to improve a Supernatural Ability, a character who already had the Ability could use it, as per the normal rules. Most Hermetic magi however, do not have other Supernatural Abilities. Alternatively, the text may contain the rites and practices needed to perform a magical spell or ritual associated with an ancient magical tradition.

Relics are the mystical devices or sacred items enchanted by practitioners of the tradition, and incorporating unique aspects of that tradition. Additionally, a relic may be an on-going mystical effect caused by the magical tradition. Like Hermetic magical devices, a magus is able to investigate the device to learn its secrets and unlock the methods used to craft it.

Teachers are individuals who possess the Supernatural Abilities associated with the ancient magic and are able and willing to instruct a Hermetic magus. For contemporary traditions of non-Hermetic magic, such individuals are relatively accessible, although close collaboration with a "hedge wizard" might harm a maga's reputation. The ghosts of practitioners of extinct traditions may remain in Mythic Europe, and might be convinced to teach a maga.

For every season a magus spends investigating a source of insight, make a stress roll of Intelligence + Magic Theory against an Ease Factor of 18. Inventive Genius adds three to this roll, and some sources of insight may add their own modifiers. If the roll succeeds, the magus gains an insight. If it fails, he learns nothing now, but may try again in another season. He may do other things before returning to his study. On a botch, the magus thinks he has an insight, but does not. He realizes this if he creates an effect, as described below, in an attempt to use the insight, the final product is entirely Hermetic, or simply non-functional.

A single source can generally only provide a single insight, although there may be rare exceptions. The same source provides the same insight for any magus who studies it.

Creating the Effect

A particular insight allows the researcher to create one, specified effect. This effect might be a spell, or an effect enchanted into an item. It could, conceivably, be another laboratory project; anything that uses a Lab Total and creates something. However, spells are by far the most common, followed by item enchantments. The magus must experiment while creating the effect, as he is most certainly stretching the boundaries of Hermetic magic.

The researcher does not get to choose the effect for which he receives insight, and as the level of the effect is fixed, the insight might be for an effect he cannot yet invent. For example, the effect might be level 40, while the researcher has a Lab Total of 32. In that case, the researcher can increase his Lab Total and then work on the effect.

The troupe should decide on the effects that result from particular pieces of insight, choosing ones that advance the saga without upsetting play balance. Player characters can vary things as much as they like once they fully integrate the system, so the restrictions at this stage should be accepted with good grace.

The researcher must invent exactly the effect inspired by the insight. He may not vary the Range, Duration, or Target, or any other parameters. As the magus must experiment while inventing the effect, the result may be slightly different, as a result of rolls on the Extraordinary Results table.

A spell is cast like a normal Formulaic spell, and characters with Flexible Formulaic Magic may vary it at casting time in the normal way. The spell may also be Mastered, again in the normal way.

The effect created may bend or break the limits of magic, as it incorporates non-Hermetic elements. Setting the level of the effect may well require a judgment call by the troupe, as it may do something for which there is no Hermetic guideline.

If the effect is successfully created, the magus gains a number of breakthrough points equal to the magnitude of the effect. This applies even if the final effect is warped or has a side effect. These points are added to the magus's running total, and he must find another source of insight before repeating the procedure.

The effect produced in this way can be reproduced by other Hermetic magi. However, they can only do so if they have access to a Laboratory Text describing it, and it is not possible to vary the effect in any way, it must be reproduced exactly as it was initially created.

Reproducing the effect in this way does not grant breakthrough points unless the reproducing magus also gains the relevant insight, whether from investigating the same item or from reading the original investigator's Laboratory Texts. It is possible to reproduce the effect first, and study the insight Laboratory Texts later.

After the Breakthrough

Minor Breakthroughs are usable immediately in the game, and are understandable by all Hermetic magi. New Ranges or Durations may be incorporated into new spells or items, and the Laboratory Texts distributed for a spell may be used by another Hermetic magus without his needing to research the Breakthrough. Any magus who has created an effect using the Breakthrough can then use that Range or Duration freely in his other spells, and any magus trained by that magus, in either Arts or spells, may also do so.

Major and Hermetic Breakthroughs must be taught to Hermetic magi directly. An Ability may be taught in the usual way, either in person or through books. The discoverer converts his breakthrough points into experience points in the new Ability, so that a magus who accrued 50 breakthrough points to integrate an Ability would start with a score of 4.

A new Virtue may be Initiated according to the normal rules for Mysteries. The discoverer gains the Virtue when he completes the integration, and does not need to be Initiated. He does need to design an Initiation Script, following the rules in the Long-Term Events chapter (page 388). The Virtue can also be taught to an apprentice, following the rules given earlier. In theory, it could be taught to any magus, but the penalties are likely to make that impossible in practice.

A second Major Breakthrough integrates a Major or Hermetic Breakthrough completely into Hermetic magic. If this succeeds, any magus may create an effect using the Breakthrough as long as he has a Lab Text, and then may use the Breakthrough freely. As for Minor Breakthroughs, the same applies to any magus taught Arts or spells by a magus who understands the Breakthrough. Experimentation is always suitable for this second Breakthrough, and integration may be used if there are suitable non-Hermetic traditions to study.

Ink of Hermes

This ink (also called “Hermaic Ink”) is mentioned in many alchemical texts. The ingredients are four drams of myrrh, three karian figs, seven pits of Nikolaus dates, seven dried pine cones, seven piths of single-stemmed wormwood, seven wings of the Hermaic ibis, and spring water. The ingredients are burned, reduced, and mixed.

Shape and Material Bonuses Table


Adze	+2 beautify wood structures
Agate	+3 air +5 protection from storms +7 protection from venom
Alabaster	+2 forgiving +4 mental acuity
Alder Wood	+1 resist decay +2 royalty
Almond Wood	+3 Creo Herbam
Aloe	+3 friendship
Amber	+3 controlling movement +3 Corpus
Amethyst	+2 wealth +2 hearing +3 versus poison +3 dreams +4 temperance +7 versus drunkenness
Amulet Bearing the Sigils of Angels	+7 ward against demons +7 banish demons
Anchor	+3 prevent movement
Animal Bone	+4 harm or destroy animals
Animal Hide	+7 turn into appropriate animal
Apple Wood	+1 longevity +1 Corpus
Aquamarine	+3 water
Armillary Sphere	+5 display the heavens +5 celestial time
Armor	+7 protect wearer
Arrow	+2 aiming +3 direction
Artifacts from Pompeii and Herculaneum	+3 volcanoes
Ash (Burned Debris)	+2 burning things +2 Ignem +5 affect things that have been burned
Ash Wood	+2 harm people
Aspen Wood	+2 cure disease +5 cure fever
Astrolabe	+5 astrology +5 measure the stars and heavens +5 navigation
Auger	+2 shape wood +2 puncture wood
Axe	+4 destroy wood
Bag/Sack	+3 moving things into or out of +5 trapping things within
Bandage	+4 healing wounds
Basalt	+3 Ignem +3 Perdo
Basilisk Eye	+8 kill at a distance
Basket	+2 collect items +3 create things within +4 preserve contents +5 create food within
Bed	+6 affect sleep and dreams
Beech Wood	+3 knowledge
Bell	+5 warning
Bellows	+4 create wind +5 strengthen fire
Belt or Girdle	+3 affect strength
Beryl	+3 water
Billhook	+2 pruning
Birch Wood	+1 Creo +3 childbirth
Blackthorn Wood	+2 dark fay +6 guardians
Bloodstone	+4 blood and wounds
Boat	+3 sailing
Bookshelf	+3 hide things within +4 protect things within
Boots	+5 affect walking
Bow	+5 destroy things at a distance
Brass	+3 music +3 Ignem +4 demons, devils, and angels
Bronze	+3 Terram +5 darkness
Candle, Black	+2 summon demons
Candle Made of Goat Fat	+3 summon demons
Cappadocian Salt	+6 purifying effects
Carving of Behemoth	+3 great size
Cask	+3 induce drunkenness
Cat's Eye	+3 versus malign Corpus
Catoblepas Esophagus	+7 kill or harm humans
Cedar Wood	+2 binding spirits +5 any effect with Mentem and Herbam requisites
Chalice	+4 detect poison within +5 transform or create liquid in
Chalk, Blue	+2 wards against demons
Cherry Wood	+4 bloodshed
Chestnut Wood	+3 justice +4 honesty
Chimera Tongue	+8 create fire
Cinnabar	+3 long life +4 wealth +4 language +5 dragons
Cinnamon	+2 destroying ghosts +4 Imaginem
Cinquefoil	+2 making amends +3 drive away demons +4 resist poison
Clam Shell	+2 protection
Cleaver	+2 butchery +3 Perdo Animal
Clear Glass	+4 invisibility +5 seeing through something
Cloak	+3 flight +4 transform wearer +5 alter/suppress wearer's image
Cloth Shears	+2 shaping fabrics
Coin	+4 induce greed +4 wealth and mercantile
Collar	+6 control wearer
Comb	+5 beauty +7 affect hair
Container	+5 create or transform within
Copper	+2 passion +2 sex magic +3 bloodshed +4 effects that change its own shape +4 deftness
Coral, Red	+10 versus demons
Cross	+5 ward away supernatural +5 cause damage to Infernal creatures +5 banish demons
Crowbar	+2 moving stone
Crown	+2 wisdom +3 control people +5 gain respect, authority
Crystal	+5 water-related effect
Cypress Wood	+3 spirits +3 necromancy
Dagger/ Knife	+2 precise destruction +3 betrayal, assassination +3 poisoning
Diamond	+5 versus demons
Dividers	+2 measuring
Dogwood	+5 pixies
Door	+5 warding
Doorway	+5 magical transportation +7 affect movement through +7 magical gates and portals
Doum Palm Leaf	+3 controlling instincts and base emotions
Down	+3 silence
Dragon Eye	+8 protection against ghosts
Dragon Heart	+7 Intellego
Dragon Teeth	+6 invisibility
Drum	+2 cause fear +3 create storms and thunder +5 deafening
Earring	+5 affect hearing
Elder Wood	+1 Vim +4 malicious magic
Electrum	+3 scrying +3 deception +4 Muto Terram
Elm Wood	+2 death and decay
Emerald	+4 incite love or passion +7 snakes and dragonkind +2 calm
Fan	+4 banish weather phenomena +4 create or control winds
Fig Wood	+3 sex magic +3 gambling
Fir Wood	+3 darkness +1 malicious faeries
Fired Clay	+4 contain or protect from fire
Flail	+3 harvesting grain
Floor	+7 affect movement across
Frankincense	+3 Perdo Vim +3 dreams +4 cleanse a place of Infernal influence
Garnet	+2 navigation +2 strengthen body and mind +2 vigor +3 bonds of commitment +4 repel insects
Glove	+4 affect things by touch +4 manipulation at a distance
Gold	+2 health +4 induce greed +4 nobility +4 peace +4 affect wealth
Granite	+2 wealth +3 Terram
Green Turquoise	+4 necromancy
Griffin Feather	+5 strength +6 flying
Hall	+3 magical transportation +6 affect movement through
Handsaw	+3 delicately shape wood
Hat	+4 affect image of self
Hatchet	+4 destroy wood
Hawthorn Wood	+3 wards
Hazel Wood	+1 good judgement +3 divination
Hearth	+5 destroy things within +7 create fire and heat
Helmet	+4 affect wearer's mind/emotions +6 affect wearer's sight
Hippogriff Liver	+5 freedom from restraints +6 flying
Holly Wood	+2 inflict wounds +2 inflict pain
Hornbeam Wood	+6 strength +6 Vim against hostile magic
Horseshoe	+2 warding +6 affect horse's movement
Hourglass	+3 increasing speed +7 timing and alarms
Human Bone	+3 destroy the human mind +4 destroy the human body
Human Skull	+4 destroy human body +5 destroy human mind +5 destroy or control ghosts +10 destroy or control ghost of particular skull
Hyacinth	+2 healing
Hydra Teeth	+6 Creo +8 regeneration
Ink of Hermes	+3 Vim +5 books
Iron	+7 harm or repel faeries
Iron Shackles	+8 bind faeries
Ivory	+5 healing
Jade	+4 Aquam
Jasper	+2 healing +2 versus demons
Jet	+2 protection +3 darkness
Jewelry/Clothing	+2 move self +4 protect self +4 transform self
Lamp	+4 create fire +7 produce light
Linden Wood	+1 good fortune +2 protection against weapons
Lead	+3 summoning or binding ghosts and spirits +3 hatred +4 wards
Lemon Wood	+5 hearing
Leucrota Tongue	+6 mimic human voices
Lilac Wood	+2 travel
Lion’s Blood	+2 leadership +3 courage +4 protection from wild beasts
Lion's Mane	+5 strength, courage, pride
Living Tree	Triple the bonus for the type of wood (oak, ash, etc), but not for wood as such. This only applies if the whole living tree is enchanted.
Lyre	+3 create sounds +5 affect music
Magnes Stone (Female)	+2 invisibility +3 purification
Magnes Stone (Male)	+3 divination +7 control iron
Magnet	+2 Rego +4 Rego Corpus +4 Rego Terram
Magnetite	+3 Animal
Mallet	+2 precision
Manacles	+4 binding
Marble	+2 cold +3 beauty +5 wards
Mask	+2 affect wearer's sight +2 affect wearer’s breathing +3 hiding +7 disguise
Mason Chisel	+2 shape stone
Mast	+2 protection from temptation
Mercury	+3 arts and sciences +3 Aquam +3 Terram +5 Muto
Mirror	+3 summon or bind ghosts +5 see the truth +6 display images +7 illusions
Myrmecoleon Exoskeleton	+6 deprivation and starvation
Myrrh	+3 spirits
Necklace	+4 affect breathing and speaking
Net	+5 immobilization
Oak Wood	+7 protection from storms
Oar	+4 affect currents
Obsidian	+5 darkness
Onyx	+4 darkness +4 death
Opal	+2 images +2 imagination +2 invisibility +4 travel +4 memory +6 eyes
Orange Tree Wood	+5 sight
Palm Wood	+3 animating wood
Panpipes	+3 affect emotions +5 control children +5 revelry +6 affect faerie emotion
Panther of Virtue’s Hide	+6 song and melodious sounds
Pearl	+5 detect or eliminate poisons
Pelican of Virtue’s Beak	+8 healing and nurturing
Pepper	+2 Perdo
Peridot	+3 protection against nightmares
Phoenix Ashes	+11 rejuvenation and regeneration
Phylactery	+5 protect wearer
Pick	+4 destroy stone
Pin Feather	+2 Auram +5 flight
Pine Wood	+1 friendly faeries +3 light
Pitchfork	+2 gathering reaped grain
Plum Wood	+2 blood
Pure Honey	+2 preservation +5 spiritual travel
Quartz	+5 invisibility
Quill	+7 scribing
Rat Skull	+3 cause disease
Red Gold	+1 Perdo +4 war
Remora of Virtue’s Fins	+7 slow or halt a moving object
Rhodocrosite	+2 memories +3 forgetfulness +3 binding wounds
Ring	+2 constant effect
Rock Crystal	+3 healing +3 ice +4 clarity +5 clairvoyance
Room	+4 create things within +6 affect everything within at once
Rope or Cord	+2 strangulation +4 restraint or binding
Rowan Wood	+1 Vim +4 protection against malicious magic
Ruby	+2 courage +3 battle wounds +3 affect blood +4 leadership in war +6 fire-related effect
Rug	+3 affect those upon it
Saddle	+4 affect horse +7 affect riding
Saffron	+4 physical strength
Salamander of Virtue’s Skin	+8 extinguish fire
Sapphire	+2 knowledge +2 versus malign Corpus +2 Perdo Vim against spirits +3 healing +3 reducing anger
Sardonyx	+2 versus malign Corpus
Scales	+3 weighing goods and money
Scythe	+3 reaping +3 Year-Duration effects +4 effects expressly causing death
Sea Shell	+2 the sea +3 sea creatures
Serpentine	+3 vs. infection and animal poison
Shackles	+6 restraint or magical binding
Sharp Blade	+2 shape leather
Shearing Shears	+2 fleecing
Shield	+5 protection
Ship	+5 sailing
Ship Sail	+4 affect winds
Siberian Six-Legged Antelope Hoof	+6 speed and quickness
Sickle	+2 harvesting
Silver	+1 Terram +2 Intellego +3 protect spirits +5 lycanthropes in general +10 harm lycanthropes
Small Hammer	+2 building
Snake Tongue	+3 deception +6 lying
Snip	+2 shape metal
Spade	+4 move or destroy earth
Star Ruby	+5 conjure/control occult entities
Sulfur	+2 sowing discord +2 preserving or decaying +3 binding tongues +4 demons
Sun Scarab	+4 detect magic
Sword	+3 block single attack +4 harm human and animal bodies
Tablet	+2 command spirits
Tin	+1 law +3 weakness
Tongs	+2 controlling metal
Topaz	+4 leadership +4 strength, courage, pride +5 controlling wild beast
Toy	+4 control children
Trowel	+2 building
True Purple	+5 control people +7 rulership and authority +10 royalty
Turquoise	+4 necromancy
Unicorn Horn	+8 healing +10 detect poison +11 fertility
Vent	+7 affect air passing through it
Violet Amethyst	+4 ascendancy over masses +7 versus drunkenness
Walnut Wood	+4 mind
Wand/Staff	+2 repel things +3 project bolt or other missile +4 control things at a distance +4 destroy things at a distance
Waterskin	+5 create liquid within
Whip	+4 control human or animal body +5 induce fear in animals
White Poplar Wood	+4 mind
Willow Wood	+1 cure wounds +4 restore limb
Wood (Dead)	+3 affect living wood +4 affect dead wood
Wood from a Tree Struck by Lightning	+2 Auram
Wood from a Twisted Tree in a Field	+4 disfigure
Yellow Sandalwood	+3 binding people
Yew Wood	+2 corpses +2 visions
Yoke	+4 control wearer +5 enhance strength of wearer

Laboratory Personalization Rules

After settling in to her standard and average laboratory, a young maga will sooner or later start to consider the possibilities of adding a little personal touch and flavor to her workspace. This will help her to feel a greater sense of identity and comfort with her own lab, but perhaps more importantly, the lab will also become more effective in her preferred areas of research. Needless to say, labs usually grow to become colored according to the personal habits and magical specialties of a magus. A long-established laboratory tells a great deal about its owner, in its features and outfittings, as well as in its cleanliness and orderliness.

In introducing the new statistics for laboratories, it may be helpful to think of the lab as a character in its own right: it has Characteristics, Virtues and Flaws, Specializations (which are analogous to Abilities for human characters), and possibly also Personality Traits.

Each laboratory is characterized by a set of eight Characteristics, with a standard (default) lab starting with scores of 0 in each. Unlike human Characteristics, however, these values are relatively easy to change. Labs with a positive Warping Characteristic also have one or more Personality Traits. Each lab may also have a number of Virtues and Flaws, which may be Major (worth 3 points), Minor (worth 1 point), or Free (0 points), just as for human characters. Certain Virtues and Flaws may grant a lab a small number of Specializations. A Specialization adds its score to any Lab Total with a particular Art or type of activity. For example, a lab might have Specializations Spells 1 and Creo 2.

Laboratory Characteristics

The eight Laboratory Characteristics are as follows:

Size, Refinement, General Quality, Upkeep, Safety, Warping, Health, Aesthetics

Apart from Warping, which cannot be negative, each Characteristic may be positive, negative, or zero. A standard lab starts with all Characteristics at zero.

To determine the Characteristics of a non-standard laboratory, proceed as follows:

Select the Size and Refinement scores according to the descriptions of these Characteristics below.
Set the Safety to be equal to the Refinement. If the occupied Size (see below) is greater than zero, subtract it from the Safety. Set the scores of the remaining five Characteristics to zero.
For each of the lab's Virtues and Flaws, apply any adjustments to the Characteristics that they specify.

Size

Size specifies broadly how much floor space is provided by the physical structure of the laboratory. The larger the laboratory is, the more benefits (Virtues) it can accommodate. Thus, each point of Size adds to the maximum permitted number of Virtue points minus Flaw points (see Virtues and Flaws, below).

It is sometimes necessary to use the occupiedSize, which might be less than the Size. More often than not, the laboratory is filled to capacity (there is no more room for extra points of Virtues), in which case the occupied Size is simply equal to the Size. However, if the lab space is not fully used, then the occupied Size is equal to the Size minus the number of free points available for new Virtues. (We will see below that this is exactly the same as the number of points of Virtues minus Flaws, minus the Refinement.) For example, a lab with Size +4 and Refinement 0, and two points of Virtues minus Flaws, has an occupied Size of +2. In this case, the occupied Size is given in parentheses, so for this example, the Size would be written as +4 (+2).

Despite the extra Virtues that they may accommodate, most magi do not opt to have a significantly above-average sized lab. This is because labs with positive Size have two drawbacks:

Firstly, the more a laboratory is expanded, the more unmanageable and dangerous it becomes — it becomes harder to oversee it all, and it takes longer to get around it. Magi can only cope with a certain extent of equipment and outfittings, before they begin to lose track of it all. For this reason, and as stated above, the occupied Size (if positive) subtracts from the lab's base Safety. (Since Refinement has the opposite effect, however, this penalty may be offset by taking a Refinement at least as high as the Size.) There is no Safety benefit to an occupied Size less than zero.

Secondly, it looks slightly ridiculous if a chamber is far larger than it needs to be to accommodate a laboratory. It is not aesthetically pleasing if, for example, all your furniture and equipment squats in the middle of a much larger room, surrounded by an echo chamber of unused space which merely gathers dust and cobwebs. For this reason, for every full two points by which the Size exceeds the occupied Size, you should take the Empty Flaw. For example, a lab with Size +5 (0) should take the Empty Flaw twice.

Size	Square Feet
-3	100
-2	200
-1	350
0	500
+ 1	650
+2	800
+3	1000
+4	1250
+5	1500

A lab cannot be smaller than Size –3. However, there is no upper limit; for each additional 500 square feet beyond 1500, add a further +1 to Size.

Size and Refinement Summary

LIMIT OF VIRTUE POINTS MINUS FLAW POINTS: Size + Refinement
OCCUPIED SIZE: current Virtue points – Flaw points – Refinement
BASE SAFETY OF LAB: Refinement – occupied Size (if greater than zero)

Refinement is a measure of the expertise and time taken to assemble the contents of the lab efficaciously. The more experienced a maga is, the more efficiently she can make use of the available space. Just like Size, therefore, each point of Refinement adds to the maximum permitted number of Virtue points minus Flaw points (see Virtues and Flaws, below). Highly-refined labs can thus either be smaller than normal, without needing to suffer Flaws, or permit more points of Virtues than would otherwise be possible.

A freshly-assembled lab starts with a Refinement score of 0, unless the assembler has a Magic Theory of less than 3, in which case its Refinement score is equal to her Magic Theory – 3. However, for magi with a Magic Theory of more than 3, the starting Refinement score is always 0, no matter how high their Magic Theory.

The rules for increasing a lab's Refinement are quite straightforward: You need to be familiar with the lab in question (as a rule of thumb, you need to have worked in the lab for a number of years equal to the existing Refinement score) and need a Magic Theory equal to at least the desired Refinement score, plus 3. Increasing the Refinement by one point takes a season of work, during which time the lab's contents are optimized and rearranged. For example, if you have a Magic Theory of 5 and a lab with a Refinement 0, you can spend one season to increase the Refinement to +1, and a further season to increase it to +2.

Such a season of work also gives a chance to gain the Highly Organized and Spotless Virtues or to gain or lose the Hidden Defect Flaw. Make an Intelligence + Magic Theory stress roll. If this meets an Ease Factor of 12, Highly Organized is gained. If this also meets an Ease Factor of 15, then any existing Hidden Defect Flaw may be spotted and corrected (the Flaw is removed). However if the roll results in a botch, the Hidden Defect Flaw is gained. If you wish, you may also make a Tidy (or other relevant Personality Trait) roll against an Ease Factor of 9. If this succeeds, the Spotless Virtue is gained. See below for the effects of these two Virtues and the Hidden Defect Flaw.

Whenever the Refinement score increases by one, the occupied Size decreases by one, since there is one extra spare point made available for Virtues. Since the base Safety of a lab is equal to Refinement – occupied Size (if positive), whenever the Refinement score increases by one, the net Safety increase is either one point (if the new occupied Size is negative) or two points (otherwise).

For example, Darius (when he has a Magic Theory of 4) spends a season to increase the Refinement of his standard laboratory (with all Characteristics equal to zero, and no Virtues and Flaws) to +1. This causes the occupied Size to drop to -1 and the Safety to increase to +1. There is now free space for one Minor Virtue. If, in the next season, he installs such a Virtue, the occupied Size returns to 0, and the Safety stays at +1. Later on, he has an extension to the chamber constructed, taking its Size to +1 (0), and allowing space for one more Minor Virtue. When he spends a further season to install such a Virtue, the occupied Size increases to +1, and the Safety thus drops to 0. Later still (when Darius has increased his Magic Theory to 5) he spends a further season to increase the Refinement to +2. This causes the occupied Size to drop to 0 and the Safety to increase to +2. When he spends another season to install his third Minor Virtue, the occupied Size returns to +1, and the Safety drops to +1.

General Quality

General Quality is simply an overall measure of the effectiveness of the lab in all areas. General Quality adds to all Lab Totals. This bonus (or penalty, if the General Quality is negative) applies in addition to any other Lab Total adjustments (such as from Specializations). This Characteristic has no effect on teaching (except for teaching spells, which uses a Lab Total) or the scribing of texts.

Upkeep

Upkeep specifies the monetary cost of building and maintaining the lab. For example, a lab with priceless ingredients may have a better General Quality, but it is also more expensive to maintain. A lab with an Upkeep of 0 costs 5 pounds to build and 1 pound per typical year of use to maintain. See Chapter 6: Covenants for the costs of labs with other Upkeep scores.

There may be insufficient money to maintain a lab at its current Upkeep. In this case, after two seasons of use with neglected maintenance, a new Flaw is gained automatically (or an existing Virtue lost), which reduces the Upkeep. This may need to be repeated (after another two seasons) until the Upkeep drops to an affordable level. For example, Semita Errabunda experiences a temporary financial crisis, and can only afford to spend one pound per year on Darius's Upkeep +2 laboratory (which normally needs three pounds per year). After two seasons, the lab gains a Flaw which reduces the Upkeep to +1, and after a further two seasons, another Flaw, taking the Upkeep to 0.

If a new Virtue or Flaw (or its removal) results in a increase to Upkeep, then the difference between the old and new build costs (which are 1 pound per 2 points of the lab; see Chapter 6: Covenants) must be paid. For example, raising the Upkeep from +2 to +4 (an increase of 70 points) costs 35 pounds. Thereafter, maintenance is paid at the new, higher rate. However if the Upkeep score should drop, there is no refund.

Safety

The higher the Safety, the lower the risk of any lab accidents, and vice versa. The Safety score subtracts its value from the number of botch dice on all lab activities. (Thus, a negative Safety results in more botch dice.) Labs with a zero or better Safety are fairly trustworthy places — there is only a significant danger of an accident with certain categories of lab activities (those requiring a stress roll, such as when using experimentation, or when studying from vis). Labs with a negative Safety, however, are deemed unsafe. With an unsafe lab, there is always the risk of an accident, no matter what type of lab work is undertaken. While some magi are prepared to accept the level of risk of a slightly negative Safety, such as -1 or -2, it is a very reckless magus who is prepared to work repeatedly in a highly unsafe lab.

For each season of work in an unsafe lab, roll a simple die. (This extra roll is in addition to any others which may be made, such as for experimentation or study from vis.) If the result is less than or equal to the absolute value of the Safety (in other words, ignore the minus sign), there is a chance of suffering a lab botch, in which case make a roll the usual number of botch dice (including the extra dice for having a negative Safety). For this roll, you cannot have no botch dice; there is always a minimum of at least one. In the event of a botch, a lab accident is suffered — consult the Disaster sub-chart of the Experimentation: Extraordinary Results chart (see page 275).

For example, Helvius spends a season to invent a spell (something that would normally be safe, and not require a roll) in his laboratory, which has a Safety of –2. Helvius's player rolls a simple die, getting a 1, which is less than or equal to 2, so there is a chance of suffering a lab botch. He then rolls for botch with two botch dice (the base number of none for this activity, plus two for the Safety score). One of the dice comes up as 0, for a lab accident. On a single botch, Helvius suffers a single Warping Point. He got off quite lightly.

Warping

A laboratory with a zero Warping score produces consistent and predictable results (at least, it does if it isn't unsafe and you don't use experimentation). A lab with a positive Warping score, however, sometimes yields altered or unintended results. For each season of labwork, roll a simple die. If the result is less than or equal to the Warping score, then the product of that season's work (be it an item, spell, or something else) suffers Warping. Warping on labwork is not the same as for characters; instead refer to the Experimentation: Extraordinary Results chart (see page 275). If the outcome of the simple die was odd, roll once for a Side Effect. If the outcome was even, roll once for a Modified Effect. Effects should be chosen as appropriate for the cause(s) of the Warping. For example, an item enchanted in an invisible lab might be found to be invisible itself, once it is finished and removed from the lab.

A lab with a positive Warping score should also be assigned one or more Personality Traits, with a total score equal to the Warping score. For example, a lab with a Warping score of +1, due to faerie ingredients, might gain the Personality Trait Whimsical +1. These Personality Traits tend to color the experience of the lab's owner and any other residents or guests, and are suggestive of suitable Warping effects, both for Warping on labwork, and on any character Warping suffered by the inhabitant(s). At the storyguide's discretion, a Personality Trait may be added to a Lab Total for an effect which matches it closely, or subtracted from a Lab Total for an opposite effect.

Health

The environment of a laboratory might be either beneficial or detrimental to the health of its owner. A lab with a positive Health score might be especially snug, comfortable, or clean, whereas a lab with a negative Health might be drafty, awkward to get around, or bear a foul stench. The Health score adds to any Wound Recovery rolls for inhabitants of the lab. Also, half of the Health score (rounded down) adds to the Living Conditions modifier (used for Aging rolls) for inhabitants, provided that they spend at least half of the year there. In this way, the Living Conditions modifier of a lab (or sanctum) might differ from that of the covenant as a whole.

For example, the lab of Igor Rastvan has a Health of +2, giving +1 to the Living Conditions modifier. His covenant of Roznov has a base Living Conditions modifier of +2 for magi, therefore his total Living Conditions modifier is +3.

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a measure of the impressiveness, splendor, and luxury of the laboratory. Whilst this is mostly a question of personal comfort and preferences, the aesthetic quality of a lab may affect the prestige enjoyed by its owner, influencing her standing amongst her peers. The Aesthetics score is indicative of the typical impression received by visitors to the lab, and whether or not it is favorable. For every point of Aesthetics, either positive or negative, the owner gains five experience points in an appropriate Reputation. These points might not all be gained immediately, especially if few people visit the laboratory. Sooner or later, however, rumors will spread about just what is believed to be inside, even if it is mostly speculation, especially among the covenfolk.

For example, Lutisse has a lab with an Aesthetics of -2. She gains ten experience points in her Impoverished Hedge Wizard Reputation.

Laboratory Specializations

Laboratories that have Specializations are particularly well-suited to one or more types of laboratory work or to certain Arts, providing a bonus (in almost all cases, to the Lab Total) equal to their value. These benefits arise, either by design or by accident, from certain properties of the lab and its outfittings according to the law of sympathy. For example, a brightly lit lab is more suited to Imaginem, a lab with a water feature is suited to Aquam, and a lab with caged slaves is suited to Corpus.

A lab can have at most two activity Specializations, plus four Art Specializations (at most two of which can be Techniques). Bonuses to Lab Totals from all applicable Specializations are cumulative. The value of an Art Specialization adds to any Lab Total (but not Advancement Total) involving that Art. The following is a list of possible activity Specializations:

Experimentation: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when experimenting (see page 274).

Familiar: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when binding or enchanting a familiar

Items: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when enchanting items and when investigating enchanted items.

Longevity Rituals: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when creating a Longevity Ritual.

Spells: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when inventing a spell, including when being taught the spell.

Teaching: The value of the Specialization adds to all Training and Teaching Source Qualities, whenever training or teaching is performed in the lab. However, this can provide a bonus of at most three points. (Note that teaching spells does not involve a Source Quality, and so is not covered here.)

Texts: The value of the Specialization adds to all Lab Totals when creating an effect with the benefit of a Laboratory Text, as well as to Lab Totals for translating Laboratory Texts. For every full three points of this Specialization, you may also add one to Profession: Scribe whenever copying Laboratory Texts and books, and one to the relevant Language Ability when writing Laboratory Texts and books.

Vis Extraction: The value of the Specialization adds to the Lab Total for vis extraction.

Specializations are gained due to Virtues (most notably Features and Magic Items) and sometimes also due to Flaws. Therefore, to determine the Specializations of your magus's lab (if any), simply total up the Specializations specified for each of its Virtues and Flaws (for some of them, you are able to choose the Specialization).

If you find that the laboratory has more than the allowed number of Specializations, you will have to drop one or more of them. You do not need to drop any Virtues or Flaws, just choose which Specializations you least want, and strike them out. Once made, however, the choice of dropped Specializations is hard to change — the magus must spend a season reconfiguring the laboratory to do so, which can be combined with a season of work to improve the Refinement of the laboratory.

Laboratory Specializations and Appearance

Experimentation: The lab might be equipped with bizarre custom outfittings, or have a non-standard configuration which appears confusing or even dangerous to the uninitiated.
Familiar: Such a lab often resembles one with a specialization in Animal. It likely features some kind of pen or dwelling for a familiar prominently.
Items: The lab usually resembles a kind of workshop, with a great variety of tools, and is likely to be smelly, dirty, or noisy.
Longevity Rituals: The lab often closely resembles one with a specialization in Creo or Corpus. It might feature a pallet where a live subject can be
Spells: This Specialization is not usually immediately obvious, as the lab differs in only subtle ways from the norm. It may feature a large empty space, such as a summoning circle, where spells are tested.
Teaching: The lab is usually comfortable, with a preordained position for both master and pupil, such as a desk before a teaching pulpit.
Texts: The lab usually features a desk or bookstand prominently, contains a wide variety of writing materials, and is well lit.
Vis Extraction: Such a lab often features some kind of measuring or refining contraption, such as an elaborate still, and numerous containers for vis.
Creo: The lab is often brightly lit, clean, or contains many growing things. It is usually a pleasant environment.
Intellego: Such an esoteric lab might contain many books or astronomical devices, as well as viewing objects such as orbs or a scrying pool.
Muto: The lab might appear chaotic or in a state of constant change. Perhaps the owner is continually rearranging things.
Perdo: The lab might be dark or dirty, possibly containing decaying or dead things. It is often an unpleasant place.
Rego: Such a lab is tidy and well ordered, with everything neatly arranged.
Animal: This Specialization is usually evident from the lab's feral smell. It may contain numerous fauna specimens, dead or alive, and the floor may be littered with straw, fur, or droppings.
Aquam: The lab almost always features some kind of water, either still or flowing, and may be damp.
Auram: Such a lab is often spacious, with a high ceiling, and might feature a window or balcony, or even be exposed to the elements.
Corpus: The lab might contain human corpses and body parts, such as blood, bones, and skin, or even live subjects. Perhaps it resembles a surgery, with the tools of a chirurgeon present.
Herbam: Such a lab. predictably, features plants, either in pots, or growing out of the floor or walls, or the lab itself might be built of living wood. It may have a smell of foliage, blossom, or wood.
Ignem: The lab is usually very well heated, with multiple fireplaces or a furnace, or it may be lit by many hundreds of candles. It may smell of smoke or sulfur.
Imaginem: The lab may be extravagantly decorated, or even partly illusory. Equally, it may give the impression of having some other specialization, since this lab may not be all it seems.
Mentem: Such a lab is often puzzling and elaborate, and may feature esoteric toys or ornate
Terram: The lab is often subterranean, and is usually solidly built, with an earthy or mineral smell. Many samples of metals, gems, or crystals may be present.
Vim: Such a Specialization is usually hard to spot, as there is no characteristic appearance, apart perhaps from an increased overall complexity.

Build Point Cost for Starting Laboratories

If using the Customized Covenant Creation rules (page 178), the baseline is that there is one standard laboratory (Size 0, Refinement 0) for each member of the covenant. Extra (spare) labs cost 50 Build Points each. For each magus that completely lacks a lab, 50 Build Points are gained. To determine the Build Point cost of labs which are either larger or smaller than average, multiply their Size Characteristics by 20.

One or more labs might start out with Minor or Major Virtues, if they have sufficient space (or if they are balanced with Flaws). Each Minor Virtue costs 10 Build Points and each Major Virtue costs 20 Build Points. Free Virtues and all Flaws do not cost any Build Points. Note that starting laboratories with negative Size need to take one or more Flaws (Minor or Major) automatically.

For example, a covenant which starts with Size +2 labs for two of its magi (80 Points), plus Size 0 labs for the remaining magi, a spare Size 0 lab (50 Points), with a total of three Minor Virtues (30 Points) and one Major Virtue (20 Points) costs a total of 180 Build Points. If the Build Point total for the labs is negative, Build Points are freed up which may be spent elsewhere.

It is suggested that labs for starting magi in a Spring covenant should begin with few or no Virtues or Flaws. Only those Virtues and Flaws which are intrinsic to the structure or location should be taken. For example, if the lab is underground, the Subterranean Flaw should be taken. At the storyguide's option, a small number of Free Virtues and an equal number of Free Flaws may be taken, provided that the Upkeep does not increase beyond 0. If the covenant has the Wealth Boon, on the other hand, then Free Virtues which require only an increase to Upkeep may be taken without a corresponding Free Flaw, if desired. With the Poverty Hook, it is suggested that the average Upkeep score for all labs should not be higher than -2 (if Minor) or -5 (if Major) — take a sufficient number of Flaws accordingly.

Labs in established covenants, on the other hand, especially Autumn or Winter covenants, might have more Virtues and Flaws, as might the labs of experienced magi. The storyguide should determine the labs of starting magi in an established covenant. For example, they might have one or more Supernatural Virtues and Flaws. For experienced magi, the Build Point total of the lab's Virtues should be subtracted from their experience point total, instead of from the covenant's Build Point total, assuming they were responsible for the improvements. This is due to the time required to achieve the Virtues; each Minor Virtue, taking one season, costs 10 points, and each Major Virtue, taking two seasons, costs 20 points, according to the rules for generating magi after apprenticeship (see page 50).

Laboratory Virtues and Flaws

Just as for characters. Virtues for labs reflect some kind of merit, improvement, or advantage, whereas Flaws reflect a drawback, deficiency, or story opportunity. The most important rule to bear in mind is that the number of points spent on Virtues, minus the number of points spent on Flaws, cannot exceed the Size + Refinement of the lab. The sum of these two Characteristics specifies the overall available space for the installment of improvements. Virtues with a point cost take up a certain amount of space, whereas Flaws with a point cost free up space, or allow the lab to be smaller. Free Virtues and Flaws make a negligible contribution to space. For example, a lab with a Size of +1 and a Refinement of +1 (for a total of +2) might have one Major Virtue and one Minor Virtue (+4 points) and two Minor Flaws (-2 points) as well as a number of Free Virtues and Flaws. A standard lab of Size 0 or greater starts with no Virtues and Flaws, but a lab smaller than the standard or less refined automatically starts with sufficient points of Flaws to pay for its negative Size + Refinement.

Most laboratory Virtues and Flaws can only be taken once — those few that can be taken multiple times are asterisked in the list below. Two of these Virtues in particular, Feature and Magic Item, come in a multitude of types and are described in more detail later. The storyguide may always adjust the benefits of particular Virtues and Flaws as she sees fit, and is encouraged to devise new ones in consultation with the players.

The Covenants supplement includes a wider range of Virtues and Flaws (from page 113), expanding on those given here.

Virtues

A laboratory has free space for one or more new Virtues if its current points of Virtues minus points of Flaws is less than the Size + Refinement, and thus the occupied Size is less than the Size. If there are sufficient points of free space, a Virtue can be taken without needing to take a Flaw. Otherwise, one or more Flaws must be taken simultaneously to balance it. A magus who wishes to install a Virtue (Minor or Major) into a standard laboratory thus has four choices: either first spend a season to increase the Refinement to +1 (requiring a Magic Theory of 4), accept a Flaw to balance the Virtue, somehow increase the physical space of the existing lab, or move into a bigger lab. Free Virtues have no point cost and are thus not restricted in this way.

Virtues are not simply chosen and gained automatically — there may be a cost in time, money, or vis, and there may be additional specific requirements (see the list below). As a general rule, it takes one season of work to gain a Minor Virtue, and two seasons to gain a Major Virtue. This time is occupied with construction or installing the improvement. The person doing this work needs to have a Magic Theory score at least three points higher than the lab's Refinement. Free Virtues have no space and (usually) no seasonal construction requirement. They may be gained in a day or so, if the relevant materials are procured, or if the relevant circumstances are satisfied.

Community Gloss
Note that this cost is linear, in the sense that it costs the same amount of effort to gain the bonus regardless of Art levels; whereas increasing Arts to gain the same bonuses becomes exponentially harder. Consider limiting piling up more and more Virtues to gain high laboratory bonuses.

Sometimes, the magus might wish to lose Virtues. This is not always possible, since some Virtues are due to fundamental properties of the lab (such as its physical location) which cannot readily be changed. Where it is possible, a Minor or Major Virtue can only be removed during a season or more of work to improve the laboratory (either by increasing the Refinement, or installing a different Virtue). For example, the magus can remove an existing Lesser Feature and replace it with a new one, in one season. Where it is possible to remove a Free Virtue, it can usually be done in a day or so.

Flaws

Flaws may be chosen either due to choice or to general neglect, or because you need to free up points of space to balance a new Virtue. There is no limit on their number and they take effect immediately. In the event of a lack of funds, you may also be forced to take a Flaw resulting in a lower Upkeep (see the Upkeep section, above).

Just as for Virtues, some Flaws can later be removed, whereas others are due to fundamental properties of the lab, and cannot be altered. If removing a Minor or Major Flaw, the magus needs to have sufficient free points of space, since the occupied Size will increase. Where it is possible, removing a Free Flaw usually takes one season (unless otherwise stated), removing a Minor Flaw also takes one season, and removing a Major Flaw takes two seasons. This time is occupied with repairing or restoring the faulty component, but it can be combined with a season spent improving the Refinement. For example, a lab might start out with Size -1, Refinement 0, and the Cramped Flaw. With a Magic Theory of 4, one season of work will suffice both to increase the Refinement to +1 and to lose the Cramped Flaw.

Structure Virtues and Flams

These Virtues and Flaws are due to the physical structure and basic arrangement of the laboratory, and its location. Gaining or losing them usually entails some kind of construction project on or within the lab, or on the immediate surrounds.

Virtues (Major)

Greater Feature*: The lab prominently features a unique and extensive structure which aids certain types of lab work — see the list of possible Features later (page 296). +2 Aesthetics; 3 points on appropriate Specialization(s).

Natural Environment: A swathe of natural scenery, such as forest, desert, or a river, is located in the lab, or the lab is built in or around it. +2 Aesthetics; 3 points among Specializations in Cr, An, Aq, Au, He, Ig, or Te, depending upon terrain type.

Virtues (Minor)

Extensive Stores: The lab's large stores mean that it can withstand shortages better. In the case of a lack of funds, the lab can last six seasons before you have to take a Flaw to lower the Upkeep, instead of the usual two. However you need to make a one-off payment of a number of pounds equal to the lab's yearly maintenance cost, to stock up the stores in the first place. Vis and dangerous materials can also be stored more safely. +2 Safety.

Gallery: The lab is fitted with an interior gallery or platform, designed to allow someone to view the whole of the lab without disturbing it. +1 Safety, +1 Aesthetics; +1 Teaching.

Lesser Feature*: The lab features a unique structure which aids certain types of lab work — see the list of possible Features later (page 296). +1 Aesthetics; 1 point on an appropriate Specialization.

Virtues (Free)

Dedicated Building: The lab (and probably the living quarters of the owner) is in its own building, shared with no-one else. There are likely to be fewer distractions. +1 Upkeep, +1 Aesthetics; +1 Re.

Mobile: The entire lab can be readily moved. For example, it might be located on a ship or (if it is very small) a cart. This Virtue is usually taken with the Unstable Flaw. +1 Experimentation.

Superior Construction: The lab benefits from distinguished construction techniques, for example, high quality building materials were used, or it was made by a master architect or a magus (such as with the spell Conjuring the Mystic Tower). If constructing the building, its cost is doubled. +1 Safety, +1 Aesthetics.

Flaws (Free)

Deformed: Part of the structure has subsided or is otherwise warped. For example, one wall has partially collapsed into rubble, and has to be propped up. –1 Safety, –1 Aesthetics; +1 Mu or Pe.

Empty*: The lab has a large amount of empty, unused space. A lab that is much bigger than it needs to be is a disadvantage since it costs more to maintain the empty space — it takes more to heat, light, and clean the chamber. Alternatively, if the empty space is neglected, it will likely gather dirt and cobwebs, or cause a draft. This Flaw should be taken for every full two points by which the Size of the lab exceeds the occupied Size. As soon as the empty space is filled up, this Flaw is lost. –1 Aesthetics, either +1 Upkeep or –1 Health.

Low Ceiling*: The ceiling is lower than the requisite ten feet, which slightly hampers some magical activities. This Flaw should be taken twice if the ceiling is less than eight feet, or thrice if the magus has to stoop (in which case also take —2 Health). —1 General Quality, —1 Safety, —1 Aesthetics.

Subterranean: The lab is underground. There is a lack of natural light, and so more candles are required for lighting. +1 Upkeep, -1 Health, -1 Aesthetics; +1 Te.

Unstable*: The lab is prone to movements, for example it is on a ship, is earthquake-prone, or merely has dodgy foundations, which is the occasional cause of accidents or breakages. This Flaw may be taken more than once for a greater instability. +1 Upkeep, -1 Safety.

Flaws (Minor)

Cramped: The lab equipment is packed a little too close together for comfort, due to lack of space. This slightly hampers all but one type of lab activity, which is taken as a Specialization. The lab can be reconfigured to change the Specialization with a season of work. (This can be done at the same time as working to increase the Refinement.) –1 General Quality, –1 Upkeep, –2 Safety, –1 Aesthetics; 1 point on an activity Specialization.

Lesser Focus: An existing Lesser Feature is the central focus of the lab, enhancing the Feature, but making activities that do not involve its use more difficult. –1 General Quality, 2 points among Specializations provided by the Feature.

No Stores: The lab has nowhere to store supplies, and so it cannot withstand any shortages (in the case of a lack of funds, compulsory Flaw(s) to reduce the Upkeep are taken immediately, instead of after the usual two seasons). Vis and dangerous materials cannot be stored very safely. –2 Safety.

Flaws (Major)

Greater Focus: An existing Greater Feature is the overwhelming focus of the lab, enhancing the Feature, but making activities that do not involve its use more difficult. –2 General Quality, 4 points among Specializations provided by the Feature.

Outfittings Virtues and Flaws

These Virtues and Flaws are due to the quality and quantity of the mundane materials and equipment that are in the lab, as well as any other inhabitants of the lab. Gaining or losing these Virtues and Flaws thus usually entails the purchase or acquisition of things to put in the lab, or the lack of (or defects in) such things.

Virtues (Major)

Greater Expansion: The extent of the lab is greatly increased, with at least double the usual amount of equipment. This allows it to have more areas and equipment dedicated to specialized tasks. +2 General Quality, +4 Upkeep, +1 Aesthetics; 2 points on any Specialization(s).

Virtues (Minor)

Lesser Expansion: The extent of the lab is increased, with some more specialized equipment. +1 General Quality, +2 Upkeep, 1 point on any Specialization.

Living Quarters: The lab contains suitable furniture, such as a bed, a wardrobe, and so on, such that the owner may live and sleep in it. There is a small benefit to lab work if you live in the lab proper, but it is not good for your health, and is considered somewhat obsessive. +1 General Quality, -1 Safety, -2 Health, -2 Aesthetics.

Specimens*: The lab has a large collection of related things, stored in visible containers such as jars, or otherwise serving as objects of study or decoration. +1 Upkeep, +1 Aesthetics; 1 point on any Form Specialization.

Virtues (Free)

Assistant*: A Gifted assistant (such as an Hermetic apprentice) helps out in the lab, affording a bonus to lab work. +(assistant's Intelligence + Magic Theory) General Quality. (This is simply a restatement of the existing bonuses.)

Guard*: A shield grog is on permanent duty at the lab's entrance, and may dissuade unwanted visitors from pestering the magus or intruding. +1 Aesthetics.

Highly Organized: The lab's contents have been optimally arranged. There is a chance to gain this Virtue whenever a season of work is undertaken to improve the Refinement (see Refinement, above). A season of such work (with the normal chances of changes to laboratory Virtues and Flaws) may still be undertaken, even if no improvement to Refinement is possible. This Virtue is lost if a major accident is suffered, if someone else uses the lab, or if someone of lower Intelligence helps in it. +1 General Quality.

Person*: There is another person, perhaps a close family member or a maid, who is to be found very frequently (as a rule of thumb, most days, for at least an hour) in the lab. This Virtue may be taken once for each such person who regularly comes in to the lab. Do not count the owner or any full-time lab assistants, such as an apprentice. A full-time trained mundane assistant is instead catered for by the Servant Virtue. –1 Safety; +1 Co or Me.

Servant: One of the covenfolk is employed as a full-time lab servant, to perform the most mundane or bothersome tasks in the lab, and cater to the needs of the magus. +(servant's Intelligence/2, rounding up) Safety, +1 Aesthetics; +1 Me.

Spotless: The lab is impeccably clean. This requires a season of work to gain. Also, there is a chance to gain this Virtue whenever a season of work is undertaken to improve the Refinement (see Refinement, above). This Virtue is lost if cleanliness is not maintained, or after an accident or neglect is suffered. +1 Health, +1 Aesthetics; +1 Cr.

Flaws (Free)

Basic: The lab setup is incomplete, and not all the necessary equipment has been installed. This Flaw is acquired after the first season of lab construction (see The Standard Hermetic Laboratory, earlier). It is removed after the second season of work completes the lab. –3 General Quality.

Damaged: The lab is partially damaged, for example as the result of a lab accident. It takes one season to repair the damage and lose this Flaw. -2 General Quality, -1 Safety, -1 Aesthetics.

Disorganized: The lab is organized in a rather haphazard or carefree fashion. Some magi prefer it this way. –1 Safety, –1 Aesthetics; +1 Mu or Experimentation.

Hidden Defect*: A subtle and potentially dangerous error exists in the lab's configuration. This is usually the fault of the owner, but it may also be caused by a malicious and clever third party. There is a chance to gain (or lose) this Flaw whenever a season of work is undertaken to improve the Refinement (see Refinement, earlier). Whenever this defect is the cause of a lab botch, make a Perception + Magic Theory roll against an Ease Factor of 12. If this succeeds, the defect is spotted and may be corrected with a few hours of work. –3 Safety.

Missing Ingredients*: Due to a lack of certain ingredients, lab work involving either one specific Technique or two specific Forms is severely hampered — relevant Lab Totals are halved. For example, the lab might contain no silver, in which case Terram and Vim Lab Totals are halved. It does not take a season to remove this Flaw, if sufficient funds are available to increase the Upkeep. –1 Upkeep.

Missing Sanctum Marker: The sanctum marker is not prominently displayed, and is thus easy to miss, or it is missing altogether. Hermetic magi might (unwittingly or knowingly) intrude. It does not take a season to remove this Flaw. –1 Aesthetics.

Wrecked: The lab is very heavily damaged, for example as the result of a major lab accident. It takes two seasons to repair the damage completely and lose this Flaw. (After one season, it may be replaced by the Damaged Flaw.) –5 General Quality, –2 Safety, –2 Aesthetics.

Flaws (Minor)

Missing Equipment*: Due to a lack of certain equipment, lab work in one or two types of activity is totally impossible. For example, if there is no desk, parchment, or inks, you cannot work with texts. If you pick Items, Spells, or Texts, only this one activity cannot be undertaken. Otherwise, you must pick two of the activity categories (see the Specialization section earlier, page 290). This Flaw cannot be taken more than twice. —1 Upkeep.

Undecorated: The lab has very spartan decoration, or the decoration is completely lacking, making the place rather uninspiring and unwelcoming. –1 Upkeep, –1 Aesthetics; subtract one point from any Specializations with a score of 2 or more.

Flaws (Major)

Elementary: This is a cut-down version of a Hermetic laboratory, with an extremely limited selection of lab equipment installed, so that only one category of lab activity (see the list of possible activity Specializations earlier on page ) is possible at all. The type of activity is determined at the time of construction, and is fixed thereafter. Still, such a limited lab is cheaper to maintain and takes only one season to build completely. It might be suitable for an extremely confined space, such as in a small cave, or in a wagon. Some covenants build elementary labs in powerful auras for the purposes of vis extraction. –2 General Quality, –3 Upkeep.

Supernatural Virtues and Plaws

These Virtues and Flaws are due to supernatural effects, creatures, or items. The means of gaining or losing these Virtues and Flaws varies widely — most cannot be gained by some straightforward effort on the part of a magus. Some, such as gaining a supernatural guardian, may require a story or a Hermetic breakthrough. Others, such as the presence of a vis source in the lab, or a Hermetic predecessor, are generally choices for the storyguide to make, rather than the player. In the latter case, the player might not be aware of these Virtues and Flaws (and thus the complete statistics of the lab).

Virtues (Major)

Greater Guardian: A powerful supernatural creature (Might 20 or higher), which is not the familiar of the owner, resides in the lab and acts as its protector, being well-disposed to the owner. Woe betide any who should intrude. +(creature's Intelligence) Safety, +1 Warping, +1 Aesthetics; 3 points on appropriate Art specialization(s).

Virtues (Minor)

Familiar: The owner of the lab has a familiar, and the familiar lives in the lab. Perhaps it even helps with lab work. This Virtue assumes that the familiar takes up a non-trivial amount of space. If not, this can be instead taken as a Free Virtue. +(familiar's Intelligence + Magic Theory) General Quality, +(Golden Cord) Safety. (This is simply a restatement of the existing bonuses.)

Lesser Guardian: A supernatural creature (less than Might 20), which is not the familiar of the owner, resides in the lab and acts as its protector, being well-disposed to the owner. +1 Safety; 1 point on an appropriate Art specialization.

Vis Source*: A naturally-occurring source of vis is to be found in the lab. -1 Safety, +1 Warping; 2 points on the appropriate Art Specialization.

Virtues (Free)

Enchantment*: The lab itself has been enchanted as a magic item. This may grant Virtues or Flaws, alter Characteristics, or add to Specializations (see the guidelines later).

Inexhaustible Supplies: The lab is blessed with magically replenishing ingredients and consumables which never run out. –3 Upkeep, +1 Warping.

Magic Item*: A magic item is installed in the lab. It might be self-made, donated, purchased, or perhaps some kind of artifact which was found in the lab. If the item is very large, taking up a significant amount of space in the lab, then it should be treated as a Minor Virtue instead of a Free Virtue. This may grant Virtues or Flaws, alter Characteristics, or add to Specializations (see the guidelines later).

Regio*: The interior of the lab is in a regio, and there is an another regio level, which the owner can navigate easily. If there are further regio levels, this Virtue may be taken more than once. +3 Size, +1 Warping.

Flaws (Free)

Abyss: The lab contains some kind of magical void, such as a bottomless well. This may be made into a Void Feature (purchased as usual). –2 Safety; +2 Pe.

Haunted: The lab is home to a haunting spirit, who occasionally disturbs the current owner. + 1 Warping. -1 Aesthetics: +2 Me.

Impregnable: The lab is completely inaccessible, except through reasonably powerful magic. For example, it is blocked off by a stone wall and requires a Muto Terram spell to access. While the owner is much less likely to be disturbed, fewer people will ever get to see the lab, or they may assume that the owner is rather paranoid. —2 Aesthetics.

Inhabitants: Residency in the lab is shared with some other creatures, who consider the place as their home, not a lab. They may provide a nuisance to the owner, and vice-versa. –1 Safety, –1 Aesthetics; 1 point on an appropriate Art Specialization.

Predecessor: The lab retains some foibles due to its (notable) previous owner. –1 Safety, +1 Warping; +1 Experimentation.

Restriction: The lab might forbid certain activities (one category of lab activity cannot be performed), or otherwise tiresome or expensive rituals or practices are required in order to perform lab work. —1 General Quality or +2 Upkeep as appropriate.

Flaws (Minor)

Lesser Illusion*: One of the seeming merits of the lab is but an illusion. You should take one Minor Virtue immediately (there is no time cost) to balance this Flaw, but note that it is illusory and its effects are negated completely. For example, the lab may appear to be hung with fine tapestries, but which do not really exist. In this case, take the Superior Decoration Virtue, but do not apply its modifications to the lab's statistics. +1 Warping, +1 Aesthetics; +1 Im.

Lightless: The lab is totally dark and its contents cannot be seen. The owner must devise some other means of spatial perception in order to work normally. -1 Upkeep, +1 Warping, the Aesthetics score cannot exceed -1; +1 Pe or Im.

Flaws (Major)

Greater Illusion*: One of the major parts or aspects of the lab is but an illusion. You should take one Major Virtue immediately (there is no time cost) to balance this Flaw, but note that it is illusory and its effects are negated completely. For example, the lab may appear to be twice as large as it really is. In this case, take the Greater Expansion Virtue, but do not apply its modifications to the lab's statistics. +2 Warping, +2 Aesthetics; +2 Im.

Laboratory Features

Specialized labs often have certain noteworthy or unique structural features (one or more Greater Feature or Lesser Feature Virtues), which aid or inspire certain types of magic. Features may be added to a lab with relatively little disruption, if space permits. Alternatively, the lab may be rearranged such that one Feature becomes the lab's central focus (in which case, take the Greater Focus or Lesser Focus Flaw, as appropriate). A lab may only have one Focus. In this case, lab activities which are unrelated to the Feature are disadvantaged, but the specialized benefits of the Feature are increased. In either case, it takes one or two seasons to build or assemble the structure, for a Lesser Feature or Greater Feature, respectively.

Below are listed some example Features, together with the possible Specializations for each. Many labs have a number of these things, but they do not necessarily count as a Feature, unless purchased with either the Greater Feature or Lesser Feature Virtue. The former provides three points on Specialization(s), the latter one point. You may choose to distribute these points amongst the listed Specializations as you wish. You should feel free to come up with your own ideas for Features, since just about anything that may be found in a Hermetic laboratory may be made into a Feature.

Altar: An ornamental place of ritual worship, such as a raised dais. Specializations: any Technique, Vi.

Animal Pen: An enclosure for one or more animals, often a familiar, to dwell. Specializations: Familiar, An.

Antechamber: A separate enclosure or compartment. Spells may be cast here in a more secure environment. Specializations: Experimentation, Spells, Re.

Astronomical Device: A sophisticated tool for measuring the movements of the heavens, often placed near a window or skylight. The most common such item is an astrolabe, and example of a more advanced device is the armillary sphere. Specializations: In, Vi.

Balance: An exact weighing device, such as a pair of scales. Specializations: Vis Extraction, In, Re.

Balcony: An outdoors balcony, where the magus may cast spells into the open air. Specializations: Spells, Au.

Cage: A large cage, usually built of sturdy metal bars, for imprisoning or immobilizing a subject. Specializations: Pe, Re, Co, An.

Cauldron: A heavy copper or brass cauldron, for the heating and mixing of large quantities of ingredients. Specializations: Experimentation, Longevity Rituals, Vis Extraction, Mu, Aq, He, Ig.

Desk: A comfortable and stout table, designed for reading and scribing. Specializations: Texts, In.

Fireplace: A stone enclosure, where fuel is burnt for heating, but where substances may also be heated or immolated. Specializations: Pe, Ig, Im.

Forge: A furnace — a more tightly enclosed and robust fireplace often operated by bellows, which yields heat sufficient for the smelting of metals — accompanied by an anvil and smithy. Specializations: Items, Ig, Te.

Grave: The burial place of one or more corpses. This may be either a simple earthen grave or something more elaborate, such as a stone sarcophagus. Specializations: Pe, Co.

Lofty Ceiling: A light, airy space overhead, for which a tall chamber, perhaps with a vaulted ceiling, is required. Specializations: Au.

Loom: A large wooden apparatus for the weaving of threads into a fabric. Specializations: Re, He.

Map: An elaborate and detailed plan or model, accurately illustrating surrounding lands or buildings, perhaps. Specializations: In, Te.

Mechanism: Any kind of large mechanical device, consisting of many moving parts such as cogs and wheels, used for the basic automation of one or more tasks. Specializations: Vis Extraction, Re.

Mirror: A grand and ornamental silvered mirror, or other reflective surface. Specializations: In. Im. Me.

Monolith: A huge slab of primal rock, possibly carved with mystical symbols. Specializations: Te, Vi.

Orb: A smooth sphere of precious stone, possibly opaque or semi-opaque, used in conjunction with divinatory effects. Specializations: In, Im, Me, Vi.

Pallet: A bed upon which a patient may be treated or examined, perhaps equipped with some surgeon's tools. Specializations: Longevity Rituals, Cr, Co.

Pit: A deep hole dug in the floor. Things placed inside it cannot easily get out. Specializations: Pe, Te.

Pool: A still body of water, or a well. It may be used when scrying. Specializations: In, Aq.

Portal: A gateway, through which things may be summoned or sent away. Specializations: Cr, Re.

Rack: A rather unpleasant large mechanical construct, used for torturing persons placed inside it. Specializations: Pe, Co, Me.

Running Water: Any kind of water which runs through or around the lab, such as a stream or fountain. Specializations: Items, Aq.

Summoning Circle: An elaborate pentagram marked on the floor, into which things are summoned. Specializations: Experimentation, Spells, Cr, Re, An, Vi.

Statue: A carved semblance of some person, creature, or thing, usually made of stone, metal, or porcelain. Specializations: Re, An, Co, Te.

Still: A network of glass or metal tubing connecting delicate containers, such as retorts, designed for the distillation and refinement of compounds. Specializations: Vis Extraction, Mu, Re, Aq.

Tablet: A large framed slab of wax, for temporary scribing with a stylus. Specializations: Texts, In, Im.

Tank: A bulky container for storing fluids. Specializations: Vis Extraction, Re, Aq.

Throne: An opulent and raised seat for a ruler (or at least, the self-important) to sit in.

Specializations: Teaching, Re, Me.

Tree: A live tree or a large plant, such as a vine. Specializations: Cr, He.

Void: A shaft, hole, or opening. Specializations: In, Pe, Au.

Wall: A large blank wall, onto which images may be summoned. Specializations: In, Im.

Wheel: A wheel powered by water, wind, horse, slaves, or magic. Specializations: Items, Re.

Window: A portal to the outside world, which lets in the sun, moon, and stars. Specializations: In, Au, Im.

The Sanctum

Any member of the Order of Hermes may designate an area as their "sanctum," and most choose to designate their laboratory and living quarters. A decision of the First Tribunal means that a magus in another's sanctum has no legal protection from the owner of the sanctum and may be attacked or killed without legal consequences. There is a strong convention against entering a sanctum without permission, but the Peripheral Code on these points differs between Tribunals. See Houses of Hermes: True Lineages for more details—particularly pages 46–47, 62, and 71. A ruling of the Grand Tribunal of 997 requires a sanctum to be marked by a circle inscribed within a square, with lines joining the square's opposite corners.

Magic Items for Laboratories

A magic item designed for lab use (or an enchantment on the whole lab itself) can grant one or more Virtues or Flaws, or add to the Characteristics or Specializations of the lab. A magic item may be made into a Feature, in which case that Virtue should be paid for as usual. Equally, an existing Feature may be enchanted as a magic item. In this case, if the Shape and Material bonus(es) of the Feature are not listed elsewhere, you may assume it to have Shape and Material Bonuses equal to its points of Arts Specializations provided.

Specific effects for each item should be created as normal. If an effect cannot be conceived of which yields the desired benefit, then it is probably not possible. To provide a benefit, an effect must also be new to the laboratory, and not duplicate any existing effects. For each effect, there are two possible ways to determine the appropriate modifications to the lab's statistics:

If the effect duplicates an existing Laboratory Virtue or Flaw, then the item simply grants that Virtue or Flaw to the lab. It is gained immediately and has no space cost, apply its stated modifications to Characteristics or Specializations, as usual.
If the effect does not resemble a Laboratory Virtue or Flaw, then the final level of the effect determines how many points of Characteristics or Specializations may be gained. Every ten levels may grant one point in a Specialization, or every 20 levels may improve a Characteristic by one point. For example, an effect with a final level of 50 might improve one Characteristic by one point (20 levels), and one Specialization by three points (30 levels). Also, items or enchantments with powerful effects, influencing the whole of the lab, may (unintentionally) increase the Warping Characteristic, at the discretion of the storyguide.

Community Gloss
Creating magic items is an easy way to increase the lab total using these rules, especially once Arts reach high levels. Consider letting a magic item have penalties (and not just Warping) just like other lab virtues, in addition to its intended effect, and also consider limiting stacking multiple lab virtues (whether by magic items or not).

Attribution Based on the material for Ars Magica, ©1993-2024, licensed by Trident, Inc. d/b/a Atlas Games®, under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license 4.0 ("CC-BY-SA 4.0"). Ars Magica Open License Logo ©2024 Trident, Inc. The Ars Magica Open License Logo, Ars Magica, and Mythic Europe are trademarks of Trident, Inc., and are used with permission. Order of Hermes, Tremere, Doissetep, and Grimgroth are trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB and are used with permission.

Open License Markdown version by YR7 & OriginalMadman, https://github.com/OriginalMadman/Ars-Magica-Open-License

See Also

Chapter 8: Laboratory

The Laboratory in Play

Basic Laboratory Activities

Creating a Laboratory

Arcane Studies

Fixing Arcane Connections

Vis

Vis Extraction

Vis Transfer

Vis Use

Spells

Learning Spells from a Teacher

Inventing Spells

Example: Inventing Spells

Enchantments

Enchantment Summary

Types of Enchanted Item

Invested Items

Lesser Enchantments

Charged Items

Charged Items Example

Shape and Material

Enchanted Item Example

Material and Size Tables

Preparation for Enchantment

Enchanted Item Example

Instilling Affects

Designing the Offect

Effect Frequency Table

Effect Modifications

Constant Effect Devices

Enchanted Item Example

Instilling the Effect

Enchanted Item Example

Using Enchanted Devices

Talisman Attunement

Investigating Enchantments

Similar Spells

Longevity Rituals

Laboratory Texts

Using Laboratory Texts

Laboratory Texts Example

Casting Tablets

Translating Laboratory Texts

Multiple Laboratory Activities

Help in the Laboratory

Distractions from Lab Work

Familiars

Finding and Befriending an Animal

Enchanting the Familiar

Suggested Familiars by Art

The Initial Bond

The Three Cords

The Bound Familiar

Empowering the Bond

The Familiar in Play

Example Powers

The Participation of Other Players

Apprentices

Finding Your Apprentice

Training Your Apprentice

Opening the Arts

Opening the Arts in house Ex Miscellanea

Teaching Hermetic Virtues

Acquiring House Virtues

Gaining Hermetic Flaws

Fleshing Out Your Apprentice

The Apprentice in Play

The End of Apprenticeship

Arcane Experimentation

The Experimental Premise

Exceptional Risk

Extraordinary Results

Extraordinary Results Chart

Inventing a Spell by Experimentation

Enchanted Items Created by Experimentation

Enchanting a Familiar by Experimentation

Experimenting on Longevity Rituals

Investigating an Enchanted Item by Experimentation