Magic House Rules

Enchanted Weapons

The rules from Parma Fabula are used for creating enchanted arms and armour.

Vis Extraction

Vis extraction is allowed. Changing the nature of vis is considered to be beyond Hermetic magic by current theory.

Concentration

Prolonged concentration is difficult and wears you down. In a stress situation, even more so:

1. If the situation is stressed (imminent physical harm to you or your friends is not too improbable, e.g. combat situations) or a very high level of concentration is needed (you have to completely focus on what you are doing, e.g. nonhermetic magical rituals), you have to make a Stamina + Concentration roll of 6 - [your concentration score] + ([number of concentration rounds] / 10) once every ten rounds (= approximately once every minute) to avoid losing a fatigue level.
2. If the situation is not stressed and a medium level of concentration is needed (physical harm may result if your concentration lapses, e.g. flying), you have to make a Stamina + Concentration roll against an ease factor of 6 - [your concentration score] + ([minutes of concentration] / 10) once every 10 minutes to avoid losing a fatigue level.
3. If the situation is not stressed and a low level of concentration is needed (inconvenience may result if your concentration lapses, e.g. meditating), you have to make a Stamina + Concentration roll against an ease factor of 6 - [your concentration score] + [hours of concentration] once every hour to avoid losing a fatigue level.

Whenever you lose a fatigue level due to the rolls above, you have to also make a normal concentration roll to maintain concentration. If you are not doing anything that disturbs your concentration (such as walking), the ease factor is 3. The roll is done after the fatigue roll, so possible new penalties are applied.

Creating Out of Thin Air

Creo magic that creates something tangible (e.g. Creo spells that use the forms Animal, Aquam, Auram, Corpus, Herbam, Ignem, or Terram, not healing spells though) requires a source, something that the created entity comes from. The source of the spell is particular to the spell, and may not be changed once the spell is invented. Spell source does not affect consideration of spell similarity. The source may be the caster himself, or any object or material that is linked to the created entity by the Law of Similarities. For creating stone and earth (walls etc.), any stone or sand suffices. A drawing (even a crude one) of the desired entity is also sufficient. If the source is an item, it will be incorporated in the created entity. Note that the source is not changed to the created entity; that would be Muto magic. When the spell expires, the created entity slowly shrivels, leaving the original source (if it was incorporated). Examples: You cannot create a wall in thin air, but you can throw a rock in the air and use the rock as a source. However, unless you fast-cast, the rock takes a full round to become a wall. It would have to be thrown fairly high to have time to become a full wall, unless you fast-cast. You could also cause the wall to grow out of the ground anywhere within spell range, or mold it out of thin air by your hands (your hands are the source).

Certamen Carryover Limitations

Carryover may only be used for [certamen skill] consecutive rounds in certamen. Also, carryover can never exceed the opponents certamen total - the maximum advantage of carryover is equal to striking an undefending enemy.

Finding Out a Book's Quality

Finding out the quality score of a book is normally automatic and instantaneous. Other scores require five days of study and if the reader's score is less than half the score of the book, only the magnitude of the book score is determined.

Requirements for Superior Book virtues

• Clear Script: As in WG, Dex + scribe roll of 12+ per season
• Marginal Illustrations: 4 ounces of colored inks. Illustrator of competent (3+) skill must work on the book for as long as it took to write it. He must have, or be guided by one that has, at least the same score in the knowledge/art taught by the book as the book has (for Libri Quaesitorum, score = target). He or his guide must naturally also have read the book. If guided, the guide must spend one fourth of the time it takes to illustrate the book guiding the illustrator.
• Uterine Vellum: 15 quires of uterine vellum
• Well Colored: 4 ounces of colored inks
• Well Bound: Done by professional bookbinder (score 4+)
• Well Illustrated: 4 ounces of superior colored inks, 4 drams of leaf (silver or gold, gold just looks better). Illustrator requirements as per Marginal Illustrations. A Master Illustrator (see Mastered Skills above) can produce superior illustrations, that take twice as long as normal ones to produce and require 8 ounces of superior inks and 8 drams of gold leaf. The end product still just gets an additional +1 to Quality, but it will be a very beautiful book, worth a place of honour in any magus' lab.