Verditius Magic

The Outer Mystery of Verditius Magic sets the magi of House Verditius apart from their brethern in the Order. It greatly enahcnes their ability to enchant items, but also limits their ability to cast Formulaic spells by requiring the use of casting tools.

Verditius Magic is gained as the Free Virtue of House Verditius in character generation. As such, it is a Minor Hermetic Virtue, and is shared by all Verditius magi, who are initiated into the House's Mystery Cult and its Outer Mystery in the earliest stages of their apprenticeship (see HoHMC 117-118). While it possible for a magus of another House to adopt the Mystery and become a Verditius, this is especially difficult and dangerous (see HoHMC 119). It is virtually nonexistant outside the House, excepting perhaps some Orbi Magi.

A Verditius magus will typically specialize in a certain Craft Ability, and fashion all his enchanted devices from raw materials using it. This allows him to take full advantage of this Mystery: the high Craft Ability both increases all relevant Lab totals and lowers the Raw Vis cost of opening the item for enchantment.

Since the use of Verditius Runes is free, most Verditius magi have at least some modest score in philosophiae. This allows them to increase the Shape and Material Bonus to all the effects to be invested in the device. Since this is a generic bonus, not specific like the Shape and Material Bonus, a high Philosophiae score would allow the Verditius magus to forgo any use of Shape and Material sympathies in the item - however, this would require a Philosophiae score as high as the magus' Magic Theory score, and this is a high expenditure of experience points. Most Verditius magi therefore only use Verditius Runes to slightly increase the Shape and Material Bonus when possible. Verditius Runes are most potent when used on an item that needs to support multiple types of enchantment (so that not all can be assisted by some appropriate Shape and Material design), or whose shape needs to be unrelated to its function. They are nearly useless for items that are easily fashioned, so that the small boost to the Lab Total is insignificant; but no Verditius that respects himself will be caught dead fashioning such items anyways.

A Verditius magus may prepare items for enchantment by other magi. This has the twin advantage of lowering the Raw Vis cost and of allowing the use of Verditius Runes.

The Mystery does have the disadvantage of limitng its practioners, requiring Casting Tools to cast Formulaic spells. Although it isn't clearly written in the core ArM5 book, a different casting tool is required for each formulaic spell. For the most part, this is a cosmetic, flavor, requirement - the circumstances where a Verditius magus is deprived of his casting tools are rare. When this does happen, however, the effects can be dire. Note that both casting either spontaneous or ritual spells does not require casting tools.

Each Verditius' casting tools should be fashioned in a form that is appropriate to his nature. Give thought also to how the magus carries them around. Are they drawn from a pouch? Worn as jewelry? Hang from a key-chain?

References

• ArM5 93
• HoHMC 117-118, and 119 for initiating magi from other Houses
• See also Verditius Elder Runes.

Legacy Page

The history of this page before August 6, 2010 is archived at Legacy:verditius_magic