Ars Magica Definitive Edition, Chapter Eight: 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.

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.

Lab Total

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 @@.) 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 "Experience and Advancement".

Fixing Arcane Connections

A magus who has an active Arcane Connection 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

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. 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 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

Magical 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.

Types of Enchanted Item

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.

Enchanted Item Example 1

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.

Shape and Material Bonuses

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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.

Attribution

Content originally published in Ars Magica: Definitive Edition, ©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)