I have read that in spirit form, some magical creatures could acheive great speed (100x).

would this apply to a Magus that uses MuCo(Me) to render his body spirit like also?

//I have read that in spirit form, some magical creatures could acheive great speed (100x).//

Where did you read that?

//would this apply to a Magus that uses MuCo(Me) to render his body spirit like also?//

I can't see any reason why it wouldn't.

But I also am leary about expanding the use of Muto with mentem , imagonem or vim too much beyond what is listed in the guidelines. (this is different than the way I treat other guidelines).

I believe that the game gets tangled if you start changing any of these forms into other forms or other forms into them.

Magic that deals with changing a body into a thought, changing a thought into a fireball, changing a shadow into a giant squid (that's how I'd do shadow magic), changing a spell into a bird, or changing a tower into its own insubstantial image seems too exploitable and weird for comfortable inclusion in the game.

///I have read that in spirit form, some magical creatures could acheive great speed (100x).

would this apply to a Magus that uses MuCo(Me) to render his body spirit like also?///

I believe this is plausible, but I think a Rego requisite would be required to actually allow the "mind" to move freely.

///But I also am leary about expanding the use of Muto with mentem , imagonem or vim too much beyond what is listed in the guidelines. (this is different than the way I treat other guidelines).///

I personally don't like to impose any artificial limitations on the Arts. I would allow a player to pursue such courses, but with the understanding that it may not be part of the core Hermetic theory. Thus, at best, such spells may be many magnitudes higher than anticipated... at worst, they may require a Virtue (Mystery) or even a minor or major breakthrough on the part of the character.

///Magic that deals with changing a body into a thought, changing a thought into a fireball, changing a shadow into a giant squid (that's how I'd do shadow magic), changing a spell into a bird, or changing a tower into its own insubstantial image seems too exploitable and weird for comfortable inclusion in the game..///

I don't necessarily see it as exploitable, if the SG can rationalize it to his game. To me, BoAF is Level 35, so a spell to change a thought into a fireball would have to be higher than that. As you would need the Ignem requisite anway, you could probably learn BoAF easier. The economics of magic are enough to deter most players from pursuing such a spell. However, if you happen to have a high Muto and a lackluster Creo, perhaps this would be a viable option in order to obtain a spell equivalent to BoAF.

//personally don't like to impose any artificial limitations on the Arts. I would allow a player to pursue such courses, but with the understanding that it may not be part of the core Hermetic theory. Thus, at best, such spells may be many magnitudes higher than anticipated... at worst, they may require a Virtue (Mystery) or even a minor or major breakthrough on the part of the character//

I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying that I'd be very cautious.

Figure out what it really means to transmute one's body to something that can be manipulated with mentem. This isn't something that can be done another way. There may well be wacky holes in the magic system that when looked at one way sem reasonable and when looked at another way alow characters to turn Iberia into a toad and step on it. I personally hate having to retcon and using muto to change substantial things into insubstatial things and vise versa will need scrutiny before you lay down spell guidelines. You could end up with messy retconning all over your cool story.

Well the spell is in the book. Well one that resembles it anyway. Look @ MuMe spells. one of the last one's speaks of rendering the mind physical thru an animal form.

Following this I believe it is possible to give an immaterial form to your mind. This immaterial form would be in many ways your spirit form.

I personnally find that having two active 'bodies' at the same time, as the spell in the book describes,is arkward. That is why I would have it beeing a MuCo(Me) spell that gives your the form of your spirit.

That beeing said, it does bring a question. Can all spirits/ghost travel at those speeds?

I'm a fan of relative time concerning travel. Sort of in the spirit of Fairy travel. It can feel long and only take a few seconds or it can feel like a few seconds and in fact be two years. This is in keeping the artistic side of magic and the mythic element.

Now of course, this goes against the pre-scientific method of the Hermetic Theory where rote actions create repeatable results. While it's intrigueing to establish that a mind/body could move at X per round, as Erik's suggested it can lead to game play headaches.

Mamet said in the Edge (maybe he didn't say it, but I remember it from that movie), "What one man can do, another can do."

It should follow that if your characters can turn into thoughts and jump about Mythic Europe or turn Fireball's into Thoughts (shudder) and drop them on people, that others can do this as well. What seems like an easy way to get around Mythic Europe could turn into "the bad Guy ALWAYS gets away." or "Who killed me this week?"

If you allow this mental jump, perhaps magi move through aether, or the spirit world, something that makes the land scape relative. So even if they are traveling 60MPH, maybe the trip is 2' one day and 7million the next. Proceed with caution and if your very insistent I'll consider some hard stats for how fast I think the mind can move. :)

Last point, this vaugely reminds me of how Lestat and Anne Rice's vampires could essentially grab their soul (sort of like the infinitely small stone that is a demons heart) and move it where ever. I dunno, I need to dwell on this.

Chuck

4th editiion Land of fire and ice has an eksampel of a cat with the power to astral project. It lies down in what seems to be a deep sleep with occasional fits, it's mind becomes spiritual and it can travel about attack other spirits and see what goes on in the real world. It can also in it's spirit form travel at incredible speeds across the land. However when it doesn't want to be in spirit form anymore it awakens where the body went to sleep.
Certainly mentem magic allows you to transform into spirit shape or whatever we want to call it, your body instead of bieng made of flesh is now made of the same stuff as ghosts, ectoplasm or whatever.
I think it would be unbalancing if you can turn non-corpearel and travel from the black forest to rome in the blink of an eye and then become physical again. But bieng able to mimick what the cat does certainly seems reasonable to me.

Hail Eris!
Flarg

> 4th editiion Land of fire and ice has an eksampel of a cat with the
> power to astral project. It lies down in what seems to be a deep
> sleep with occasional fits, it's mind becomes spiritual and it can
> travel about attack other spirits and see what goes on in the real
> world. It can also in it's spirit form travel at incredible speeds
> across the land. However when it doesn't want to be in spirit form
> anymore it awakens where the body went to sleep.

Hmm... I think the cat in question had a form of Hamfarir ability (also described in the same book). Hamfarir normally does require that the spirit (or actually the fylgja) returns to the body normally (don't remember what happened if you were unable to, but it was not very nice - though it didn't kill you).

However, the fylgja could travel at nine times its normal speed when going as fast as it could. At this speed it moved too fast to be useful for scouting.

Jan

This is interesting.

I remeber where I read the info... well almost :P

It was from a 4th ed supplement about Ireland and it's protector spirits. There was the Grey Bull & the Dragon. both of them had supernatural travel speeds when in spirit form.