What did Bonisagus do? He developed the Parma Magica to allow the great wizards of the time to meet safely. He then collected the various rituals that the Mercurian Magi had developed. Through experimentation he found which rituals worked best when used by anyone. Then he synthesized this with the lore of Diedne and the Druids, perhaps the most important of his breakthroughs.
Diedne and the DruidsLittle is known about Druids and the way they worked magic. However, certain poets and scholars have speculated that the Celtic poetry and myths that remain to the modern day reveal clues about they way they worked magic. These scholars claim that oral poetry was used mainly for magical and religious purposed and that little or no magic was written in any form. These same scholars claim that the Druids also used a gesture alphabet. It is certain that the Druids used a form of writing known as ogham. It was used mainly for carving and what examples we have of it are mainly found on megaliths.
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In Ars Magica, Druids did not employ long rituals, but rather spontaneous magic, usually involving poetry, the use of invocation and hand gestures. However, their magic was restricted to spells of glamour, enchantment, nature and self-transformation. Bonisagus applied Druidical knowledge to his methods of classification. What he synthesized was a system of general magics usable by (and teachable to) those with only a modicum of talent; one that could be cast with only gestures and words, sometimes using specialized verse forms. Rituals were necessary for the most powerful magics. He also discovered a way to synthesize magic components so that they could be used in a general way. he called this raw vis, or power.
When he uses a formulaic spell he first selects the appropriate mental state and then recites a formula in a specific verse form while making the appropriate hand gestures. The reason that one rolls for the spell, as opposed to it working the same way every time (as one might expect), is that the magic is still an art. Various environmental influences will effect the spell. Such as the astrological influences for a spell at the time a Magus casts it may not be all that appropriate for the particular spell he is casting. Also, the place he casts it or the objects nearby while he is casting it may affect the spell for the worse. Of course the reverse might be true as well. Also, not every wizard is perfect. The magus might flub the mental state, slip over a word or be trembling because of the cold, etc.
When a Magus casts a spontaneous spell she has a plethora of choices to make. First, she has to choose the correct mental attitude for the effect she wants. She must then choose the proper verse form from among the Latin, Greek and Celtic (and sometimes other barbaraian sources) that are available to her. Next, she must choose what entities are most appropriate to call on for the spell she is attempting and decides on the appropriate hand gestures or movements necessary. Finally, she must pray that the spell will be in accordance with the proper astrological moment. All of this is one within a three- or four-second time span, if she is casting in the middle of combat.
A Magus may try to incorporate such details into her spell casting. Such a description is worth a roleplaying bonus to the spellcasting, usually of +1 to +3 on the roll.
A note about verse forms: when a Magus uses a verse form she not only uses the meter of the orginal but also the words of and references to the original. This may seem outlandish, but we actually have written examples of spells from antiquity and the Middle Ages that used Homeric verses in this very same manner.
Language is itself Mentem. It is therefore possible to cast InMe to understand a language or to understand languages, without needing to penetrate magic resistance, or have a person as target. From a modern perspective, language consists of symbols to which people ascribe representations, but from an older perspective, language is itself a correspondence to that which it describes, with meaning independent of initiator and recipient. Uncoded writing can therefore be understood, as can uncoded speech. Coded messages cannot be understood, because the code itself has no intrinsic meaning for the Intellego Mentem to catch.
Certain words have magic resistance, such as the names of demons, though it might be worse for a magus to gain true understanding in such cases. (This makes a nice botch effect that can be generalized to many Intellego spells: Overwhelming Understanding.)
Last modified: Thurs Nov 12, 1998 / Jeremiah Genest