The Book of Beasts

Bonding of Spouses

The most powerful magical connection that a magus might create is a human pair bond. It is difficult to estimate how many True Lovers there were in Mythical Europe. but it may be that there were more than in the modern world. Peasants often married for love, but this was not a regular practice amongst the rich, so True Love seems to bless the lower class more often than their "betters". The community spirit in small villages supported marriage by allowing those in difficulty to seek advice from more successful couples, while the modern expectation that marriage should fulfil all of the emotional needs of the individual had not yet developed in medieval Europe, so fewer people have their expectations dashed. That being said, not all marriages, even those that are long-lasting, are True Loves sent from God. Most are pragmatic affairs with affection and trust on both sides.

If two magi are creating a spousal bond between themselves, they are essentially performing the familiarisation ritual on each other, over a period of a year, with slight changes to accommodate a human partner. Magi who desire a human familiar require scores of 10 in Corpus, Mentem, Vim. If two magi are forming the bond and one lacks the necessary scores, then the skilled magus bonds to the unskilled as if they were a normal human. The bonds may be retempered after the unskilled magus has acquired competency, and usually are. The rules below assume two magi co-operating to produce a bond. The cords produced by such rituals look like double-ply rope when viewed magically.

In the first season each magus requires 12 + Size pawns of Vim vis, to open each end of the enchantment. During this time each magus undergoes physical changes that draw them closer to perfection from the perspective of their partner, although with True Lovers, such changes are small. Although it is rare for speech traits to be transferred at this time, some magi do merge accents briefly, until everyday use retrains them in the local forms of speech. Magi do not gain "Human" as a trait, instead usually gaining that trait they find most attractive about their partner. Storyguides should practice mercy in this. No male magus has ever grown breasts due to this process.

In the second season, the cords are first formed, then spun around each other. The bond score for both magi is equal to the sum of their scores in Corpus, Mentem and Intellego, minus the summed size of both magi. During this process most magi have a magical resistance of zero, choosing to lower their magical protection. The double-spun nature of the cords generally makes them extremely strong. True Lovers forming the bond gain +6 to their laboratory total. Magi strengthen these bonds by exchanging arcane connections at this time, the most common being a golden ring, representing the Gift, names, representing the mind, and some sort of bodily fluid. For the chaste, saliva will do at this stage.

In the third season the magi develop bond qualities. As the cords have two smiths, they are rarely flawed.

In the fourth season, each magus closes their end of the bond, requiring three pawns of Vim vis each.

The Familiar Human in Play

The familiar human retains their own intelligence score and ability to speak understandably during the process. The magus may use their partner's Forms to resist magic if they are superior to their own. Two bonded magi can overcome each other's Magic Resistance at will and each is an arcane connection to the other. As play progresses, the two magi will gradually adapt to each other to such a degree that they will seem two halves of a single organism. Magi bound this way usually die at the same time, although if one knows they are about to die, they can unweave their partner if they wish.

If this link represents True Love, it cannot be destroyed by anyone short of God Himself. The destruction of the sacred gift of True Love is beyond the power of Hermetic magic and it's mystical representation in the familiar bond is equally sacrosanct.

Other Human Bonds

True Friendship

True Friends have occasionally formed a version of the spousal bond and it is virtually identical, although the exchanged arcane connections usually take other forms. As with True Lovers, only the power of the Divine can damage a link sanctified by True Friendship. Hermetic Amici, True Friends, usually give each other a magical item that reflects their partner's interests, write each other a book or poem, and exchange blood. The first represents the magic of one invested in the symbols of the other, a linking of gifts. The second represents a linking of minds through shared information. The last represents a non-sexual linking of bodies. This is called "Athenian Linkage" by some, as it is thought to reflect the bond between Athena and her friend Pelleas.

Proteges and Mentors

It occasionally occurs that a magus will wish to use the familiar bond to strengthen a protege, such as an Apprentice. They are enchanted as though they were a non-magus. The advantages of this bond to a magus are primarily emotional, in that the Apprentice tends to grow as a duplicate of the master, even taking on their physical characteristics. It's rare for these masters to be stingy or viscous, as they need to truly respect the apprentice for the bond to take hold. These paternal or maternal bonds are often weak when first formed, but as the child develops the bond may be retempered, making it powerful. Magi who have been bound to a master often lose them to age or twilight during the junior partner's middle age. Although they mourn deeply, many console themselves by finding a child similar their master and forming a bond with them. One line of magi from House Jerbiton have been doing this sort of thing for four hundred years, and it's said that a Bardic tradition in Hibernia practices it also. There are myths of a Druidic practice which had female and male Apprentices in alternating roles, reflecting the interactions of a Mother Goddesses and her son / lover / father, the Corn God, but these cannot be verified.

Linking to the Self

Some unusual Bjornaer craft a familiar link between their animal and human natures, enchanting their own body to create a greater unity between their natures. This process is considered morally flawed by some of the older Bjornaer, and can be traced back through the lineage to a non-hermetic shapeshifter who joined Bjornaer in preference to House Ex Miscellanea slightly after the beginning of the Order. It is rumoured that this magus was either Bjornaer's romantic partner or her father, but magi of this line discount each possibility.

The Ritual of Three Rings, once complete, creates a bonds that appear, in most magical vision, as mystical circles of glowing metal behind the forehead, upon the heart, and inside the groin. The preparations for the ritual are sufficiently complex that the magus must have scores of 10 in Animal, Corporem, Mentem and Vim, and must have a Will Over Form score of 5. In the first season the magus enchants their body, generally using Muto vis in the place of Animal. In the second they temper the rings, and in the third the two sides exchange qualities. After quirks are exchanged the similarities between each of the character's forms become even greater than usual, and the character's "natural" form becomes an amalgam of the two. It is for this reason that other Bjornaer dislike the practice of the Three Rings, as they believe it denies the essential nature of the brutish form.

Although no follower of this tradition, who call themselves "Followers of the Waning Moon" and use the gibbous moon as their symbol, has yet demonstrated multiple forms, they theorise that is possible that were one to do so, they might be capable of having multiple rings, linking the human nature to each of the animal natures and, more interestingly for contagion-oriented magical research, each of the animal natures to the other. Were this to prove successful, it might demonstrate a way for the rare magi with multiple familiars to interlink them mystically.

There have been a couple of Followers of the Waning Moon who had Heartshapes, but only one has undergone this ritual, as the others considered it likely to make their forms unsuited for everyday life. Rumours of this magus give contradicting indications concerning what her natural form now appears to be. She is said to have skin like flint and a meditative disposition, by some, while others insist she has a body as half so light as a cloud and amorphous capabilities. At the inquiry of the Prima Merintina gossip that she was dryad-like have been denied.