Mechanica

A new Major Supernatural Virtue, Mechanica of Heron, represents the magical techniques described in this chapter. A surviving practitioner of this discipline could teach it to a Gifted character using the rules for learning Supernatural Abilities (see ArM5, page 166). Since any magus must subtract his Art scores from the Study Total, any magi seeking to use these techniques would be wiser to attempt integrating Heron's mechanical principles into Hermetic theory instead.

A magus attempting to incorporate the underlying principles of Heron's Mechanica into Hermetic theory requires a breakthrough in Hermetic theory (see the Introduction). Integrating Heron's Mechanica requires the following two suggested Breakthroughs: Mutable Device and Awakened Device.

Knowledge of what mechanica are, how to construct them, and how to use them. Primarily used in the laboratory to construct mechanica (see above).

Specialties: Inventing Mechanica, Constructing Anima, working with a particular material. (Supernatural)

Before starting, the magus must obtain uncorrupted versions of Heron's texts and working mechanica. Studying these provides the magus with Insight and provides a one-time bonus to the magus's Lab Total when inventing a Hermetic device that mimics the effects of either a studied mechanica or a mechanica described in one of Heron's texts. Mechanica provide a bonus equal to the magnitude of the device's effect. Uncorrupted texts provide a bonus equal to their Level or Quality (whichever is lower) for inventing a device described in the text. Broken mechanica do not provide Insight. An anima may provide several instances of Insight (one for each of its effects) or serve as a Teacher (see the Introduction) at the storyguide's discretion.

Understanding Mechanica

A magus may wish to use a mechanica as well as study it. The magus spends one season in the laboratory investigating the device as per the Investigating Enchantments rules (ArM5, page 100). If the study total generated exceeds the level of the effect in the device, the magus understands the device sufficiently to use the device in addition to it possibly providing the researcher with Insight.