Naming Conventions

Christianity

The popularity of using baptismal names varies by region. In some areas, parents do not name a child until the baptism, people avoid referring to the child specifically until that event, and the child then uses his baptismal name for his entire life. In other areas, the parents give the child a secret name, which is used only by the family or may never be used, and the child uses his baptismal name in public. In many areas, however, parents name their children at birth with either the name of a recently dead relative or even a sibling who predeceased the newborn. In these areas, a distinct baptismal name is either not given or never used. Regardless of the naming convention in any particular area, the use of nicknames is common. Bynames could be added to a personal name based on some prominent physical characteristic, personality trait, place of birth, or occupation.

Islam

Although naming conventions vary by region for Muslims too, there is much more uniformity across the Islamic world. A person's birth name is only one of many names she has. A person may use a patronymic name that could encompass two or three generations. Often a person could also have a name designating his occupation, tribal lineage, or geographic origin. As Muslims become adults, they no longer use their birth names and might only be referred to as the father or mother of their firstborn son. It is offensive to refer to an adult by her birth name alone.

In addition to the above names, a person might also take a "laqab." This byname might be descriptive of a personality trait held (or desired) by the person. "Harun Al-Rashid," for instance, means "Harun the Rightly-Guided." But a laqab could also be religious in nature. Some take the name servant ("abd" for men and "amat" for women) of one of the ninety-nine names of God. Examples of such names include: Abd Al-Aziz (servant of the Almighty), Amat Allah (servant of God), abd Al-Malik (servant of the Sovereign), amat Al-Khallaq (servant of the Creator), or Abd As-Samad (servant of the Eternal). Some people do not use a birth name or are given a laqab as a birth name.

Some examples of Arabic names include: Umm Ja'far Zaina bint Yusuf ibn Farouk (Mother of Jafar, Zaina, daughter of Joseph, son of Farouk); Abu Isma'il Ibrahim ibn Ishaq ibn Ibrahim ibn Bashir al-Bukhari (Father of Ishmael, Abraham, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Bashir, from Bukhara); and Abu al-Ayyub Abd al-Rahim ibn Ahmad al-Harrani (Father of Job, servant of the Merciful, son of Ahmad, from Harran).

Judaism

Jews often adopt the naming conventions of the surrounding communities. This means that Jews in Europe usually identify themselves by only their given name, possibly with one byname. Jews in Islamic society often use multiple patronymic names and other bynames. Men are more likely to be named using traditional Biblical names, while women often take names from the local community. When a Jewish man in Christian Europe takes a byname, it is usually based on his father's name, the local geography, a personal characteristic, his occupation, or his rabbinical status.

Although women can be referred to as daughter or wife of someone, these are rarely part of their proper names and are generally merely a designation of a familial relationship. Jews in Islamic societies do not usually take religious laqab names, but might have bynames indicating their piety, devotion to God, or religious scholarship.

Religious Names in Defixio Magic

A target's nickname, birth name, or byname may be used as a sympathetic connection to her, but the target's baptismal, religious laqab, or rabbinical name may not. If a person's birth name and religious name are the same, then that name may not be used in any magic ritual. For such an individual, only his nickname or byname may be used to identify him. If a religious name is incorporated into the description of a target, in defixio magic or an Unlimited Range spell, the spell is treated as if the religious name had not been included. If only a religious name is used, the spell always fails. If one of the above religious names is part of the target's full name, the spell or Ability is treated as if only the target's nickname or pseudonym is known.

Using Duration Event

Event Duration spells lend themselves to defensive measures. They allow magi to create traps and alarms based on a wide variety of criteria. Remote vis sites, covenants, and sancta are prime locations for traps to repel or punish intruders. A magus could also cast a spell to automatically protect the covenant library with Soothe the Raging Flames. With the addition of a Mentem requisite, magi can create alarms that warn of potential attacks before they even occur. A covenant concerned with spies or traitors might create alarms that identify enemies without forcing a magus to cast Intellego Mentem spells on every member of the turb or covenant.

The storyguide should always require the player to write out a complete description of the triggering event and record the relevant spell totals. The magus may cast a spell that is not activated until years later. A character's statistics may have changed significantly during that time. Similarly, a written triggering event reduces the likelihood of arguments about the exact circumstances that activate the spell.

A spell with a duration of Event could create a situation where the magus unintentionally violates the Code of Hermes. Given that it is not a violation of the Code, per se, for a magus to enter a covenant without invitation, a spell that activates an alarm or a trap against an intruding magus would likely violate the Code. If the magus casts a spell with a trigger based on the target's intentions and a magus enters the range of the spell, whether the magus triggers the spell or not, this could violate the Code's prohibition on scrying.

One way to reduce the likelihood of an unintentional violation of the Code is to reduce the Ritual's Penetration Total to zero, but a magus would still be vulnerable at sunrise and sunset when his Parma Magica expires (see Houses of Hermes: True Lineages, page 72). The unfortunate side effect of forceless casting is that any creature with a Might score would never trigger the spell. The safest way to define a triggering event is to specifically exclude members of the Order from any description.

Using Range Unlimited

Spells with Unlimited Range should have a greater impact on game play than Event Duration. Although all of the effects that Unlimited Range spells allow can be duplicated by spells with an Arcane Connection, characters are freed from the need to collect, fix, and maintain multiple Arcane Connections. Characters may affect people anywhere with little more than the person's name and current location. Similarly, a spell like The Leap of Homecoming with Unlimited Range allows a character to travel anywhere in Mythic Europe and possibly the world. Because of the drastic impact this may have on game play, a storyguide may wish to impose some arbitrary limit on the distance, such as the edges of continental Europe, or 49 leagues.

A magus must create any symbolic representation used as a sympathetic connection in an Unlimited Range spell (see ArM5, page 84). Obviously, a poorly drawn map or an inaccurate picture fails as a sympathetic connection. The character, however, may not know that his representation is insufficient and may attempt to use the representation with disastrous results.

The troupe should discuss the possibility of the magus creating a representation of a location that the magus has never visited. What happens if a magus reads of Prester John's Kingdom and attempts to travel there? What happens if the author's description is accurate, but the magus's rendition was not? What happens if the location is actually fictitious? An easy solution might be to require personal knowledge of the location depicted, but other answers might be more interesting. Should the storyguide not wish to have such a wide-ranging saga, characters may simply travel to Faerie regiones created by the fanciful tales told about the fictitious location. A botch using a travel spell with Unlimited Range could produce a similar result.

Because incorporating Unlimited Range into Hermetic theory allows the magus to break one of the minor Hermetic limits and do something that Bonisagus himself was unable to do, the troupe should consider the ramifications of this discovery. Any magus who fully incorporates defixio magic into Hermetic theory achieves a Hermetic Breakthrough and is likely vaulted to the status of the greatest living Hermetic theoretician.