Upcoming Ars update

## Minor Changes Needed:

* https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Token\_Master\_Lis This page needs Spell Enhancement + Apprenticeships adding.
* Under 'second year apprentice' remove the line 'Can also be learned from the current Charms teacher by completing the Charms NEWT.' from Magical Signature.
* On the Journeyman tokens page, move item creation down to fifth year. On the master item page, move item creation up to sixth. Make sure the MASTER TOKEN LIST (linked above) correctly shows this.)
* Add ***(This power is currently under construction and subject to change)*** under half-vampire.
* [FOR THE ARS PAGE] You can apply for a natural power a maximum of THREE times, no matter what ability you apply for, and with a minimum of three weeks between each attempt. A user may only have one natural power across all their characters and the same rules apply as for new joiners: your character must exist for two weeks prior to applying, with the exception of Metamorphmagi, Half-Giant and Half-Goblin. If you have previously applied under the old system and been rejected, you may now reapply!
* [ALSO FOR ARS PAGE] Before you can apply for a Natural Power you must have been an active player for at least two weeks, with the exceptions of Metamorphmagus which **must** be applied for before roleplaying as well as Half-Giant and Half-Goblin, which due to their overt nature can be applied for either to start with or slightly later.
* [FOR THE #character-creation channel, under Natural Abilities] We require new players to actively RP for a minimum of 2-3 weeks before submitting a natural ability application, with the exceptions of:

\**Metamorphmagus\** who must apply before they are accepted.

\*Half-Goblin\* and \*Half-Giant\* which can be applied for either in the beginning or later.

## Second Year, Apprentice Token

### Spell Enhancement

One of the more basic and widely known spellcasting techniques, enhancing the potency of more basic spells through researching ones with similar techniques has been a tried and true method for many who would proclaim a spell their ‘signature move’.

**Learning**: Spell Enhancement is a very basic technique, easy enough to pick up even without years of study. Books on it can be found in the Hogwarts library and all good magical book stores alike for those interested in the theory behind it.

**Using Spell Enhancement**: Once you’ve mastered a spell, you may cast all spells of a similar ‘archetype’ as if they were that spell. For example, once you have Expelliarmus mastered all disarming spells can now be !cast as if they were Expelliarmus; this includes incantation and the slight variation between those spell’s effects and visuals, allowing people to reach their favourite spells into higher DCs for combat, Harry style.

## Fifth Year, Master Token

### Wand Affinity

You cannot apply for Wand Affinity if you have Dual-Wanding.

It is often said that the wand chooses the wizard. This is a statement that rings true in those that are truly bonded to their wand, whether it be through having a core that relates to them on some deeper level (such as the infamous Harry Potter and his phoenix tail feather) or by fitting the wandlore of the wood so excellently that you are a model for what it represents. Either way, you and your wand have a bond and a loyalty that is much closer than most others, and are equal partners in every spell you cast.

**Learning**: To fully bond with your wand you must first go through a great amount with them, whether this be through adventure or academia, through love or hatred. The wand must have always been your greatest ally. As such this ability can only be learned in 5th year or above with extensive justification. Whether this be through the rp of the character or through simply a great length of time spent with this wand.

**Using Wand Affinity**: Outside of combat, you may wandlessly and non-verbally call your wand to you without casting a spell. Furthermore, your wand can be considered to have a degree of ‘plot armour’, and is unlikely to be permanently lost or broken unless consciously abandoned or otherwise betrayed.

Once per combat, when your character would be defeated, your wand will lash out to defend you from the attack.

**Drawbacks**: If for any reason you lose the loyalty of your wand. (breaking it, betraying it, damaging it, betraying the ideals that bonded you in the first place) you lose the bonded status with your wand and cannot bond with another wand. As wands that truly fit the wielder are few and far between.

**Novice**: Your wand has began to act outside of the confines of what is normally accepted and seems to be reacting to your choices of the spells you cast and decisions you make in minor ways.

**Intermediate**: Your wand seems to be growing ever more attuned to you now and seems to be speaking back to you in moments, whether through a burst of heat or something else. Your wand has opinions and they’re made clear to you.

**Master**: Your wand is as another limb to you, if the limb had a beating heart and brain of itself. You’re completely in tune with each other and being apart from it feels a notable absence to you. Once per combat when your character would be defeated in a fight, the Wand will act of its own accord to protect its wizard.

(Note: Intermediate to Master is a larger leap than usual narratively that is dependent on the player to portray as they see fit.)

**Timeframe**: Suggested: 2 IC Years would be average development but is largely left up to individual player choices due to the narrative strength afforded by this purchase.

## Beast Empath (Journeyman Token)

A rare magical ability that allows the holder to befriend and interact with animals by knowing instinctively what the animal is trying to communicate through its actions and feelings, this connection works both ways with them understanding your intent and feelings.

**Power (Initial)**: Non-magical creatures have a natural affinity to your presence, seeking you out when you are in locations that they may be found and will not harm you. minor magical creatures (XX or lower) will also naturally see you in a positive light without prior interaction, however could still pose a threat if they are so inclined.

**Power (Fourth Year)**: You may now request minor favours from non-magical creatures that would be outside of their usual behaviour E.G a bear carrying you safely across a river. Minor magical creatures will now no longer pose a threat to you unless in a situation that forces requires it E.G Adventures or plots and moderately powerful magical creatures (XXX) will naturally see you in a positive light without prior interaction, however could still pose a threat if they are so inclined.

**Power (Seventh Year)**: You may now request almost any favour from a non-magical creature and it would be happy to help you, though they may be reluctant to help if it goes against their base nature they may be convinced, E.G Leopards protecting a mouse from another large predator.

At this stage all but the most dangerous of magical creatures would be willing to interact without prior interaction and respond to requests for aid, while magical creatures may not always accept your requests they will always consider it E.G Newt requesting the aid of a swooping evil.

**Drawbacks**: The empathy you establish with creatures is two-way. It is difficult to consciously harm an animal for you, and you may find yourself picking up habits and mannerisms from the animals you interact with, the more you interact with an animal the larger number of behaviours you emulate.

## Natural Legilimency (Master Token)

Unlike its learned counterpart, natural Legilimency is a far more fickle and superficial power, focused on surface thoughts rather than clear images of memories forgotten or many-layered thoughts. However, the nature of the natural power is such that you don’t need to cast the spell to peruse another human being’s thoughts, making natural Legilimency equally powerful and just as alarming, if not more.

**Power (Initial)**: Very occasionally, surface thoughts in the form of feelings or a vague memory will enter your character’s mind, especially when the feeling or memory in question is emotionally volatile or being repressed, but they will be indistinguishable from your character’s own thoughts. The surface thought does not appear as fully-fledged sentence, but rather as a state of mind, making a character faced with an angry counterpart angry, or a character faced with someone remembering something sad be infused with a feeling of nostalgic melancholy. These surface thoughts can also appear as a feeling of déjà vu; a feeling suddenly entering their minds without a clear memory attached to it. During this stage, your character will also be more easily influenced because of the nature of their power being so that they adopt the thoughts and feelings as their own.

**Power (Fourth Year)**: You character has developed an understanding that the surface thoughts entering their minds are not their own, whether from a slow development or a sudden realisation. Fully-fledged sentences still don’t appear, as this is not the nature of the mind, but the emotions and images that appear to your character can now be much more clearly defined and give a much more nuanced sense of context, allowing the thought to have a complex enough structure that it is understood almost verbally. This also means that your character is more often able to distinguish others’ thoughts from their own, although the power is still not entirely stable. This means your character still has no conscious control over when they pick up thoughts and that the thoughts will still affect their subconscious, much like debating with a friend and being convinced by something they say.

**Power (Seventh Year)**: Your character is now able to freely use their power and be able to separate others’ thoughts entirely from their own, although they are still limited to the current thoughts of whatever target they choose.

**Drawbacks**:

* Throughout the first three years of the development of the power, your character can be completely rewritten, due to the nature of adopting foreign thoughts. These thoughts won’t be perceived as ‘other’, even after the power develops more, and will always be considered as part of your character
* Can only perceive surface thoughts.
* Reading another character’s mind requires OOC consent every time, without exception.

#### **Natural Legilimency FAQ**

**Can thoughts in other languages be perceived?**
Yes, but the ordinary drawbacks and nature of the thought is the same. Your character does not understand another language but rather translates it to their own, due to the nature of the thought being emotion/image rather than fully-fledged sentence.

**Do Metamorphmagi influence Legilimens more than others?**
Due to the nature of Metamorphmagi being such that their feelings are much harder to repress, yes and no. Though Metamorphmagi’s feelings are much more visible and might be more influential to someone who’s prone to wanting others to feel good in the first place, their feelings are less repressed and as such enter Legilimens’ minds much less subtly and powerfully through their power. As such, this is up for you to decide.

**Can Legilimens pick up on more than one person’s thoughts?**
By year seven of their development, Legilimens can graze the thoughts of people in their immediate vicinity, using it to map out the location instinctually. If there are too many people, however, this surface map becomes distorted with details, no matter how small the room.

**Are Legilimens able to perceive the thoughts of animals?**
Assuming that animals’ minds work differently than humans’, the answer is no. The tools present to understand and map a human’s mind does not apply to animals; if your character wishes to understand animals, the power you’re looking for is Beast Empathy.

## Fifth Year, Apprentice Token

### Apprenticeships

Apprenticeships within the Wizarding World will give your character experiences and similarities to how the jobs are in post grad. They will give you tasters of what the job entails throughout the summer between years.

Examples include -

* Ministry Apprenticeships
* Diagon Alley Apprenticeships
* Hogsmeade Apprenticeships
* St Mungos Apprenticeship

An example of an Apprenticeship in Diagon Alley -

An apprenticeship at Madam Malkins Robes for all occasions might include -

* Tailoring Hogwarts robes for students
* Tailoring robes for adults
* Processing purchases of robes
* Robe designer

An example of an Apprenticeship in Hogsmeade -

An apprenticeship in Honeydukes might include -

* Stocking up the candy in the store
* Processing purchases for customers
* Ordering stock for the store

An example of an Apprenticeship in the Ministry -

An apprenticeship in the Wizengamot Administration Services might include -

* Maintenance of court documents
* Handling hearing dates
* Handling judges schedules

An example of an Apprenticeship in St Mungo's -

While an apprenticeship at St Mungo's would be offered in fifth year, the duties would gradually increase as the apprenticeship went on through the years.

* 5th year - No hands on patient interaction, but helping behind the scenes; also chatting to patients, restocking potions, checking charts among other things.
* 6th year - Slightly more hands on, helping run tests, plus all of the above.
* 7th - Same as above, but can also use healing spells and potions if directed too by actual healers.

Note: While these are under fifth year, you may choose to have them later this. The apprenticeships would be done during the summer holidays until you graduate, you may have your character be offered a full time job after the apprenticeship is over. There are also different apprenticeships available in different years, for example an apprenticeship at a professional Qudditch camp would be available in seventh years.

## First year, Apprentice Token

### Harnessed Accidental Magic

*Suggested by Christine Marilyn, with input from Valeria Chovnik, Vanessa Morse and Mazarine Denshaw.*

Accidental magic is a common enough occurrence among young witches and wizards. In an intense situation, magic beyond their control can manifest itself to save them from undue distress. This is often caused by lack of emotional control, but when harnessed correctly some forms of accidental magic can be quite useful.

Note: Even without this ability, you may still RP accidental magic during your characters growing years, however it would be both less frequent and totally uncontrolled compared to these.

**Learning**: Your character may find that a certain 'tick' of accidental magic has becoming more and more common for them; this is considered an ‘affinity’, some sort of trait belonging to them that makes it more common for one reason or another. Seeking to get it under their control, they may instead find that the very method they use to control it also allows it to be released at will; learning to control it in such a manner is considered a ‘harnessed’ form of Accidental Magic.

**Using Accidental Magic**: Affinities for accidental magic often spike in intense or otherwise strenuous or highly emotional situations. Once the Accidental Magic has been harnessed, you may use it as frequently as you wish (with RP), having your player directly control this trait. It is done both wandlessly and non-verbally in all instances.

**Fabulous Affinity**: Your character's hair always seems to regrow by the next day, no matter how often it's cut.
**Fabulous Harnessed**: Harnessing this allows hair to be regrown at will.
**Drawbacks**: You have one hairstyle for life.

**Jinxer Affinity**: Sometimes, when angered, you find the strangest things happening to those around you. Their eyes growing bulbous, their body fattening.
**Jinxer Harnessed**: Harnessing this allows you to deliberately use various Hexes on Muggles and mundane animals, simply with a shift in emotions.
**Drawbacks**: Anger or other strong emotions can still lead to accidental Hexing.

**Technophobe Affinity**: Something about you struggles with technology; you find it always fitzing out on you, lights turning on and off.
**Technophobe Harnessed**: Harnessing this allows you to deliberately disable any Muggle technology initially by touch, later in the room with you.
**Drawbacks**: Electronics are essentially unusable to you, eternally cut off from internet access.

**Boombox Affinity**: Sometimes you’ll set off things with a bang. Walking into a kitchen you may find popcorn instantly pops, or down the street car alarms start sounding.
**Boombox Harnessed**: You may set off objects that make loud sounds from a distance, providing distractions and misdirections.
**Drawbacks**: You struggle with silence, often clanking and clomping about with heavy footsteps.

**Item Finder Affinity**: Sometimes it feels like your possessions are always just where you need them, whether that be your keys or favourite quill.
**Item Finder Harnessed**: If you focus on a personally significant object that is in the room with you, it may warp into your hand, pockets, or atop your head. This does not include powerful magical items, such as wands.
**Drawbacks**: If you’re thinking too hard about an object it may be difficult to put it down or otherwise discard it. This can pertain to objects you know less well, too.

**Custom Abilities**: You may also apply for your own Accidental Magic Affinity/Harnessing if you have something unique to your character, or would like added to the model!

**Cost**: Apprentice Token, Unlocked from the start. You may only ever have one form of Accidental Magic affinity.

**Timeframe**: 2 IC Years for Progression from affinity to harnessed. Effects of affinity may begin to dim as you approach adulthood unless harnessed. This is recommended not enforced and you can make it longer, but please avoid making the timeframe too short.

Note: For in character purposes, an affinity for a certain accidental magic is essentially natural. You may also rp the harnessing of it being natural, too.

## Announcement

Hey everyone!

The tokens pages and Ars Arcanum have both received several major updates and we'd like to give you a quick run down of what's changed and the reasons behind them!

> :bp: \*\*Apprenticeships\*\* (Fifth Year, Apprentice Token) have been added as a formal option on the token wiki. For those on the worldbuilding server they're something you'll know we've been looking at adding for a while. These mini-summer/winter jobs are something we're adding to help bridge the gap between Hogwarts and future post grad ideas. They also act as one of several ideas to help shore up the lack of things you can do with apprentice tokens and what could be more fitting?
>
>

> :bp: \*\*Harnessed Accidental Magic\*\* (First Year, Apprentice Token) is a power I built months and months ago shortly after the 'build your own power prompt'. Sadly, it missed the deadline and has been sitting on the backburner ever since. The idea behind this power ended up being:
>
>

A) Make a simple first year power that fits easily within existing canon magics.

B) Like with other parts of this update, add more options to use Apprentice tokens on.

C) Add a power that has a lot of diversity for character ideas. Elemental Magic has been one of the most popular powers, in part because there's so many different versions that can reflect different characters, which we hope this will do too!

:bp: \*\*Beast Empath\*\* (Natural Power, Journeyman Token) has been entirely overhauled. As mentioned in previous updates, it's been looking to be updated for the fourth time. This update should bring it closer upwards to what a Journeyman token is typically worth and give a clearer guide on the limits of said power.

> :bp: \*\*Natural Legilimency\*\* (Natural Power, Master Token) has received more detailed information. This power has been one of the tougher apps for a long time, not just due to it being a master token but also due to a lack of codified information on how it's expected to work. So, much like with Natural Occlumency, more of the information surrounding it has been codified and added to the Ars.
>
>

> :bp: \*\*Wand Affinity\*\* (Fifth Year, Master Token) has received a total overhaul. This was based on a list of suggestions we received noting that despite the power being a super general one that could fit many people thematically, the mechanical bonuses were super specific and forced people into a corner. As such, we've built on their suggestions to make a power that's hopefully more wide reaching! Another aspect we changed was the scaling cost: originally this power got cheaper over time, however this didn't match most others and felt like it forced you to wait until grad to obtain it, as such said cost has been made unchanging.
>
>

> :bp: \*\*Magical Signature\*\* (Second Year, Apprentice token) has had the 'free with Charms NEWT' clause removed. As with the Wand Affinity cost change, we felt this was forcing people to wait and restricting Apprentice tokens further. Alongside this, Charms was intending to teach this during a much, much different time. This was during the old 'all classes must teach 9 classes a week era', with the changes less content is needed.
>
>

> :bp: \*\*Spell Enhancement\*\* (Second Year, Apprentice Token) is a semi-new power. Originally this was part of Wand Affinity, however removing it from that power was one of the suggestions we received. Making it it's own, much cheaper ability means much more people can toy around with this! Plus, more apprentice token uses, woo!
>
>

> :bp: \*\*Natural Power Rule Changes.\*\* Due to popular demand, the rule regarding alts and natural powers has been tweaked to give more people an opportunity to RP out these abilities, whilst also keeping the integrity of their original characters. These are the core rules:
>
>

- You may only have one character with a natural power. However, it does not matter which of your characters this is. If your current character has a natural power, you are not allowed a second.

- Half-Goblin and Half-Giant can now be applied for with new characters, much like Metamorphmagi. However, they can also be applied for later, too. Please note that based on the volume of apps, this rule may be reassessed later.

- The same rules apply to new characters as new members. With the exception of aforementioned powers, your character must've existed for at least two weeks before you can apply.

For a quick list of changes, including more minor ones, check out #change-log

## Change Log

\*\*Major Ars/Tokens Update!\*\*

:bp: \*\*Wand Affinity\*\* overhauled. <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Master\_Tokens#Wand\_Affinity>

:bp: Fixed the fact that the year unlocks for Journeyman/Master item creation was reversed. Journeyman is now correctly fifth and Master sixth.

:bp: Removed free unlock of \*\*Magical Signature\*\* from Charms. <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice\_Tokens#Magical\_Signature>

:bp: \*\*Natural Legilimency\*\* has been made more detailed. <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Ars\_Arcanum:\_The\_Book\_of\_Magic#Natural\_Legilimency\_.28Master\_Token.29>

:bp: \*\*Beast Empath\*\* has been overhauled. <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Ars\_Arcanum:\_The\_Book\_of\_Magic#Beast\_Empathy\_.28Journeyman\_Token.29>

:bp: \*\*Apprenticeships\*\* have been added as a standardised apprentice token for fifth years+ <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice\_Tokens#Apprenticeships>

:bp: A new first year apprentice token ability has been added: \*\*Harnessed Accidental Magic\*\*. < https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice\_Tokens#Harnessed\_Accidental\_Magic>

:bp: A new second year apprentice token ability has been added: \*\*Spell Enhancement\*\*. <https://model-hogwarts.wikia.com/wiki/Apprentice\_Tokens#Spell\_Enhancement>

:bp: A note has been added that \*\*Half-Vampire\*\* is due an overhaul.

:bp: \*\*Half-Giant\*\* and \*\*Half-Goblin\*\* can now be applied for before the 2 week wait is up.

:bp: \*\*Natural Powers\*\* are now max 1 per player, rather than restricted so that alts can't have them. Alts must still wait the standard amount of time to apply as new players, however.

For a more in-depth run down of the reasons behind these changes, check out #announcements