Path Magic Wards question

[Whitewings]

In my setting, I have a thought: at each of the quarter-days, meaning solstices and equinoxes, the priest or priests of an area distribute charms with the Ward ritual performed on them. The intent is that each charm is hung up inside a home, where it will apply the Ward effect to the house (particularly large homes might require multiple charms). Is this actually rules legal? I’m using Effect Shaping Path/Book magic from Thaumatology.

I’m trying to minimize penalties to the skill roll so that smaller settlements, which will only likely have a priest and maybe one acolyte, aren’t excessively vulnerable to supernatural hazards.

[mlangsdorf]

Wards cannot be replaced while active (Thaumatology p 159). Creating a bunch of Ward tokens that can be put up later seems like it would get around this restriction. If a bunch of magicians besieged by hostile spirits specifically and explicitly cannot recast Ward to keep them out, I can't see how they could create a bunch of Ward tokens, wait for the active token to start to fail, and then replace it.

The priest could go to a home a day, remove that home's Ward, and replace it with a new one. But I don't think the priest can stock up a bunch of Wards that will replace active Wards.

Though it's your game world and the ritual effects in Thaumatology are suggestions, not unbreakable edicts. If you want priests to be able to distribute Ward tokens, just adjust the description of the ritual and move on.

[Whitewings]

Well then, there's no problem. The intent is that the charms become active when hung up, last for a season, and are replaced with new for the next season.

[mlangsdorf]

I understand the intent.

That doesn't change that the priest is casting the ritual to replace the ward while the ward is still active, and that is explicitly not allowed under the standard rules.

If I was trying to stay mostly compliant with the rules, I'd suggest that the wards automatically drop at the end of the season, and can't be reactivated early if hostile forces break them before the end of the season. The priest can go around to houses with broken wards and individually remove the wards and recast them as normal, but the ward tokens can only be used on the quarter days.

That seems pretty consistent with the normal rules: you can stockpile ward tokens, but you can't use that stockpile to rapidly replace damaged wards while under siege.