Form

In Ars Magica, which is mostly about magic, Form almost exclusively refers to Forms in the context of Hermetic Arts.

A Form is an object or subject to which a Technique applies. The combination of one Technique and at least one Form is required to manifest a Hermetic magical effect. The most obvious example of an magical effect that requires more than one Form is the use of Muto as a Technique to transform one Form into an other.

The nomenclature used to describe Forms is Latin nouns, either in first person nominative, or first person accusative case. Unlike former editions of Ars Magica that exclusively used the accusative case, the 4th edition introduced a mixture of both syntaxes.

There are 10 different Forms:

Animal
Effects related to animals and animal products.
Aquam
Effects related to liquids in general, and water in particular.
Auram
Effects related to air and wind.
Corpus
Effects related to human bodies.
Herbam
Effects related to plants and plant products.
Ignem
Effects related to heat and fire.
Imaginem
Effects related to all things able to affect senses.
Mentem
Effects related to the mind as well as spirits.
Terram
Effects related to substantial material in general, and earth and metal in particular.
Vim
Effects related Vim and demons.