1220: A Brave New World

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Rise of Atlantis
1

With the issue of Arviderax settled, and the issue of the undersea Atlanteans one that can't be dealt with at present, the group disperses for a couple of days, returning the following Saturday to the island in the Atlantic Ocean that represents a peak of one of the sunken mountains of Atlantis. There, at the small camp they've made, Magnus has prepared what he needs for his ritual.

With the magi is one additional person, Andor ex Tremere, a member of the Atlantis cabal who was unable to get away from some pressing business when the previous discussions and exploration occurred.

"Well, my friends," Magnus says to the gathered magi. "The time has finally come. All of our years of research and preparation have lead us to this. Today Atlantis lives again. But it will not be easy, as you all know. The land we raise will be devoid of all surface life. We will have to create everything on this new land, from grass to trees to roads to buildings. And we shall have to bring everything that we need here across the ocean. People, sheep, cattle, and a hundred things more. It may have taken us decades to reach this point; it may take decades more before this is the paradise we hope it will be. But if we work hard and keep focused on the goal, I know that New Atlantis can be everything we hope it will."

Duncan stands nearby in a state of pure joy. This has been his life's work, and it's finally coming to fruition.

[hr][/hr]
Welcome Andern to the game as Andor. We'll say he's one of the original cabal who just couldn't make it to the last meeting.

With his words of power and bonuses for ceremonial magic, Magnus can manage this spell on his own. There's no need for any Communion-type spells to assist.

Is there anything anyone needs done or said before the spell is cast?

2

Meliai brings out some bags of gathered seeds. "I have the seeds for our new forests right here, and the vegetation on these islands should endure a while before they succumb to cold from the mountaintops. I am ready."

3

Andor smiles and nods "We stand ready and able to assist you my old friend, I know how much this means to you. I apologize for my prior absence, but you can now trust that our project will have the full backing of House Tremere and all the resources that entails." His piece said, he takes a step back and watches as Magnus begins the ritual.

4

The day of the summer solstice finally arrives and it is time to raise the island. After decades of preparation and research, Atlantis will at last be returned to the surface world. Magnus looks at the gathered magi and companions. "This will take some time. But I would advise you to be ready to take hold of something, or perhaps take to the air. I expect the effect of this to be similar to a small earthquake." In fact, Duncan is already hovering above the ground, having been enchanted to fly by his twin brother.

"And now, to begin!" Magnus paces off a circle on the island and moves to the center where a podium has been erected that contains a book of incantations. He opens the book and begins chanting and gesturing. This will go on for some time, the others know. Hours at least for a spell of this power. And true to form, the ritual proeceds for three hours before there's any sign of effect, and then it's just a slight trembling of the ground. About three-and-a-half hours into it, there is rumbling on the island and some significant tremors. Fifteen minutes later, the earth shakes. These severe tremors increase, knocking over anything that's not tied down or holding on to something solid. But the shaking isn't the only movement of the ground beneath the magi's feet. The small island actually begins to rise from the sea. As this happens, Magnus grabs the book with one hand and begins to hover above the ground.

Slowly, at first, the island rises. Then, as the ritual nears its conclusion, the movement increases. Soon the peaks of other undersea mountains and hills can be seen in the distance. Valleys appear as whole sections of the greater island reappear on the surface for the first time in millennia. By the time Magnus finally stops his incantations, his shoulders stooped and his voice hoarse, there is land visible for miles in every direction. Fish can be seen flopping on the ground, and undersea plants droop as they find themselves outside of the life-giving sea. But the island is raised. Atlantis lives again!

The spell completed, Magnus settles to the ground and allows himself to collapse. He's clearly badly worn out, but there is a smile across his face. Duncan comes down near him and beams at his brother. "We've done it!" he says. "New Atlantis takes its place where old Atlantis once fell. The future is ours."

[hr][/hr]
Magnus will cast a fly spell on anyone who wants it.

Casting Total = 49 (ReTe) + 3 (Sta) + 8 (WoP for Re) + 8 (WoP for Te) + 3 (talisman) + 4 (Artes Liberales) + 5 (Philosophiae) = +80
CT = Raise Atlantis: 1D10+80 = [6]+80 = 86; success

It's the end of Spring 1220. Everyone can finish up their Spring 1220 with whatever activity they want. Please remember to fill out your activity on the planner:
docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... edit#gid=0

OOC: Let me know if I'm pushing things too fast. I don't want to move things forward if people have something they want to say. But in the other hand, I don't want to unnecessarily delay things if people are just waiting on me.

5

Meliai takes her bag of seeds, gathered from a forest before they left, and takes them to the eastern edge of the level 5 aura, where she casts distribution of the forest seeds distribution of forest seed casting total: 1D10+35 = [3]+35 = 38
She then uses her talisman to cast growth of the wild woods on the distributed seeds, letting the staff hold the spell as the trees and shrubs grow to maturity.

6

Meliai releases the seeds and they spread out as if caught on a magical wind, each finding a spot to rest where they can take root and grow, Then the maga activates her staff, holding one end over where the closest seed found its home. For a minute or two nothing seems to happen. But then, all over the surrounding land, small bits of green appear where the seeds were planted. Each seed is growing with the speed of Mercury, and will no doubt be a mature tree my nightfall. The reclamation of New Atlantis has begun.

OOC: I'll assume that Meliai picked tree seeds that were appropriate for a mountainside, since she knew what was going to happen.

7

"That's an excellent start," Magnus says when he sees Meliai spread the seeds for a new forest. "We'll need forests for building material, as well as grassland for grazing, and croplands to feed the people we hope to bring here." He pauses and shakes his head. "People. That's another issue to concern ourselves with - how we'll get the people we need to populate this island. We've got enough promises from other covenants for help that I'm not worried about filling up a covenant. But it's the towns and villages outside the covenant that I'm concerned about."

"But that's a question for another day. Right now our concern is making the island livable again. And Meliai is doing a great job for that. Might I ask, what else have people prepared for that end? Can anyone else help restore the flora to the island?"

[hr][/hr]
Magnus has no Herbam spells. But if we're shy on being able to get the island floraed up again, then he can learn some.

The island is roughly 15 miles by 30 miles, which is 450 square miles. Figure it's a little less than that and we'll call it 400 square miles, which is about 250,000 acres. Now, a CrHe 35 ritual will cover half of that with grass. I'd suggest adding a magnitude for variety so that we can put in different varieties of grass (including regular grass for grazing and haying, and wheat for the (ultimate) human residents. That makes for a CrHe 40 ritual, which is something Magnus could learn if he had to. Meliai can grow forests (or anything else from seeds), though she needs the seeds to start out with. She also can probably do only a few acres at a time. So even a fraction of the 250k acres on the island will take her a while. And as I said, there's the problem of getting enough seeds.

But her ability to grow things quickly will be very helpful when it comes time to plant food crops.

What other spells do we have to help with the flora on the island?

Then, of course, there are the bees that we need. For that we'll need rotting cow carcasses. We can generate those with magic too, though I'm not sure if anyone has a spell for that. It's a CrAn 35 spell to create a pile of cow corpses. Again, that's within Magnus' capabilities, though he can only research so many spells.

8

Constantine isn't handy with Herbam or Animal, but can help with the recruitment of people. Spreading the word is needed.

It wouldn't be overly hard to spread word magically about the place, even across large areas. Something which detects those who consider themselves open minded (InMe), tolerant of strangeness or magic, good natured, and also a little adventurous. Then conditionally place a mental suggestion to where they travel.

Then we need to get them there, which is another problem.

He'll work on any part of them problem, but can play to the mentem strength.

We might also need to check the folk that arrive too - spys, thieves, murderers, etc.

9

I'm concerned that such a spell might violate the Limit of Arcane Connections. (FWIW, I think the spell would be In(Cr)Me, the Creo requisite covering the creation of the mental suggestion.)

The first half of the spell (the InMe part) seems fine: detecting whether there are like-minded people, But it's the second half (the CrMe part) that gives me trouble, This spell would directly affect unsensed targets by placing a mental suggestion in their mind. How do you do that without violating the Limit of AC?

10

My intention for this thread is for it to be a bit more sandboxy than a normal thread. I'm going to advance time by a year to Spring 1221, so that people can take action for the year 1220. (Please advance your characters on the Google Drive document) I suspect that time will advance a bit quicker at the beginning as the island is built up and before it's widely known that it exists.

Speaking of which, at the moment, only the gathered magi and their companions know about the island. Pretty quickly a few select covenants will receive word, and that will slowly start to spread throughout the Order and beyond. (There's also the possibility now that a far-ranging fishing vessel or a ship blown off-course might find the island.) But figure you have a couple of years before rumors start about an island in the Atlantic.

The first question is how are you going to get all of the covenant folk (and the vast quantity of supplies needed for the covenant) onto the island? One possibility is to use ships. I'll say that you have two ships at your disposal right now. These are intended to make regular supply runs between Europe and New Atlantis, but they can also be used to ferry grogs and such to the island.

Another possibility is that Magnus is going to learn Hermes Portal. We could always set up a HP and easily ferry supplies and people through that for the next year. There are three problems with that plan: (1) it costs 30 Te vis (2x15); (2) it only lasts a year; and (3) it requires a second person to cast the ritual. The vis we can manage, though it's pricy. The duration is a bummer, since it means we likely won't be able to use it for many colonists. (We can't bring colonists until the island is ready to support them.) I gave some thought to the last one and figured as such. There are very few people who can cast HP, and they're likely as much in need of another caster as we are. So I was going to say that you can get one of the few HP casters to help you cast the paired rituals, so long as you agree to cast the same ritual for them. The trick is being in the club and knowing the spell. Does that sound reasonable?

Still, my thought is that since we're only talking 150ish people, we use the ships to get the covenant folk to the island and save the Hermes Portal for when we need to bring colonists.

11

So what spells are we going to learn/cast in the next year?

Here are some spell possibilities are:

Soil for a Verdant Island
CrTe40
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Individual, Ritual
This spell creates up to 100 billion cubic paces of soil, which can be distributed across the island of New Atlantis to a depth of about two paces deep.
(Base 1, +1 Touch +10 size)

A Network Reminiscent of Rome
CrTe 30
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Individual, Ritual
Medieval roads vary in design, so in this spell the road is based, roughly, on the dimensions of Roman roads, which are just under three paces wide. For simplicity’s sake, the road is assumed to crown slightly, but average half a pace thick. This spell creates a road network up to 378 miles long.
(Base 3, +1 Touch +5 size)

Creation of a Well-Appointed Town
CrTe 45
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Individual, Ritual
This spell creates a series of houses, each fitted with a stone roof two inches thick, a stone floor a foot thick, and stone doors and shutters each an inch thick. The moving parts are on stone pivot points. Each house has stone plumbing for water and sewage. It also creates the road between them, and the sewage and water pipes which are contained within the road. At this level, the spell creates up to 800 cottages. The cottages are not identical, creating a town less regimented in appearance.
(Base 3, +1 Touch +6 size, +3 complexity)

The Creation of Verdant Grassland
CrHe 40
R: Touch D: Momentary, T: Group, Ritual
This spell covers just under 125000 acres of land with a variety of thick grasses about a pace high. Wheat is, of course, a grass.
(Base 1, +1 Touch. +2 Group, +1 size, +1 variety)

A Pile of Rotting Beef
CrAn 35
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Group
Bees, which are vital for the production of most crops, are generated by the decay of the corpses of cows. Player characters who create too many bees before they have flowers must watch them starve, but players who have flowers, and no bees, must watch them wither. Fortunately, things generated by magically created animals persist even if the spell’s duration ends. Clever magi can simply strew their island with dead cows, using Sun duration spells like this one, and the bees which arise from these corpses are natural. This spell creates ten cow carcasses. Magi wanting to absolutely ensure they have bees can add a Perdo requisite, to make the corpses rot as they wish.
(Base 10, +1 Touch +2 Sun +2 Group)

Cleanse Gaia’s Tears
ReTe(Aq) 40
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Part
All salt within a quantity of water is moved to a spot outside of the water, even if in solution, leaving drinkable fresh water. Any other impurities will remain. This is particularly useful for desalinating large bodies of water and generating large quantities of sea salt. One unfortunate byproduct is that it will kill all of the salt-water fish in the body of water. This spell will remove up to 100,000 cubic paces of salt from a body of water. The spell has the target Part so that it can target only a part of a body of water.
(Base 3, +1 Touch, +1 Part, +2 Mineral, +1 Complex; +4 size)

A Flow of Fresh Water
CrAq 15
R: Touch, D: Month, T: Ind
This spell will call forth a spring with a high flow of water that will last for a month. It is useful for providing a settlement with water and with giving the island a head start in creating rivers and streams.
Base 3, +1 Touch, +3 Month)

I'm sure there are plenty more that I'm not thinking of, but these are the ones that came to me first. Suggestions are welcome.

[hr][/hr]
It seems like the soil is the most important one, since much of what the island has right now is sand or rock. (There's certainly some soil, but by no means on the entire island.) Once we have soil, Meliai can seed whatever she wants.

The road network seems important too. Getting grogs around the island (even from the seashore to the covenant) will be important. If we can get a road network installed, that will make it much easier.

The grasses seem like the next priority. That will give us grain to eat and grass for horses, cows, and sheep to graze on.

The flow of fresh water seems important for the covenant, if nothing else. It's also a relatively easy spell to learn for just about anyone.

The bees can wait until we have flowering plants to be pollinated.

The spell to remove salt is mostly to desalinate the large lake on the island (which is currently filled with seawater). That can certainly wait.

The houses can probably wait until we have people to move into them.

My proposal is to have Magnus learn: Ambulatory Laboratory, Soil for a Verdant Island, and The Creation of Verdant Grassland (unless someone else wants to take those). A Network Reminiscent of Rome, will top his list next year.

What do the other magi see themselves doing in the next year?

12

Meliai needs seeds, but she does not need vis, which makes her method extremely efficient, and she has a spell to gather seeds as well. Forests are easy for obvious reasons- she can simply take her region network to various forests and gather the needed seeds, then return and plant- the greatest weakness is the fact the growth spell is part of her talisman and not a spell, so she can only grow 2 sections in a given day, assuming 1/4 acre per gathering of seeds in a season she would be able to cover roughly 180 acres. She can also improvise CrHe up to level 25 with no problem beyond the expenditure of fatigue- of course if she gets into her theurgical methods she can go higher still- Name of Power Herne and Artemis, throw in 3 charms for adage, item and aspect...

13

Sounds like Meliai has a good plan for 1220. And it's nice that she doesn't use vis. Alas, vis is going to flow freely for the first couple of years as BIG spells are cast.

14

Just don't expect timber to be a big part of your pans- she might grow some plots for timber but mostly she is trying to establish some wilderness...

15

Magnus is all for having wilderness. I think it's Andor who has ideas about timber ...

16

Basically her plan is to go out to two locations on the island every morning (she could use help with transportation for this- especially for reaching the coastal areas), and start a new patch of something wherever she goes- preferably 2 per day. I'm thinking this might work best if she brings her apprentice along and instructs him in forest lore (the virtue, she has SQ:18 which will allow her to teach this) as she goes about seeding the island. That would be 92 days of planting... I can give a list of those later, not sure if that should go in this 'adventure' thread or elsewhere...

17

That seems like a perfectly reasonable plan. If you can't teach Forest Lore out in the wild, I'd be surprised.

Feel free to peruse the up-to-date map to let me know where you want to seed forests and I'll update the map with some small forests. Keep in mind that with you seeding 180 acres, you'll only seed 0.072% of the island. 180 acres is a lot, but not compared to 400 square miles.

(FWIW, the explorations of the coming year show several sites with ruins, as set forth in the above map.)

18

I was thinking of two spells, maybe in items, maybe using structure. Nudging the inclination rather than forcing compliance.

19

I'm switching things around a bit to take advantage of Barclay's Latin classes for my apprentice- how are you getting SQ:27? This will also give 2 seasons of seeding (3 if she can do it and set up her lab at the same time...) It will also put 9 points into area lore: Atlantis Island...
Seeding sites: 365
Wilderness: 300 sites
Groves: 6 types 3 sites each
Apple
Olive
Pine (so Argus can have his lumber, also pine nuts)
Pears
Cherries
Plums
Fields:5 types 3 sites each
Wheat
Barley
Rye
Oats
Flax
Grazing: 32 sites brush and grass

The productive locations (fields, groves, and pasture) will generally be closer to the covenant, with 16 acres she will take suggestions on locations within 1 mile of the covenant for these, except where growing conditions may require a different climate.
The mountains, as I understand the situation, already have wilderness upon them, about half of the wilderness expansion sites will be trying to start new growth of these same forests near the coasts closer to the altitude they previously inhabited, giving a wide berth to any ruins for the time being. Are there any other magical or faerie auras on the island?

20

I thought I had that right:

SQ = 3 (Base) + 3 (Com) + 10 (Teach) + 5 (Good Teacher) + 6 (one-on-one) = 27

It should be 3 lower for one-on-two (24) and 2 lower for group (22 - his specialty is group teaching). Drop any total by 3 if he's teaching someone with the (non-Gentle) Gift.

I'd moved to 27 when it looked like Mordag wasn't studying that season.

Do I have the formula wrong?