2 minor aquam spells that were debated with my troupe recently:
*Miraculous Flow of Water from the Stone
CrAq 20 (should have been CrAq 5), Ritual.
R: Touch, D: Instant, T: Individual
Creates a spring with a low flow of water, where the magus touches.
This water quenches thirst and is in all ways natural as this is a ritual.
(Base 4, +1 touch, ritual)
*The Source of Ink
CrAq 20 (should have been CrAq 5), Ritual.
R: Touch, D: Instant, T: Individual
Creates a spring with a low flow of ink, where the magus touches.
This ink is permanent and works like natural ink in all ways.
(Base 4, +1 touch, ritual. Possibly some requisite is required,but level should be unaffected)
Questions:
How fast is low flow (of water/ink)? Would we need a fast flow to provide water for a small covenant?
Would the spring have to be somewhere where there could plausibly be a spring, or could eg. the ink spring be inside a container of sorts?
Do they actually automatically have to become level 20 for being rituals? I'm relatively sure that them being declared rituals by your troupe simply means that they need to be cast ritually.
No, the Ritual comments in the rulebook says that they have a level minimum of 20,
Mostly I guess so that you can't really cast rituals without some talent in the field,
[/quote]
How fast is low flow (of water/ink)? Would we need a fast flow to provide water for a small covenant?
[/quote]
No idea - I would hazard a guess at no, but it is just a guess,
Yes, rituals are always at least level 20 (Rulebook p.114, Ritual Spells, last paragraph).
I have seen springs that had about the same rate of flow as your average tap open just enough to make constant stream rather than drops. I would say your basic "spring with low rate of flow" is about what you get with a tap opened low, which still gives you 1 to 2 liters/minute, or 1500 to 3000 liters per day. With medieval standards of hygiene, that's plenty enough for a small covenant if you make sure to collect all the water and you don't have too much in the way of livestock (and don't have an Aquam specialist trying to keep his personal pool filled ).
I would say it is still worth it to go up a magnitude or two, unless getting rid of the water is also a problem. That way you can actually water your vegetable garden and make sure your cows won't get thirsty
Since this is a permanent Creo ritual, it can create only things that can exist naturally. So I would say that it has to be somewhere there could plausibly be a spring, and definitely not a container that can be moved around (if that's what you want, you should make it a magic item). An ink spring is stretching it, but since oil springs do exist, and springs where water comes out colored from the soil, I suppose it is plausible if you put in a Terram requisite. But once again it should be a spring.
It should be noted that a spring can come out of the side of a rock through a crack, and inserting a hollow tube into the rock to guide it out is perfectly reasonable. You can then have it flow direct into a container if you really want to - but the actual spring comes out of the rock.
There is no D:Instant in 5ed. You would have make your Spring D:Year, to have a "constant effect" of flowing water. Otherwise just a small amount of water is one-off created (though permanent).
Actually, since a spring is considered an individual of Aquam (the actual spring, not the water in it), a Momentary Creo Ritual can create a permanent one just fine.
I don't think this one would work - you are creating a spring, and springs don't produce ink, they produce water. Other CrAq spells can make other liquids than water, but not this one.
However, I would say that a spring (of water) can be created with a ritual spell of D: Mom, and that spring continues to produce water indefinitely. You could certainly create a puddle or lake (the only difference is scale) with a ritual spell, so why not a stream or river?
Level 20, since it is a ritual. And yes sieges are meaningless if there is a competent magus involved, inside or outside. At least it is a ritual and requires vis. Clouds of Rain and Thunder, CrAu 25, also solve all the water problem and is not even a ritual, no vis required.
Newsflash - almost any mundane effort could become "meaningless" once magic is involved. I refer you to paragraph v of The Code, which many players have found relevant to such lines of thought.
I might suggest that the CrAq Guidelines cover this one, that a spring of ink is either "slightly unnatural" or (more likely, imo) "very unnatural", and so merely a couple magnitudes larger. (Which, in this case, don't change the final level, as it still falls short of the minimum Level 20 for a Ritual.)
A spring of water in an unlikely location (from a stone, on a mountain top, etc) might be "slightly unnatural", but since ink springs simply don't exist in nature... ysmv.
Actually, that's an over-simplified reading of the rules, depending what you mean by "unnatural".
RAW prohibits breaking a thing's True Nature, and nothing can be made permanent without vis. But you can permanently create a sword, which is no more "natural" than creating a fountain of ink, which also can be done via clever engineering. A spring of water coming from a free-standing stone would thus be as "unnatural" as a spring of ink from the ground. I'm not sure an 80' tower, elaborately designed and apparently carved of solid stone, is necessarily any less "natural" than what we're talking about.
I'd tend to agree with you, but I don't think it's quite as cut and dried.
(On another point, as far as "rate of flow" is concerned, an "individual" of ink (a processed liquid) would is defined as 1/100 that of water, and I'd think that would be applied to "springs" as well as lump amounts. Still ample to supply a covenant, and with barrels to spare - just saying that it's not the same "flow" as water would be.)
Even if its made out of diamond, its still not unnatural, just extremely unlikely.
Ie, its not made in a natural way, but as it stands its still natural.
A water spring without any source, thats NOT natural. An ink spring is just totally and outrageously unnatural.
I would , with respect, suggest reversing that opinion,
An ink spring is slightly unnatural (after all, you can get oddly discoloured water from a variety of sources - not usually ink perhaps but it isn't out of the question that it could exist without the need for magic),
A spring without a source is totally unnatural (i.e.: it could never ever exist without magic).
Eh... First of all, you will NEVER find a spring that produces something that you can without any modification use well as ink. Finding springwater that will serve as a substitute for ink, sure, but it wont be even remotely as functionally good.
However, i think you missed the point, a spring without a source is certainly unnatural, but the suggested ink spring is also without any source, besides producing something that is ALSO unnatural...
So it gets outrageous because it takes TWO completely unnatural traits instead of the one of an everlasting spring without a source.
).
