[tab][/tab] Em...sorry to butt in....your finesse rolls are for normal construction yes? I think we are using Covenant rules. If that is so, there are going to be drastically lower :S
The finesse rolls are to make the big block of stone, which much take some time for a craftman i.e. -6 (season) or -9 (a year)
I'm trying to follow some of this still- also you need to use less statistical analysis, because you aren't taking proper account of some of the ones you rolled.
For example, the 3rd 10 rolled in your casting to make blocks followed a 1, and would therefore be a 20, not a potential botch.
Are your labor rolls for spells? If so what is being meant by an 'hour' in this context?
Also on the labor rolls, the 4th 10 also follows a 1, making it a 20 instead of a 0. Once I have a better understanding of exactly what you are doing with the finesse I will get an idea what the impact will be.
Ill explain my methodology more. I rolled 100 dices. When I got either a 1 or a 10, I did not take then into account immediately, I just counted the number of times I got each of them.
Purpose of 1st batch of die rolls: creating blocks
Purpose of 2nd batch of die rolls: moving the blocks
Purpose of 3rd batch: finesse roll for rego craft of blocks.
1)I rolled afterward to see if I each ten was a botch.
2)I did not reroll the ones, because the total was already about the spell levels.
The goal of that was to simplify things, and I think it produced equivalent results. If you prefer, I can see what the result was using the rolls as is, taking account of the 1s and 10s immediately.
As for the purpose of these 100s of rolls, I was trying to excavate a lake for the spring I intend to create. I am not trying to to anything fancy with the finesse rolls. Basically just roughly cut block of stones to make a lakebed, i.e., shallow near the edge of the lake and deeper in the middle. I jacked-up the difficulty because it probably would take a lot of time to a craftman to carve a 100 cubic meter bloc of stone, probably a season or a year.
The 120 hours come from the fact that I need to ceremonially cast a lvl 20 spell to move each stone, which at 15 minutes per magnitude gives 1 hour per spell, hence 100 hours + 20 hours of taking breaks and actually moving the stones.
Yes, I would prefer that. However your botch was on the first roll you checked for creating stones, and none of your finesse 10's followed a 1, so we'll take the botch numbers as written, meaning that of the 100 blocks you have rolled for, 5 were not usable in building the wall. Assuming a wall 30 feet high and 30 feet wide, this means you were able to construct a wall of blocks laid side by side (basic monolithic construction) 2850 ft long, or about 9/16 of a mile in length. Was this going around the town's outer perimeter or was this supposed to be for a smaller internal wall?
If the blocks are 30 feet high, 15 feet wide and 60 feet long the length of wall built can be doubled, a wall to completely encircle the are given for a city is 3.14 miles long. Also I will note that modern day Tarxien is .3 sq wiles, and the area you have been granted is .785 sq miles, a mile wall would encircle modern day Tarxien, so if you want this wall to be a complete circle for the city proper you can easily have some city lands outside the wall...
Also noting that this was an excavation of 10,000 cubic yards, what dimensions were you thinking of for your lake? Please keep in mind that the water table is 69 meters down, so if you go that far you will find fresh water...this could easily be a well instead of a reservoir.
If the wall is be 900 m long, so the diameter of the wall section of the town will be approximately 285 m. That means a surface of 64521 square meters, or .0.064 square kilometers.
I dont think the covenant will really ever need more space than that protected by a wall, so unless any other player object, I will go with that. Furthermore, I think Kuiti had plans for planting trees around the covenant`s land, so there would be plenty of leftover land for that.
As for the lake, to simplify let's assume it is a half an ellipsoid.
The base individual for aquam is a pool 5 m in diameter and 2 meter deep at its deepest point.
V=(4/3PIabc)/2
a=b=2.5
c=2
So it gives approx V= 25 cubic meter per base individual
The CrAq spell has size +2 so that would give 2500 which would looks stupid in a big hole in retrospect. So let's make it base 4 (slow rate of flow) and size +3 so it is going to be 25000 cubic meters. If we set the maximum depth to be c=7.5 m, and set a=b=radius then we have a radius of about 40 meters and a surface area of 5000 square meters.
That seems reasonable for a fish pond.
What I had in mind, was creating the spring atop the hill, near the temples, and creating a kind megalithic stairway in which the water would flow step by step, until it would reach the lake (and make a pleasant and calming sound too).
The reasoning beind that were mostly symbolic; firstly water is a symbol of fertility and life and as far as the magi know, these temples were dedicated to a fertility cult. Secondly, it also means that magic once again is flowing again from this hill.
Hmmm... wasn't the underlying stone porous though? Something about limestone? We need to shore up the bottom or it will drain quite fast.
There is probably clay somewhere in malta. Before I cast the spring ritual, I ll probably do a couple of nightly trip to the beach to get some clay.
creating a spring is not the same as creating a volume of water- flow rates for springs range from about 8 mL/sec to 2800 L/s. the guidelines don't seem to have a medium flow rate, and given the hydrological scale of flow rates, the dividing point would seem to be 6.3 L/s, a low rate of flow would not have a size modifier, it would just take longer to fill the basin.- 100000 cubic meters is 100,000,000 liters, so at 6.3 L/s it would take 183 days to fill the basin, plus additional time for water being used.
As to the porousness of limestone, it can be waterproofed the same as any ship or other material.
Also I did mention that having a 15' wide wall could result in it being 1800m long... a 950 meter wall would be just over 300m across.. an 1800m wall would be just over 600m across.
[tab][/tab] Waterproofing materials (especially in the middle ages) are mostly toxic, whether you want to use it as a pond, an agricultural reservoir or potable water. Clay/ceramics are best, as stated (or lime plaster, though its more dangerous to handle).
On the other hand, lime (from limestone) and animal fats (from goats) are materials which are very readily at hand.
Ok silveroak, following the additionnal information you provided, the spell invented will be a geyser with a very high flow CrAq 20 (base 10, +1 touch) (minimum for ritual), which will make an awesome fountain too !
Are there a source of clay nearby (lmaybe the sea?) ? That would be enough to waterproof the lake.
Ok, lets go with 15'' wide walls.
technically clay is not waterproof either- the only normally waterproof ceramics are china, which won't be known in Europe for centuries, the waterproofing in the middle ages is provided by glazing the ceramics... however we do not need to sweat the details- non-toxic sealant material is available from trade with the mainland if nothing else.
A geyser will produce water in excess of 2800 L/s, which means it will fill the basin in 9.9 hours, so losses due to rock seepage are likely to be insignificant...
ok lets go with that. as long as the bassin doesnt overflow.
The Blue Clay of Malta is found in areas just north of Mdina and is waterproof enough an entire aquifer (Perched Aquifer) sits on top of it. It provides water for the entire north and west sides of the island. The clay is easily mined anywhere springs/creeks are found.
We want some leftover flow to make our stream. Way back when I had my heart set on Gozo, I designed a rego-driven water desalination system using an archimedes screw. It would have provided hot/cold running water and enough left over for the water slide. I want my water slide.
If you want to do that you'll probably just want to leave the top unwater-proofed. You could also build something to deal with and/or use the excess. Irrigation, a river, a moat, water features, water fountains, a steam cannon etc. In theory water pressure would probably slow down the spring somewhat.
we will see how it turns out it play. A moat is a good idea.
Just a thought, but if Julia did something in Spring other than adventure that has a SQ over 5, she could gain xp that season. Practice in dominant languages has an SQ of 8, plus there are some books in the library.
Ok ill have a look tomorrow.