I was trying to come up with a spell to make Aleppo Soap, that was known in Europe after the first crusade. It was both extremely useful (one of the few soaps that could be used directly on skin and hair) and extremely expensive (due to rarity).
Aleppo soap is made from three ingredients, all Herbum based: laurel oil, olive oil, and lye. So, it would be a Creo Herbum ritual. The level would be 20, as a ritual. But, how much soap would be produced by such a ritual?
There's two main ways to go about it:
Creo Herbam Ritual to just create them, generally, it would be:
CrHe20
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Group
(Base 2 (processed plant product), +1 Touch, +2 Group, +4 Size)
That would create, if my math is correct, 100,000 cubic paces of soap. And will cost you 4 pawns of Creo or Herbam Vis.
Another option is to use Rego Craft:
ReHe20
R: Touch, D: Mom, T: Group
(Base 5, +1 Touch, +2 Group)
This will create 10 cubic paces of soap from the basic ingredients, but will not cost you a single Vis.
I always have a laugh when people realise, wait, how much?
Any cash strapped covenant has their creo guy create a level 20 ritual makes lots of something that is stupidly expensive due to scarcity. Then slowly sell it over the next 100 years, a bit like what is done in the real world with gem quality diamonds.
It's really hard to do the cash strapped covenant adventure hook for this reason.
If it's just for covenant use, a creo non ritual would do. After all, you won't get dirty if the soap disappears after the bath.
True but Rego magic requires prohibitive amounts of finesse.
To keep your concept that the soap is rare (Takes a time to make +6 (Season)) and expensive (highly skilled artisan (+15))
So every casting of ReHe Craft Rare & Expensive Soap requires an Int + finesse roll of 21+ or you waste the expensive ingredients.
Lets say that your magi is a lab rat (Int +4) and a finesse prodigy (+10), you still need to roll 7+
The only thing that will add to this are Objects of wonders which are also rare, expensive and for specific use for a +3 bonus.
Given the above, swimming in a lake of soap for 4 pounds of Herbam vis might be the better alternative
W
The Finesse could be quite high, no doubt, but you can cast it more times in the hour it would take you to cast the Ritual, and you can also boost it with Spell Mastery, even a score of 3, would give make it a roll of 4+.
Would a ritual do more? sure, but it requires Vis, and you might be low on Vis.
And some Magi would rather do the Rego Craft route than the Creo Herbam route. I merely presented both options.
I have a saga with a Mercurian Herbam mage. Terram is nice for gold I guess, but what I have come to realize is that Herbam is very fundamentally the Art governing a massive chunk of wealth as understood by medieval Europe.
Wood is far and away the most common building material, and material used for heating homes. It is also essential to any kind of naval capacity of militaries in that time.
Your basic wheat is deeply essential as the staple crop of staple crops, and is essential to the logistics of any kind of land based army.
Most people do alcohol with Aquam, but it is a processed plant product, and does count.
Spices from the Silk Road are overwhelmingly Herbam based.
The vast majority of all textiles are Herbam based.
I might be prepared to suggest that we'll over 50%, honestly probably 75% of the GDP of Europe in that time period involves Herbam products. To say nothing of how much the wealth of the New World was Herbam based in the Columbian Exchange(plot hook regarding faery potatoes came up)
And as I have played in our saga, a Mercurian mage with a focus in wood and investment in Herbam can produce absolutely ludicrous quantities of wealth. And more practical and usable wealth than gold, though metals have the advantage of easy transaction and easy to move logistically speaking.
True. Forgot about that Mastery. I guess if you are invested enough you could make the Re Craft work for you
Lets says that the Intel & Finesse are free as many concept Magi will want that but to get to finesse 10 you need to invest a minimum of 180 xps + Puissant Finesse that is around 18 seasons of time. You already have a greater intel merit in there to get to 4 intel & if you push to have affinity Puissant Finesse. Then you can dump a bunch of Xps from Skilled parens or similar merit for 50-60 xps. Add another 50 xps for Mastery spells which will give you a mastery of almost 6 In Craft soap. Add a magical object merit to have the object of wonder (+3)
So with 5 merits, you get a PC Magi that starts with +4 +9 (6 finesse +2 puissant +1 specialty Craft) +6 Mastery +3 wonder soap = +21
All of the above are transposable to any craft except the +6 mastery & the +3 obj. of wonders.
If you are post character creation and have to spend the seasons to master the spell, it will cost you 21 seasons of practice(5xp per season), as there are not many tracts written to master a soap spell, to get to 6 but we might be ok with a bit lower like you suggest 3 which is only 6 seasons.
Mastery of 3 = 6 seasons = 18 Vim vis or 36 Herbam (At 3 Vim vis of CrVi extraction per season)
Object of Wonder = 5-10 Vim vis depending on campaign. I paid 9 Vim vis for mine.
Basically, Craft magic requires commitment. It is no really an option, it is a devotion 
W
Uhm. No. Making Aleppo soap, if you disregard the 2-4 season it's left to age, takes a few days, certainly no more than a month. So, it should be just +3 for time.
Also, I'd say you need no highly skilled artisan to make Aleppo soap. The process is quite simple, in fact, and reasonably forgiving. I'd say making basic, functional Aleppo soap takes less skill than forging a basic. functional knife. The fact it's pricy only comes from the expensive oils used in its preparation, and the fact that it's an imported luxury.
I'd say the Finesse target is 6 (Easy, something that someone semi-skilled could do, see HoH:Sp.61)+3(Craft Magic)+3(between a day and a month's work)=12, And you can add to your Int+Finesse a +3 bonus if you actually have a piece of Aleppo soap and are using it as a model (see HoH:Sp.62). So even a character with Int+2 and Finesse 4 with an appropriate specialty will only get their soap-making wrong in one out of 10 attempts.
And that selling (or, rather, trading your expensive commodity for the large number of items a Covenant needs) is what the Poverty Hook is mostly about.
The more expensive a commodity, the harder it will often be to sell it in sufficient volumes to sustain a mid-sized Covenant; particularly if you want to avoid disrupting the mundane market and upsetting the Quaesitores. So: stories!
And once the selling is done, you still have to procure those rare inks for the scriptorium, that delicate glasswork for the labs, those high-quality steel weapons for the grogs, etc. - you are unlikely to find them at the local market. So: more stories!
Not taking the Poverty Hook means that your Covenant has set up not just a way to produce marketable goods or services, but the supply chains to disperse those goods or services into mundane society and to collect what it needs in return, too.
Sure you can justify a lot of products to be Finesse craft of 6+ but none will be rare and expensive or if they are, they will not be for long.
The OP is referring to a product that is rare and expensive. I also think it needs to remain rare and expensive for a while to be worth the time of the Magi so if a half whit can to it in his garage (as we can today), then the whole premise is dead in the water.
In short, if it requires a finesse craft of 6+, you can expect to find Aleppo soap in every corner of mythic Europe if demand is there. If it is 21+ then you get your rare & expensive market.
W
I disagree.
There's a bunch of stuff where the actual process is simple, it's just that there are elements that crank up the cost.
Something simple to make, but expensive due to the rarity of ingredients, could easily be done with the lowish Finesse score mentioned earlier. Also, it depends. If one goes for finished soap, then the seasons to age will complicate it, but if one Regos the soap slurry to go in the molds (or whatever it is, I'm not a soap expert) it should be easy.
The reason it won't be all through Mythic Europe, even if it is easy to craft, is the cost of the ingredients, and potentially jealous guarding of the recipe.
Look at silk and Byzantine's theft of silk worms to make their own industry.
For another example of this, look at beeswax candles. They are easier to make than a good knife, and well-known in Mythic Europe, but still a rare expensive luxury because beeswax is very expensive.
Minor nitpick that doesn't change your argument but since wool and silk are not Herbam I do not agree that the vast majority of textiles are Herbam. Linen was common but not overwhelmingly so.
For rare and expensive luxury goods, in most cases the vast majority of the production cost comes from the materials themselves, a production restriction, or a combination of both. The actual skill of the craftsman determines quality, which can result in a normally cheap good being expensive or a normally expensive good being cheap.
For expensive materials, the actual production is roughly the same as for non-expensive materials. Making a wool garment from Vicuña wool (doesn't exist in ME) is roughly the same as making one from any other wool. Making a sword from bog iron is roughly the same as making it from fine German iron ore.
A production restriction happens when supply of raw material, long production time, or long aging time results in demand out pacing supply. Only a long production time would affect the Craft Magic TN (unless you are trying to include the aging in the spell).
Magi can easily break the supply of some "rare" good, to the extent that there are rulings on it throughout the peripheral code and in Covenants for causing things like inflation and crashing a market. A Magus can create an island larger than the UK with a ritual. Creating a whole lot of something expensive is easy, the difficulty comes in actually selling it and not crashing the price of it.
If a Covenant created tons of Aleppo Soap, they could only sell so much of it at a time and if they sold as much as they could the price would rapidly drop to the point it is only worth a little more than any other soap. They would cause the destruction of a whole economy elsewhere in ME which could easily be a violation of the code by wiping out other Covenants income sources (and making it so they can't supply their labs) and would sure be considered "interfering with mundanes" since you are going to tick off a bunch of nobles and powerful people.
True but Rego Craft magic also requires a recipe and if "stolen" it becomes another story hook if it is indeed something that is jealously guarded.
If it is the cost of the ingredients then the Magi faces a similar challenge as the artisan. Typically, if you have access and ressources to secure the ingredients, then you are better off to hire a half-wit artisan to do the soap rather than waste the time of a Magi to learn the effect and try to make soap. Half-wit activities are typically not worth the time of a Magi... and I'd go as far as to say they should not.
Craft magic, in my experience is only worth it if you commit to it. A Finesse magi is a good base concept. You can excel at Certamen, Dimicatio, Combat Magic on top of Craft Magic. You do need to get to the 6+ finesse score to start making things shift to your advantage. Once you get to be able to do 15 + stress die Craft Magic rolls, you basically compete with the best artisans and that is where you can really shine. Get rid of a few of the competitors and ensure the demand for your art is going to be worth the investment.
Replacing half-wit's jobs will only get you the same reputation as them...
W
A covenant may start poor, but resolving it with a magically created income sources requires some effort and story resolutions.
It's not "Bang. We're rich!"
It's "Bang. We just threatened the local craftsmen, merchants, bankers, nobility, and church, but if we're careful, they might not burn us out."
The actual reason for the question wasn't so much making money (as stated, that isn't hard for magi), but having luxuries to trade with other covenants for luxuries. I imagine redcaps delivering not only messages, but making arrangements with covenants for trading everything from soap to fine parchment, to exotic inks.
Not only is a covenant a producer of luxuries, but a consumer. A huge amount of soap traded to mundanes would depress the market. But, exchanged for parchment, ink, other luxuries produced by covenants? That is a trade that is often overlooked.
Is it easier to find the best parchment in mundane shops, or made by another covenant? How about high quality ink? Distilled alcohol, or other lab supplies? Perfect gold or gems for enchanted items? Producing gold and luxuries isn't just for trade to mundanes.
This is actually an excellent point. I suspect that the Order as a whole might consume a significant fraction of the total European output some niche luxuries. A relatively large number of people in Mythic Europe might be interested in jewelry, but the market for alchemical equipment or exotic inks is probably significantly smaller. For these, a single covenant might well specialize in producing a particular good that it can then trade to the rest of the Order, for other similarly "specialized" luxury items.
A sufficiently competent Terram mage with a spec in Glass and high Finesse can single handedly destroy the Venetian glass market by simply trading to other covenants, and never one giving a vial to a mundane. /s