Anulus Connectens: Magi of Hermes Covenant

Games Discussion Ars Magica
148

So, are we doing the ship?

My initial ideas was to follow the suggestions and not make a magical ship like the Hermetic Shipwright. I was thinking first to build the magical tools to build a good mundane ship. So skilled mundane ship builders assisted by Anulus Connectens' covenfolk who are used to using Finesse to perform chores using the devices Janus has built.

So starting with the materials for the ship: wood! Janus is no expert in Herbam but 8 is a start. Sadly he sucks at Intellego due to his Defiency, but an InHe device to spot hidden flaws and help choose the very best trees to cut down seems useful. The ReHe needed to cut down, transport and process the trees into finished planks is easy enough. I think we should aim for simple processes requiring moderate Finesse EFs so the tools speed up things and help the mundane masters rather than do their work for them.
Or is that too simple and small potatoes so not worth the bother?

Effects for a finished ship could be:

  • Making the hull, masts, rigging and sail more durable (and/or flexible so it doesn't break under stress but is pliable)
  • Wards against weather or devices to break up undesirable weather phenomena
  • Wind at the quarter (as IIRC is better than in the back, if the ship has more than one sail)
  • Magical bilge pumps, leak-pluggers etc.
  • Ward to keep water outside the hull and superstructures
  • Device to shrink cargo in size and/or lighten the load
  • Device to help navigate or better vision for the helmsman (see in darkness, see in fog)
  • Some way of checking for dangerous reefs, shallow water, floating wreckage (again, Intellego is not Janus' strong suit)
  • Mentem effects to help morale, if not magical happiness then effects to stop bad behavior spreading, like the inverse of 'GOssip of the Marketplace'
149

I thought we were, but it isn't too late to change our minds. Andreva is going to do wizard's war stuff as well.

With ceremonial magic (including casting props and the covenant's +3 aura) Andreva can get to level 20 rego Herbam with reliability, her applicable finesse + perception is 13. This should be of great assistance in the effort.

I think that most of this can be sponted, at 45 years out of apprenticeship Hector's got Rego 23, intellego 10, Herbam 12 and has his talisman attunements opened for both living and dead wood. He can do level 20 with a normal spont. It would be sensible to write up the sponted spells but not to spend seasons to make them formulaic

I like all of these.

150

That should cover a lot of the ReHe effects then.

Looks decent enough. I'll try to think of a few things.

151

It seems building the ship is easy, all the effects needed can easily enough and reliably be Spont'ed by Andreva and/or Hector so there is no need for Janus to spend time and vis crafting devices. Although this does require time from the magi assisting with the ship building.

Janus will concentrate on other effects, many of which will be siliar to those affecting the covenant buildings.

But there is bound to be more useful effects along the non-physical Forms, something for Basuas to do?

152

May I suggest something handy: "Shroud of Inconspicuousness", ReMe (Sight, Group (+1 to affect large group of people)), People looking at the ship find it dull and not worth of their attention and time.

153

As I recall, that is quite difficult to do. About a year ago someone was asking about a Hermetic Battle standard that could rally their troops, and it was tricky to make it happen. I will try and search...

Bob

Edit:
I think this [url]Need help with Magic Item] is what I was thinking of, although I recall the discussion being a lot longer that what I have found. If you don't insist on the Behold Our Mighty Standard it should be OK.

Bob

154

The troubles arise from the people affected. There is a House Bjornaer Mystery called 'Sensory magic' or something like that, where the effect affects people who see/hear/smell etc the animal in question. It would have been nice to have the battle standard affect people who see it, but this really isn't covered by standard Hermetic magic.

HoH:TL has a spell in nthe Guernicus chapter called 'Aura of Inconsequence' which averts attention away from the caster. It is rated as T:Special for a +3 magnitude modifier equivalent to Structure, and it is noted to be connected to non-Hermetic rituals hence the deviation from what is normally possible with standard Hermetic magic. This is more or less 'Sensory magic'. I discussed it with Tellus in my gaming group and the conclusion was that we don't like it, and chose not to touch it especially by magi outside House Guernicus.
Simulating this effect is hard because of the diffuse Target. If people are nice enough to stand around in Groups - like a ship's crew might - it's not so bad, but using it while walking around in a city? You would have to constantly re-cast it as new people come into sight.

Now on a ship passing by I can see Group be used more effectively, although the crew may very well also be dispersed or gathered in several distinct groups. Would T:Structure not be useful here? I know earlier discussions of spells to affect an entire ship - meaning the physical hull etc. - coul be done with a large enough Individual rather than Structure. But Structure affects things and people inside as well, so no matter how the crew is arranged, individually or in groups, the Mentem effect covers them all.

155

The effect is a little different from the battle standard as you're only trying to affect people looking at it and not everyone. Could a device have two effects to facilitate this? Plonk the device halfway up the main mast.
1 - InIm, Are they looking at me? A spell to detect when a person is looking at the ship, which triggers...
2 - That boats unimportant, Mentem effect.

156

This mystery also explicitly states it cannot be used for enchanted devices.

If it's just the crews on individual passing ships, Structure would work very well. If it's also people on the shore, not so much.

Not really. That's how the Oriflame is described (as I understand), and how we set about designing that device back then.
Also, the more enlightening thread is probably this one.

Sure.

Mind you, in this particular case, a version of MuIm Aura of Childlike Innocence might be just as useful.
We don't need to actually induce apathy, looking irrelevant is (almost) as good.

157

I'm actually not sure which Arts would be used to determine if somebody is looking at something...Intellego Imaginem is sensing species, using senses at a distance. Determining if somebody is watching I think would be a Mentem effect - or a Corpus if sensing where the eyes point?
I find this as tricky to work out as in my earlier post without using Sensory Magic.

158

I agree; its darn tricky. I considered it to be the same as having a trigger in an item which only targets people wearing red hats. That seems more like InIm to me rather than InCo. Detecting the appearance of a thing not some intangible property of a type of thing.

159

I did not think of the targetting aspect which could be tricky. But I see the issue if we want to have a continuous effect. It is a bit like the Shrouded Glen, which raise plenty issue and was left on the account of being a legacy spell.

My initial idea was more along the line, the captain notices a ship and use a magical item to divert the attention of the ship's crew to ignore it. In this case, probably Target: Room with +1 size modifier should be enough to affect the whole crew.
It could be use to target a house like a lighthouse for example, but it won't be able to affect a city, you will need something with Boundary Target and it becomes a ritual, thus impossible to put as an enchantment.

Disguising the appearance with Imaginem spells would obvisouly be as effective if not more since it bypasses any magical resistance, however I was trying to find something for Bausuas to contribute, thus the choice of a Mentem spell.

I was trying to see if it would be possible to transport the ship into a memory palace, to explore the mind of somebody, but it would break too many rules and paradigm to make even sense. And any other "dimension" will be handle by realm and regio, so Vim. And the Hermetic Ship already proposes such spell to travel the Void.

160

Couldn't Bausas' contribution be Corpus in nature, items with effects that prevent scurvy or seasickness, rescue overboard or falling sailors, get people from ship to ship easily, make them more secure in the rigging (slightly stick hands? monkey's toes?), etc.?

161

Not bad ideas. Thank you!

NB!
EDIT: Jason's suggestion has already given me a few ideas.
I'm going to assume that our planned boat qualify as a single, simple Structure, no modifier for Size necessary?
If you'd like to oppose this assumption, please note your opposition ASAP :slight_smile:

162

A baseline Structure is up to 10 connected rooms each of up to 400 sqft or able to hold 100 people each. Now unless we intend for the ship to have more than 10 separate sections or rooms I don't see a problem about unmodified Structure. I don't envision a large number of individual cabins. None of the individual rooms - not even the cargo hold - should be larger than 400 sqft. And even if, the ship could just have two separated holds.

163

I'm thinking about some specific enchantments Janus can do. Now, we're not doing a magical ship but rather a very good but still mundane ship which is improved by enchantments. So all devices need to be at least R:Touch...well one could make a magical sail...But this way the devices can be dismantled and moved to another ship if the first one is destroyed or we build another type of ship, or a larger one. Granted a larger ship may wreck havock with some enchantments' Size, so not likely then.

The hull of the ship:
I was thinking of something to make the hull durable, but a constant effect Warps the ship, so rather an effect to repair stress and damage like Ranulf from MoH's talisman staff, an effect like Shadow of spring times departed Cr(Mu)He Base 3. This effect - when actively turned on - repairs damage, bringing the piece of wood back to its original state, but not growing naturally with leaves, roots etc.

Ranulf's effect has D:Sun (for +2 mags) so each sunrise/-set ther eis still damage seen the effect is activated again. This device notes that grave damage can take months to repair.

As for Target Janus could go for T:Ind but how many size magnitudes to add for a ship? The PeHe spell Curse of the Rotten Wood is T:Group and has +1 Size and can affect a house or a small inn, but it this spell unoptimized (inoptimized?) or can the wooden components here not be viewed as an Individual? So can a ship? IMHO an object or structure made of several components of the same material can be an Individual if they are clearly put together and now form a distinct object. So a pile of wooden beams, no. But the same beams crafted into a bridge, yes.

A base Individual for Herbam is " a plant roughly one place in each direction" which makes sense for living plants. Ir represents smaller branches and leaves etc. and not just a tree trunk. A very generous interpretation of this for for wood usable for buildings things would be 1 cubic pace, but for purposes of balance probably significantly less. Is 0,5 cubic pace a realistic number?

Instead of affecting the entire ship, how about getting fresh and designing the device with T:Part and then +1 Size? So it can affect a damaged area of wood (on the hull, masts, superstructure or whatever) up to a volume of 5 cubic paces. Going metric here and assuming 1 pace= 1 meter (and rounding oft to simplify) then a wooden beam 30 cm (1 foot) in diameter and 70 m long is the upper limit for the object to be affected - if I get my math correct.

So now I have Base 3, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 Part, +1 Size = 20. Penetration is not important, but uses per day needs to be improved. +5 levels give 25 uses per day and that should be enough. Final effect Cr(Mu)He 25
As for physcial object I haven't been through the entire S&M catalogue but something wooden has a nice bonus to 'affect dead wood' and perhaps some sort of woodworking tool?
Janus' lab total including Familiar excluding S&M and with no apprentices is 56. Theoretical maximum S&M is equal to his effective Magic Theory of 12, but likely much less is used. His Herbam is only 8 so he might hit the books a bit before embarking on the ship project especially if he is going to build more than one Herbam device.
Seeing as he should easily reach a Lab Total of 60 he might as well enhance Duration from Sun to Moon to make it a round level 30, it won't cost any more vis and the crew does not need to active the device twice daily on each piece of damaged wood.

164

I like that it isn't constant. It can keep the ship in good shape for a very long time and it won't except in unusual circumstances warp it.

165

Well, you would know this effect because of its origins.
Warping should be quite unlikely, unless the same part of the ship breaks repeatedly over a year, or for such massive damage that the effect needs to be active for half the time.

I think maybe my design postings should be in Janus' thread rather than this one. I don't know what I was thinking :S

166

A couple of suggestions for a/the ship that I don't think have been covered by the various and sundry ship projects in the books.

  1. The focus seems to be on sailing ships/making ships go with sails - what about something for oars, like a Drum of the Hortator?

  2. We've had the armillary sphere for astronomers, but no enchanted astrolabe yet for navigation.

167

I just did a wand that moves the oars in response to your post. I had earlier done a device - the Dish of Location (Working Off Flaws) that should be good for navigation even if it doesn't work in a way that hte sailors are used to.

In fact, I should collect the enchanted devices that the ship has in this post so that they're all together:

Saorise' has developed several spells for the vessel but not done any devices. I did not list them here.