Chapter 3f (Winter 1230): Reuniting Halia with Her Children

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Base Camp
61

You'd phrased it as removing an object's ability to emit species, rather than affecting the species directly, which was what had me confused. I agree it should be possible to just destroy the species directly (but that the "Room" issue remains a problem).

I will assume that she didn't cast the PeIm spell, as she would have had a good enough understanding of Magic Theory IC to know that there was going to be the Room issue.

The Muto Auram effect on the clouds could work in principle (and has the bonus of being consistent with at least one of the versions of the story that was going around). Level might be tricky...

Assuming she's using her Potent Spontaneous Magic, I make her MuAu casting total:
(Mu 12 + Au 5*2 + Talisman Muto Bonus 5 + Sta 2 + W&G 2 + Aura 6 - 1 Fatigue)/2 = 18 + die/2, so she can probably get a level 20 spell before dipping into LLSM unless she gets very unlucky.

I'd say you were probably looking at the Base 5 Guideline "Transform an amount of air into something slightly unnatural)".

You'd need a Group target, and one extra magnitude wouldn't hurt - an Individual of Auram is sized a a base Boundary, i.e. 100 paces across, so Group+1 would get you something approximately 1000 paces across (assuming you're only changing the size in two dimensions).

Assuming Concentration duration on the spell, that gets you to Level 25, which is two fatigue levels down unless she gets very lucky on the roll, which is the most she can manage before falling unconscious.

You then need a Range - Sight is traditional, but that would bring you to Level 40 (and leaving aside anything else, if Viola can't rely on remaining conscious, she'll need to up the duration). It would therefore really help to be able to bring the Range down. In theory she could transform into a butterfly using the bond power and fly up to the clouds, but that's likely to be...interesting...in the storm, not to mention the problem of knocking yourself unconscious in flight.

Unless I'm missing some extras to her casting total, it feels like the only way Viola is going to pull this off short of a lucky roll is by pumping vis into it.

62

Yeah, I suppose it would have to be Sight--or would the clouds be part of the larger storm?

LLSM actually can't send you unconscious--you start taking wounds if you have no more Fatigue level left--hence the name.

Scott

63

I think the specific phenomenon you'd be affecting would be the clouds; you couldn't touch the wind/rain and claim that allowed you to change the clouds in isolation.

I've always read LLSM as meaning you went unconcious and then took a wound if your difference still overflowed even that.

64

On LLSM, hmm, I suppose that's the implication, but it could certainly be put more clearly.

I think we'd have to go with Conc, regardless of what she can manage, because a Sun duration spell that blocks all sight would be very inconvenient once Halia's been neutralized. She's got 11 pawns of Muto vis (all of which, I think, given the circumstances, she would have brought--it's her go-to Art, and she is after all within her sanctum, so wouldn't be afraid of losing it), which would raise the total to 40 + stress die, putting her likely 4 magnitudes short, which is Unconscious with a Light wound.

Actually, though, I'm really not sure about that guideline: it's hard to believe that making the clouds unnaturally dark would be as difficult as turning them into a mixture of rocks and fire, which is also level 5--turning them just into rocks would be only level 4. Couldn't she just turn the clouds into smoke? In the medieval paradigm, I think black smoke is still "air", so that would be the level 3 guideline, dropping to spell to level 30.

Scott

65

OK, here's a better idea: assuming we can group the party into an area no more than about 50 feet (15m) across, Viola can draw a circle around everyone in about 15 seconds or less. Then she can cast the PeIm effect in there (base 4), or alternately a MuIm that changes the air into black smoke that doesn't affect breathing (base 5). With R of Touch, D of Conc, and T of Cir, that would be a level 10 PeIm or a level 15 MuIm. Or make bump the duration up to Sun, and make it 15 or 20--with Circle as the target, the spell can be broken by breaking the circle. Presumably, using chalk or the like will make it relatively easy to efface purposefully, but prevent Halia from doing so as she crosses the line.

Scott

66

So the plan is to create an area of darkness bounded by the circle and wait in it until Halia turns up?

Viola thinks it could work in principle, although the ongoing deluge and randomly growing plants means she probably wants to use something more durable than chalk. The maze passageway is also nowhere close to 15m across, although that problem appears to be solving itself (and I think 15 was the upper rather than target limit? I also think a circle with a diameter of 50 feet would have a circumference of about 160 feet, which at 30 feet per round (5 feet per second, 6s per round) of tracing would take 6 rounds to draw).

67

Sorry, yes, I got the formula wrong, but I was just guessing at the size--I'm not sure how many faeries are with us, but we obviously want to get everyone inside the circle, though I'm not sure how circular it actually has to be. In any case, this shouldn't take too long.

As for drawing the circle, she can use a CrIm spont: level 1 to create a single-sense image, +1 for Touch, +2 for Ring Duration--so level 4, which won't even require a die roll. After everything is over, a MuIm of the same level could break the cicrle, ending both that and the darkness spell (alternately, ReIm could work, but that would be an extra level, for a 5, to move just Part of the ring).

Scott

68

Let's say around a dozen of the creek fae. It doesn't have to be a perfect circle, just vaguely circular.

A CrIm circle can work in theory, but you don't want to make it Circle target or Ring duration, as it will last the duration of the pre-existing ring, which is zero (by analogue to Storm duration - see "Possible Abuses of Storms" on pg 43 of RoP:M). It will also be broken by solid objects interfering sufficiently with the line.

69

For the Duration, Sun is the same level as Ring, so that's easy, if slightly less convenient for ending the second spell. As for having it broken, if the line is on the ground, I don't see how a solid object could interfere with it (it's still emitting species, even if they're under someone's shoe). Mind you, you could just make the ring in the air.

I see one more potential issue. I'm not positive whether or not the target of a Circle spell includes the ring itself; I'd be inclined to say no, especially given that the description of Circle reads, in part, "within a ring drawn by the magus...."

Scott

70

I'm assuming the ring has at least some 3D nature, at which point it's either broken by the ground or the shoe. I'm counting "entirely overlapped" as broken, partly because it makes sense to me and partly because otherwise it's basically impossible to mundanely break it, and that feels undesirable.

That said, I'm not intending "creating a circle" to be a tricky exercise (just one done in a way I think doesn't not work). The grogs have rope, or Viola can CrHe something without fatiguing herself.

71

Couldn't you break whatever the ring is resting on? That would be the "emitter", I suppose. I want to nail this down for future purposes.

Scott

72

Isn't the ring an Imaginem illusion in this case? I wouldn't expect that to need to rest on anything - illusions don't have the same innate tendency to fall that normal things do (and if they did, they'd fall through the ground due to having no solidity). That's why you can get them to appear in mid air without any means of support.

73

OK, fair enough. However, I don't see any reason in the guidelines to believe that an CrIm illusion would be dispelled by having something come into contact with it--if that were the case, a Touch illusion couldn't work very well. The only thing that remotely hints at such an outcome is the ReIm spell Wizard's Sidestep, but in that case, an image struck by an attack reappears somewhere else because it's designed to do so (and there's an extra magnitude paid for that effect).

So can you break the ring without disspelling the illusion? Maybe, but just as you don't like the idea that it can't be broken by any mundane means, I'm not fond of the idea that simply waving your hand breaks it, like a laser burglar alarm.

Scott

Scott

74

It's not a question of the illusion being dispelled - it's still there (assuming we've now moved on to the illusion of a circle being cast with Ind target and Sun duration - if it was Ring or Circle based on itself it would never have come into existence properly in the first place). The problem is that the spell it's acting as the Ring/Circle for has had its Circle broken, and has therefore ended. It's (broadly) like if you cast a Circle spell on a metal ring, pull it apart and then push it back together again - the metal's still there, but the spell breaks as soon as the circle does.

I think there's the fundamental problem that Imaginem has no inherent substance, so whilst it's really hard to do it permanent damage, it's really easy to temporarily override it.

75

So then let's go with a ring, say, 10 feet in the air.

Scott

76

That's doable in principle (assuming that the circle either produces a column of effect, or it's a large enough sphere that you still produce enough effect at ground level - exactly how that works is one of those things that I don't think is well defined, but I'm willing to say the latter would work in this case anyway so it doesn't really matter).

Viola will have to physically trace the Imaginem ring whilst casting her Ring / Circle spell, though.

77

Is there anything that actually says a Circle/Ring effect is spherical? I don't remember.

In any case, yes, she has to pace the circle, but that will take under a minute. Creating the ring doesn't require a roll.

I said above that the spell to turn the air into thick, black, but harmless smoke would be MuIm, but I believe I meant MuAu, specifically MuAu15, from a base 5 guideline. You noted that Viola's total, after dividing but before adding a stress die, is 18, so here's a roll:

4, making a total of 20

Scott

78

This comes up from time to time on the forums.

From what I remember, there's nothing that explicitly says a Ring / Circle spell has to be spherical. However, there are various "Ward Against the Faeries of the X" spells that say things like "Seen from certain angles at night, the ring appears as a [colour] dome" (for example, the ReAq one is light blue) which suggest they are at least some of the time. It's therefore a house rule as to whether Ring / Circle spells are always spherical or not (and if you rule that they don't have to be, you also need to decide what happens when someone turns one through 90 degrees and scrawls it on the wall).

Yes, but tracing the ring is rather trickier if it's 4-5 feet above her head. Not undoable, but trickier.

79

How about making it whatever height it needs to be so that she can reliable reach it with an extended arm holding her talisman? That should pretty much assure it won't be broken by accident.

Scott

80

Viola's small frame manifests in her being very thin, from what I remember, rather than short. Given that, I'll say that that plan will probably work - but it's not a certainty against the person with snakes waving from the top of her head.

[OOC: I'll roll a die and see how (un)lucky Viola gets.]