Circle Duration & Existing Spells

RoP:I p122.

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I see circle/ring as a rubbery soap bubble. It behaves like those 6 foot balloons you can see on youtube. When you step on it, it either stays under your foot or grows to cover you. It keeps its oblate/prolate shape but hugs you like the parma would. It it's tall enough to hit the ceiling, it might reshape itself as a cylinder just like a soap bubble would (or across a corridor if wall-to-wall).

The drawn part is always in the "thickness" of the bubble, neither inside not outside. A ward makes the "thickness" itself an barrier. The inside is always the smaller volume. Turning pages would flatten it.

I understand that the North/South side of the bubble (as defined by the direction of tracing) might have opposite effects to allow air coming in through a window for example.

Now, I'm not sure about the circular wall but the bottom half should behave the same as the upper half. It might reflow to follow the wall and floor, or it could extend around whoever reaches for its oblate underside.

I'm not sure why a warded creature would avoid stepping on the bubble, but I assume it would not yield and flatten itself for them.

Forgive me if this was covered upstream, but i forget what conclusion was arrived at for magical lighting?

The idea was to create target circle duration ring CrIg spells.... Does the light remain bound within the circle and so is hence useless, or does it emanate out making the Magical Lighting lab improvement virtually costless?

Bob

While that was not covered upstream in the thread, there are two issues with what you suggest.

First, the target for a Creo creation spell (such as light) needs to be Individual or Group. Secondly, you need to read through the "Spells for Laboratories" section of Covenants, p. 122. Using non-ritual spells has some pretty big drawbacks.

For this kind of thing it's best to your a Touch, Sun, Room, 2 uses per day enchanted item.

While in my game this would be allowed, it is because we have a HR that allows it. In a RAW game, you would want a Touch, Sun, Group, Size +1, 2/uses @ day item, possibly with an Environmental Trigger.

EDIT: Our HR specifically allows the Room or Structure targets with Creo creation spells that produce things like light and warmth. We also specifically state that they fill the room or structure evenly. However it is a HR and not possible in a RAW game.

The rules for Creo creation spells and targets are AM5, p. 113. To fill a room with light is 100 base individuals. You need to use Group, which is equal to 10 base individuals and add a level of Size to bring it up to 100 base individuals.

I have played in groups that allow Individual and Size +2, since it is more efficient (the save Level as having Target: Room) with the drawback that it is a single point of light so cast shadows and glare. Even this however is a HR.

Note that the shape of the cone is quite right until the circle becomes perfectly vertical: its horizontal section becomes a progressively "thinner" ellipse.

The only issue is when the circle is perfectly vertical. In this limit case, if one wanted to define the result mathematically, one would have to be a bit more precise about "inside". One complicated definition makes only those points of the disc surrounded by the circle be "inside" when the circle is perfectly vertical. For a game, it is easier to just say "when the circle is perfectly vertical, bla bla".

Doesn't the "cone" (or even the "cylinder") model cover this?

Needing either Ind size+2 or Group size+1 is an absurd reading. Just look at the standard example CrIg spell Lamp without Flame, it is not a human sized shaft of purely vertical light it is a light source that goes in all directions. Sure, you might need more than 1 to sufficiently light a large room but you won’t need as many as fit in said room to cover it.

While you might not need the Size +1, you very much need Group to fill a room with light. It is clearly stated on page 113.

For a large room you would need a size mag, From Lamp without Flame, Core p140:

This spell creates a steady light as bright as daylight on a cloudy day. The light has no apparent source, but illuminates an area about ten paces across, centered on a point indicated by the caster. This point may be a mobile item.

I woke up with the idea that the Circle may create a column based on some arcane ideal, and now wonder if it should be equal in height to the square of the area of the circle. For a 10 pace* circumference this would be a column 63 paces high. Even if the plane of the Circle is the midpoint (uh, midplane) that's 31.5 paces of above ground height.

Basing on the square of the circle seems esoterically appropriate to me, although it's a bit nerdish. Suffice to say, it rises several floors.

*whatever a pace measures

B seems to be more dramatic, if that's a consideration. Someone outside of a Ward can find sanctuary from a pursuing danger.

Wards are already a separate case. The target of a circle ward is the circle itself where the barrier is, this is implicit in that a thing warded can not mar the circle and that the thing warded against can be inside or outside the circle. If it protected the area within the circle the warded thing could not be within the circle and the circle itself would not be protected.

Touch/Ring/Individual to create light that only ends if the source leaves the Ring is how you do permanent magical lighting, though it would add warping. A torch with a metal ring around the normally flaming part and then you create a light source within the ring is a classic. You can put it into anything that holds a torch and its free!

I see the logic behind the read, but it doesn't stand up to other things in the corebook. I believe it is mostly saying you can't use Room to create a room full of stuff and then saying how you would make a room full of stuff should the thing you be making not already be enough, which going by Aquam and Aurum individuals, and the spell Lamp Without Flame some things already do that.

Lamp without Flame illuminates an area 10 paces across, which would easily completely illuminate every room in my house (my largest room is 6x6m, which isn't a huge room, but it's also not particularly small either).

A sphere of light with a 10-pace diameter would easily illuminate the entirety of a basic 500-square-foot by 10-foot high Hermetic laboratory (Covenants, p. 106). The lab has a volume of 5,000 cubic feet. The sphere has a volume of over 14,000 cubic feet (assuming 1 pace ~ 3 feet).

Additionally, the circular "Standard Hermetic Laboratory & Sanctum" mapped in Covenants (p.105) conveniently has a diameter of 30 feet. It, too would be lit by a single Lamp Without Flame (if the walls were removed).

In either case, putting the light on the ceiling and placing some mirrors about the room should solve the problem of areas in shadow.

The real question is whether a D: Ring version of Lamp... would be useful beyond lighting the inside of whatever circle the caster drew. My interpretation is that the light source would exist in the ring, and the species it generated would flow outward to illuminate the room without breaking the ring.

Or, the column could be the height of the length of the circumference. 10 paces is at least 25 feet or as much as 50.

This was what I was trying to draw attention to. I recall much discussion long ago in this vein, but I cannot recall the outcome.

bob

@rgd20
The version in your post had T: Ring, rather than T: Ind like Lamp.... That may change things a little, or drastically depending on the outcome of the ongoing conversation.

My opinion is that the T: Ring version would cause everything inside the circle to become a light source, and the species emitted by that area would flow outward without breaking the circle. If you wanted a very large circle, you'd need to add magnitudes for size. Others clearly disagree with me.

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Light is explicitly not species as noted by the fact that Imaginem does not affect light.

Sure a ring duration light might light the room but it would be trying to bypass the requirement of vis to magically gain a lab virtue. Hence why I think it should either not be able to leave the circle or break the ring duration.

Side note, you don’t need mirrors if you can cover the entire room with the spell, read the description of Lamp without Flame again, there is no source the area is covered in light, if you cast it on an object that object is merely a moveable center of the effect.

or D: Ring???

I don't have the time to participate in this discussion - but at times I fly over it. Anyway, keeping Durations and Targets apart clearly is important.