Common spells in your covenant

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hi there!

IMS there has been a fairly large tendency to develop some utility spells for the covenant. I would like to see what are the ones that you regularly use in YOUR covenants :slight_smile:

Here come a few of ours. I am at work so I can't recall the maths behind them right now, but hewre comes the concepts :slight_smile: Most of those are enchanted minor items. We spent 2 years creating them and they have been working for a long time and efficiently for the covenant.

Summoning of the Burning Log
Creates Wood. Used as firewood. Sun duration (no need for longer durations most of the time, only in the change of day/night) does mundane wood become needed)

Summoning of the Night's Revelry
Creates a barrel of good Wine. Sun duration (sober up at dawn)

The Firefighter's best friend
Summon Water. Diameter duration (vs fires). Unlimited uses in buckets distributed around the covenant in areas sensible to catch fire.

Lighting the Darkness
Creates 100 candles. Sun duration.

The Scribe's hand
Creates 100 quills. sun/moon duration (can't recall now)

UTILITY SPELLS: casting tablets for all those are fairly common, I would say. NB: Our covenant is based around 3 mystic towers, so it is easy to find circular rooms there.

Cloak of duck feathers for the whole roof of the covenant. prevents leakages

Circle/ring Illumination spells (CrIg). Inscribed in (round) iron torches and around

Circular heating hearths. No wood needed anymore. Only used in magic-heavy areas. In public places of the covenant the log spell is what is commonly used to prevent visitors to be spooked

Circular infirmary spell (CrCo(An)). provides a bonus to recovery rolls.

Circular Well spell (ReAq) --> Draws water to the surface, but does not allow it to leak out. . There is also a Moon duration spell with similar effects to create a fountain-like effect in the kitchen

Circular anti-decaying food spell (medieval fridge) --> in part of the granary and the butcher shop. We try to keep the usage level restriicted to prevent warping to the inhabitants of the community.

Ward vs Rodents or other animals Ring/circle (ReAn) --> In the granary
Ward vs Faeries
Ward vs Demons
Circular towers are good for all those. They are cast in a ring around the tower and in a smaller ring in the door of the covenant for added security.

There are a few more (we make heavy use of circle/ring spells here) biut those are what I recall right now :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

2

This one is problematic, because at sunrise/sunset, that huge roaring fire loses 100% of the wood that fuels it - poof, all gone, before the next batch can be added, and certainly before it catches.

Now, it's unclear if "glowing coals" are still Herbam or are now become Ignem. Without any research into Medieval philosophy, I'd think there's a strong argument for the latter, and if so then you're clean on that point. The "roaring fire" would still drop to nothing more than a bed of embers, but a skilled servant should be able to fan that up to a blaze quickly enough, even if it might be a bit disconcerting to any mundane guests who witness the sunset occurrence.

I like this one! And it's in a place where almost no interpretation of the "circle" rules could challenge it. Nicely done.

3

Yes, we know about the fire going out at surnrise/siunet. this is why a few regular logs are added before that happens :slight_smile: The spell simply makes the process of adding logs to the fire MUCH cheaper than it would be otherwise. it was created when the covenat was much poorer than it is now. :slight_smile: If we simply wanted fire for fire's sake, we would go purely circle-ring fire hearth, but that tends to unerve mundane visitors no end. :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

4

(Ah, I misread that, my bad - you're on 'er, yer honour!) :laughing:

5

Very nice.

In the old Brunnaburgh saga i ran we had the following spells. I can't remember the names (especially since some were in spanish) or details but this is what they did.

Structure/room spell to create mediterrean warmth for a month.

A nail (Lesser magic device) that casts a room target continual spell to prevent decay of animals and plants, used in the pantry.

Ring/circle light spells.

a plow (lesser enchanted device) that when struck with a hammer creates a long ploughed furrow. Takes 4 men to move but you can plough a field, even a large field in an hour or two with little effort. The covenants farmers loved this one.

Conjuring the mystic tower. By the end of the saga each of the covenants 9 magi had one. So thats nine towers, plus an old keep and grand hall (also the result of a creo terram spell).

And one that only my mage used by he used it a lot to get around the covenant. A simple Rego Corpus spell that teleported him 5 paces, almost exactly the distance of a single storey, allowing him to teleport between floors, through walls and closed doors. Handily it was touch range so he could cast it on offensive people to teleport them 5 paces away. Very useful when in one of the higher stories of a tower as he could teleport them out of the tower but still 80 odd feet up in the air.

6

I'd argue that much as magic items created with "twice a day" and "environmental trigger" do not flicker at dawn (RAW), so to, the fire will not go poof.

7

That would require a magus ready to cast a new batch of wood each dawn and dusk - probably would nedd a fast-cast too (to make it just as the last batch dispears - too soon and it will go with the first batch, too late, and the fire is gone). Not too many magi would be willing to do this - and you'd need this for each fireplace... Would be pretty disrupting to your work too, I'd imagine...

8

I would doubt it is that much trouble. A magus doesn't have to be present if it's an enchanted fireplace; maybe you could have it create the wood more than twice a day to make sure there is no time when ALL of the wood disappears and reappears fresh. But if there is still a problem, you might as well just go with the CrIg spell. Unless you have trouble with ignem. But that's beside the point (some of us have trouble with creo which means we're kissing most of these spells goodbye).

But I like the spells you've made. So, the one that makes wine, does that seriously sober everyone up at dawn as an effect of its limited duration? Does that make sense in either the modern or medieval paradigm? If so, that's great... In the same right, "lungs of the fish" also has a limited duration, so if it ended soon after a person got out of the water, wouldn't the "fake air" they had absorbed turn back into water and create a problem? Maybe not.

9

Weird how such a simple magic item (an axe in our case) can cause so much trouble here :slight_smile:

The axe was hung from a small room. At dawn and dusk it cast a CrHe spell that created the Sun duration pre-cut logs. Then the logs were transported mundanely around the covenant and placed in the diverse fireplaces that needed them. So the operation of feeding the logs to the fire was totally mundane and looked natural to any onlooker, except at the precise dawn/dusk moment. Way less complicated than what you are saying :slight_smile:

It was way less efficient than a circle/ring fireplace, but it is less trouble if you have mundane visitors that you do not want to show a lot of magic to. it happened IMS since one of our neighbors was a bishop with a tolerance for magic, but a limited one.

Cheers,

Xavi

10

But this has no environmental trigger - the effect ends at dawn/sunset, and with it any (unburnt) wood. Whether "poof" or over a few minutes, the bulk of the fuel is gone at that time. The "no flicker" refers specifically to a "constant" effect created in a magical device.

Here, the effect (of having created wood, which is now burning) would dissipate at whatever rate the Troupe decides Dur:Sun effects normally disappear, since the Dur:Sun (either spell or item) is not constant or continued, and with it any "fresh fuel" for that fire. (I still believe "embers" would remain, as they are far more "Ignem" rather than "Herbam".)