Consensus Building on Magically Created Food

[angafea]

It should come as no suprise to anyone that I'm missing something.

Why do the instant ritual food stuffs disappear?

[YR7]

@angafea

Why do the instant ritual food stuffs disappear?

They don't. I forgot to edit the spell's descriptions.

[ncl]

The potentially shady "+2 varied foods" was an attempt to deal with the fact that feeding on nothing but, say, boiled turnips for a year would probably lead to serious malnutrition. I also take it that making bread would require an Animal requisite for the eggs and milk.

While trapped underground, this one was a Christmas present for our grogs' children:

Honey Cake for the Long-Suffering Child CrHe(An) 5
R: Touch D: Diameter T: Ind

Creates a small pastry liberally coated in honey.
(Base 1, +1 Touch, +1 Diam, +1 treated, +1 An requisite)

[Erik_Tyrrell]

@ncl

I also take it that making bread would require an Animal requisite for the eggs and milk.

You can (and I frequently do) make bread without eggs and milk.

[Fruny]

@YR7

@angafea

Why do the instant ritual food stuffs disappear?

They don't. I forgot to edit the spell's descriptions.

Congratulations on attaining grandmastery on such an egregious error.

You shall know be formally known as Grand Master YR "I forgot to edit the spell's descriptions" 7.

applauds

Anyway, welcome to the club. Your pointy hat is in the mail.

[YR7]

@ncl

The potentially shady "+2 varied foods" was an attempt to deal with the fact that feeding on nothing but, say, boiled turnips for a year would probably lead to serious malnutrition. I also take it that making bread would require an Animal requisite for the eggs and milk.

While trapped underground, this one was a Christmas present for our grogs' children:

Honey Cake for the Long-Suffering Child CrHe(An) 5
R: Touch D: Diameter T: Ind

Creates a small pastry liberally coated in honey.
(Base 1, +1 Touch, +1 Diam, +1 treated, +1 An requisite)

Agreed on all points. (Except the An req for bread. Unless there are wolf teeth scattered in it or something I ain't gonna demand Animal.) Nice spell too.

[ncl]

@Erik Tyrrell

You can (and I frequently do) make bread without eggs and milk.

D'oh. Cleary, I should looked harder when googling "vegan bread recipes." The first three or four I found listed soy milk as an ingredient, and I stopped looking.

[YR7]

@Fruny

@YR7

@angafea

Why do the instant ritual food stuffs disappear?

They don't. I forgot to edit the spell's descriptions.

Congratulations on attaining grandmastery on such an egregious error.

You shall know be formally known as Grand Master YR "I forgot to edit the spell's descriptions" 7.

applauds

Anyway, welcome to the club. Your pointy hat is in the mail.

Every publicity is good publicity. At least that's what I'll tell myself at night.

[angafea]

@YR7

Oh, and
[color=red]
Fear Me, For I Hold Phenomenal Cosmic Powers! The Gates of Grandmastery Have Opened, And I Have Passed Onto Glory!

Bow, scrape, cower, worship.

[Fruny]

Hey, now that there are three of us, we can actually conspire to stab each other. Anyway, you know, that Erik Tyrrell, I really never trusted him...

[YR7]

@Fruny

Hey, now that there are three of us, we can actually conspire to stab each other. Anyway, you know, that Erik Tyrrell, I really never trusted him...

LOL

Edit:
You know, I took the occasion to look at the memberlist. And I discovered something frightening:
Erik Tyrell
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Total posts: 715
[6.22% of total / 1.88 posts per day]
Fruny
Joined: 06 Nov 2005
Total posts: 631
[5.49% of total / 1.66 posts per day]
YR7 posts
Joined: 05 Nov 2005
Total posts: 506
[4.40% of total / 1.33 posts per day]
Tuura
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Total posts: 487
[4.24% of total / 1.27 posts per day]
Furion Transsanus
Joined: 21 Jun 2006
Total posts: 455
[3.96% of total / 2.97 posts per day]

Notice how the top posters joined in Nov 2005? And how they got 1.x posts per day? Furion, now - Furion joined in 2006 and has 2.97 posts per day. He makes 2.2 posts per one of mine's. Grandmasters, I think it is not against each other that we need to conspire...

[Erik_Tyrrell]

Clearly Fruny is preachng distrust so as to keep us distracted while he uses his grandmaster powers for evil.

Welcome to the club.

[Furion_Transsanus]

@YR7

Furion, now - Furion joined in 2006 and has 2.97 posts per day. He makes 2.2 posts per one of mine's. Grandmasters, I think it is not against each other that we need to conspire...

[size=150][color=red]Muhahahaha! The Trans Sanus will get you soon

With my load of posting it is at least an advantage that I ever never post very looooong boring posts![/size]

(in all honesty I was on the old forum, but I only now got internet at home this summer - prior to that I had to chop runestones and logg them off to the nearest village with a longship to sail it some werewith a connection. Took me decades.)

[Furion_Transsanus]

@Erik Dahl

As I see it, there's basically two types of non-permanent magical food: food created with a Duration of Sun (less than that really isn't worth it), and food created with a Duration of Moon (no one's going to waste the vis on Year when they could do it at Mom). The former would disappear before it had time to be digested, leaving the person very hungry, as if he hadn't eaten. These spells aren't a problem for me. So it's the latter that we're worried about, the spells that have enough time to be absorbed into the body. I think that while the person would feel ravenous when the spell wore off, it would not do physical damage to him.

What if the magi in question just kept casting new spells at the end of the first spell? Or just before the end of the duration? This could potentially go on for years, and might potentially be used on several people. As Ravenscroft suggested it would be an easy task making an invested item creating food. At such you could very easily feed many people.

@Erik Dahl

It's like non-permanent healing spells: They seal the wound for the duration, but then it reopens afterwards, and this does not cause additional wounds to open. Likewise, I think hunger and thirst are quenched for the duration with sustenance creating spells, and their ending leaves the person the way they were before but does not cause any additional damage. Magi could heal everyone with D: Moon spells, too, but their patients are really going to suffer when the spell ends. If adventuring magi want to create all of their food with D: Moon spells, I don't really have a problem with that, and I think creating magical feasts is a nice thing for an Herbam or Animal specialist to be able to do.

I see that ncl has already voiced a similar question of this and in line with his eloquent, "I think that's a reasonable interpretation, but I disagree", I would like to continue on that track. In short: wounds get better over time; the need for food worse. I know this a broad generalisation, but it is nontheless how the rule mechanics works. Non-ritual CrCo spells to heal arrest your healing; non-ritual CrCo spells to feed you arrest your death.

@Erik Dahl

The food is clearly not nutritious, though. So, when living on magical food, either by creating it with non-permanent duration or changing inedible things into food and eating them, I suggest you give the character a penalty to his aging roll for that year, something like -1 for each month in which the magus survived on magical food alone. A whole year living that way would basically guarantee an Aging Point unless the character has a really powerful Longevity ritual. I suggest a similar penalty for magi who go a long time without healing their injuries naturally or without breathing normally (like spending months underwater under the effects of Lungs of the Fish.)

I agree with the general idea of letting such things influence the aging roll, though I still woundn't let people survive on non-ritual food alone.

[Furion_Transsanus]

@ncl

Along with a handful of retainers, the magi in our saga have actually been subsisting on the products of these two rituals for about five years now, ever since knights of the Albigensian crusade occupied the manor atop their (underground) covenant.

@ncl

Oh, it's not that bad. We actually constructed a large stone tank to hold the milk as well as devices that would preserve our food and ward it against pests. Combine that with an oven that Perdo's smoke and baking smells and a device that creates moon-duration firewood, and we have a nice little hidden covenant. Quite handy when all of Toulouse is falling to pieces.

HERETICS! BURN THEM! And their strongholds!

I am certain you use that stone tank to bathe in the milk as naked witches with black cats and satanic rites! Those righteous crusaders got it right alright!

@ncl

I agree that Muto'ing a stone into bread isn't nourishing, Muto'ing yourself into a cow while eating grass is, and that Rego can't help you here.

I would, however, allow the construction of Creo Corpus rituals to allow a magus to skip eating or correct for a nutrition deficiency gained by eating non-permanent food.

I agree on the first, and find the second a very interesting idea. Might even be possible at a quite reasonable spell level.

@ncl

I opt for "dead" as opposed to "supernaturally hungry" based on the discussion of the magical horse which eats mundane food (on page 77). "If a magically created horse was fed on mundane food for a year, it would leave a mundane corpse when the spell expired, as the mundane food has been converted into [a] mundane body." If mundane food persists in a magical body after the duration ends, I should think that magical food incorporated into a mundane body should disappear once the duration ends. Such a disappearance should be highly unpleasant to downright fatal.

I agree with others that this is a very compelling argument, but I do disagree on the sudden death. To me it would create the possibility for some "unfortunate" scenes. In line with your own:

@quote

Again, I should note that I don't think the RAW really give us a cut-and-dry answer to this question. Consequently, I've used a lot of words like "interpret" and "imply." I think there is quite a bit of room for reasonable and legitimate disagreement on this issue, depending on how one interprets various ambiguous sentences.

The RAW are muddy and I do think it reasonable to seek a middle ground to avoid the sudden death potential.

Edit: Ohh, I do agree that milk is Animal - no matter whether you drink it or only uses it for satanic baths
And I missed the honey spell before - what a charm (and the heretics celebrating christmas, outrageous)!

[Furion_Transsanus]

First off - congratulation to Yair for his pointed hat and well earned title!

@YR7

Hey, contrary to some rumours in another thread, I won't unleash the Paradigm Police on you [color=darkred]should we disagree

Was that "should" or "untill" we disagree, Grand Master?

@YR7

Having magically created food be not nourishing opens up new stories such as starving magi seeking out raw vis or conducting Rituals to provide sustenance in a crises, and it drives home the point of magi needing the mundane infrastructure to support them.

I certainly second that notion.

In the same line - what of a covenant filthy reach on vis, but situated for what ever reason in a way where all their food, or the majority of it, have to be created by using vis on food rituals. On one hand this might in certain ways call down the disgust and envy on such a waste of magical ressources. And on the other hand these magi would not only fight for the vis to have it for their laboratories but because the need it to survive

@YR7

Filling the Pit of Gluttony
CrCo 20 Ritual
You heal your body from the ravages of hunger.
(Base 20 "heal the debilitating after-effects of a disease, poison, or injury").

Hmmm. I really like the notion of using CrCo spells to do this, but I need to ask, how often would you need to cast his spell to survive? Survival being one thing, what about the persons general functionality? I reckon most magi, with all their important work in the labs would prefer not to go starving (for nourishment) for days before using this spell and then starting anew. This would however be very good for people being rescued from a famine or seclusion or some such.

Of the bat, what about these:

Food For Thoughts
CrCo4 Ritual
Range: Personal
Duration: Mom
Target: Ind
Nourishes yourself for a day. Enjoy the lab sodalis - who really has time to leave it anyway for a nuisance such as simple eating.
(Base 4: This is not in the guidelines, but I reckoned that it should stay within the first magnitude. And I reasoned that this is somewhat short of 5: Create an Entire Human Corpse. This being a momentary ritual I still find it reasonable to argue that it might keep the target nourished for the rest of the day)

The Ever Vigilant Shield Grog
CrCo5 Ritual
Range: Touch
Duration: Mom
Target: Ind
Nourishes your grog for a day. Grogs tend to get distracted by food and the humours make them sluggish upon having eaten their full. Beasts they are..
(Base 4, Touch +1)

Relief of The Entrenched Turb
CrCo15 Ritual
Range: Touch
Duration: Ring
Target: Circle
In times of trouble this has saved me more than once. But the idignity of sharing the confined space with common brutes, if not to speak of the smells!!
(Base 4, Touch +1, Ring +2. I know this stretches the perception of Rituals and Momentary duration, but this feels appropriate to me. Keeping in mind that this is seriously limitied by the integrity of the circle and the confining of the targets)

@YR7

@Furion

The unnatural hunger-notion suggested by Fruny is appealing in that regard, but I would just have it set in earlier so as to asure that the character would know that something was horribly wrong and start to weaken, because the last thing I would want is the sudden death by the end of duration.

Yes, well I'm having a hard time seeing that in action. Fruny's story of Gargantua (quoted above) was marvelous. How do you propose to change the story?

Okay then, I will try giving it a go.

But I can't help starting by making a general consideration on food and hunger. I know from personal experience, not on my self though, from having been stationed for the Red Cross in Ethiopia (among other places) a bit about hunger. People starving do in the end usually not die from the starvation itself. As they wither away their immune system is eventually so weak that they get killed off by very ordinary diseases. This is compounded by the fact that the hunger becomes so powerful that you will begin to eat the seeds set aside for next years crops. In an agrarian life setting aside crops for the next year is crucial to be able to keep alive. That is why one year of drought or other natural calamities can ruin years upon years of yield and extends the crisis and hunger. The same goes for the animal needed to farm the land, they are crucial, but if hungry enough even the sinewy ox used to pull the plough will be slaughtered and eaten, leaving the family without an ox to plough. Finally if the hunger gets bad enough that need for food, for filling your stomach, makes you eat literally anything. Just to get that feeling of not having an empty inside (this brings Fruny’s Gargantua to mind…). Sticks and stones at the least irritate the intestines, at worst block them or destroy them. This spells the doom for any chance of making it through even if by some miracle you find or get hold of food. There is also a huge difference between getting enough to survive and getting enough to be functional - this can for example be seen in refugee camps (or internal displaced) around the world today. Most often there is only nourishment enough for the refugees themselves to survive whereas the people running the camp or those of the refugees given work/responsibility in the camp have to have a larger degree of nourishment to be able to function.

That is how real world lack of food kills people. The question is if this can influence our in-game response to it? Hunger and the feeling of hunger are two separate things, at least when you are able to fill your stomach with something that gives no nourishment, but doesn’t harm you either (non-ritual food). But how would lack of food then work? If such diseases sets in can they be handled by CrCo spells? And if diseases can’t kill them because of the magic, how long will they manage? Would it be an idea to simply use growing penalties to any action as the time since eating food grows? Could these penalties be something that couldn’t be remedied with e.g. ReCo spells (as it could with penalties from wounds) because they are caused by lack of energy and the Limit of Energy making this impossible? This would make someone survive but get weaker and weaker by time – not unlike the realities, that someone starving to death might at some time have a rescue within reach, but would in the end simply not have the energy to reach out for it. In this light the non-ritual food would still have its merit; the character would get the increasing penalties nonetheless (due to the lack of food) and might eventually die, but the temporary food spell would keep them at least able to focus and to avoid being consumed by the urge for food and to avoid eating more or less anything within reach. I would suggest that without the “fake” food in his stomach the person would have a Personality Trait of Ravenous +3 and growing. To this I would add other effects inspired by the bodily humours (the Cause and Cure might provide inspiration). I do think that even if kept feed with non-ritual food, any but the dumbest character should realise that his “wasting”, of their body and of their energy, is due to the food they are eating not giving them any nourishment. This closes the door on “the sudden death by assassination by the food of bygones”, but leaves the possibility of tricking the renowned undeniable stupidest giant in whole world with a heart for splendid stews by feeding him daily magnificent feasts till he is weak enough to vanquish.

For those who, like me, do not give non-ritual food the benefit of nourishment, would this be useful? Other comments are more than welcome too, but as long as your take it for granted that the prequisite for this approach is the notion that non-ritual food do not nourish.

A penny for your thoughts.

(edit: sorry for the triple postings - but I found that it would become too confusing if I tried to answer all in one post... though some would have it that this is my evil scheme for achieving Grandmastery.. )

[angafea]

@Furion Transsanus

A penny for your thoughts.

I like your spell descriptions.
Rituals have a minimum level of 20.
And I was worried "Relief of The Entrenched Turb " was going to be a spell to perdo the "used" food from the grogs intestines. I'm glad I was wrong

[Furion_Transsanus]

@angafea

@Furion Transsanus

A penny for your thoughts.

I like your spell descriptions.
Rituals have a minimum level of 20.
And I was worried "Relief of The Entrenched Turb " was going to be a spell to perdo the "used" food from the grogs intestines. I'm glad I was wrong

ROFL!

And right you are! I guess they were too soon of the bat, then. That might make them less desirable.

Would this be an alternative?

The Morning's Glory
CrCo20 Ritual
Range: Touch
Duration: Mom
Target: Structure
Nourishes your covenant for a day. Provided that you do live in decent manor as any self-respecting Magi ought to. The obvious vis cost aside I have noticed an apparent change for the more peaceful the days I have started with this ritual. Simple people, and even esteemed sodalis, all seem to meet the day with less sour and grumpiness when not awakening hungry.
(Base 4, Touch +1, Structure +3)
I know Creo and the Target: Structure normally don't blend, but wouldn't it be alright when not creating as such but rather "maintaining" what already is?

[Tuura]

Grandmasters, I think it is not against each other that we need to conspire...

Hmmm. I wonder if I can make a negative post and keep myself out of the ranks of Grand Mastery? This seems like a dangerous place to hang out. Hmmmmm....

[ArsBrevis]

I notice there is further mention of on p108 of TMRE: "...like consuming food created by magic but without vis - it appears to be nourishing but lacks any real long-term nourishment."

This, I think, is further evidence that temporarily-created food provides genuine sustenance as long as it exists, but no longer. Yes, it's possible to kill an enemy by feeding them on magical food for a year, but I don't feel that's an abuse of the system. You can also eliminate someone by seasoning their meals with arsenic for a similar period.

(Then again, the next page claims that a boat is Group, an idea I reject wholeheartedly.)