So what do we think about the Magical Lighting and Heat issue?
Scott
I haven't got any very strong opinions on it, although my inclination would be to not go for loads of permanent ring spells, as it does feel a little cheap.
And hey, maybe the hypocaust gives magical heating? If we ever get it going...
Yes, the hypocaust will give Magical Heating to everything within the covenant site (except to Viola's lab, of course). Observing the lab on the second floor, you've discovered it even has vents to lower chambers--magical heat, after all, doesn't necessarily rise.
One catch though is that you don't get the health bonus twice--the Healthy Feature bonus (the bigger of the two) will apply to the entire covenant, so Magical Heating won't carry the normal bonus to lab Health.
Scott
There could be other small powered magical ways to get these solved, as sets of lesser devices. Once a few are created at moderate level, the recreation is quick.
I'm wary of any large continual effect because of warping, but there are ways and means. Vis will probably be the limiting factor.
One lab from the old covenant remained intact, the one on the second floor of the caves. However, Portia created magical lab equipment for all the other labs (and planned labs) within a few weeks of the new covenant's establishment. So yes, you do have a full lab available, but it won't have many Virtues.
(That, yes, is something else on my to-do list.)
Scott
In the rules, Warping isn't a problem for enchanted items. However, I started a debate in the ArM forum on whether or not a permanent Ring spell would cause Warping: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/magical-lighting-in-labs/8728/1
So we need to rule on that before we decide on how we're going to do it in the labs, though obviously your method would pose no problem.
Scott
I saw that thread but stayed out of it, well, because you're the alpha storyguide. 
IMHO warping won't apply to ring/circles, and I'd argue that it would be common through out a covenant for ring spells to be used for this type if thing. Not just the sancta, but everywhere.
In this saga and in other sagas I've run a simple Ring/Circle effect cast on a carved wooden object, then that thing mounted on pole gives "roman street lighting". You cast the spell, cover the ring (but not mark the surface) and you've a permanent simple effect.
As for Warping, if you really want to rule that there would be warping then it would only be warping the wooden things, not the people in the area. I think warping was intended as mechanical limitation to the application of magic in the setting, not to limit clever rudimentary spells.
I'd be happy to spend some side tie knocking up some portable lights, lanterns, etc to be placed around the covenant. As they have a very simple effect and almost no "cost". Its an easy problem to fix, as is the heating trouble without spending the season (a set of circles which emit heat).
I'd also like to do what I've done in games before for the lab space, which is cast effects to destroy the image of the wall, thus creating magical windows, using Ring/Circle too. This creates a great natural source of light during daytime in the lab, and does not affect security.
Effect: PeIm - Base 4, R: Touch +1, D: Ring +2, T: Circle +0, = final effect ~ PeIm 15
or being a smart arse:
ReIm, Base 2 to make it appear 1 pace away, then Touch +1, D: Ring +2, T: Part +1 = final effect ~ ReIm 10.
Yes, Ring effects have essentially no cost. As I describe in the thread, that means any lab would have them, which is something I see as problematic. What do you think about the "every lab has them" issue, and how to deal with it?
Scott
Ah...misunderstanding here. We're not talking about character Warping, but about the lab trait Warping, which creates a chance that an item will be quirky in some way.
Scott
I'd have to think about whether this would actually work - remember, the standard Invisibility spells don't affect shadows, which this is essentially the inverse of. I can see your spell destroying the ability of the wall to emit species, but not enabling light to pass through.
[strike]If that was true then a person who was invisible could be seen plainly because they'd be a blur of some sort in human shape. A shadow isn't light, it is the absence of light.[/strike] Actually I can see your point, but I don't see that being the application, if that makes sense.
I think if you PeIm something invisible, it's invisibe--which means species from the other side have to pass through it.
However, I've got a big problem with something-for-nothing spells.
Scott
I would think the storerooms are needed for stores.
BTW, after the fountains are fixed the aura is the same on the surface and in the caves, 5, at least in the labs--except that the aura on the surface increases to 6 in spring, but this doesn't happen in the caves.
Scott
Why is a level 10 effect considered something for nothing?
[OOC: I'd thought we had the stores in one of the surface buildings. Thinking about it, we did put Petrus (the chirurgeon) and the infirmary in one of the storerooms, though (after Tasia moved him out of the big lab). We do definitely still have one spare lab set up on the second floor of the caves, though (and I still think we have one of the storerooms outfitted as a lab. This is what amul had as a summary onf the covenant rooms/ buildings previously:
Note that the auras have now changed slightly, to be aura 5 on the second level of the caves as well as the first. The second floor cave does still have the issue of being potentially vulnerable to flooding, although I think Patrick was going to cast a Ward Against Water on it.
Also, I had a moment's worry about our covenfolk when you said the aura increased to six, but luckily one season a year at level 6 isn't enough to start warping them.]
Mmm. That is part of the issue that had me phrasing my concerns as "I'd have to think about whether it should work" - (visual) species can't travel without light, so if light can't pass through an object effectively species can't either. But that would imply you can't see through an invisible person...But then, where does a shadow come from?
I'll note that HoH:TL has the spell "A Window of Singular Direction" which achieves a similar aim by muto-ing a circle of wall to be transparent from one side only - it's level 15 to affect stone walls, or 10 for earthen ones, and probably closer to Fray's arts.
Well, as ironboundtome said and then struck out, if light can't pass through an invisible object, it can't really be invisible. Mind you, that doesn't really match what it says in the PeIm guidelines, I know. I think things might make more sense if you think of them, not as an absence of light (or species), but as a mystical property of a person or object, something entirely separate from a thing's image. But that's a kludge at best.
This kind of crap is a good example of the problems you run into when you try to create a world modeled on the medieval conception of physics: sometimes (like Aristotle's laws of motion) they were so wrong that they couldn't model things that normal people expected to see in the real world (arrows, for example, don't travel in a straight line and then fall straight to the ground, and everyone knew that); other times, the medieval physics were just internally inconsistent, and this is one of those times. I repeatedly brought up this point on the Berklist whenever David Chart got on his medieval mindset kick, but it little avail.
In other words...I don't think you're going to be able to come up with a good answer here. We can require a CrIg requisite for a "window" effect (which strikes me as nearly insane, since you're adding a Technique req as well as a form), or we can just house-rule away that stupid part of the PeIm guidelines and say that, while images can't create light, they can at least block it.
Scott
I really think it would make the most sense if you read the thread, because all of the points have been made at least twice there.
However, the short version: in the Covenants section "Spells for Laboratories" (122-3), it seems quite clear that the author didn't anticipate permanent Ring spells. He says that, unless a lab Virtue comes from a significant expenditure of time and/or vis, it shouldn't count the same as an effect that requires that expenditure of time and/or vis. His "opposite category" is spells that have to be recast daily or weekly, by the magus himself, in the course of lab work, and effects in this category increase the lab's Warping score, as well as being subject to a minor restriction, which is that the season's lab activity can't include the Arts involved in the spells. Permanent Ring spells don't fall into either category, but the intent here is so clear that at least two people in the discussion felt that they should raise the Warping score anyway.
Why are they a problem? That's the something-for-nothing part. They don't require vis, and they don't require time in a lab. They require a few rounds to cast, and that's it (the circle itself can be created by a mundane craftsman, quite cheaply). The effects in question are so small (a candlelight-strength CrIg light spell is only level 5) that someone at any given covenant can spont them, and you only have to do it once, if you have a circle inlaid in the ground.
The upshot is that every lab will have both Magical Heating and Magical Lighting, unless the magus in question is quirky. Among other things, that makes the Excessive Heating, Excessive Lighting, Superior Heating, and Superior Lighting Virtues, and the Subterraneaon Flaw, completely meaningless. The other thing you run into is that you're recording the same two Virtues every time, which is unnecessary bookkeeping. And it's just inelegant.
So to me, there are two possible solutions. One is that Ring spells are subject to the same restrictions as other spells that don't involve time or vis. The other possibililty is that Ring spells really do work that way, but, since they're so costless, it's unimaginable that they wouldn't be part of every lab, and so they're part of the lab baseline, rather than something that requires Virtues and grants bonuses.
Scott