Creating magical beasties (Ritual magic)

Games Discussion Ars Magica
61

I'm pretty sure Animae spells have a duration as you can either Creo or Muto them into existence. I think the only canon example of a magus who uses them is in Antagonists, so you'd need to check that book to see how they're written up.

Following the magically created animals leave behind a corpse if they've been fed for a year, does this mean the following item works?
The collar of the phantom flock
This leather collar has been opened as a greater item, it can hold (2 for leather x 2 for small item) 4 pawns of vis and so 40 levels of enchantment. When activated, it creates a flock of 10 sheep (group target, one of which is wearing the collar). Unless removed, the enchantment remains on continuously. If the sheep are grazed for a year, when the collar is taken off it will leave behind ten sheep corpses at next dawn/dusk. The collar can then be re-used.
Base 15 create a mammal, range touch, duration sun, target group, no size modifiers for sheep, +1 3 uses/day +3 environmental trigger (sunset/sunrise) so always on - CrAn44 total.

Birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians are a magnitude smaller - but most European examples of those are smaller than size 0, so sturgeon farming for the win (I don't think dolphins or small whales are really farmable, and it's a long way into Africa to find ostriches. I'm not sure I want to try crocodile or giant gold-digging ant farming)

62

Honey bees are even better! One magnitude lower than birds or fish, they can be easily created at D:Sun (even with a spell) to produce honey and wax: it takes maybe 1 hour for the bee to fly out, gather the nectar from several dozen to a hundred flowers, and process it into honey for the hive.

I think a Cr(Re)An 35 spell (Base 5, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +2 Group, +1 Rego requisite) should be able to create some 10x200Kg of bees... or roughly 20 million bees, and command them to perform some "basic" task natural to them, such as guarding a site, attacking enemies, or gathering food, until the next sunrise/sunset. A really useful spell, and one within reach of a starting specialist (would you add an extra magnitude for the "versatility"? considering that bees are still limited to "normal" behaviour, I wouldn't, but I'd be interested in different opinions).

It seems incredible, but if sent out to gather honey, according to most information I've been able to find, 20 million bees should be able to produce half a ton to a ton of honey in a day assuming they have enough flowers nearby. This may, or may not be the case. However, from what I've read 1 million bees can definitely share the same foraging area of "typical" farm crops (grain, beans, hay) over a season, so it seems reasonable that in spring/early summer you could have 2-4 million bees forage over a day what 1 million would forage over 2-4 days... which would easily yield something like 100Kg of honey. This would be roughly the value of two yearling cows in the fall, according to the Saxon Capitulary of 797 and roughly 2 months of wages for a master mason in 15th century London... something very roughly of the order of a Mythic pound maybe?

63

in mythic europe time you can find ostriches in Anatolia not this far if you are in the Thebes Tribunal

64

Can't bees use the ReAn guideline for worms in A&A on page 30?

65

Something that my SG pointed out - You can only create something that you have seen :slight_smile:

So, if you have seen a slavishly loyal dragon, you can make one. There is no method to "customize" something with Creo Magic - it comes straight from the realm of forms. If you haven't seen one, you can't summon one.

66

Brutus - I'm not sure that is totally true to how I understand the setting. I think its reasonable (YSMV) for a spell to create a minor variation of something the Magus has either seen or researched. So if they have researched a dragon (Magic lore rolls or xp, dedicated activity while crafting the spell, whatever stands to reason). By comparison a magus should be able to create a mundane white hound, even if all they've seen is brown coloured hounds. Likewise a hound who is submissive vs a hound of is very aggressive seems like a minor detail. It comes back to what is the range of variation within the realm of forms. I like the idea of Finesse being used, perhaps the normal ritual skills or Magic Lore skill rolls might be suitable substitutes too.
That said, conjuring something which is against it's essential nature shouldn't be possible. Perhaps your SG is indicating that dragons are just never "slavishly loyal".

67

True, maybe you create the effect/spell and another player stats your beast. Then you keep re-inventing the spell/effect until you get one you like.

68

Bees, according to Pliny, come from rotten cattle. Isidore of Seville says bees come from oxen, hornets from horses, wasps from asses. You'd be better off going for eels (come from mud & slime in ponds and rivers, and are tasty when smoked), or creating mice from damp earth. Reminds me, I admire the way the worms guidelines were used in Thrice-told tales with the fact spiders are worms of the air to spontaneously create spiders out of thin air in a way that doesn't need to penetrate MR to attack covenants.

69

In HoH:MC, they are called "temporary" but by Creo Ritual guidelines, Animae creations should also be able to be made permanent. I can see no prohibitions on that score laid out in the text.

I'd imagine that temporary duration Animae have no vis. But Ritually created Animae should contain vis.

The magus in ToP who has the virtue has a number of spells to create these creatures, but they all have a duration.

Creating a permanent Animae with say, 20 Might, for example, could be done like this: CrTe base 3 (associated with sand/mud/dirt/clay- lowest Base, tied with some other Forms in the Animae Guidelines) + 2 Voice, +0 D momentary + 0 T:Ind+ 20 Might = 25, you'd create a 20 Might permanent Faerie inside your nearby ready and appropriate Rego ward. With Mercurian Magic you'd get a discount (and together with Imbued with the Form of Terram, pay nothing but fatigue), kill Faerie in some none Perdo Vim manner, harvest for vis, rinse and repeat; use Faerie Chains of the Familiar Slave to bind another faerie, and spend its Might for your Fatigue, so you can do this a number of times/day.

Your troupe might not allow this sort of vis farming, although it's also something you can do with created elementals (with higher magnitude spells, a CrTe 40 can create a 25 Might Earth elemental).

Or they might love it, who knows.

70

There are a bunch of ways to do this, including just using the guideline out of the core book along with T: Group with nothing more needed. Summoning with scouring works, too, whether for spirits or elementals. Bind Magical Creatures (Verditius) gets you a huge return on the investment, too. This is why I ban the combination of creating/summoning and harvesting things with Might.

71

I would just note that there are many, many ways in which magi can collect vis with relatively little effort after an initial "investment". This is a default assumption of the setting all over the place. My favourite is Pukys! Of course any troupe is free to restrict this aspect of the game (just like any troupe that takes exception to the fact that magi can become really really rich in mundane wealth with little effort can restrict that aspect of the game).

72

They can certainly use that guideline; and indeed, it's the same as the Cr(Re)An guideline in terms of final level. While it has the advantage of not being based on Creo (and thus being easier if your Creo score is lower than your Rego score), using "spontaneous generation" as per A&A has two main disadvantages.

First, the bees do not disappear when your control of them does.

Second, you need a certain amount of rotting meat to generate all those bees. A&A says you need a base individual of rotting meat (I'd take that to be some 200Kg, a Size +1 creature) for every 1000 individual worms generated. To produce 20 million bees, you'd then need (20million / 1000) x 200Kg, i.e. a not inconsiderable four thousand tons of rotting meat.

73

But in this case there is a much more significant problem. What happens is that you're creating vis. If you can create vis, then let's create vis without a ritual, say for D: Diameter or D: Sun. Now we'll use it to add power to a formulaic spell or a ritual spell. As long as the magic is over before the vis duration ends, not a problem... except that now we're violating the limit of creation.

I don't think you're supposed to be able to create vis nor alter it's type. Those used to be possible (Was it in 3rd that you could pull it from your own body, causing decrepitude? The same edition you could change the type.), but had been removed as far as I know. Other than banning several guidelines or a host of things you can merge with the guidelines, I don't see a good way around this. That's why I just forbid the practice; now I don't have to fiddle with lots of guidelines or other things to avoid the issue.

Other sorts of creation don't have the same problem.

74

One easy house rule might be to require that creation of magical things cost at least as much Vis as is embedded in the creations.

75

That would work pretty well. It still leaves open Summoning abuse as well as a Verditius creating magical beasties.

76

Hmm, no. It's not obvious that if you can create something through ritual magic, you can create something with exactly the same properties through non-ritual magic (take nourishing food, for example).

Maybe not directly, but any ritual spell that allows you to summon a daimon, or create a dragon, canonically does allow creation of vis. It typically requires more vis than what gets harvested, but not under all circumstances, and in general it always allows you to "convert" between types of vis (since you can always use at least two types of vis when casting a ritual).

The catch is that these spells aren't too easy to obtain, and that there's always a risk involved in using them, however small. Effectively, such magic allows a covenant to obtain a vis source, priced in stories: a story for the initial investment, and additional stories whenever the troupe feels the source is being "overextended" (i.e. used to obtain more vis than initially planned). Again, I know many troupes who like to play Ars Magica "Harn-style", begruding every penny and pawn. Counting pennies and pawns is certainly a possible focus for a saga, but it's not the only possible focus; there's nothing wrong in a game where characters have more wealth than they care about.

77

Well, Verditius created magical beasts don't have vis in them. It is half the cost of a ritual spell, but if the creature is killed, there is no vis in it. It is just a corpse (until the effect ends).

78

So you would house rule that a magical beast created through a ritual by a Verditius doesn't contain vis while one created by a ritual by any other magus does? And why would a Verditius get a Mercurian's discount? Those seem like house rules that wouldn't fly well.

Maybe you didn't understand the issue? Let's say Jabir's rule is in effect and there is a Verditius mage who picks up Bind Magical Creatures. Now the Verditius starts creating magical creatures via rituals within some sort of a restraint, using 12 pawns per ritual. Then the Verditius uses 12 pawns worth of these creatures to provide 60 pawns for enchantment instead of just having used the 12 pawns directly. Thus this abuse is still available with Jabir's house rule, as is similar abuse via Summoning. This is why I don't try to mess around with the rules for rituals and instead just ban the general practice.

79

Hmm, talking about creating magical beasts and things, I had a thought last night. We have completely ignored finesse.

How about the beast you get depends on your finesse roll? You specify what sort of powers/abilities you want the beast to have and your SG gives you a target number.

You will always get the type of beast you want, but depending on your finesse you may get something worse.

If you have seen any Naruto, remember when he was learning to summon toads? He always summoned something, but sometimes they were nothing more than tadpoles!

Finesse guidelines
Applicable inferiorities give free qualities. If the SG rules that it is pertinent to the creature being temporary. So inferiorities like "Ages quickly" or "Acclimation Prone" don't usually count.

Botch - Creature shows up out of control with 3 points of qualities. Each botch die gives the creature 3 more points of its qualities
each point below the target means that the creature loses 1 point of quality (players choice) and 1 point of Might (minimum 1 Might)
each point above the target means that the creature gains 1 point of quality (SG's choice)

Varkos the Fire Drake
Might 15 (Ignem) (usually Might 11, improved by qualities)
Size +1
Qualities: Greater Power *1, Gift of Speech, Improved Soak *3, Improved Might *4, Ignem Resistance
Inferiorities: Susceptible to Deprivation (Does not count for a temporary creature)

Example 1

Varkos has 12 points of possible Qualities, but the player only needs something big and scary to impress some bandits. He just wants the "Improved soak *3".
The SG decides that this is a fairly simple creature, so sets a target of 6 (3 + quality points).
The player has a finesse + dexterity of 3 and rolls a 4, giving a total of 7.
The SG gives Jake the "Gift of Speech" too.
The player summons a Jake with 4 points of qualities and 11 Might.

Example 2
The player is going into a fight against a pack of magical wolves, he wants "Greater Power" and "Improved Soak *3"
The SG decides that this has a target roll of 9 (3 + quality points)
The player has a finesse + dexterity of 3 and rolls a 7, giving a total of 10.
The SG gives Jake Improved Might *1 too
The player summons a Jake with 7 points of qualities and 12 (11+1) Might.

Example 3
The player is going into a fight against a pack of magical wolves, he wants as much of Jake's qualities as possible
The SG decides that this has a target roll of 15 (3 + quality points)
The player has a finesse + dexterity of 3 and rolls a 1, followed by a 4, giving a total of 11.
The player chooses to have "Greater Power", "Improved Might *4"
He summons a Jake with 8 points of qualities and only 11 (11-4 +4) Might.
He hopes that Might 11 is enough to hurt the wolves.

80

Sorry, I completely mis-understood what you were talking about. I thought you were talking about a Verditius using items to summon temporary creatures.