I was looking in Magi of Hermes and noticed the mention than for every 10 meters you go down, you take 1 fatigue per round so that 20 meters down, a magi with 2 stamina is safe but say 50 meters down, they are taking 5 (50/10) - 2 (stamina) or 3 fatigue a round. I am working on a Maga that has gills (Magic blooded) and can breath under water but wanted way to deal with pressure.
I am thinking of enchanting suit of armor (enchanted item) with a ReAq effect to basically push the water away so as to negate the water pressure. The question is does anyone have ideas of what sort of guidelines would be needed for this effect (the base, range, target). I am thinking of sun duration, triggerable 2/day (constant effect as well).
(It will probably have PeTe and ReTe effect to help it move around probably as well since swimming in armor is not necessarily good)
Goal is to be able to drop to 150-600' down or even more to be able to search the floor of mediterranean sea for vis, sunken ships and such.
Ward against the crushing deep
ReAq15
R: Touch D: Conc T: Ind
Wards an individual completely against any amount of water.
3 levels for Linked Trigger; + 1 magnitude for Concentrates for Caster; + X for Y uses/day = ReAq23 + X
Then you'd need:
ReTe(Co,An) effect to propel the whole thing.
Some way to see through water, (InAq or MuCo)
Some way to breath.
The last one is more difficult than you'd think. You cannot simply do Lungs of the Fish (a spell which shouldn't work anyway, but that's another story) because you're warded against the water which you'd try to breath.
So, you also need an independent air supply. Well, thank heavens for Muto shrink or growth guidelines.
You'll need:
Compression of the Breath of Fresh Air
MuAuXX
R: Touch D: Sun T: "Room"
All the air in a chamber (say, a breathing tank) is reduced to two-three magnitudes smaller than it normally would be.
Slow Release of the Breath of Life
ReAu10
R: Touch D: Sun T: Part + 15 Levels for Unlimited uses and Constant use
Moves a small amount of air in a constant stream from a container into the breathing helmet of the diving suit.
Depending on the medieval system, you may need a second version to move stale air out into the water.
Its quite a complex device, when all is said and done.
First off, the goal is to lessen the pressure of the water, not eliminate all water around her. The reason is that character has gills and can breath water as well as air (side effect of magic blood). She can create light sources at need (CrIg)
Although she could use the warding concept and have a CrAu with rego requisite to create air around her head (similiar to chamber of spring breezes) and hold it close to her.
Seeing through water shouldn't be too tough a spell.
My first Hermetic instinct is to use Muto Corpus directly rather than trying to construct diving armor. Changing her skin to the hide of a sea serpent (or some other deepwater creature) would have a base level of 20 at most, I'd think. Or just a spell to make her resistant to pressure, according to the following made-up mechanics: adapt the MuCo Soak guidelines to say that such a spell, at base level N, grants a +N/5 bonus to Stamina only for the purposes of diving depth. MuCo sounds more thematic for a begilled Magic-Blooded maga than ReAq armor anyway
Except that She is aquam,Terram, auram elementally focused mage, very little corpus and deficiency in muto. so control of the water is the route she needs to go. (her MuCo lab total at moment is 6).
I am still finallizing her design (9 years from apprenticeship) but I have one last virtue spot that I am thinking of using for Atlantean magic.
Why don't you just "pink dot" the water? In other words cast any spell, no matter how lowly, on the water, with 0 penetration -- your Parma will then stop the water from crushing you for as long as the spell affects it. For example, it seems quite likely that you could cast spontaneously, probably even without fatigue, the following:
Watery cloak, Rego Aquam level 4
R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Ind
A cloak of water a few inches thick clings to you while you are submerged, preventing any other water from coming into contact with you, unless violently sprayed against you (e.g. a Might Torrent of Water). Since your body quickly heats the cloak, you do not suffer any cold, nor do you leave any scent in the water beyond the cloak. The spell is not strong enough to hold the water together once you are no longer submerged, at which time it collapses.
Base level 1 (Control a liquid in an extremely gentle way), +1 Touch, +2 Sun
And pair it with Chamber of Spring Breezes (Creo Auram level 5) in your mouth/lungs.
Some quick experiments with a wine skin filled water and one filled with air will show that the one filled with water will not be crushed like the one filled with air. Just inhale water, fill your lungs and avoid being crushed by the water, then Pe/Aq the water away as you return to the surface.
Today this would not help versus diving sickness, but I don't think that was a big problem back in the 13th century.
I think the water is not the direct problem as much as the weight of the water as you get deeper. Marius ( MoH p 70) gets by this by a magic item that give him more soak (MuCo30). I'm not sure a Aq ward is able to do what you want. Perhaps a ReTe(Aq) since the weight of the water is caused by the amount of Terram particles in the water.
Yeah, it was the sidebar on page 71 of MoH that caught my attention and Marius's +3 soak lets him go down 50 meters easily, beyond that, he has a problem (medieval understanding of the bends).
Key is that I am playing an elementally focused maga with affinity aquam(and terram) and pussiant Rego who lives in the Aegean (we are looking at Isle of Nissyros. So controlling the water to keep its pressure down is the logical method. As a magic item, it makes sense. This is not diving suit as in modern thought for diving (with air tight helmet. this is suit of chainmail enchanted to protect me from water pressure and then perhaps second spell for air if I end up warding away a lot of the water pressure.
Could you just go with a ReAq personal ward with some added magnitudes for complexity to not completely shield you from water? That is, essentially, what you're doing - you want to press the water outward, but not quite enough to prevent it from hitting you. Or, instead of complexity, you might do it more like the Ignem wards to determine the soak bonus against water crushing you, which in turn would tell you how deep you could go.
A water-filled wineskin will absolutely (not! - see next posts) be crushed further and further the deeper you go. The pressure on the outside is increasing with depth, while the pressure on the inside would remain constant if it weren't crushed - doesn't work. It's the same physics that causes balloons to expand as they gain altitude.
Water is not a gas and does not behave like the air inside a ballon. Since water does not become denser under pressure it will not be crushed.
Water at the surface has the same density as water at a 100 meters depth. The pressure will increase, but it will not be compressed.
Looked at with modern eyes the wineskin will be compressed, that is, the leather will be, but not the contents.
In mythic europe this experiment would show that objects filled with water are not crushed by the increasing pressure you'd experience as you swim deeper and deeper.
Well, hmm. Looks like I win the "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing" prize of the day, since I was plain wrong.
It seems that the density does increase under pressure but only by a tiny fraction, nowhere near what Boyle's Law dictates for gasses (and probably imperceptibly at human-accessible depths). I still don't understand the pressue within the wineskin, but that's a lesson for another day I guess....
It would be easier if you warded away the water because that is straight ReAq. But you want to remove an aspect of the water that is governed by Terram ( the weight). i think the scholars of the time would describe the water pressure as an increase of the terram particles. You want to change the Quantity of the water by repelling what is making it heavier. A&A suggests that this is MuAq. You could have it work like the MuCo for increasing Soak. Level 15 for +3. i think you could do it As i said before with a ReTe(Aq)30
See I love this reasoning! I would never have thought of it, but it is elegant and very very Ars. While the "dots and numbers" would say it is penalizing, I would say a beautiful level 30 spell is worth the handicap versus a effective but ugly level 15 spell.
But then again I appreciate double negatives and I use thru and through interchangeably, depending on what subject of which I am speaking. So no counting a rational thought on my part.
PS. ladyP's character (we TT) frightens me as do the so many she makes.
I want to be clear, I am not looking for a muto effect. Perdo could be considered, Rego definately. I don't want to be a muto spell. The character is deficient muto and you keep cycling back to the muto corpus example. The idea is to keep the water away to reduce the pressure. This should be rego. It shouldn't be terram because it is only water being affected.
The question is what base should such an effect be to allow diving towards the floor of the aegean (or mediterranean sea). (before adding touch and sun).
would I have to keep all the water away from me (and have a creo effect to create air?) or allow enough to pass for the begilled one to still breathe?
I should point out that you can't just directly translate the MuCo to ReTe. They work differently. It is level 15 to MUTO (change) a human to be tougher. That is much different than keeping rock or water away (Rego Guidelines have it as only level 5 to ward off people from making contact). (it is ReHe 25 to keep wood completely from a person, a ReTe 25 spell can ward off all terram). I am not sure that I agree that it is a change of form. You don't use ReTe to ward off weight from a human, plant or animal. Ice is still Aquam though it is solid like terram.
(Of course Magic theory high enough to open a suit of armor for enchantment might be a problem, it might have to be something more like clothing).
I would not agree with that if you are referring to the post by "jebrick". The spell suggestion is actually a Re/Te with Aq as a requisite which is basically right in the mage's center of expertise.
Forgive me if I mistook your reply, but I think this suggest is the cat's meow. You Re/Te(Aq) the Terram elements that make the water heavy and thus causing the pressure on the magus. Granted it may not be in the purview of Rego to do such a thing, Perdo perhaps? But it looks like a good start. ((And reasonable to me at least, in my limited understanding of the Aristotolean view of the world.))
I can see you don't like the Terram in water idea, but if it is rational within the paradigm of the time then why not?
On a different note I was thinking of how to Re/Aq and how about:
base 4, control a liquid in a forceful but calm way R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Part, maybe +1 or even +2 for some "wow that's got to be hard" unnatural movement? ((I would only say +1, but I am a softy and a newbie when it comes to Ars, not to mention a addlepate))
The water's pressure is exerted back outward with the same amount of pressure causing a balance at the surface of the magi's skin.
So that is a Level 25 Re/Aq spell with no Aristotolean jibberjabber to cloud things up, and you are right as rain, or rather salt water. Or fresh, I suppose. The spell reduces your stamina concerns by removing the need for rolls to say 50 paces? At which point each meter below you start taking fatigue as per rules, minus 50 meters? Or bump the spell to a Level 30 spell, make it extremely unnatural and you can go to eh... 75 meters?
Not sure if this makes sense, but to my vodka soaked brain it certainly does at two in the morning. Hah hah!
PS. Although this also fails to make use of the gills.... foiled again!
