Hi there I'm thinking about making a magi with mayor magical focus ships. I got the idea while playing other games and I think ars is a great system for that.
So I was thinking about investing heavily in herbam, yet most of spells in the core book speak about
living plants more often than things made of plants.
I was thinking how viable is to twist some spells to change them so they can affect manufactured things.
Also I have the idea of making a spell that would allow my magus to sail a ship without any crew, I was thinking about creating something similar to another spell in the book where you animate a tree ("giant of wood" I think it is, rego herbam 25). I believe it should be a greater spell than it, because you need to change the target to be the whole ship, which is greater than a tree. Another possibility would be to make a spell that just allows me to operate al oars un the ship, then use rego auram to keep the wind always behind the ship sail.
Do you think those are viable approaches to the character?
Hi!
Rego Herbam Base 3 is “Control an amount of wood.”
Base 10, and your ship becomes intelligent, to a degree. “ Make a plant or thing made of plant products move with purpose and intelligence, without requiring your constant control.”
Agreed that you need to add magnitudes for a ship’s size.
One issue to be dealt with: Warping. Rego Auram to affect the air, and Rego Aquam to affect the water itself might be one of the ways to mitigate the ship accumulating Warping. Of course, you might eventually be able to magick up a ship on command.
Magi of Hermes presents a Tytalus whose entire endeavor is surviving alone with his ship. P.70
Hermetic Projects also has a lot relevant to this as one of the chapters is on the idea of creating a hermetic shipyard to make magical boats. One of the problems is fitting a boat into your lab, meaning you need a very large lab preferably with a dry dock as part of it. There are other methods sure, casting spells as you need them, small magic items that affect the boat, but if you want the boat to be magical itself you need the large lab.
IIRC, the tytalus from MoH made his boat his talisman.
One issue with the Major Magical Focus in ships (might not need to be major by canon, I can’t remember) is it would not help with spells to affect the air or the water around the boat. But it would help if you are enchanting the boat with the effect to do those things.
While many Herbam effects do not make a difference between living and dead wood (expect Perdo), make sure you check the Technique to see if it matters on the level of processing.
For example, Creo has no problem creating a living or dead tree. But it requires +1 mag if you want that it actually cut into timber (plant product) and +2 mag if you want it to be furniture (treated and processed). Muto allows changes to plant product for free (it is the nature of Muto), but requires +1 mag if you change it to something not plant or apply "treated and processed". Regio and Intellego work on all plant material fine.
For a ReHe spell that allows you to animate a ship, sure you could go with adding mags of Size. However changing the target from Individual to Structure would be far more effective and efficient. Ships are size +6 to +8 generally, though can be even larger. So Structure would allow a lower spell level. Additionally Structure allows it to affect things in the ship.
Magi of Hermes presents a Tytalus whose entire endeavor is surviving alone with his ship. P.70
Interesting, I didn't knew about it. In fact i was thinking about making him a tytalus too.
I don't believe the spell would be cast that often to make it really necesary to worry about warping, but you have a point about the spell being a mayor effect.
One issue with the Major Magical Focus in ships (might not need to be major by canon, I can’t remember) is it would not help with spells to affect the air or the water around the boat. But it would help if you are enchanting the boat with the effect to do those things.
Something I thinked about was not to make the ship the focus, but sailing instead. It would affect spells that affect sailing capabilities, but it would not affect spells that repair a ship, or help creating a magic ship. I don't have idea if this would be ok as focus?
This is what I was trying to figure out, how would be better to change magintude so I could create a variant. Good take about going with structure, I tough about it, but I still don't have very clear in my mind how changing target sizes/types works exactly.
Another Idea I'm toying around is the possibility to reduce a ship so you can trap it inside a bottle. I know this would be an absurdly powerfull effect, but i like the flavor of it. And the idea of my mage carrying around a huge ship just in case he needs it. Tough it would require some arts that I don't believe i would learn very soon (for example terram).
Could you enchant only parts of the boat (e.g. the rudder and oars with Rego Aquam, the sails with Rego Auram) so you didn't have to spend umpteen pawns of vis opening an entire sailing ship for enchantment?
Ships aren't currently a thing in our saga but may become so, so I'm asking from a semi-academic curiosity rather than immediate saga concern.
"Ships" would be Major MF rather than Minor MF. Major MF is slightly narrower than a single Art, though it can cover bits and pieces of multiple ones. Minor MF is slightly narrower than a TeFo combination. If you want a Minor MF to use with ships, then something like "Wood" is appropriate.
A Major MF in "Ships" would allow you to use its bonus when enchanting not just a whole ship, but parts of it and things working with it as well. So while a spell conjuring up wind is normally not something that would benefit from it, if that spell was to conjure wind to fill a ships sails then it would.
What it can and cannot affect is of course determined by discussion of your group or with your SG. However since it is a fairly narrow restriction it should be able to affect many Forms. Herbam, Aquam, and Auram would be the minimum I suggest. Some small amount of other Arts is certainly possible (Terram for anchor and fittings, Ignem for lighting and cooking). If they think that is to many, point them to the "Damage" focus which works with all Arts.
OP is way ahead of you there 