I was bouncing around some of the rules as written, and this concept occured to me, which I can't find any rules against it, but it feels wrong-
A variation on conjure the mystic tower with +2 levels of magnitude to give the stone the highly unnatural property of "has a natural level 1000 feet above sea level". after the casting ritual it would be a non-magical floating tower that, if equipped with sails (possibly needing a massive magnet for navigation) could drift through an aegis with no problem.
Did I miss a rule that would prevent this? Should there be a rule that would prevent this if I didn't?
The core book's rule on Momentary Creo says once the Ritual ends that this will last as along as anything else of its kind. How many natural floating rocks exist without being sustained by magic? If they already exist naturally in your world, no problem. In most games I expect they don't (outside of maybe Faerie or a particular Regio or similar), so I would expect in most games it would wink out of existence (except possibly in Faerie or a particular Regio or similar).
How long something would last is not dependent upon other examples of it already existing. When the first mule was born it didn't instantly die because there were no other mules. When steel was first invested it did not vanish because it had not previously existed. If I were to infuse marble with an impurity to make it neon pink in the real world it would not cease to exist because it had not existed before and was not natural, so why should pink marble cease to exist if it is ritually created because it has a somewhat unnatural property of being pink? Why would a rock cease to exist simply because it tried to rise instead of fall?
I'm not sure "common sense" fixes this one- perhaps (a la hermetic projects) you are okay with flying stone walls. Perhaps you think flying rocks should instantly disappear if ritually created. Ther are a lot of different ways of reading and understanding that and in my experience, people tend to get hostile that you don't immediately see that their "obvious" understanding is the right one, which clearly detracts from game enjoyment.
I concur with callen's ruling. I wouldn't allow a magnitude for unnatural stone to be included in a momentary creo ritual anymore than I would allow a muto requisite to be included in a momentary creo ritual. Funnily enough, I don't believe there's a single spell published using an unnatural stone as part of a Creo Terram spell.
The fact that you and Callen agree is hardly shocking. Nor am I saying that the point is necessarily wrong, only that the RAW is unclear to the point that it could easily become an issue.
Well, do let us know if you don't want to hear our opinion on the question you asked. I suppose I agree there's an ambiguity there enough to warrant the question, yes. That being said, I do tend to read the extra magnitudes for unnatural in other spells that include such a guideline (mostly auram spells) as being things that would, in other circumstances, require an extra magnitude for muto requisite, and what is allowable under Creo rituals is restricted to the limit of what can be found in nature (for example, up to +5 attributes), must like Perdo can permanently destroy, but a momentary Perdo spell couldn't permanently destroy a property of something that would render that something unnatural (e.g. you can permanently destroy the saltiness of water, but I don't believe you can permanently remove the water's ability to quench thirst, or its weight).
There is no general rule that creo spells are limited to what can be found in nature.
Creo spells that improve something are limited to what can be found in nature, but Creo spells that create something are not limited that way.
One thing that is not quite clear to me is that something that has unnatural properties would automatically be non-magical just because it was created by a momentary Creo ritual.
Something created by a Creo spell with non-momentary duration will automatically be considered magical due to its existence being maintained by the Creo spell.
In the case of a Creo ritual with momentary duration, the Creo spell itself will not be active after the item has come into being, and thus will not make the item magical - but there is nothing that say you cannot create an item that is inherently magical.
So, I would say that while you can certainly use a momentary Creo ritual to create a floating tower, it will not be a non-magical tower.
There are, for example, canon momentary Creo rituals to create magical beasts, even creatures with Might - and they will certainly not be non-magical.
So by adding unnatural properties you either do or can add might to the object? It would have to be a pretty low level of might or that will easily be abused at only +1 or +2 magnitudes, unless you add more magnitude for more might...
I do believe it would be possible to extend of the Creo Animal guidelines re: magical beast creation, to use Creo Terram to create a sentient item with Might, but I don't think you can create stone with might points by adding a magnitude point over the normal guideline. You would either use the guidelines in RoP:M for elemental creation or, if you want to create something that isn't an elemental (such as a tower or sword with might), go through some form of original research.
Yep. There is, however, a limitation in ArM5 p.77 CREO (CR) “I CREATE”:
Further, a magus can only create something he knows about.
That puts the kibosh on creations like rockets, personal computers, martians and field guns - and also earth lighter than air (see A&A p.17). But it still leaves it to SGs and troupes to determine in detail, just what a magus knows about.
As an additional thought, the use of extra magnitudes for unnatural property could possibly be used to create rocks, metals and gems that don't exist in nature. Looking at what is under Muto Terram guidelines, I find the following:
Level 3: Change dirt so that it is slightly unnatural (requisites may be required).
Level 4: Change dirt so that it is highly unnatural (requisites will often be required).
I think the question I would try and weigh as a gamemaster when assessing the ritual, is whether 1) the type of dirt / stone / metal / gem is slightly unnatural or whether it is highly unnatural; 2) from there, whether I would require a requisite.
To give an example, I might consider allowing a Creo Terram ritual spell to, for example, create a slightly unnatural rock, metal or gem, provided the proposed material doesn't fall outside the scope of what is possible for a rock, metal or gem to be like. As examples, I might give the following:
for example, a gem that has the hardness of diamond, a shade of purple, and an affinity (for the purpose of S&M) that is much like sapphire.
a metal that looks and behaves like gold, but has a melting point similar to steel.
If I decided to allow such creo terram rituals with extra magnitude in unnatural, those would be examples of things I could allow after a discussion with the troupe.
I would definitely rule that a rock that naturally flies to be a highly unnatural rock, and for a spell creating that rock to require muto and auram requisites, since rocks don't have the property of being lighter than air in nature.
This is an example I would allow. Marble has different colors in the real world, and if a magi wanted marble that was different from those naturally occuring in Mythic Europe, I would be okay with it.
So in short there are guidelines to create earth, rocks, and metals with unnatural properties but these guidelines cannot be used because earth, rocks , and metals do not exist in nature and are thus unknown to the magus?
Yeah, those make no sense with that strict reading of “unknown to the magus.” A better reading would probably allow giving a thing properties known to exist in nature but not natural to, for instance, rocks. Otherwise one could never create a magical animal of a sort not actually at least heard about.
Not quite. A dragon is pretty unnatural, but some magi got to know one and survived, or got to study one in detail from secret books. And these lucky few can now design huge Creo rituals to create one.
In other words: Mythic Europe contains lots of unnatural stuff, to be replicated with Creo rituals by those in the know. But magi cannot create with Creo unnatural stuff they invented from scratch.
And no: this is not a precise distinction, but a blueprint to follow in each saga a little differently.
Lets say that you want to create a winged dog, but you have never seen one or even heard of one so you can't just invent a Creo spell to create one.
What you can do however is to start with a regular dog, and then give it wings using Muto magic. You study this dog with wings carefully while the spell lasts (which can easily be at least Moon).
Afterwards you should be pretty familiar with winged dogs, and be able to whip up a Creo ritual to create one from scratch.