My Daughter of Circe ex Miscellanea character has an idea for an enchanted item that would serve as a boobie-trap. The basic premise is a bucket that would turn anyone who drinks from it into a pig after about an hour. The reason for the "fuse" on the effect taking effect is simply because if the first person to drink immediately turned into a pig, nobody else would drink, and she wants all the enemy (or at least as many as possible) to be affected.
Most of the enchantment is pretty straightforward. A modified Curse of Circe, adding a magnitude to increase it from Sun to Moon duration, but lowering it from Voice to Touch, which results in a final Effect Level of 30. It would cause a point of warping, but they're the enemy, so tough.
The enchantment would have, say, 50 uses a day (+6), so the current Enchantment Level is 36.
The part that has me stumped is the delayed effect. Is there a way to handle this that I'm not remembering or aware of, or is Fiona s.o.l. o[n that front?
Maybe you could do that with a double effect item? One to put the curse + a Sun duration ReVi effect to supress the effect/put it on hold? So at the next surnrise or sunset everybody turns to pig? A Geas duration could help, thpough, in case you want to make a breakthough or something.
Could you attach an environmental trigger: sunrise/sundown to it somehow? This would make the delay be until the next sunrise or sundown. For example, a Momentary InCo effect that triggers at sunrise/sundown and itself triggers the MuCo(An) effect.
Hmm...so, basically, a Level 30 modified Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork with Sun duration, so that the ReVi expires at sunrise or sundown. And since the Curse of Circe is, in this case, a Moon duration, when the sun goes down, everybody becomes a pig. I like that.
As long as there's a way for it to work on a spell that hasn't been cast yet, or to be cast simultaneously. The whole flickering spell thing has me nervous.
I don't immediately see a reason why the effect couldn't simply be designed to sloooowwwwly transform the target into a pig.
Ignore enchantments for a moment, let's just imagine we're inventing spells. The existing Curse of Circe turns a human into a pig immediately. But couldn't someone else design a similar spell that slowly turned them into a pig over the course of a day (assuming it had at least Sun duration), without contradicting the existing guidelines?
Okay, let's see if we can get this bad boy stated out.
The item itself is a base metal (tin, steel, iron, whatever) bucket. Base 5 points for "base metal" and x3 for medium, for 15 pawns of vis to open.
First effect: "The Pigs of War"
MuCo(An) 30. This effect is based on Curse of Circe. Base 10, R: Touch (+1), D: Moon (+3), T: Individual. There may also be a +1 Size Modifier (which would affect Giants or Giant-blood up to Size +4...just in case), but that's an "only if we have room" type of thing. Enchantment modifiers would be 50 uses a day (+6), for a final Enchantment Level of 36, which costs 4 pawns of vis.
Second effect: "Wait for it...wait for it..."
ReVi 35. Based on Suppressing the Wizard's Handiwork. General-level with a Base of 20, R: Touch (+1), D: Sun (+2), T: Individual. Suppresses the effects of "The Pigs of War" until sunrise/sundown, at which time the ReVi ends and the MuCo takes full curly-tailed effect. Enchantment modifiers would be 50 uses a day (+6), Linked Trigger (goes off when "The Pigs of War" is cast", +3), for a final Enchantment Level of 44, and 5 pawns of vis.
The thing that confuses me is the item. Based on those spells it looks like the bucket must touch a person to turn that person into a pig. So drinking water that was in it is irrelevant if you're not the one removing the water from it. I'd originally thought you'd wanted it based on drinking water that had been in it as opposed to essentially serving the water.
SOMETIMES I SEE PIGS. InCo(Aq) 2 uses per day. Detects anyone within range (sight?) that drank from the bucket during the last Sun duration.
HOINKY TONKY MEN. Transforms anyone detected by the previous effect into a pig. MuCo(An) as usual. Sight range works well here as well.
Could work as well.
The touch range of the original effect is enough if the guy was in touch range when the spell was cast. That is around a metre from the bucket, he does not need to physically touch it IIRC.
That's why I came to the Council. I'm not sure if the drinking the water is a cosmetic effect, or how exactly it would work...or even if it would work.
If it were something like a cup and you wanted the trigger to be drinking from the cup, then I think you're fine with a cosmetic effect. But if the contents of the cup were poured into another cup, it wouldn't activate anything even if later imbibed.
Along a similar line with what Xavi wrote, you might use the water as an indicator in another way. Removing water (or wine, etc.) from the bucket triggers an InAq effect with R: Touch and D: Concentration (item maintains) to track the water. Make sure this has plenty of uses. This is how the targets are marked. Then you could have a 2/day MuCo(An) effect with an environmental (sunrise/sunset) trigger and T: Group (probably with an extra magnitude to make it handle 100 individuals) that targets those identified by the InAq effect. Choose a limit to the range.
Another idea might be to skip the Intellego part. Do a Cr(Re)Vi D: Concentration (item maintains) effect with lots of uses to essentially create an intangible tunnel to water that is removed. Then you do the same MuCo(An) effect described above (but at R: Touch) through the tunnels that now lead to those who imbibed the liquid. The Vim effect would be higher level than the InVi earlier, but the Muto effect would be lowered due to R: Touch. I'm not positive this intangible tunnel idea is valid, though.
The intangible tunnel idea has the strength of allowing the people that is out of sight to be transformed as well. I like it! The D:concentration for the Intellego effect also allows for that, I would say. Nice ones callen
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This is EXACTLY what I suggested you over in bibracte... (T-T)
The Fixer, poor lonesome misunderstood gamer
If the tunnel is to the water, any spell cast through it could only affect the water, just as, if you've got a tunnel to a magus, you can't transform his shield grog into a pig, even if the 2 are touching, nor can you cast a PeTe spell at the room he's in.
I feel like you misunderstood me a little. This isn't Opening the Intangible Tunnel, which is ReVi. I said it is like that for clarity of purpose. I'm trying to create a link to a spot marked by the water. Creo for the creation and Rego to allow it to move. I'm not claiming it's necessarily valid, but just because a related spell would not work doesn't necessarily imply this would not. Also, is the water now part of the person?
Think of the act of drinking from the bucket as the trigger for the effect, which IMO would be perfectly valid.
I agree with this. Simply state that the target gets transformed the next time they sleep, or that the changes takes a few hours, or whatever. I would rule that this adds 1 magnitude for complexity. No need for a delaying effect, IMHO.
This way, you can keep this a Lesser enchanted item.
Yes, there is the limit that if the water is simply poured out into another container the effect won't trigger. On the other hand, you can always widen the trigger to "removing water from the bucket, including by drinking it directly from the bucket". Since the range is Touch, the person doing it would be affected.
The question is, how do you see the effect working? Is the "target drinking the water" important? Because that part sounds like tethered magic (if I remember the name correctly) and is certainly more difficult to achieve by straight hermetic magic. There are work-arounds (like the one suggested by callen), but these are complicated to implement.
If, however, getting the effect to work though the water is not important, then simply using the act of drinking/pouring water out to be the trigger would be sufficient. I like the KISS approach to magic.
I agree with Arthur (not surprising since he's agreeing with me! ) about the validity of these mechanics.
I think(?) the designer's worry is that there might only be a few people who actually ever touch the bucket, whereas he'd prefer everyone who received water from the bucket to bring home the bacon.
Just throwing out ideas....
