The only real answer here is YSMV- I can certainly see an argument for the stone being a natural substance that you are simply creating in a simple shape, in fact if you had an appropriate sigil it wouldn't (to my mind) even be a question. On the other hand some SG may see a rectangular block as something that requires crafting to get just right, which also brings up questions of what's your six sigma (roughly speaking tolerance for variation)
One of my players came up with an ingenious solution to this:
Just casting rock of viscid clay repeatedly to fill Standard wooden proofing troughs during the day, and using these standardised blocks for construction.
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We did something very similar in an old (2nd/3rd ed) saga.
MuTe(Aq) can fill molds as well...
Yes Rock to Viscid Clay in an amazingly useful spell. Make bricks, make mortar (better with a Sun duration version for mortar, but still good) out of otherwise useless, unworked rocks. Fill the space between coursed stone with solid stone. Stone bowls, stone jars, stone tables - heck, stone tunnels without nearly as much backbreaking work.
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if you can add the Aq component it gets easier- have holes in the top of the mold for the liquid rock to pour into, viscous clay just makes it moldable with your hands. Rocks to water lets you form cast stone without the heat you would use for metal processes...
I have thought about this too.
IMO it opens up a whole different style of construction since you can cast "Rock of viscid clay" transport the now clayified rock and throw it down where you need it, maybe even cast "Rock of viscid clay" on the site where you want to deposit your clayified rock so that you can fuse two bits of rock together and that way build a structure out of solid stone. No masonry, no mortar required, no seams or fault lines just one solid block of rock. This would open up some possibilities for magical architecture that are simply not possible for mundanes.
Building like this would also be much easier since you can give a laborer a basket and throw as much clayified rock in the basket as the laborer can reasonably carry and have them haul quarried stone bits at a time where a mundane quarry would have to quarry large blocks and use teams of laborers and sleds/wagons and pack animals to move large rocks. Kind of like an ikea set but for a large masonry block.
Unless you can use target:part this is going to eventually result in buildings melting under their own weight or the spell failing due to target size. Essentially you would be replacing craft;masonry with craft:pottery
conveniently "Rock of viscid clay" happens to have target:Part.
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Convenient, neh?
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Bit of background. Current game is centered on a Covenant located in a Regio on Levant Island. When we founded it, we started the "Landen Trade Consortium" that used the island as their base. This provided a cover and easy way to bring supplies in. Now just over 100 in game years later, Landen is a large village with the consortium, docks, shipyard, and a massive trade inn (more of a resort hotel type thing). The area south of Landen is taken up by a large walled garden (with entrance to Regio), orchards, paddocks & barns, and a man (err... magic) made pond where lots of fresh water delicacies are raised (eels, crayfish, river crabs, snails). In other words, things that are vermin.
Background done, on to the magical industries, or more precisely the magically augmented industries. Also we tried to avoid craft magic and finesse issues.
The walled garden and surround areas (pond, orchard, animal paddocks) are actually for providing support to Landen rather than for trade. The orchards have a wand that bring trees from seed to mature in a day, used to replace dead trees and help expand. The walled garden has an enchanted device that causes all plants growing within it to be healthy. The pond has an invested device that summons varies materials from which the desired vermin spawn every day. All minimal but effective.
Trade is our largest money maker, but does not really use much direct magic. However, the ships themselves are build by the highly magical shipyard and have their location tracked by arcane connection in our Covenants map room. Additionally there is communications capability between the headquarters and larger ships by enchanted slates. You write on one in chalk and it appears on the arcane connected twin. They do have two magic cranes (Zeus Arm from TtA), lots of Unseen Porter items for moving things, warding against rot & vermin, and three of our "Landen Portals", one each in their three large warehouses.
Now the shipyard and its support is where things get wonky. Like the trade, they have magic cranes and unseen porters. They have a whole ton of tools that produce a Herbam variant of "Rock of Viscid Clay" (with unlimited daily usage and 2 minute duration). This allows them to produce hulls that are basically a single laminated piece of wood, as well as easily patching and upgrading ships. They have enchanted items to produce variants of 'Ink of Noblest Metals', two which work on brass (used to paint the under hull of the ships) and two which work on quartz (used to paint from the brass up). They also have a few tools with variants of "Rock of viscid clay" that work on brass, which are use when making and modifying the fittings & rigging. Their wood comes from a grove grown with those seed to mature wands. This gets around the stuck on a (large) island limit of woodland.
The sail and rigging manufacturing uses two magical effects: a Rego powered wheel (as seen in Hermetic Projects) with the work is done by actual craftsmen and more of those modified "Rock of viscid clay" effects to make the sails/rope one piece rather than a weave (and connect ropes directly to the sails).
The varies wood and brass working tools allow the creation of the complex mast found on some of their ships, which are a crab claw design with multiple spars.
Without digging up the actual files, there are mid-high 20s enchanted devices used in the shipyard and its supporting operations. The ships produced are much closer to modern day fiberglass/metal hulled sail boats in performance then sailing ships of the era.
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I have noticed that city and guild does not have a bulk price for stone, even though stones frequently were shipped from one place to another due to differences in quality of stone (for example Croatia has a particularly nice limestone which is nearly marble that was highly desired with a great deal going to Venice...)
It seems like quite an oversight. I understand the reflex of "stones, just go pick them up" but that was, simply speaking, not ho it worked then any more than it is now, with large quarries and markets for types of rock.
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Ceramics/Pottery also covers bricks (really only shoddy and average), which is the closest thing I could find. Maybe half the cost of Pottery for Stone? That would place fancy marble at 350 pounds per ton.
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Oops, wrong thread for that.
That is a nice collection of items for a covenant on an island.
Growing trees in a day and then cutting them down is a fantastic idea - I must remember that one...
In our covenant we had a device to make parchment from goat skin - it was far more efficient than making it by hand. Not just because of the time but also because there is a lot of wastage when making parchment the normal way.
We also had a magus who wanted to use some perdo/rego terram magic to make a river easier to transport goods.
One of our magi is a goldsmith, he made a simple invested device that could shape gold into a ring. Size, shape and decoration all determined by finesse. These rings were then sold through the goldsmith shop. The locals thought that there were several journeymen churning them out, but really the magus spent a few hours each month to make a batch of rings.
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Yea, being stuck on a very big island (some 2200 acres) in the Med means we have plenty of space but have to take a ship (or a portal, much later in the campaign) to somewhere to get things we didn't have.
Since for the longest time all of our ships were small (the Shipyard is a little over 50 years old, but the game has been going on for 101 years) and we didn't have portals until about 30 years ago so we imported skilled people when we could and made a whole ton of lesser enchanted items.
Our magus perform 1 season a year in support of the covenant. While that could be anything from representing us at Tribunal, writing books for our library, using magic to build things, or securing a new Vis source, the most common choice has been to enchant magical items.
When you have 8 players (though one is primarily the SG), you end up with a lot of Magus. We started with 9 (two were elders who founded our Covenant, controlled by the guy who was the primary SG), but have lost the two elders (one to Twilight, one to dead by horrid aging roll). We are currently at 8 since the Mercere Magus who is part of the group keeping an eye on us is the primary SGs current character.
Long way of saying we have over 400 enchanted items that belong to the Covenant, out of some 850 seasons of service. (math was high)
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... You must have had some very fine Vis sources!
We started with an average of 32 (19+1D3+2D10) a year, with most 'discovered' (paid for with BP) during the first year. Covenant gets 1/3 (covers AotH, enchantments & rituals for Covenant), 2/3 split by the Magi.
Developed it up to... beep I'm not writing all that out in detail this early... we added nine random sources though adventures/industry and built them up. Six 1D3 (half 2 pawns per) sources, a fish pool current holding 27 pawns that increases by a variable based on how many it holds (currently 1D6+2), 1D3 @ regio level truffles (1 must be sacrificed every year to maintain), and a small possibility of Vis for books (we tend to trade to expand library).
The starting amount felt fine (even high) at the beginning when we were scratching to build and survive, but then we hit a point where we got Vis hungry and spent a lot of game time/adventure/service seasons looking for and cultivating new sources.
Also most of the enchanted items are 2 or 3 pawns of Vis per.
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Lots of them are duplicates, there are only 86 different Covenant enchanted item types. Things like the "... of Viscid Clay" tools, "Unseen Porter" carry handles, and Eternal Lanterns are all very cheap to make. Copies of just those three account for over a quarter of our items.
The lanterns for example are CrIg base 3 (bright as a torch), Sun duration (+2M), 2/day and Environmental Trigger so a combined 9. 1 pawn of Vis each and so easy to make that an apprentice might be able to knock out two in a season with a lab text, since they get a +7 form bonus. We use a shuttered lantern to build them, so you can effectively turn them off. We have 81 of them, scattered all over the Covenant, with a few for travel and trading co.
EDIT: Fixed the Vis cost, I for some reason stuck the number from using Ritual Magic there.
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Just want to be sure I understand, why would a Lesser Enchantment that is under a 10 in level cost 2 vis? In the description of Lesser Enchantment on p96 of the Core book it says that investing an item cost 1 vis per 10 levels or fraction thereof. That said, if there is a Lab Text already created, can someone with a Creo Ignem Lab Total of 27 make 3 in a single season?
My bad on the Vis cost, I for some reason stuck the ritual cost in when I typed up the post.
As for creating multiple copies of an enchanted item in a single season, see AM5 page 102 "Multiple Laboratory Activities". As long as all the actions are the same type of activity and require the same Arts, you can do up to as many as your lab total allows. So yes if you had a lab total of 27 with a lab text, you could create 3 in a single season.
Note that you still require a high enough Magic Theory to spend the total Vis used, since that is the total you can use in a single season. For three of these, it would only require a MT of 2.
My Magus created 10 of them in a single season the last time he did this is play and the number would be even higher now (12 I believe, though I would have to check the total).