[Need a Spell!] A Wall Spell using Creo Animal?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

Hello All!

I'm putting together a character for a one shot. Said character is a magus with a good Creo Animal total.

I was looking for some sort of Creo Animal type wall spell - Wall of Tusks? Wall of Fangs? - but thus far no luck. Has anyone built something similar? With the various special effects of wall spells, I was curious what could be done with Animal.

Vrylakos

2

Those work. Wall of Tusks, Wall of Fangs, Wall of Bones, Wall of Webs, Wall of (any animal product or by-product). All perfectly legit.

3

My favourite spell of this type (albeit with a Rego requisite) is Wall of Wasps.

4

Ooooh, neat. What's your design for Wall of Wasps?

Vrylakos

5

Salvete, Sodales!

Not originally my idea, but that would be my take on this:

Spell: Wall of Wasps
TeFo(lvl) Cr(Re)An 35
R/D/T Touch/Conc/Group
Effect Conjures a great swarm of Wasps which will fly within the limits of a wall-shaped spaced defined by the caster. The size of this "wall" determines
the density of these wasps. Whoever tries to break through this wall will have to deal with the normal reactions of the creates, i.e. being stung
multiple times.
(base 5, Touch +1, Concentration +1, Group +2, Re-requisite +1, size +1)

This effect certainly will look impressive, but for your purposes it meight have some drawbacks:

  1. It is rather high level, unfortunately something that can't be completely avoided. You might lower the target to standard group size, which already translates into more wasps than I would like to encounter, but this will reduce the size or density of your wall.
  2. The Re-requisite is probably a hindrance for a CrAn-specialist. You could take it out of this spell (and reduce its level thereby by a magnitude), but then you would have to cast to circles of beast warding in advance to confine the creatures within, still ReAn, but on a significantly lower level. (off topic: We needn't start the "wards as traps"-discussion here again, but that shapeshifting Jerbiton Animal-specialist in MoH is a RaW example of just this use of the ward-spells when he conjures scorpions to protect his camp.)

Vale,
Alexios ex Miscellanea

6

Actually, in my game the spell was bombastically named "Octavia's one hundred legions" and it's designed as:

Base 5, Touch +1, Sun +2, Group +2, Rego Requisite +1 -> Cr(Re) An 35.

The original spell had the wasps erupt from the caster's mouth. Since the Base Individual for Animal is the size of a pony, which should be at least 50.000 wasps, the basic Group size makes the swarm half a million strong, so you do not need any modifier for size even if you want to work on a relatively massive scale like surrounding an entire village or a small army. The duration could be cut down to Concentration, saving 5 levels, but I think this way it's much more practical. The Rego requisite allows you to give the wasps one (even reasonably complex) command when creating them - forming a wall around a space and guarding it against intrusion is a very reasonable one. Foraging for food is another.

I agree its level is highish, particularly because of the Rego requisite, but far from unreachable even for a starting character.

7

Lovely spell...
I was just looking at the beginnings of my list of "wall spells" the other day, and this one is so totally getting added to the list!

Absolutely within reach for any character who really wants it. Spells above 35 for starting characters, thats where it starts getting really problematic unless you´re willing to heavily sacrifice elsewhere.

Mmm, now then wouldnt this spell be just perfection itself for a magi with "insects" as Magic Focus?

8

ooer :smiling_imp:

9

Well, Wall of Wasps was received with enthusiasm by my new player. She has not yet cast it, though.

I've actually not created any sort of game mechanical effect.

I was trying to figure out if armor should have any effect. Concentration rolls penalized or earninh extra botch dice? Temporary light wounds - or a general sta+stress die vs. a table, modified by armor?

Unsure the best way to simulate it. Anyone have any thoughts?

10

I would treat it roughly like boiling water on the damage scale, so contact with a wall of wasps is +3 damage per round, immersing a limb in a wall of wasps (sounds like a bad idea, huh?) is +6 damage per round, and immersing yourself partially would be +9, and immersing yourself fully in a wall of wasps (god why would you do that?) would be +12 damage per round.

A character wearing sufficiently heavy armor might only count exposed parts of his body for the first few rounds - face, hands, etc... maybe +3 damage on the first round, +6 on the second, then more as the wasps crawl under your armor and such.

Being IN the wasp-wall probably has the same effect on concentration as that Ignem spell that makes little fire-sparks swarm around someone.

11

And then there is the the psychological aspect. People are a bit afraid of wasps and so are animals. Imagine facing a myriad of the stripy bastards and listening to that deafening compound buzz. I think we are talking personality roll of 12+ to willingly step into that without full armour.

12

You want a Wall that will repel people , then use Wall of Tapeworms.
There is nothing more disgusting than internal parasites.

13

Thats a bunch of wasps to spew in a round. But it would be a glorious thing to see :smiley:

14

If you want a wall that physically blocks objects from moving through it, you could try a Wall of bone, using the "highly unnatural" rules to create a single, solid, shaped bone with the specified dimensions.

You might also try wall of leeches, with similar guidelines to other groupings of small creepy crawlies. Now that's gross.