Pegasaurus Rex

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: In the Ruins of Bibracte
21

Create a statue, change it into an animal, you mean?

Ah, yes, I had missed the base 25 which my downloaded guidelines list as "Radically change an animal into an unnatural way (give an horse wings)", so I agree with you, this is even harder than what I would have thought, without even considering the metal part.

So yes, for the moment, just doing a bigger horse would do, with the spell Isen proposed to get it to accept a gifted rider.

But why not go the other way and create the metal horse? Especially with the (IMO quite good) HR about specific spells to avoid finesse rolls.
This would look like this (Serf's Parma, so I'll very probably commit errors and omit things, thus final spell would be higher):

First, a ritual:
CrTe 25: Create the Winged Horse.
CrTe base 5, create 1 cubic foot of Iron.

  • 2 Mag for 100 cubic feet. Dunno if it's ok. I'm tired and a little lost on anglo-saxon mesures right now, so this could be higher.
  • 1 touch
  • 0 momentary
  • 1 so that this only creates a Metal Horse, but no Finesse roll is needed.

Then Re(Mu)Te: Animate the Metal Horse 25? 35?
ReTe base 3 (control/move in a very unnatural fashion). This allows the horse to fly and, combined with Muto, the limbs to move, wings to flap and so on

  • 2 to affect metal
    Do we need magnitudes for size? I can't remember. Check hermetic projects, the flying castle, to see if we do.
  • 1 touch
  • 2 Sun
  • 1 Muto requisite: Combined with the Rego requisite, this gives the horse the semblance of life, by allowing its wings to flap, head to move a little, legs to stir.. the Muto requisite ensuring that the metal bends, but does not break.

The second effect could be enchanted in an item, or even in a horse, foregoing the +1 touch, bringing base level down to level 20.

Stupidly, again, posting instead of working, I'm gonna regret this... Reading is mostly ok when I can do other things. Posting only postpones work T-T

22

IMO muto wouldn't add a magnitude, it is a cosmetic effect to make the limbs move.

23

Because this discussion appears to warrant its own thread. I'll post what I had in mind in a little bit. Meant to do it yesterday, but got sidetracked.

24

This is what I'm envisioning for the spell.

[u]Pegasaurus Rex[/u]
MuAn(Te)
This spell creates a mobile, flying winged horse made of steel.

Base CrAn is Level 15 ("Create a mammal.") R: Touch +1, D: Sun +2, T: Individual, +1 for Size (to get it to Size +4) for a Spell Level of 35.

As a horse, it would need to weigh about 2,600 pounds to carry Fiona (now at 678 pounds) and about 100 pounds of gear. Base Individual Terram for one cubic foot; the horse has a volume of about 41¼ cubic feet, not including the wings, so it would be +2 Magnitudes for size on that. Not sure where that belongs in the calculations, if it does.

Also, would it require a Vim requisite to allow it to fly?

And I'm also okay with it becoming a Creo Ritual (which would drop the Duration down to Momentary but require Vis), and letting it become an actual steel horse that's enchantable.

25

Okay, this topic has suffered conceptual drift. What are the important facets of what we're trying to achieve? Because the Creo Ritual, the iron statue, it all seems a bit extraneous to me. How about carving a horse statue out of stone, and then casting a MuTe(An) on it.

Is the flying part important? The Iron?

26

Oh, the irony of the last two sentences above.

27

The most important thing is that it's a flying horse made of...something. The metal is because it's an awesome visual. I can settle for stone, but I'd prefer metal. The Creo ritual I just threw out as a "what if" because it occurred to me that, if it were permanent, then we could enchant stuff into it down the road. But the main purpose is for Fiona to have a pretty unique mount for the Joust at Tribunal. Probably not for this one, but the next one (in 1235). That should give her time to learn how to ride a Terram pegasus. Oh, and another (possible) plus for having it permanent would be so it could be "trainable". Don't know if that's possible if you have an item that makes a new Pegasaurus each time.

And isn't conceptual drift normal any time you have a brainstorming/initial planning meeting?

28

Feature creep... :smiley:

29

YES!!!

30

Yes, conceptual drift is an essential part of the brainstorming process. But it is also important to periodically restate your values and intentions.

Okay, if THAT's the case, then
a) Viscaria really, really doesn't have time to be doing things for the 1235 Tribunal BEFORE the 1227 one.
b) you should go shopping/hunting for a real live pegasaurus! With the Rego-Aligned Aura, training creatures is much easier! Then, after the Tribunal, Viscaria can enchant the reins, the saddle, the armor. All kinds of fun!
c) oooh. You should go hunting for a suitable mount in the Magic Realm/Land of the Giants!

31

Hum... Yes, you're right, it is a needed requisite to make the spell work (like casting requisites on teleportation), but it doesn't enchance the effect.

Just to say... :wink:

Amul, you're a genius!!!

We've got a few years for her to have someone carve her a metal statue!!! This costs nothing, and can be done by a skilled enough mundane artisan! :smiley:

And then, she'll just need to use the Re(Mu)Te spell on it! :smiley:
So that's be:
Re(Mu)Te: Animate the Metal Horse 30
ReTe base 3 (control/move in a very unnatural fashion). This allows the horse to fly and, combined with Muto, the limbs to move, wings to flap and so on

  • 2 to affect metal
  • 2 magnitudes for size, probably
  • 1 touch (if enchanted into the statue, this drops to Pers, so lvl 25!!!)
  • 2 Sun

This will perfectly do for the tribunal.

And afterwards, yes, going for a real pegasus would be awesome, especially since it has MR. IMO, after the tribunal, it'd be very cool for fiona to pursue this avenue. A future familiar, maybe?

32

She already has one - the cat, Paul.

Other than that, I really like the stone statue of a pegasus that is animated. And should be right up Viscaria's alley, since (iirc) this was supposed to be trade for Fiona making the device for Theraphosa that let her take human form.

33

swap the touch for +1 requisite An, for it to act and think like an animal and not just move as commanded. +4lvls for constant effect. ReTe(MuAn) 34 for metal, 29 for stone. T 5 + F 5 + Int 3 + MT 7 + Philo & S&M bonuses 7* + Rego Aura 10 + Craft:Silver 9 + Lab Gen 6 (Includes Familiar) + Lab Items 15 + Lab Te 2 + Lab Mu 4 = 73 which is more than enough. I can do this in a season.

Based on Marvelous Hound (Cov 54), the statue would receive Warping for being under a constant mystical affect. Come to that, the Trunk is also under at least one constant magical affect currently (Break the Oncoming Wave).

  • By the time Tribunal rolls around, Viscaria will be at MT 7 and only Philo 5, so I'll need to actually find some +2 S&M bonuses until I get her Philo matching again.
34

Discreet inquiries for a sculptor for a pegasus statue seem to turn up references to a Hermetic sculptor, Praxiteles Jerbitonis in the Rhein Tribunal.

He does work in Noir Beige.

35

Fair enough, Fiona was able to do Thera's necklace(?) in a season. Deal, then?

drool

36

Hot damn YES.

Tangent: Shall we say that Praxiteles is the Finesse Correspondent that Viscaria's been writing to all this time?

I just saw that wiki entry a short while ago. Can't remember why.

Several questions come up:

  1. Working in stone...That's Craft:Stone 5 instead of 9. Can't use Chastity as a Forge Companion, that's another 2. That subtracts to 67, which is twice....33.5, which still rounds to 34, and now we only need 29 to do this to stone. Yes. Still viable in one season.

  2. Do we want to consider opening the giant stone pegasus for later enchantment? Gorram right, we do.

Hard stone is Base 4. Is this horse Huge? According to TMRE 97, Huge = Ind x 10. You said earlier that the horse needs to weight 2600 lbs / 10 = 260, which is sort of on the large end for our considerations. Hugex10 would be multiplier of x6. (That also implies that we need the spell to affect +1 Size, for 10 cubic paces of stone[1], bringing us back up to 34.)
Reduce the cost of opening by the Verditus's Craft Score. Reduce opening cost by Hermetic Alchemy.

6x4 = 24 - 5 - 7 = 12. So, assuming that you don't need Hermetic Architecture to use the Expanded S&M table, Viscaria can make that bad boy an invested item!

[1] For visualization purposes, a cubic pace is basically a cubic yard, right? Well a 10 yard dumpster is 12 ft. long by 8 ft. wide by 4 ft. high

  1. Can we still call him Pegasaurus?
37

The horse itself has a volume of 41¼ cubic feet. Figure in the wings, and that would it in the vicinity of 50 cubic feet, I'm guessing. Base individual for stone is one cubic pace, or 27 cubic feet.

50 cubic feet is a cube about 3-3/4 feet to a side, roughly. And Huge x5 is a wagon or a room, so I'd say it's the book Huge, I would imagine.

And I am too in love with Pegasaurus to call him anything else.

I'd be surprised if we didn't open that bad boy up for future enchantment. Ooo.oooo.ooo. "Flame breath" that turns people into pigs! :laughing:

My assumption is that anyone can use the expanded S&M table (we're talking about .pdf download, right). At least, I've been using it sometimes. Not very often, but I check it whenever I'm working on an item.

38

Hugex5 = 20.

MT 7x2=14 +5 = 19. Not quite enough to go the other way around. If I could apply Craft:Silver instead, or find time to increase my Craft:Stone by 1, then I could open the Pegasaurus with the other set of Hermetic Alchemy rules, and open it with 27 spaces for enchantment.

39

Well, if you've been peeking at Via Experimenta it was mentioned there. And sure. I'm having problems over there, I'm having trouble finding a voice for him. I'd say by this time 50 years since founding of Laurus Argenti he'd have learned enough Latin to write.

Yes, cubic yard and cubic pace are the same. And what he's called is up to the players involved.
If you do engage Praxiteles, I have to come up with a price. And then there's the transport issue of delivering something that large (and if a completed statue) delicate. It would be slightly easier to transport the solid block to Mons Electi, Praxiteles visit and then do his work...

40

I'll move this over to Letters, so you can get some practice writing in character, then.