Rego flight, unsupported surface (what is it?)

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I've been looking at some of the spells in TME that makes stuff fly.

Both the Woolen Steed of Araby and the Vessel of the Clouds add +1 magnitude for unsupported surface.

Is the purpose to allow the carpet or boat to fly further up in the air than the e.g. the 6 feet above ground of the Unseen Porter and over over water (as opposed to solid ground) or is it something else I just don't understand?

2

Perhaps to make it rigid?

3

If it had been only the flying carpet I'd agree, but the same extra magnitude is also used for the flying boat made of wood.

4

Have a look at ArM5 p.134 box Rego Corpus Guidelines.

You find there different guidelines to move people, depending on:

  • whether you wish to change their direction in mid-spell,
  • whether you move them over surfaces that cannot support them,
  • whether you move them unsupported by any surface,
  • the speed you can move them.

These different aspects are listed separately with the TME p.111f Rego spells, which even spell out twice:

"unsupported surface" stands here for "move target, even if unsupported": not exactly good English style, I'd say - but certainly brief.

Cheers

5

Thanks.
It is as I suspected then.
I just found the wording a bit lacking.

I guess this settles all my possible future questions about spells to make stuff fly or flying items as well.

Now I just need to pop over to the lab and design that [strike]74-Z speeder bike[/strike] flying log.