the saltseporator seporates the salt from ocean water with just the aplication of a creoperdo(I think thats the fire form's name)5
tell me what you think of this item & how you would use the salt produced from this item(the water is poured into a jug under a attached spout,fyi)
You want to use Rego Aquam to separate the salt from the water. Maybe a Terram requisite if the SG is picky. As for distilling the water as you say, you want Creo Ignem
that's nice & all,but what uses would magi have for the salt once they have it?(they could probibly drink the water as there is NO rules about water-born deaseses)
Salt is a precious commodity in the high middle ages, they would sell it of course. However, prudicious magi would use established channels (i.e. the Venetian or Hansiatic mercantile guilds) lest they run afoul of The Code (non-"messing" with mundanes), the peripheral code (destabilisation of economies), and with mundane customs (fiercely protected markets).
Wouldn't do to have Venetian or other assassins as ready to knock off your magus as the Quesitors and other Hermetic factions would be to have you marched.
Preserving food was one major use.
[quote)(they could probibly drink the water as there is NO rules about water-born deaseses)[/quote]
Bad water will unbalance your humors just the same way as bad air will.
We actually did this in our first 4th ed saga. We were based in Cornwall, right at the coast and needed a source of income. We had our Flambeau Magus make a Cr Ig item to boil a chamber of water and evaporate it completely. It was installed in an underground chamber, which was flooded each day at high tide. It was PeTeed directly out of the bedrock, complete with a grate for filtering out unwanted items.
The salt created was not of great quality, but of great quantity. We had PC merchant deal with another trader, who took all our salt off our hands a a discount (for letting us do away with all the hassel ourselves). The coastal towns of the North Sea, North Atlantic and English Channel could use lots of salt to preserve their fish.
Any other story ideas that this item could produce?
Story Seeds? Sure!
How about if the salt production somehow offends the local sea faeries? Perhaps the removal of salt drives away some of them, alters the living conditions, lowers the area?
Or what if the salt produced suddenly is found to contain vis (this might be the result of the above mentioned lowering of local fae aura). The magi will try to hunt down the salt already sold, to get the vis back. Perhaps they find the salt used had caused warping where it was used.
The salt seperator pulls in some object from the sea, and it is found to be completely unintersting to magi, no vis, nothing supernatural at all, and no mundane value, simply a stone of odd shape and colour. perhaps even an inconvenient size. So why do several foreign magi suddenly appear in the area, obviously looking for something, but not wanting to say what. And why does some unknown kingpin, through a straw man, try to buy the stone - at first with sucker deals, but increasingly more genereous offers, followed by attempts of stealing it, blackmail etc.
And then make up whatever use you want for the stone, it could be a hoax, and it really does nothing, but everyone thinks so. Or else, it might be some obscure left over of some ancient and exotic magic, that someone wants to research.