Conjure Forth the Grounds Blood
CeAq35 (Ritual)
R: Touch, D: Year, T: Ind
This spell creates a large spring with a fast rate of flow that lasts for a year. The water acts normally once it bubbles out of the target point allowing it to be used for irrigation or drinking. It lasts all year and if renewed on the anniversary of its casting, its ending will not be noticed.
Base 5, +1 touch, +4 year, +1 size
Ok, so this spell produces a fairly large spring that runs pretty fast. My intent is to use it for irrigation or perhaps to supply drinking water.
My questions are, at the end of the year, the spell ends, does this mean that all the water in all the irrigation channels instantly disappears, all the water in the crops and in the people that drank it disappears? Obviously this isn't really a problem for people who have other access to water, they just get thirsty and need a drink. But would this wreck crops?
How about if you cast the spell again on the last day of this spell? I'm guessing the irrigation channels would still run dry when the previous spell runs out and would refill from the new spell.
By my understanding, as its a ritual, the water created is natural and 'real' as that from any spring. If so, there is no issue. If not the case, then crops would have issues assuming there had been no other water ie rain.
Re-casting the ritual would indeed create water to fill the channels, which would propagate through the channels normally. If the first ritual stopped before the second is completed, as would be easier to deal with, then there would be a slackening of the water in the channels, akin to a stream in dry weather, before the water started again.
Makes sense to me anyway...
K
Perhaps that would not work because the spring would not have a source from which to draw water and as such once it created a Mom water supply, the spring would then dry up?
I could see one using Rego magic however to create a spring by causing the earth to move and shift to produce a spring... though a complex spell, truly.
I would say Peregrine's interpretation is perfectly valid as the CrAq guidelines clearly state effects like "create a spring" or "create a geyser", so momentary Creo rituals powered with vis should create a spring that is permanent in the same way that CrAn rituals with vis can create a living being out of thin air which continues to exist and can breed.
Indeed, following this path the problem is you can create springs below level 20 but the minimum ritual magnitude of level 20 kicks in.
But my concern is duration. Just because it is ritual does not make it permanent, right? I am not the be all intellect or go to for spell creation (( you should see how utterly backwards and turned around I get sometimes )) but I would argue there is a difference between a Cr/Aq a Cr/An or a Cr/Ig spell.
The Cr / An ritual spell will create a animal, true, and it is a permanent animal, and it will last until it's final breath and the begin to rot, however a Cr/Ig or a Cr/Aq... also will create a real physical and permanent manifestation of water and fire, however like a animal these elements will only exist as per natural for that element.
A column of fire, if it lacks something to burn will burn out. A spring of water, or a geyser, or even a flood, will create only THAT amount of water and then stop creating it. True the water will be real in every way that matters, it will be usable and will exist for all time, however it will evaporate, be pulled into the soil, and drunk by the passing swallow in need of a bath. Within a few days the ground will be dry.
Thus I see the need for a year duration. A Cr/An spell of a year duration is not needed because a animal is self-contained and will live on, a spring without a constant source of replenishment will not continue to pump water out unless the spell allows for a duration greater than moment.
I admit I miss things all the time so I might be wrong about all that, but to me it makes sense.
However I still think a nice Re/Te with a Aq requisite would be a perfect and NON ritual way to make a great new spring.
IOW you cannot intellectually accept a "water generator" (aka fountain) because there are neither "fire generator" nor "earth generator" nor "air generator" that would last for a year or more. I never linked those, interesting.
The golden eggs goose is an "earth generator" in a sense. The Rego vermin generation is another. I wonder if there are enough such generator to reverse the interpretation and consider that a permanent flame is possible.
Not that it really matters for you, no "generator" rituals makes a perfectly valid saga.
These were exactly my thoughts. A ritual to create a ball of fire rapidly ends because it creates natural fire and natural fire denied oxygen or fuel goes out. Likewise a natural cow created via Animal rituals will die without fodder and water. Similarly a spring will die without a water source to draw from such as an aquifer or a glacier.
It seems to me then that my spell in the original post is not actually that much of a good idea.
Better might be to create an enchanted item.
Maybe a beautifully carved fountain with a statue holding a massive waterskin out of which pours a constant stream of water. The following might suffice.
The fountain of Irrigation
CeAq34
R: Touch, D: moon, T: Ind
This spell creates a large spring with a fast rate of flow that streams from the open neck of the fountains waterskin. The water lasts for moon duration, allowing it to irrigate and pass through crops and people before it expires. The effect is recast every sun up and sun down.
Base 5, +1 touch, +3 moon, +1 size, +3 levels environmental trigger, +1 levels for 2 uses a day
I wouldn't say that. I think the spell is very good, and very useful, but only if the need is for a spring that will last a year. All the water created by the spell is real and true water and everything it was used for will continue to have benefited from the spring. I can see this spell, retaining the year duration, being perhaps a useful and well appreciated short term fix for a covenant or town or hell even some desert oasis, that suddenly lost their water source.
Perhaps something happened wherein the well is dry, contaminated, or even had been taken by force. If a magi is no Rego master, then it would be hard to make another well instantly, to provide real water for those who need it. (( Or maybe even the new covenant is in a regio.... and the use of vis is justified by not having to go in and out of a regio, perhaps it has a difficult access or something, so the covenant magi decide to Creo a water source while they enchant a device to do it permanently )) With this spell, you will provide water for an entire year, giving everyone enough time to fix a better source.
Not to mention, maybe you want to use the spell to cripple or hurt a enemy? You create a spring, for the next year some English count, or Arabian overlord, ect. see it as a way to expand their lands. They take control of the spring and start building around it. Perhaps the magi have used rumors to convince this lord that there is a strategic need to expand here or something. A year later, the spring completely dries out. No amount of digging will bring water there now, and thus the lord is out all of his time and effort and money building for a year, as well as crippling his new strategy.
And never forget, once you have the spell.... making the device gets a +7 bonus (( I think right? a +1 for every magnitude for similar spell... hope I got that right)) and so having both the spell and then creating a item are equally useful. IMO I think the device is good, others may not like the month duration, but I would let it slide. No harm no foul.
I am all for elemental generators, but I sorta feel they must have a duration to continue to make the element. However a Muto or a Rego spell would be different IMO. If you Muto a goose so that it lays golden eggs, then I would certainly say that those gold eggs are real eggs without the need for vis. I am certain I will be corrected for this belief, but I am good with it. Just like if you Muto a bull to make milk, I am cool with that magically changed bull, making non-magical and real milk. Again I almost know for certain I am wrong though.... but I like it.
I just think the water fountain that is Rego to be such, will be real and last forever. A water fountain that is simply a nice ornate statue with a touch spell that makes water, even with Vis, if the duration is say Sun... then it will only make water, real useful water, for a sun. After which the spell is gone and the vis is wasted and the statue is just a statue.
PS. The forum is great for helping me correct the many many mistakes I make in how I see magic in the Ars world... I just hope for once I got it right!
I think the spell is fine. I just would drop it to Moon duration (or sun if you want it to b easy to cast) so it can avoid being a ritual.
If you want just a pump that draws existing water from the ground a ReAq version might be adequate. Just draws water from the earth and brings it up. Circle/ring works in that case. At least how we play circle/rings (water would be contained within the circle unless you pull it out forcibly with a bucket or similar). YSMV
The problem is that either A) The goose is magically making those eggs, and therefore they won't last (because it's not got the power to make them permanently)
or
B) You're feeding the goose gold. At which point it's not very useful.
Hmmm... I am not so sure. If you Muto the goose with the base 25 spell to give the animal a magical ability, then for the duration of that spell, it is doing magic not yourself. I am on the fence with this idea though. I can be swayed either way
However if you give a animal a magical fire breath for say concentration, and then this say, fire-breathing rabbit blows a gout of flame and it burns your skin, will the burn go away when the magic flame vanishes because the rabbit is no longer magical?
Though destroying something is far different than making something so there is that.
Yeah, I wish for a convincing argument for a true golden goose and I wonder if it is possible to create gold without using vis. OTOH, 4 pawns for lvl20 would yield (noble's parma) a mountain of gold.
But see Dire I can't agree or get my head around this. A Cr/Au spell is not creating a spring, it is creating water, and so when the spell goes off it is only going to create that single amount of water that it would make for the Duration of the spell. It is not going to keep making water forever, unless forever is the duration.
Sure, a item, when enchanted will produce water forever, but I don't see how a Momentary spell, no matter how much vis you spend, will create a new and real spring that flows like a natural spring.
So when I say the ritual does not make it permanent, what I mean is the actual working spring that continues to make water for the next seventy nine years and five months or so, is only permanent if you either find a way to create a spell that has a infinite duration, or if you Rego the earth to actually provide a means by which a spring will actually exist there.
I am missing something if we still disagree, something fundamental to how I see magic and its mechanics in the game.
Because if you make a fire, with only a momentary duration, then I don't care how much vis you pump into the ritual, unless that spell has a duration long than Momentary then that fire will stop existing as soon as its fuel is gone.
While I mostly agree with you, I wonder why fire is singled out. Does a fire elemental continuously create itself in a way that is different from an earth elemental or a water one? Does it need to breathe?
Are the nature of each element different, with various needs?
I agree there, but its magic can't create something permanent unless it expends power to do so, because that's how magic works in Ars Magica. The fact that it's an animal you made doing it seems essentially irrelevant to me.
Of course not, but then if you magically generated fire and burnt something the burn still wouldn't go away.
That has nothing to do with the nature of the rabbit, it has to do with the nature of the magic.
Yep, destruction doesn't normally need the expenditure of Vis, creation does.
)) but I would argue there is a difference between a Cr/Aq a Cr/An or a Cr/Ig spell.
