maine75man:
I just wanted to note that what you write is consistent with what they taught us in the "Health/Physics" course., or atleast my notes from that course.
Sunburn != "heat burn"
With all respect, its not a question of what causes sunburns (yes its UV radiation), it is a question about how people believed in 1220 how sunburns were causes.
I would think, this spell should either be CeIg or ReIg. CeIg if it can do this anywhere, or ReIg if it takes existing sunlight and makes it focused. A CrIg would be stopped by Parma, and the ReIg might only be stopped by Armor, in this case actually good sun protection, since the heat is "natural." And since it is designed to be subtle (the creation of desert sun like effect) it may require a finesse roll. a SG might also require that it be maintained in order to cause a small burn rather than a huge flash of desert sunlight.
I think this is a great spell, but since it is so far outside the general examples, that the final version is going to be very Saga dependent.
Nope. Because unlike you I don´t mistake sunburn and damage to DNA as being the same single thing.
You dont get the DNA effects from IR or fire exposure, but you can get identical damage to the skin.
You CAN also get the same apoptosis effect but rarely with the exact same skindamage.
To bunch the two together when it suits you, that just sounds strange...
Ho ho ho! What a comedian indeed.
And no it´s a lousy analogy. If you apply energy differently, that still changes nothing about the energy.
Point was that even a NORMAL SUNBURN can happen very quickly. Something you claimed impossible.
It is also a wellknown fact that even a classic sunburn is totally possible in just seconds, it just takes a very odd or extreme source of UV, like a welding arc very close.
Sorry to have to slap you around with science again but no you really do seem to be in the dark about how sunburns work. I really did speak with a doctor on sunday and she really did confirm I was dead on right about the mechanics of sunburns. But, since we don't have the luxury of an M.D. on call I'll just have to try to get through to you with sources I turned up in a simple web search.
First there is the classic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunburn But if your paranoid or irationally cynical and you don't trust wikipedia (and there is very little reason not to IMO for what amounts to elementary science) them we have http://health.howstuffworks.com/skin-care/beauty/sun-care/question637.htm,http://www.drbaileyskincare.com/blog/what-is-a-sunburn/ andhttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/176441.php.
I'm not sure what you mean here but the Apoptosis is essentially the Skin Damage in sunburns. Those two things are inseparable. Or as some of my sighted sources put it.
So it is not I that is mistaken. Sunburns are the result of DNA damage.
You do realize we are talking about the type of the injury the energy causes, right? Which varies depending on the nature of how that energy is delivered. Say the wavelength of light. Making it in IMO a most appropriate analogy.
So for instance infra-red light(or fire,or boiling oil, or laser a death ray) is more like the baseball bat. It gets absorbed by the surface of the skin exciting the molecules causing heat. With enough heat you will create sufficient temperatures to damage living skin cells by generally tearing them apart, doing things like curdling proteins and expanding liquids till cells walls burst. I believe most the resulting cell death their would be considered necrosis not apoptosis in that BTW. Rather then being absorbed by the surface of the skin and causing general heat UV passes through into the nucleus of cells. Like the stilleto UV pokes holes in the cells vitals (ie DNA). If enough UV is absorbed the cell enters into programed cell death or apoptosis.
I like the stilleto basball bat analogy because it takes far more energy to raise the temperature of a patch of skin tissue to the point where cells start to die then it does to kill off a similar amount of tissue with UV. Swinging a club with deadly force requires more energy then a few lethal pokes with a stilleto. Heck melanin does it's job of protecting skin from sunburn by absorbing UV and turning the energy into harmless waste heat. So it's sort of like a chain mail suit blunting the impact of the UV light stileto.
I never said sunburns couldn't happen very quickly which is a fuzzy & relative term anyway. My point was that sunburns aren't instant in the sense a momentary CrIg spell couldn't bring about all the symptoms immediately. "NORMAL SUNBURNS" which is really what I think the OP was going for take quite awhile to develop. To quote Dr. Baily again.
Yes as she says it can happen faster with extreme exposure as does Medical News Today. But note my bold.
To me those sort of sources are outside the scope of what is natural to Mythic Europe anyway, and therefore mostly outside the scope of a CrIg spell. Even then I know from personal experience welder's sunburn usually can take just as long to develop as what Dr. Bailey described. (nothing like waking up after working the swing shift for awhile and trying to figure out where your sunburn came from) Greater exposure does speed up onset it also increases total damage and the full effects will still only be seen with time. So again not so much what the OP was describing.
Look I'm fine with a blast of heat causing a "normal" superficial burn which is almost the same as a sunburn. (A good solution by the OPoster) I'm ok with super bright sunlight doing the job in a diameter or two if the onset also takes awhile. I'm also could live with MuIg making sunlight unnaturally poisonous as magic forgive all sins. But I still think the best Solution is low level PeCo.
My Sodales, this debate has degraded. Our Redcaps have sent missives back and forth and still this matter has not been resolved, and perhaps never will be. The young magus writer of the original missive was asking his sodales if his theory of hermetic magic was sound, and Ignam magic could indeed burn the skin, in a manner similar to that experienced by travellers near to the belt of fire that encircles the earth, south of Egypt, and if that effect could be achieved instantaneously, presupposing that the cause of such burns is one's relative proximity to the sun in such regions.
Since then many explanations for why this effect could or could not be achieved have been submitted. Many of them are incomprehensible to laymen, relying as they do on many esoteric areas of natural philosophie, and I suspect that even the proponents of these arguments do not understand the underlying principles. Have any of you advancing these bizzare arguments about "DNA," and "radiation" bothered to consult the experts on Medicine, such as Galen?
I humbly suggest that all of these arguments are flawed, because they rest on assumptions about medicine that are beyond the ken of mortals, such as how the specie emitted by the sun can damage the body of a man, and ignore the power of the Gift to overcome the limits imposed on other mortals. Some things are unknowable, but what we can understand with our reason and intellect are the platonic forms and other such theories of our intellectual forefathers, as well as hermetic theory.
Considered from this perspective, I would suggest that replicating the effect of the sun might well be beyond hermetic magic entirely, as the sun is the demarcation point between the lunar and celestial spheres, well beyond the sublunar world within which Hermetic Magic must operate.
Other magi will no doubt call this argument hogwash, and indeed, I have taken the extreme view for arguments sake. I do think Hermetic Magic can cause what some have taken to calling a "sunburn."
If we accept that, in some way, the sun can damage the skin, and believe that Hermetic Magic can replicate that effect, then I think that it could be done via either corpus or ignam, and in either case a magus with sufficient knowledge could achieve the effect nearly instantaneously, although ultimately, the young magus should consult his Master on this matter.
If the orginal letter was submitted to the Redcap network by a senior magus who was asked this question by his apprentice and was unsure how to reply, then I think you have seen ample arguments for however you would like to instruct your pupil.
At this point, since most Magi present seem to agree that it should be possible in some manner, the true question is not "what technique and form combination should be used?" A better way for us to help our sodale is his research is to consider: "assuming that the effect could be achieved using the originally stated technique and form combination, what level should the effect be?"
After consulting the authorities further, I would say that canonically, the effect cannot be achieved with Hermetic Magic, unless a fundamental breakthrough is achieved. A&A states (p43) that sunburns are not contra-naturals like slashes, burns, and scalds, although they are contra-naturals. "The remaining three planets affect the faculties directly...the sun [causes changes to] the vital faculty." P39 states that "affecting the vital faculty is beyond the power of hermetic magic."
Personally I think this is a neat effect that wouldn't disrupt my game, so I'd be inclined to allow it, although I'm too new to the rules to be a good judge of appropriate magnitude.
While the mimicing of the interactions of the celestial bodies upon the mortal world may well be beyond Hermetic Magic, mimicing the results of these interactions is most certainly not. Sunburn - a redness of the skin that occurs after exposure to the sun - is a degradation of the body, and not a significant one. The required Perdo Corpus effect to inflict this upon a target is well within the reach of a fresh-from-Gauntlet magus - likely not requiring more than the third or fourth magnitude. Thus, I counter to say that Hermetic magic can indeed inflict that affliction which is sunburn upon someone even without the ability to mimic the behavior of the sun! However, within the reasoning you have presented it remains true that such is not possible with the exclusive use of Creo and Ignem.
(this post adds nothing to the argument, but it was fun to type!)