The Dormant Army

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

From the Berklist:

I was trying to figure out the other day how to put someone into suspended
animation, but couldn't find a guideline to hang the idea on. Still, a few
chambers of trained grogs in their prime, sleeping away the decades
inside a
circle of preservation sounds good. Wake when needed.

TSOB
Timothy Squire O'Brien

I am thinking something along the lines of:
The Terracota Army
MuCo (Te, An, He)
R: Touch, D: Ring, T: Room
This spell turns all the people (traditionally soldiers) within the room into stone statues. The effect extends to mounts, weapons, and attire. It persists until the room's seal is broken, upon which the dormant army awakens. The targets incur warping for the entire duration that they are under this spell.

2

Imo , they should make Aging Rolls when they awaken ,
if they would have made any had the spell not been in effect.

A lesser version of this spell could be used to increase your lifespan by a third.
Just use it whenever you are asleep.
Tailor the spell to yourself to reduce warping.

3

Here is my counter Proposals (Serfs Parma)

The Sleeping Terracota Army
MuCo (Te, An, He)
R: Touch, D: Ring, T: Room
This spell turns all the people (traditionally soldiers) within the room into stone statues. The effect extends to mounts, weapons, and attire. The Army gains 5 warping points per year due to beeing under a constant powerfull effect that is not tailored for them.

Should the room's seal be broken without the proper reanimation ritual, the dormant army awakens & each day pass, they will need to roll a aging roll untill they all show their true age.

Awaikening The Terracota Army
MuTe (Co, An, He)
R: Touch, D: Year, T: Room
This spell turns what that was changed into stone back into their original form. Aldo they will suffer from the warping, they will not show signs of aging for up to a year where after they have the choice of returning to the Sleeping room if the Ring was not broken & return to sleep once again or living out the next few days of their life, dying of old age.

These warriors, under the influence of these powerfull effects, are not quite mundane warriors. They are fearless & benefit from a +5 to their soak due to their stone nature. This is in addition to any merits and flaws gained through warping

Note that I've also considered changing these mundanes into ghosts through a MuCo (Me) spell to stash them in the volt for eternity & then have them released as ghost that can use a physical form through another ritual but I'd need the book to create such an effect...

W

4

Yeah, I gotta think about this. This is a really cool idea, but also a Munchin's dream. This could be a great big hole in the game. What's funny is I've often imagined using the Terracotta Army from China's history. I just never made the leap and considered a Mage could zap himself everynight before he sleeps. Again, I need to think about this and may chime in later in the week. This could become an interesting thread!

5

I never considered the angle of aging. I thought of time as "not-passing" while in statue form. So you wouldn't age, nor drop off fatigue, but would awaken as if no time has passed at all. You can't "sleep off the night" while in statue form; you'll be just as tired when you awake as you were when you went under the spell. You can awaken a 1000-year-old army without it growing old on you in an instant; the soldiers will be as old (or young) as they were when they went under.

At any rate, William's suggestion is very interesting. Turning a mortal into a statue to then turn it into human form by magic....
It is interesting, and I think I'd allow it as an SG, but technically I think it would not work by the RAW (Rules As Written). The original spell is broken when the soldiers leave the ring or it is broken, they cannot later return to it. The spell doesn't remeber that they were once under its influence.

6

Two inteesting issues here.

1- Aging while in a rock. 5th ed examples are clear, you do age, but do age but you are not required to eat & fatique is regained at half the rate (I think). I would have preferred not aging but gaining warping only but it is not cannon.

2- Ring durations. Exiting the ring.

If you cast a ward againt demons while you are in it, exit it & go back into it at a later time, if the ring was not disturbed, will you still be warded ?

I would tend to say yes.

In my example, the effect is not dismissed, there is simply another effect that allows you to leave the ring & be able to be something else than a statue for a full year, afterwhich, you turn back to a statue if situated in the ring or a normal, warped, mundane that will shortly die of old age.

Comments ?

W

7

Yeah, the aging thing while a rock doesn't sound fun to me. One might suggest that since it is in the spell description and not the guidelines that while it is precident it might not be binding precident... it might just be a condition of that specific spell.

8

You are referring to the silent vigil? Yes, it does seem to support that idea. Still, it rules out "sleeping" at least - you would, supposedly, only "sleep" for effectively half the time, no?

If you cast a Ring duration, the spell lasts "... until the target of the spell moves outside a ring...". When you move outside the ring, the spell is broken (for you).
The spell's target is Room. Hence, it affects everything within the Room of the appropriate Form, so you would be turned into stone once you return to it... but so would anyone else. The spell is broken when you leave the Ring, and affects you anew when you return to its area of effect.
To lift the spell for you, even temporarily, would require a MuVi effect. If the original spell was, for example, with Year duration, than a MuVi - or perhaps even PeVi - effect could "neutralize" it for a time. Specifically a MuTe spell such as yours would be appropriate too. However, there is no way to make, say, a "100 Years" duration (by core rules), so we used Ring. And when you leave the Ring, the spell's duration ends (for you), and you are no longer under its effect.

If we were to choose a Circle target, the spell "... affects everything within a ring drawn by the magus at the time of casting...". This would allow you to walk past the standing soldiers without yourself turning into stone*. It wouldn't allow you to return when your task is done, though, nor will it change the fact that the spell's duration is still Ring and still ends when you leave the ring.

IMO.

Yair

  • This assuming that "at the time of casting" refers to the "everything within a ring" and not to "drawn by the magus", which is an interpretation I like but I think is unorthodox.
    I would allow both interpreations to work, even at the same saga for different spells. But YMMV.
9

You know, at that point, it might be easier and cheaper to actually animate an army of statues.

The ring must be drawn every time you cast the spell, even if you're just tracing over an existing ring. The only thing an inlaid/engraved ring buys you is that it's not as easily broken.

10

With the whole TIME is suspended thing you break a Hermetic Limit afaics.

Turning things to stone now becomes the ultimate preservative.
Want to keep the Covenant food store fresh , and safe from rodents ,
turn it to stone until needed.
In your grainaries turn flour to sand.

What kind of flaws does warped food get?
The warping is not transferrable and probably does not make the food inedible.
This would really only be a problem if storage is done in terms of years.

As i mentioned it also allows you
"Slumber of Stone" (or similar title).
The not aging while asleep would be very useful to magi.
A spell tailored for yourself that transforms you into stone (or iron).
Safety value if attacked would be obvious.
Your Talisman could be enchanted to either Rego your stone body to move , or move you outside a ring.
The initial spell could be designed to allow your normal senses to function
so that you could still be woken easily.

11

Or you make the Ring an enchanted device with an enter/exit trigger perhaps.

12

Yes. Buy does the spell affects everything within the ring at the time of casting, or everything within the ring while the ring remains unbroken? In other words, once you have turned the army into statues, can you walk amongst them without being assulted by the spell?
I would personally allow both versions - the one that affected only the targets within the the circle at the time of casting, and the one that affects anyone as long as he is within the circle, but not apporve of a spell that affects only the ones present at the time of casting whenever they are within the circle.

Looking over the rules, I think it doesn't but it is a "loophole" of sorts.

You still only affect the present. No violation of the limit of time per se.

You do change the body of the person to stone, which ages differently from flesh, so may circumvent the limit of aging and fatigue to some extent. But following the example of the silet vigil, you apparently do age normally and only slow fatigue gain.

My suggestion of frozen time amounts to preservation, yes, but not slumber nor considerable safety. I suggest that effectively no time passes while in stone form - so no sleep is being accomplished, no perceptions are being sensed, no thoughts are being thought. A Me requisite, in retrospect, seems necessary.

Regardless, the rules do not seem to borne this idea out. Stones do have minds (the mind that sits), and so feel the passage of time. Perhaps a spell that turns a human into stone in body and spirit would allow slowing down aging as well as thought, in comparable amounts, bending the limit of aging to some degree.
I would think that preservation of food by transforming it into another substance would be appropriate, indeed. In general I do not believe it beyond Hermetic magic or even difficult, it is a variant of charm against putrefaction which is but MuCo 10. Turning food into another substance is simply another way of accomplishing this goal. I feel that a rope turned into bronze has the qualities of bronze, and does not "age" as a hemp rope does. I confess that the silent vigil throws that into question, if you consider food spoilage as "aging"; I maintain this is for game balance reasons and should be considered to apply to humans, not to the rotting of food.

A Stony Existence
MuCo(Te,Me), R: Personal, D: Ring, T: Ind
This spell transforms the caster's body and mind into that of a stone. The caster becomes motionless, a stone figure. His mind and perceptions slow down to those of a stone, although he is still recognizably himself.
The magus's time effectively slows down by x10. He can still nonritual spells, without words and gestures, but it takes him 10 times as long to do so. He still ages, but he does so at a rate ten times more slow. He still gains fatigue (although not body) levels from his complete rest, but at 1/10th of the normal rate.
With an appropriate magical effects, the magus may be able to sense and move enough of the world around him to engage in laboratory or other activities. These, too, are done in 1/10th the speed, so he can only learn 1 season's worth from a book in 10 objective Seasons. Engaging in non-mental labwork, such as investing or preparing items, requires working in accordance with celestial times and is hence more difficult; apply -10 to the magus's lab total should the SG determine astrological correspondences are relevant to the work at hand.

13

Why x10?
Is this based on spell magnitude?
Why not x1000 or some other number?

14

No reason. I just thought of a stone as being "significantly" slower than us, and for me that means an order of magnitude - so x10.
x2, x5, x100, I can't tell you which is more right by the rules.

15

CrCo 10 page 129
Which changes the thrust of your argument somewhat.
CrAn and CrHe will prevent spoilage or decay , but not Muto.

16

Ooops. I actually meant to write Cr. Freudian slip?

My intention was that this is another way of accomplishing the same goal. Just like blowing off a candle can be done by CrAu, PeIg, ReAn, and more. Different means of achieving the same ends.
The typical way of preserving (human) flesh from rotting is CrCo. I would have no problem with a PeIg similar effect (freezing the meat should work, at least for a while), or with a MuCo(Te) effect to turn it into stone, or with probably a multitude of other ways I can't think of at the moment. That was (supposed to be) my argument.

I agree it is weaker than if we had a MuCo spell to do so. :slight_smile:

Yair

17

Ok I'm chiming in. I'm not going to lay down a spell, but I'll voice what I've been thinking.

Earlier someone mentioned that Silent Vigil suggested a precident, but it need not establish a precident. I think this is a great spell to look at and I do think it does establish a precident.

One of the Hermetic Limits is Time and Hermetic magic can not alter the passage of time. So when one turns a person into stone, the magic can not slow the passage of time down. I don't think anyone is going to disagree with this.

The touchy point comes is when one discusses passage of time for rock. That is, does rock age more slowly than humans? This is the point that is open to debate.

In a private discussion of my friends said a rock out in the elements would age faster than a rock protected say in a cave. I disagree. They age the same, but observation would show the rock outside recieving more abuse.

I'm unsure if rocks age more slowly than humans. I think they age the same as humans, but not possessing any stats no penalities are apparent unless the rock is altered in some manner.

Muto Corpus does say that after a month people begin to take on the attributes of whatever they are transformed into, but again I don't know if this would alter their age.

Silent Vigil does say Recovery Rolls take twice as long. Food and drink aren't necessary,.... "though you still age." It doesn't say you age at 1/2 the rate or at 1/10th rate. It says "though you still age." I would take that to mean you age normally.

So while I concede the spell is more interesting and probably more fun if aging slows, my by the book interpretation reads that while the Terracotta Army is in stone form (however the spell is written up), by the book "food and drink are unnecessary, recovery rolls occur take twice as long, and ageing is normal."

18

What if you turn your Army into Trees?
Say they start out as an orchard of size +01 trees.
They are alive (as trees) , do they still keep growing?
If they reach any size greater than +01 ,
will they retain it when transformed back?
I ask because this is natural growth on the part of the tree ,
not as a result of the spell.

My general feeling would be that you get a human back ,
and that any extra growth remains as a smaller normal tree.

19

Compare the 4th and 5th edition descriptions of Stone Tell of the Mind that Sits. In 4th, stones speak so slowly a question and answer takes an hour, but in 5th it takes the normal time (say ten seconds or so).

20

I have to agree it seems ArM5 views "hibernation" as breaking the Limit of Time.

I would say you get a human back, and any growth disappears. Granted the growth was "natural", but it would IMO translate to a commensurate natural growth of the essential form once the Muto magic is gone - which, for humans, is "none".