the ground beneath a conjured Mystic Tower

Someone speaks from experience... :sweat_smile:

By which you mean that you assume that the tower is conjured without furniture made from the same stone block as the tower?

I am not an expert, but didn't the insulae of ancient Rome, 5 storey apartment blocks made out of concrete, have concrete floors on all storeys?
So not too large a leap to solid stone towers.

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That says nothing about real medieval towers, but it strengthens the case for ideal, Hermetically conjured towers in Medieval times ...

exactly. maybe stone benches, but otherwise your craftsfolk make stuff from wood.

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In that case I assume that we agree that the most likely thing to happen in the immediate aftermath of a magus casting "Conjuring the mystic tower" is that the carpenters and other assorted artisans move in to furnish the tower with things such as: doors, furniture, rails for curtains, wall paintings etc.

This always struck me as somewhat anti-climatic but also kind of hilarious.

This is why Conjuring the Mystic Tower is often scribed in a grimoire together with Conjuring the Mystic Artisans. Another common co-occurrence is the Ambulatory Laboratory. It could also be reasonable to include a CrTe Furnishing the Empty Room.

A common title is The Settler Tablets compiled by Endeavour of Mercere.

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This lacks ambition :wink: Cast the ritual from a boat, don't bother with a door at the bottom, do this in about 15 feet of water, have the entrance 30 feet up (15 above the water line) so those inside can drop a ladder or winch up supplies... seems a good way to create a defensible outpost in a lake or off the shore?

Keep in mind this is a Touch Range ritual which has a tower rise from the ground. I'm inclined to think the ground must be accessible at Touch range for the ritual to be valid, rather than the surface of the water at Touch Range. The ritual isn't designed to create a sea-based tower. Not that you couldn't design a spell to do that, of course, but it's not the existing ritual.

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There were towers in Venice, so I would say there should be no problem with a tower in a swamp, just keep in mind that the bottom level(s) will be flooded. Of course if it is too deep I suppose you can refer to example 4...

... whose foundations were invariably wooden.

As the tower is a single solid block, i would not worry too much about the humidity in the lower levels, so longbas the rocknis a non porous one. Maybe the Rhine valley born mage, hankering for pink sandstones, would do best to go for a glassier rock.

Very nice source. Thanks for sharing!

But I don't think it denies a stone tower without wooden piles as part of the foundation.

As stated in the link, the piles were used to reach the harder mud below, then you had a layer of planks and then stones for the foundation. Any severe digging would undermine the purpose, since the hard mud would become softer, piling is a much better option. It ties into what I was saying above: the process comes from a technical limitation.

Magic can completely bypass this process and conjure the tower directly over caranto (the hard mud, for the ones who didn't click the link), or at least at enough depth that piling isn't necessary (again, see the link, its an interesting read. The wooden piles didn't had to reach the caranto). InTe spells can also be used to probe for an adequate place for construction (where the caranto layer is closer to surface).

Similar steps would (or at least should?) be taken to build in swamps, or on the sea floor: use InTe to make sure there is something roughly solid beneath the top layer, put your tower a few meters below if required.

Bah. Kill-joy. :wink:

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so lungs of the fish...

actually at touch range for a creo ritual don't you only need to be able to touch what you are creating? So the tower you touch can extend down into the ground...

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Words can be difficult ... and gestures may even be hampered. But if you can support the -12 penalty, go for it.

Water would allow gestures- it's not like you are trying to fight, just wave your arms and you can definitely do that underwater. Additionally nothing in lungs of the fish indicates you can't talk underwater with it, though it would likely be an SG call as to whether sound is blocked by the air/water barrier (is that above or below the vocal chords?) or actually carries further in water, or if some other Ars Magica physics prevails- I can tell you from experience that I in fact have spoken underwater before without the use of magic (though only short phrases, but another submerged swimmer was able to understand me)

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I totally agree that you can both speak and wave your hands, but I question if you can keep your voice firm and your gestures bold. Water muffles sound and hampers gestures.

actually if you have ever been scuba diving sound carries farther and clearer in water- it's the air water barrier that muffles things (or more accurately reflects a portion of the sound back away from the boundary) so depending on whether the larnyx is flooded or if the air water barrier is closer to the opening of the mouth or, as I noted above, special ME physics, it could be clearer and louder or muffled, purely a YSMV question (I will not that technically if only the water in the lungs is turned to air then the larnyx is underwater). I do know that sans magic speech accompanied by a certain amount of exhalation tends to be less than perfectly clear but does carry further so...
as for grand gestures, if you have ever seen anyone trying to indicate that their tank is running out of air at 45 feet under water when it is getting close to the time when a 30 foot decompression would be necessary you would know first hand that bold gesture are definitely possible.

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Which were harvested from a sacred forest, imo.