The Verditius I play in Ferretz' campaign has recently learned the spell Conjuring the Mystic Tower. And will be doing the conjuring this following session me thinks...
Being a greedy little bugger, I will not be sharing my newly made abode with any of the other Magi at our Covenant. All mine! Anyway, i was wondering if I should take the entire thing as a Talisman. Bigger the Better, nay? But there are several questions needing answers first.
Size modifier? The Tower is white marble, which is a Hard Stone with a value of 4 on the Material and Size Table, and it is also quite large: 70650 cubic feet or thereabouts. What sort of Size multiplier sould we be talking about? x6? x7? For a total of 24-28.
Arcane Connection: The whole tower would then function as an Arcane Connection to my Magus. Would this mean that any fool touching the tower would count as touching me? Or could I for instance enchant only the interior?
Why? Would there be any real advantages except for sheer cool factor? (and yes, I think there is cool factor there) Arcane Connection to every bit of the tower could be cool, with repeated castings of Leap of Homecoming
Alternatively taking only the lab area as a talisman. that'd be only around 21195 cubic feet.
Ok, firstly, you are clearly a lunatic of the highest order, sir, I salute you.
I initially thought this sounded daft but then I got thinking about sanctums in the Mage world (a world of darkness product).
A tower that was so closely linked to yourself actually sounds rather nifty.
Size modifier. It should be vast. I'd recommend about size * 9 or * 10. Very hard to enchant normally but easy for a talisman.
CtMT creates a tower out of a whole piece of cloth (or rock more accurately), hence I would say you could ONLY enchant the whole thing. I wouldn't allow enchantment of, say, just your lab. Hence the whole tower would indeed be an arcane connection to you. You may weant to think about putting some effects in your tower to keep people away from it. Illusions, ReMe deterrents, etc.
Why? I think cool wins out here. Also good for putting Rowdy flambeau in their place in a my-talismans-bigger-than-yours kind of way. Aside from that you could make yourself one absolute fortress of a tower. You would have room for well over 350 spell levels in the tower. You could make it comfortable, safe, you could teleport all over it, scry on it at any time from anywhere (burglar downstairs, just scry), it could be a real fortress of solitude/batcave type sanctum, a place where your will reigns supreme.
bah! think bigger!
I'm really impressed with this idea. Let us know how it turns out.
Since you still have to open the enchantment in a single season, it's no easier for a talisman. Also, I'd think *9 or 10 is a bit low... *10 equals about 2 rooms for a complex item setup, so an entire tower? How about *100?
Glad to know that mail-course in Lunacy finally paid off! 8)
OK, size is good... I shall keep this in mind. A 24 I could probably after a while be able to enchant, but NOT anything bigger. But I suddenly half-remembered something form the Mystery Cults book... Something to do with Verditius and using the rules for talismans while makng the item, and the sort of severeing the connection. Anyone remember this bit? (as you might have guessed, I'm not the one with the books in our group )
And when you put it like that... slaps forehead DUH! Maybe a ReCo effect that would hinder people from actually touching the outer walls... or some such. Of course, if those rules I seem to recall from Mystery Cults do, in fact, excist, then the point becomes moot. w00!
I can see it even now. "yes, that's a very nice staff you've got there... buuut, it's a bit ... smallish innit?" snicker I like this plan, I think this plan shall be my new goal thing. I could skip stairs and other silly things. Brilliant!
YES! More big!
I most certainly shall let you know. Seeing as I have time to spare on my hands, I was thinking of setting up a web page thing for my char... (yes, I am one of those) just for all my crazy ideas and stuff... hehe.
Where do you get that number from? Can't seem to have noticed it anywhere. And the size increases in tens. A spell with +2 size affects ten times as much as a spell of +1. So i would think the same thing is logical for items, no?
Also, I though it was so that i could open a talisman a bit at a time, and that the maximum amount of Vim to be used was not dependant on Size and Material but rather the Magii highest Form and Technique. I'm of course referring to AR0205 pg. 98 top of the centre column.
Since an item must be opened for enchantment before you can make it into an talisman, the trick of opening it a bit at a time, only applies to extending it...
Btw - it's important to note that opening an item for enchantment is a lab activity, and that means you need to be in a lab to do it - and so does the item you wish to enchant... And that is a bit tricky when the item is bigger than most labs...
You would really want the Minor Mystery "Elder Runes"
This is easier than "Item Attunement"
This does hinder some of what you do (Raises all the effect levels), but what it does do, is allow you to greatly increase your allowable Vis investment.
Example:
Your MT is say 8.
Philosophy: 5
That means you could easily enchant 40 pawns into it. (I have a Verditius that can do over 70, so 40 is easy enough to do)
Of course the Runes do allow you to double your scores that match..thats really nice.
The tower as you state, sounds like you would have only stone as a building material?
I would construct into it (normally or with magic) more materials. A few well placed materials would give you spell bonuses....(the real benefit of Talismans)
I like your idea of a corpus spell to keep peoples hands off...but you need a REALLY high penetration to really help out...
put a power into the item that allows you to shrink the tower down to a palm sized item..(or maybe a staff)...bring it with you...
That's the rub. I'd stick a crystal ball or some such (perhaps a heroically proportioned bronze statue of the creator?) at an archetectually and dramatically appropriate location within the tower and open the tower as a compound item. This would allow you to enchant the entire tower as your talisman without even bending any of the published rules.
Being the main storyguide in the campaign d31m0z is talking about, I fully allow his unbridled lunacy. Alas, the other Magi of the covenant aren't nearly as megalomanic, so I guess he'll be miles past them in power soon enough.
Anyway, I still don't get the thing with Talismans. You have to open them up in one season right, or open them up as a compound item in several seasons. Then, when the item is assembled, you can attune it as a Talisman? Right? Have I finally figured it out?
A character has to open the item for enchantment just like any other item. Only after the item is opened can you make it a characrater's talisman.
Compound items need to be opened in a single season.
Talismans can be "opened further"
Talismans are fiddly, you've got to hit the rule book and re-read the invested device and talisman section carefully otherwise you'll surely have some ideas about talismans that don't match the ones that are lurking around in the minds of the people who did re-read the section carefully and that can lead to problems in play.
But can I make a staff with a gem on the top, and only enchent the gem? Would that then get the bonuses for being a staff? And could I open the staff for enchantment later, making it, in effect, two magic items?
This thread has an argument about the talisman rules full of quotes and examples. Also, at the end of the thread David pops in to say which position was the intent of the rules.
Actually I rather enjoy this idea. Hear me out since were in the land of the absurd. Most large structures are built by building a series of scaffolds and structural supports. These items allow brick, mortor, whatever to elevated to wherever and allow the structure to be built.
Build a scaffold/structural frame AROUND the place where the tower will be. This structure, on the OUTSIDE of the tower, will be the magi's LAB. Wet? Occasionally? Drafty? Certainly? Privacy? None at all.
However consider that this lab need only be temporary. Certainly there'll be 'some' penalities to the lab as it's entirely in exposed to the environment. However once the tower is enchanted, tear it down and build a proper lab inside your talisman.
That should probably contribute to the lab's Warping score. And conversely, lab accidents may have further unforeseen consequences. I could easily see the tower collapse into a sealed regio.
I would think the progression would go: 1) Conjure tower, 2) Instill lab in tower, 3) Enchant tower from within lab. In my saga there wouldn't be a problem doing it like that.
Of course, in my saga we had a clause added into the charter that any new buildings or stuctures built or conjured on the grounds had to have council approval. We foresaw the day coming when it would occur to the Creo mage, "I could make myself a tower" which might then draw undue attention for the locals.
(Although a really cool effect would be a MuMe effect at the new Verditious "Spectacle" range causing everyone who looked at it to think it had always been there.)
This is a nice amendment. While no one in my campaign has tried something of this magnitude, years ago our resident Bonisagus created a Creo Terram spell that basically creates a large stone 'igloo'. The motive was he was tired of sleeping in tents while on adventures. He didn't see why his accomodations on the road should be any worse than his accomodations at home.
Later, when creating his 'Staff of Power', he enchanted this effect into the item so he could build 'huts' for himself and his 'staff' while on adventures. The landscape was littered with stone huts where ever this mage went.
The amendment you proposed would have helped clean up our covenant.
OK, wrapping up what points I have managed to gleam from this little brainstorm:
1 - The Spell creates a volume of 70.000 cubic feet. And if a "small room" aproximately [12 x 12 x 8] 1.152 cubic feet, and has a Size value of x5, we can then say that the Tower would have a Size of x7 (Size multiplies by ten for every increment according to the Targets and Sizes table on pg. 113 of the AG0205).
2 - The Material of the Tower could be either Soft Stone (a value of x3) or Hard Stone (x4). But seeing as I want it to be white marble (it looks nice, okay?) that would certainly be Hard Stone. The Size and Material value would then be [4 x 7] 28 (alternatively [3 x 7] 21)
3 - This would require a Magic Theory score of 14 (alternatively 12) unless there are some additional rules in the Mystery Cults book that I have missed. It seemd to me that Urien indicated something of the sort. Clarification would be good.
4 - IF the Tower then became enchanted, it could then be instilled with an amount of vis equal to my highest Form and Technique.
5 - the question of wether the Tower needs be in a lab to be enchanted or if the lab can be in the Tower is not enirely without merit, but if one can enchant a large ship, then one should be able to enchant a Tower in like manner. The question can probably be discussed ad nauseum, but I cannay find the attraction.
Some questions pop up:
1 - What, if any, would the Shape and Material bonuses be for a marble Tower?
2 - Would living in ones own Talisman incease Warping? Other residents?
3 - Could, as Urien suggests, other Materials and possibly even Shapes be used to give the Tower other bonuses? Say doorframes lined with Lead or Iron for Warding?
Well, my Herbam mage was created with the idea that he'd eventually be able to conjure a house when he went traveling, and another character was inspired in part by the mystic tower thing.
Sadly, my house has gotten more and more complex, and requires increasingly higher levels to produce. (Although thanks to Covenants I can now set up a portable laboratory with it... the real challenge is the movable larder.)
To get more specific, yeah my brother who played this Bonisagus had spell levels to 'waste' so his huts, which were all the same were complex elaborately detailed constructs.
Because he wanted to make the spell strickly creo terram, everything in the 'hut' was made of stone. But he had a fireplace stocked with coal and brass shovel and brush to tend the fire. The windows were stained glass, there was a dinner table, made of stone and prepared with silver ware and plates. When the spell was cast, everything was considered one item. So the silverware had to be broken off the table, like it had a tab. There was seat for every original magus and the at the front door a mosaic displaying the founding of our covenant.
Here's the best part. He botched the spell while experimenting, so this entire structure, elaborate in it's beauty, was covered in dead insects, moths, flies, maggots ect. Long story why, but he had to build ANOTHER spell to clean his portable mansion everytime he build one. It was always a source of laughs as a garbage bad full of dead insects were pushed out the front door of every hut he built.
I love this stuff. I had a player that, in one lean year, decided to make a ritual to conjure food for the winter. He completely forgot about his Blatant Sigil flaw which caused maggots and the like to cover anything he casts a spell on. So, he basically wasted the season and the vis after the first casting. Normally I'd point things like this out before they happen, but I was sort of feeling like, "If you can't pay atention to your own flaws..."
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