I can understand being grouchy when most of the responses have been relatively derogatory to the idea of there being an answer. It's less "I don't know", & more "why do you want to know, you shouldn't want to know."
Personally, I have considered the idea, but I only just discovered ArM maybe a month ago at most. From what I can tell from the tribunal books, they don't really detail specific Vis sources, let alone guidelines for how common they are. One should be able to make very rough estimations from the available information. All of the maps I've seen include canonical magic sites and covenants, each of which would have one or more vis sources. If you can get any kind of estimation on numbers for that, the maps would give you a rough idea of the area, and from there you can make a super rough estimate of Vis Source Density.
I don't know, because I haven't gotten around to researching, but the process would be reminiscent of the Drake Equation...
D[sub]v[/sub] = A[sub]m[/sub]/(n[sub]c[/sub]+n[sub]m[/sub]+r[sub]i[/sub]*(n[sub]c[/sub]+n[sub]m[/sub]))D[sub]v[/sub] = Average number of vis sources per square mile
A[sub]m[/sub] = area of map information is derived, in square miles
n[sub]c[/sub] = number of vis sources in a typical covenant
n[sub]m[/sub] = number of vis sources found in or near a magical site
r[sub]i[/sub] = ratio of vis sources that are independent from known sites and unclaimed by any covenant
I've thought about the overall flow of vis through the world, vis-lush and vis-poor areas, and so on in a qualitative sort of way, but quantifying it would require some samples of hard or at least firm numbers, which current line policy is against.
My basic hypothesis is that vis is an omnipresent fluid that condenses and manifests more locally in some areas than others, and in various deposits as raw vis, some deposits more stable than other deposits. The larger fluid dynamic and ecosystemic issues are very disputable.
I've recently thought that there's probably a fair amount of cycling of fluid vis similar to the water cycle or wind flow. If this is true, the amount available to magi at hand is probably quite a low percentage. This is for the best, I would think, as vis appears to be literally vital to worldwide existence.
There may be phase-shifting from Form to Form - proving that would be a major breakthrough! Harnessing it would be shattering!
More to your question and being very narrow: Yes, and vis is quantified by magi in pawns. How many pawns per [area] is (frustratingly to me and others in my troupe)* vague and player dependent.
*a player in my troupe specifically passed on the Personal Vis Source virtue because it's a percentage dependent on an undefined variable
Well look, Jonathan if someone says this question has no value or is meaningless on a forum where open discussion is encouraged I could be quite offended. Fortunately I wasn't. In the same way that I could be offended by you making reference to an earlier forum discussion. But I'm not. I forgive you Jonathan. I was just pointing out the incongruity of making a value judgment where I hadn't disclosed if there was in fact something of value behind the question. Its usually a bit presumptuous to do that which might have been the problem in the other thread. Maybe people on this board are a bit more inclined to jump before they think through all the issues.
I only came here genuinely interested in hearing whether the subject of vis distribution had ever been given a bit more thought than simply "this tribunal is rich" or "this one is poor". Obviously the question was too challenging, the connecting concepts so abstruse and the temperaments charged by the controversy to the extent that further discussion is pointless. Lets all move on and talk about more interesting stuff. I am not going to post on this thread anymore and nor should anyone else!
So people can't state their opinions? And while you say you weren't offended, your tone was rather confrontational when he simply stated his opinion. There are a lot of people with strong opinions around here. I'm one of them.
Be offended all you like, I can't control what you do.
Well, your presumption and arrogance is quite clear, but I don't need your forgiveness.
As I said, your original question was ill-formed. When I first read it I had no idea what you were asking about. You said something about magic type, not the other three, that suggesting you meant aligned with the magic realm, and not the other realms. Type is vague, do you mean form, technique or do you mean realm? It helps to be specific with questions. I forgive you.
If I notice a pattern of behavior, I'm not afraid to speak my mind. You're very quick to defend yourself, and very quick to attack others that have a contrary opinion. I know that mathematically two times does not a pattern make, but I'm not applying rigorous methods.
Now, you're getting to a better question. I think how much vis there is per square mile isn't a meaningful question to ask. How much vis is available in a tribunal, now that's an interesting question. To me. This is my opinion.
No, the question was poorly worded, at best, or started from a premise that no one else here is coming from.
I think durenmar.de took a stab at Vis economy once before. I don't feel like unpacking the zip file on Project Redcap to look, though. But that article, wherever it was from, focused more on conversion between different forms and techniques for trading purposes, and not a true economic system that can be placed into a game setting and used.
Having a robust idea of how House Mercere and the Redcaps handle the vis, some idea of how much vis they are actually sitting on, etc. Those are some interesting questions that rarely get touched upon and would make an excellent topic for a Subrosa article, at least.
Sorry virgileso & TimOB, when I posted I didn't realise you guys had posted a response. I'm glad that one of you noticed the negativity too as I thought I might have been delusional or overly sensitive. I found both your responses interesting and worthwhile.
So? It's not like this forum doesn't have a plurality of substantial and detailed threads concerning the number and quality of summae and tractatus. It's a perfectly justified curiosity in that context.
Another resource to consider is the Normandy Tribunal book, as that region is specifically known for being vis poor in relation to the Hermetic population. Page 66 refers to a marsh (80 square miles or less) and five different minor sources within. From that, we can infer that 2 to 4 pawns per year is minor for a source. The magi population of Normandy is approximately 60-80, and that since each covenant claims every vis source within a 40 mile radius, they likely have their locations picked for the highest density; which means that 75-100 thousand square miles would cover the majority of vis production in the Tribunal. This implies whatever production we can infer from the Tourney's tropaea prizes represent at most half of Normandy's production capacity (I suspect closer to a fourth).
From what I can gather, likely about half of the Tourney's 200 pawn prize pool is in vis sources (they don't tell us). I don't know if a tropaea prize is measured in total vis production between each Tourney, or its yearly production rate, because that will dramatically change the calculation.
Books are a lot more integral to advancement than Vis is. Vis is currency for the most part. It does other things, too but the main thing it lets you buy power through devices you make or books you acquire. You can use it to boost spells, sure, but it doesn't happen often, in my experience. You can advance with Vis but it is more efficient to convert that Vis into a book and then use the book, in most cases.
I didn't say that the information was useless, just that in my opinion (and therefore in my saga) the information is literally meaningless; Vis sources exist in such quantities that counting them would be pointless.
I was answering your question: I have considered the potential Vis Source density, and it's so high as to be irrelevant, because only a teensy tiny portion of it will ever be harvested. Most Vis will go uncollected and dissipate, or never even be condensed.
Note that many canonical vis sources support this; the first breeze of winter may be Vis; but how many first breezes go uncollected? Some vis sources specify a rite required to collect it... what about all the other rites that could collect vis elsewhere that no-one knows about?
The only limit on how much Vis can be harvested is how skilled the harvesters are, and how hard they work.
I can get that you don't place a high priority in answering the question of vis density, even empathize. What I don't get is the need to go out of your way to tell us that you aren't interested in the answer and why you aren't. That is the opposite of constructive. With the option to just not say anything, you are in fact sending the message you want to actively discourage debate about this. I am new, and don't want to throw out too much negativity, but that is a kind of behavior that I must formally disapprove of.
In which case, can we change the question from Potential Vis Source Density to Effective/Functional Vis Source Density? It's established that territories can be rich or poor in vis sources, the why is an academic non-sequitor to the question at hand.
Bringing up the idea that vis sources form in clusters is a valid concern. You could say that while Ruritania has an average of 1 vis source per 20 square miles, much of the territory is without vis except when it crops up in a 50 square mile area where there are two dozen. Or that Freedonia produces an average of 1 pawn per 60 square miles, but only because it has a single vis source that produces 90 pawns/year.
Are you addressing this to kingreaper or me, or both?
I didn't say I wasn't interested in an answer. An answer doesn't help me with any particular problem, though, and I've wracked my brain trying to come up with one problem that could be solved by answering the question. I haven't discouraged debate, in fact, I suggested a source that might have some more relevant information, Project Redcap's archive of durenmar.de and the article.
Going back to the premise that vis is currency, first and foremost, I don't know of any reason to quantify how much currency exists within any campaign. It's been a long time since I've done anything other than Ars, and as a GM in those other games, I generally set how much currency the PCs have. In Ars, it's much more collaborative as to how much currency (Vis) is available. So, from a narrative perspective having a currency model isn't all that useful. As an academic exercise sure, but while I'm not all that interested in it, I did provide some pointers for that.
Once again virgil, I have to thank you for adding some useful comments. I am a bit more of an opportunistic poster so cannot comment too much on the local culture though in some of the threads I have participated in there seems a lack of logical focus. At times OP seem genuinely offended by the direction you might take in a thread. When challenged, there is the usual shift in position that accompanies logical and detailed factual rebuttal. I am not sure why that occurs but I think some posters are either a bit too personally invested or genuinely inept at following logical norms in communication. Maybe there is a bit of a tendency to build up stat counts by OP with the unfortunate result that some may appear authoritative but in fact all they have to show is 10000 posts of shite. Don't be too discouraged and stick with it otherwise there would be no useful info on this thread.
We can try and come up with an answer to that. But we'd need to know which Vis sources we're counting and which ones we aren't.
Obviously you're not looking to count Vis sources that could exist but no-one knows about and there's no logical way to deduce the existence of.
Does a Vis source that would require an ease factor 30 Magic Lore check to work out get counted? If not, at what difficulty of harvesting do they become functionally relevant?
Do Vis sources that are already claimed by non-magi count? Does it matter whether they're claimed by a hedge witch or a pagan god?
Do Vis sources that require seasonal work count? (i.e. Imaginem Vis collected from beautiful tapestries woven in a specific way in a specific place) Does it matter whether the seasonal work is being performed for the purpose of making Vis or not?
If a Vis source requires sacrifices is it counted? Is one human life for 10 pawns a sufficiently good rate to count as a functional Vis source?
If multiple Vis sources are simultaneously, briefly, available (such as the first spring breeze in a dozen different locations) do we count them all (despite the fact one mage can't harvest them all)?
My 10,000+ posts of shite are because of playing in PbP games, first and foremost.
I've asked several questions that have never been answered by the Original Poster (OP, I'm not sure what your use of OP connotes, Lord_Shag). I asked why, and I got a why not. I said I don't see the problem it's trying to solve. I know rdg20 said it could be an academic exercise, and that's fine, too. But it was you, Lord_Shag, on two occasions that attempted to shutdown this thread, in a most condescending manner, I might add. The first nugget follows.
Err, what? No, I think about how much vis is in a saga and the Order all the time for my games. The amount of vis is a function of vis density, no?
The second nugget is this one
So, you propose that the project is too challenging for us. My issue is less with the topic than your tone. Kingreaper stated his opinion that vis density is meaningless, and then he presented his rationale behind it. I was interested in trying to answer the question and asked two questions to help understand the context of the question, or if there was a better question. The only response I received from you, Lord_Shag, was a Why not? Well, why not is certainly a valid question for a 5 year old, but in a public forum and by a person who is apparently following logical norms in communication, it's not a very valid question. It doesn't help me to understand what it is you want.
I then made a subsequent post calling you out for you saying that Kingreaper had read your mind and you thanked him for the effort. In no way did he even suggest that you should find it meaningless. He said it was meaningless to him. How does that make it meaningless to you? And if it doesn't, how then does he read your mind? No, sir, your statement was facetious at best, provocative at worst, I called you out for it. And subsequently to calling you out, I also posted some relevant secondary information that I knew about. I know vis economy has also been a topic on the forum before, and had I been at a computer rather than my phone (which explains a lot of my typos), I would have searched them out and posted some links.
The radius is limited to how far an individual can travel from the council meeting site, unaided by magic and back again between sunrise and sunset. It's probably closer to 20 miles, certainly isn't 40 miles. So the area a covenant can claim all vis sources as seisin is about 1,256 square miles. If there are 20 (I think there are fewer, even allowing for PC made covenants) covenants in Normandy, that's more like 25,000 square miles.
But using the prize pool from the Normandy Tournament is a flawed exercise, as it suffers the exact same problem as building a covenant from build points. Picking vis stocks over sources is a superior method to enriching oneself.
That's probably fair (half the pawns representing vis sources) as The Lion and the Lily makes it explicit that the primary purpose of the Tourney is to distribute Tropae. So that means that there about 100 pawns of vis that are not seisin. Most of these sources should be, based on canon, in the area that would be the Lotharingian Tribunal, outside of any covenant's radius to claim.
That same insert that says it assumes 200 pawns worth of prizes, and that the number should be adjusted if your version of Normandy is poor or rich. It's suggested that items are available, but they are fantastically expensive in this framework as an item that is borrowed for a few years. I love the concept of the Tourney, but it needs a bit of polishing to play out.
So even if we develop a model of vis density for the Order, we still need a method to scale it for vis poor and vis rich sagas.
It is what fits in the story. If you want a vis poor saga then the density is low. A vis rich saga then it is high. Any calculation is meaningless beyond your own saga.
We follow typical scenarios with the numbers we are given. Covenants obviously aren't running around with limitless Vis, and it's entirely reasonable to presume they are putting in reasonable effort to harvest what is available. I've seen no indications that were a fistful of Theban magi were to move to the central Normandy Tribunal, the covenant they stayed at would turn into a fountain of wealth, so we can't inherently presume it to simply be a matter of skill. Since all of your questions are highly unknown and Saga-specific variables, splitting hairs isn't helpful in this situation; it is just as accurate to group all of that into one variable, Unclaimed Vis Sources.
I was using the 12 hour marathon world record as a guideline (86mi for women), which is something I recalled off the top of my head. And my range was including the 15 to 20 covenant with an average of 4 magi each (forget which page in the book). It would be more accurate to instead pull potential numbers for an athletic companion, but that was going to require more calculations than I had time for at the time.
As is any calculation for the number of magi that have been members of the Order, or the number of quality summae that survived the Schism War, or the number of magi with Art scores of 40+, or whatever other statistics that have been calculated here. I can see value in my saga knowing what Typical is, and the discussion will show me the consequences of tweaking any particular dial. If you don't want that much detail and are satisfied with just declaring "vis poor/rich," that is fine, at which point I'm curious as to why one would discourage such speculation. If you instead want to look at vis consumption and reverse engineer production capacity, that is also fine and would be informative.
Jonathan if you would like me to return to the thread and discuss the original topic rather than simply taking the piss, I will. I will hold out the hand of reconciliation (but not forgiveness - sorry, my sincere apologies for that, it caused offence) in the spirit of true brotherly love.