That does not satisfy boundary. There must be physical boundary markers such as a fence, edge of a forest, rivers, shore of a lake, standing stones, etc.
There is grey area when one considers where an un-walled town changes from town to not-town. I would say that the trail that the magi walk exists in such a grey area. That is, it's within the degree of flexibility that ErikT mentioned. After all, Boundary "cannot be used to simply affect a really big area", which I take to mean that you can't just walk any arbitrary path or just throw a hoop over some grass. There must be a covenant for the magi to walk around, and Boundary already places a limit on how far the magi may stray from the outermost covenant building, no matter how far they want to move their property markers.
In any case, It's still not a problem if one interprets T:Boundary to define the shape and extent of what is protected at the time of casting, and therefore what is protected for the duration of the spell. I see nothing in the description that contradicts that interpretation.
Which, unless it is a well-marked trail, is a bit at odds with the (current RAW) definition of T:Boundary which says "The spell affects everything within a well-defined natural or man-made boundary."
So you need to have something which one can point to and say "That is the boundary"
A marked trail does work. Just walking around the area without following an existing trail is not enough.
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Why? The trail needs just to be recognizable at casting time.
Yes, this is also my understanding - and so far the Aegis is type 1. As long as the Aegis cannot be moved with a sofar unidentified "Thing", it works well. Once you wish to move it, you wish to define that "Thing" moving with the Aegis precisely. The boundary thus gets another, second purpose - or we get another type of Target.
That is not quite what I am saying, since that would mean that if you added another building in the middle of the covenant it would not be protected by the Aegis since it wasn't there when the Aegis was cast.
But if you just look at the area/volume protected by the Aegis rather than the specifics of what is in there then yeah, I suppose it would be implied by what I said.
What I am proposing is: For T:Boundary spells, the boundary can be moved if and only if that which it bounds moves with it.
I am thinking this should prevent your 'Aegis of assault' while allowing having an Aegis on a ship.
I went looking through my books - Favonius, the ship-based covenant of The Sundered Eagle, does not mention anything about whether it has an aegis or not.
Hermetic Projects - nothing in the Hermetic Shipyard section about putting Aegis on a boat. The Intangible Assassin section mentions a lot about Aegis and relation to wizard's war, and the spell Guttering of the home-fires (to suppress the Aegis) does not automatically need to be a ritual.
Does anyone have a copy of Legends of Hermes they could check to see if the flying castle mentions anything?
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The "thing" is everything within the boundary at time of casting. I.e. the covenant and surrounding property as defined by its property markers, the town inside these walls, the field inside those fences, this small island, etc.
So if you land your assault ship with an Aegis and a hole in the middle around a wizard's tower, that wizard's tower can well end up in your Aegis and we are here again, so your Aegis can turn into a fully fledged Aegis of assault?
I really don't see a problem with that. There's a lot more involved here than just creating some hoops that people can carry with them to have portable Aegides, and it's the kind of thing that would get a whole covenant marched very quickly.
Write out a definition of T: Boundary which does this precisely - and still keeps the "thing" moveable!
So I'm probably in the minority opinion, but i think that neither boundaries nor circle spells should be movable, and that to move the circle/boundary ends the spell.
I realise this makes the mobile covenant much more of a problem.
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Thant's an unnecessary exercise in futility. After all, the "thing" can be "that ship". Ships, after all, have a very clear boundary.
That depends on precise definition. If a ship with a hole can have an Aegis incorporating another tower, then a flying castle with a big outer keep can also incorporate another covenant. And just how heavy need the wall of the outer keep to be? Just like a fence?
Getting a covenant marched is always an argument when looking up such exploits - but its just a cop out.
I wouldn't have a problem with that ruling. I just think the mobile Aegis is less of a problem than it's made out to be.
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Which currently does not appear in the definition of T: Boundary (ArM5 p.113). You have to put it in there: your interpretation alone does not reach the readers.
If players want to go to all that trouble - let them. They could just as easily rip up a mountain and fling it at the wizard's tower smashing it to pieces which most definitely is possible within the rules.
I would just remind any players looking to do that kind of thing that if they can do it, then so can their enemies - and with that in mind, do they really want to use such tactics?
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I think the easiest way to deal with all of these issues is to say that a boundary must remain fixed relative to a surface which is at least twice the diameter of the boundary. The if you set up your covenant on a floating island it can move with the island but cannot reach the edges of the island, similarly with a castle in a cloud. if you want an aegis in a ship it will have to be a freaking huge ship (and the whole ship could be otherwise enchanted) but you won't be able to simply land the ship in another aegis to take it out, because the other aegis will keep your flying ship away before it reaches that point.
So cop out again!
The real problem with the Aegis of assault is, that it can be landed on an adventure site, there protect the magi (and grogs with tokens) from about any supernatural attacks, plus weaken the site's defenses and inhabitants there against the attacks of the magi.
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What's the problem with that? If they managed to pull off such a decades-long, vis-devouring project, it was with the Storyguide's full knowledge and cooperation. The troupe apparently finds that kind of thing fun, so let them do it. If the rules don't allow it, they'll just house rule things so it can happen. If the Storyguide really doesn't want them to make such a thing, he or she has plenty of perfectly valid tools to slow down and/or scupper the whole project.
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