Yet another sanctuary idea

Games Discussion Ars Magica
69

LOL... Can't believe it took me this long to come up with a easy (ish) method!!

I must be loosing my touch!! But to tell the truth it has been almost 2 years since my last game group broke up... I've got 2-3 weeks before the new one starts!!

70

Granted it does actually tell you in the section on Auras (sub: Residue of Great Magic), that the rituals to create the wall and fill are not normally powerful enough to generate a Preternatural Tether unless the created island is vast.

However if it is powerful enough, then it is the easiest method since you get that initial Tether with the first spell.

71

OK... Here's the Boons and Hooks that I think make a decent combination...

Site Boons=
(Minor) Difficult Access, Vast Aura
Site Hooks=
(Minor) Erratically Mobile, Road, Resident Nuisance (Maybe the Int. Rats from Sub Rosa), Weak Aura

Fortification Boons=
(Major) Magical Fortress
(Minor) Edifice's (4 Great Towers- 10 floors max)

Resources Boons=
(Minor) Secondary Income (Shipping), Wealth (Charity from the other Tribunals)
Resources Hooks=
(Minor) Vis Salary

Residents Boons=
(Major) Magical Soldiers (Enchanted Equipment)
(Minor) Veteran Fighters, X4 Famous Residents (4 Archmagi)
Residents Hooks=
(Major) Mercer House, Fractured Council
(Minor) Guild, Suffrage, Superiors

External Relations Boons=
(Minor) Ungoverned
External Relations Hooks=
(Major) Hermetic Services, Tribunal Border
(Minor) Itinerants (Sailors)

Surroundings Boons=
(Minor) Minorities

This is 21 pts in both Boons and Hooks.
I got rid of Vast and Labyrinthine because each of the Great Towers is only up to 10 floors.
And downgraded the Wealth Boon. This represents each Tribunal giving 19 pounds a year.

The Covenant of Neo-Atlantis will have been created one year before the start of the game.

72

Looks good overall. The initial Aura after one year will most likely only be a 0 or 1 (which is lower than the 2 from Weak Aura), but that is acceptable considering how rapidly it will increase. What I am trying to say is that since it will strengthen to 3 after six years (five years of play) then to 4 or 5 within twenty years of play taking more levels of Weak Aura feels like scamming Boons. That single level would cover the initial weak/no aura.

I hope you are taking into account that people not affiliated with the Realm of Magic will be hit by Warping points from how in flux the Aura is (many of the effects on the Strengthening Table) and that a Regio has a fairly high chance of forming (mid 40s% in the first twenty years).

73

Thanks everyone with the feed back so far...

Next I'll need to make:
1- list of rituals cast to create the island
2- create the major npc's (Mages and companions)
3- create magic items (calm the sea around the island, weapons & armor, Ect)
4- finish the covenant info

74

A few of the rituals I know you will need. This is going off the basis that you would want to use magic for much of it, to greatly speed up the creation time.

  • Create Floating Island, Cr(Mu)Te level 50: Create a 14 mile diameter island of pumice, with three integrated Sea Gates and more resistant to damage. This can generate a Preternatural Tether 1. (TME, p. 91)

  • Create Back Fill, CrTe level 30: Creates up to 1 billion cubic paces of dirt (you need 477 million), which consist of 33 paces depth of clay with 2 paces depth of top soil. If desired some of the excess can be used to create hills. Clay is just better all around than dirt (water proof, allows easy cisterns). (TME, p 59)

  • Creation of Verdant Grassland, CrHe level 40: This creates 120,000 acres of grass, more enough to cover the island (which is 98,520 acres). It includes +1 magnitude to include a mix rather than being just one type, which would allow you to create individual fields. Of note, wheat and grains are types of grass. Something like grain crops in one sector and grass/grazing land in the rest (this includes grasses common to forest in the forest section). Figuring 30k acres of cropland you would need between 250 and 3,000 peasant families to work this much land depending on the crops raised. This has the potential of some 1,000 pounds of income, before expenses, every year if fully staff (50 knight manors worth). This only uses up a little more than 90% of the land in one sector (30,000 acres). (TME, p 62)

  • Creation of a Forest, CrHe level 60: Creates a forest of 1 million mature trees. It includes +1 magnitude so the exact mix of species can be selected, rather than being just one type. Cast after creating the scrub grasses that will provide the ground cover in the forest. This can generate a Preternatural Tether 2. (TME, p. 62)

--
Rituals for creating the Roads & Towns

  • 4x Creation of the Well-Appointed Town, CrTe level 45: Used to create the towns around each great tower, the spell creates 800 well-appointed cottages (with plumbing for water, sewage, and hypocaustic systems) along with the roads between them (which contain the water, sewage, and hypocaustic pipes). The cottages are not identical, but have a range of layouts which makes the town seem less regimented (along with allowing the ability to make some stores or workshops). For an additional Magnitude you could create up to 8,000 cottages, though I believe that would be far more than you need. (TME, p. 61)

  • A Network Reminiscent of Rome, CrTe level 35: This creates a road network of up to 378 miles total length. The roads are 3 paces wide, crown slightly, and are roughly 0.5 paces thick. It has an added complexity to include pipes for water, sewage, and hypocaustic systems to tie in with the next spell. At this level the spell will give you enough to have a double wide road around the outer circumference of the island, a road on each side of the waterways from the outer towers to the middle tower along with another ~206 miles for branches and bridges. Seems like a lot of excess but it would be quickly used up laying out roads through the farmland and grassland sections, along with adding a few bridges over the waterways (adding bridges does not require another magnitude) (TME, p. 60)

  • Some variation of A System of Narrow Canals or Canals that Accommodate
    Seagoing Vessels, CrTe level 25 or 30: This creates the stone lining for the three waterways and the lake around the center tower. No bottom is needed because of the clay fill. Would suggest adding +1 Complexity to include gates and fresh water pickups (to feed into the water system). Sewage should be dumped into the saltwater outer bays. (TME, p. 61~62)

--
Rituals for creating the four "Great Towers"

  • 4x Conjuring the Great Tower, CrTe level 55: This forms the foundation and first two levels of each of the great towers. This can generate a Preternatural Tether 1 each casting. (HP, p. 39)

  • 8x Heights of the Great Tower, CrTe level 50: Two of these per tower will create floors 3~10. This can generate a Preternatural Tether 1 each casting. (HP, p. 40)

Each of the towers will be 2,000 feet in diameter and 200 feet high after this. Rather than trying to make them any higher than this, I would instead recommend using a modified version of Conjuring the Mystic Tower to create smaller "sub towers" atop them which can be used by individual Magi as their sanctums. You could also install gardens and pools atop the towers.

--

Some additional Ritual Effects to consider

  • A version of Conjuring the Mystic Tower to create utility spaces (with a higher percentage underground) for the areas not near the Great Towers. Can be used for things like winery with wine cellars, slaughter house with larders, magical furnaces, hypocaustic systems, and catacombs. The hypocaustic system would be nice if you were traveling in a colder area.

  • A "tower" emerging from the bottom of the island. This would serve as a keel and could have "air locks" (opens with wards against salt water) allowing easy access under the island. This might prove to be a very useful means of gather Vis, since the island itself will mostly not produce any. (baring YSMV things like transplanting Trees/Plants of Virtue to it).

  • To help the Aura form faster, consider Feeding the Font of the Covenant (or if you want to greatly increase the chance of a Regio than Stratifying the Subtle Realities). (RoP:M, p. 14)

--

Other ideas

  • In one of the tower towns, install a Hermetic Shipyard. This would allow you to build, repair,and maintain ships which could help support the island. Instead of just focusing on enchanting ships, consider creating enchanted items that improve the quality and capability of the actual shipyard. If you want some ideas, I have posted several times extensively on the range of items used in my own game which help with this. Here is one.
2 Likes
75

Add to the list of rituals:

Conjure the Sea Wall CrTe 35

Based on Base of Cr stone (3), range: touch (+1), duration: mom., Target: Ind., Ritual, Size: +7

This creates a wall 3 paces thick, 10 paces tall, and 45 miles long. (It could create a longer wall).

And how did you know I was looking at a hermetic shipyard! I was looking at the northern city. Use ReTe spells to grow trees as needed therefore leaving the forest virgin and keeping the Bjornaer happy.

As for underground storage most of the will be created by the Great Tower rituals.

76

So far adding the rituals up its a total of almost 60 hrs of casting and uses 237 pawns of vis!!

Good thing the founders are 4 archmagi and 8 other highly skilled wizards!

77

While you might want much of your underground storage in the Great Towers, having some spread out in your other areas can be useful for some industries.

Wine cellars for a vineyard. A place for a dairy to produce cheese. Larders for curing/dry aging meat near the farmlands. Granaries near the farmlands (you will need lots for the 30,000 acres of grain).

Also things dealing with a great deal of fire and heat would be safer and better served in their own building, rather than part of one of the great towers. So a furnace or hypocaustic system would be best separate. Being underground would protect the surrounding area if something went really wrong with one of them.

78

Before I start to criticise individual parts of your post I would say, that it is clear that you put in a great deal of work to research and write up such a highly detailed manual for the spells needed to create an island as described in the OP. Good on you for doing so.

Here I would add that ordinary grass, as seen on a field, such as those used for grazing is not a single type of grass but rather a mass of different types of grasses and sedges (most ordinary grass, such as most lawn grasses are sedges). This is even more true for a pre-industrial society where much of the grazing land takes the form of meadows that generally flood every winter and as such have entirely different compositions of species compared with e.g. a fallow field. Thus I think that unless you just want to create a single giant field of wheat (or a mass of wheat fields) then the added magnitude for extra types is all but a requirement. Of course it is equally an option to rule that in mythic europe all "normal" grass is simply a part of the scenery and the diversity found there does not represent a diversity of species but rather a quirk of the aesthetic sensibilities of God or whatever.

Naturally it is pretty YSMV as to whether or not it is even possible to transplant a plant of virtue like this. In particular it raises a lot of questions like "can a plant of virtue grow outside of a magical aura?" and "what kind of care/conditions does it require?". It seems to me that if we look the viresculture ability and the chapter on the garden of Herisson that some form of special care is required to grow magical plants and make the produce vis. On the other hand that chapter also makes it pretty clear that magical plants can in fact be moved.

79

No problems here. I included the +1 magnitude sections with descriptions of possible uses because I expected PendragonTremere to customize them more exactly to his needs.

I also fully agree with your points about different types of grasses for grazing. I spent my youth on two cattle ranches and have horses now. We have different grass fields for time of year, hay production, and for the cattle even had a birthing field which had a lot of clover (good for new moms, to rich for normal).

EDIT: I realized the below was wrong about the total plants produced, since the island is over 98,520 acres. The fill amount is correct however

  • Between the forest and grassland creation rituals there will be plant live over 5/6 of the island. Some 20,213 acres. There is also more than enough dirt in the fill to create whatever landscape is desired (the fill only needs half what it can produce).

The part about transplanting Plants of Virtue is completely YSMV. Many do not do it (or even think about doing it), some groups use the rules from LoH, some groups use their own version. Some members of my group have been doing it since AM 3rd edition and we have our own interpretation for the transplanting. Since it is so saga specific you brought up some good points that would have to be decided on before used in his saga. Plants of Virtue with Magic Might do need to reside in a Magic Aura which is sufficient to avoid them suffering from Acclimation or they will quickly become non-magical.

In my current Saga we have been collecting trees. If they are awakened (fairly common for plants in Magic Auras of sufficient strength), we ask them if they would like to move to our powerful hidden aura and join the "council of trees". We treat it much the same as moving an Animal of Virtue, ie. it is a roleplaying interaction. Granted some magic has to be used to unearth and transplant the tree. This is specific to our Saga and only one of many possible ways.

80

Sorry for the poke. Something was bugging me and I went back through all of my math. Man I must have been having a bad few days since I messed up all over the place.

I screwed up the formula in my Aura Growth spreadsheet slightly, corrected that and the post with numbers from it.

The revised numbers from the Hermetic Architecture discussion were correct, but since they were on a linear scale from the diameter I think that is where I picked up some number which threw me off later (it was stuck in my head and I didn't double check it).

Screwed up my calculation of the total acres of the island. This resulted in several of the spells needing another magnitude. But somehow I got the maximum required back fill number correct. The total needed would be reduced by the curve of the bottom of the island, but no were even close to enough to drop a magnitude.

Since I was already having to fix the Grassland Creation Ritual (I also included the +1 magnitude to have a mixture in the total), I figured I would review the other rituals.

The towns were bumped a magnitude in size, since they were actually closer to villages before. You could consider adding two more casting of it to create separate towns in the middle of the farm and ranch areas focused on those activities.

The road ritual would produce the bare minimum, with just a single one along each waterway taking up over half its capacity. Bumping it a magnitude lets you have a double wide road along the outer wall, a road on each side of the waterways, along with plenty extra for bridges and a grid network in the farm and ranch areas.

The waterway creation ritual is fine. The islands clay fill means you can get away with a mostly open bottom. If you want a stone clad bottom you would have to add another magnitude.

1 Like
81

Here is the first of the enchanted items...

The Storm Oar
A oar made of iron. The oar is opened with 15 pawns of vis and would have the following effects:
-Banish the Storm
( PeAu Base 15, +2 Sight, +2 Sun, +2 group, +3 size, +1 two uses per day) final level of 65 .
Works like "The Cloudless Sky Returned" p128. Only with more range and can effect more powerful weather.
*I feel this isn't quite right. May need to rework.

Other items I'm working on:

-Throne to steer the island
-magical arms and armor
-item to calm the sea around island
-pendant to transform into merperson

Other items needed

82

A couple of feedback:

  • If you want this to be constant, you would need a +3 for environmental trigger, otherwise it will have to be manually triggered twice a day;
  • If you're going for an item that needs to be triggered, I would drop the +2 Sun and optionally add an extra charge or two per day, which would make for a simpler item that costs less vis. This may be beneficial, as you do want rain and clouds from time to time otherwise the island will dry up, overheat, and the nature may burn;
  • I'm not clear on whether +3 size is required due to lack of a description;
  • An oar has a S&M bonus to affect currents, not the weather. Iron does nothing either, and if you're picking that just to ensure you can put more pawns in the item, a simpler effect as above may be a solution. A fan with a bonus to banish weather phenomena might work well instead of an oar;
83

Lol.. Opps...
When i started the item it was going to be to calm the sea around the island...

The size modifier would allow affect an area up to 56 miles. This would allow the item to be in the center tower.

84

Brief information on the 4 archmage's,

  • Ditwin of Bonisagus, From the Rhine Tribunal (I think from Trianoma's lineage)
  • Polina of Tremere, From Transylvanian Tribunal (maybe a necromancer or spirit summoner)
  • Isabella of Guernicus, From the Roman Tribunal (Chief Quaesitor and Terram mage)
  • Boris of Verditius, From the Novgarod Tribunal (Hermetic Shipwright)

There will be a mage from each of the other house's and most of the other tribunals

85

One thought about the income - while you could do Charity (getting lots of Tribunals to send some money as it's a noble cause), you could instead do it as Hermetic Services - "Do you know what will happen to you in the event of a Hermetic disaster? For the low, low price of one Mythic Pound of silver or equivalent goods per year, you can have peace of mind with The Sanctuary, Europe's largest covenant, set on its own floating island. Our gigantic towers have laboratory space for hundreds of magi! So contact our representatives now to find out how you can protect yourself and your sodales!"

Next thing you know, you'll get people whispering this insurance business is all a scam.

1 Like
86

Firstly I love darkwing's sales pitch for the island!

Secondly I'm thinking of either starting the island as its own Tribunal or working it into the storylines I'm already working with. I was already spilting the wizards between the 4 Great Towers so its almost already it's own Tribunal.

I know I'd be skipping alot of development (both character and setting).

87

For a new Tribunal you will need at least 4 covenants in the Tribunal.

Note though that technically a covenant is a certain kind of agreement among multiple magi, not a place or a settlement.

88

I don't think a covenant with several hundred magi getting along is likely. so yes, more than one covenant in the same location splitting the various towers sounds more plausible than a single covenant charter to bind the entire order. It will still dissolve into civil war when the 100 resident magi realize how little vis they have locally, but hey :smiley: