Yet another sanctuary idea

Games Discussion Ars Magica
41

I was looking at Boons and Hooks today... Here are some that I think would fit...

Site Boons=
(Major) Natural Fortress, and Healthy Feature (Healthy Sea Breeze)
(Minor) Seclusion, Vast Aura
Site Hooks=
(Minor) Erratically Mobile, and Resident Nuisance (Maybe the Int. Rats from Sub Rosa)

Fortification Boons=
(Major) Magical Fortress
(Minor) Artillery, Edifice's (4 Great Towers- 10 floors max), Vast and Labyrinthine

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

Residents Boons=
(Major) Magical Soldiers (Enchanted Equipment)
(Minor) Veteran Fighters
Residents Hooks=
(Major) Mercer House
(Minor) Guild, Suffrage, Superiors

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

Are any of these un-needed or are there any I may want to look at?
These are not the final list that will b e used.. just some that I'm looking at.

42

charity as a major wealth source?

43

The island most likely will have little if any Aura, since it is being created completely from scratch without a base. While it is possible to improve it through a large variety of means, its initial level will most likely be 0 (or maybe 1).

That is not to say that it will not have some Preternatural Tethers. Any rituals level 50+ for example will give it one. Strongly consider "acquiring" an ancient structure and/or as many magical creatures as possible. You can keep the Vast Aura Boon even with little current aura if you wish any that form to cover the island.

Natural Fortress most likely does not fit the island very well. It covers the area around the Covenant, making it only approachable from a narrow path. While the island might have a wall all the way around it, attackers can most likely approach from any direction. You could make a case for Difficult Access however.

While it might not start with it, the Vivid Environment Boon is one that could be worked towards. Depends on how much effort is put into making the island beautiful.

Famous Resident might be appropriate for the founder who oversaw the design and creation of the island. It gives you something to anchor several of the other Boons and Hooks you are looking at.

While it might sound funny, the Road Hook might be appropriate. If it spends much of its time traveling along important sea routes, then it will perfectly fulfill the requirements.

44

On the other hand a literal floating castle is probably about as naturally defensible as it gets, without flight. In a sense this fortress has not one natural path but 0. an approaching army would have to go through huge difficulties drumming up a navy to carry them to attack.

45

That is where the Difficult Access Boon comes into play. It affects people approaching from all directions, rather than limiting easy approach to one direction the way Natural Fortress does.

46

Silveroak, I don't think I've seen charity as a wealth source so i wanted to try it... If each tribunal supports the Sanctuary with 76.9 pounds of silver a year that would be a legendary wealth source.

47

Troy, when I looked at the spell for creating the Great Tower it creates a level 1 aura with 4 on the island. I thought that could be a good way to explain a vast aura.

Then with an additional expansion or two of each Great Tower that might increase the aura (at least in the towers).

Thanks also for pointing me towards the Difficult Access boon it does work better. (Even if Natural Fortress is a better sounding name for it.)

48

Hermetic Projects doesn't do a very good job of explaining it. All it says is the spell will produce a 1 point Preternatural Tether (since it is a level 50 ritual). While yes this will produce a Magic Aura 1 eventually, it would require a great deal of time and magical activity in the area. The rules for it are in RoP:M, chapter 2.

I am currently working the math on a giant spreadsheet since I am now interested. Since you plan to create 4 towers, I am going to include them and one other ritual of high enough level to max out your Preternatural Tether Strength at 5.

49

Just reread the section of RoP:Magic and the Great Tower spell.

I miss read it before and see that at the end of the first year the areas around the towers (each with 1-2 height extending rituals) will with a little luck have magic auras of 1 (unless there is a botch). I'm going to present the theory that because so much other magic is being used to create and shape the island that that cause's the vast aura.

Or (just as cool for story purposes) the Verditis Archmage/Hermetic Architect could use his skills to expand the aura (don't have Mysteries with me atm, will need to read up on that)

50

It is not a sure thing, since the modifier is capped at +9. You also have no chance of botching that first year, since your Botch Pool starts at 0.

While I am still working on the spreadsheet, I am at year 7 so can tell you what will happen the first year. You have a 0% chance of the "No Effect", a 41% chance of having a "Minor Effect" (none permanent, modifier change result does not matter since modifier is currently capped), 10% chance of "Expand Aura Size", 43.1% chance of "Permanent +1", and 5.9% chance of a double roll.

You end up with a roughly 46.05% for Aura +1 and 1.42% for Aura +2. As long as you conduct magical activity and cast as least one ritual (needing 3+ p of Vis) every year, that ratio will hold true for on average the first 6 years. On average at that point your Aura would be ~3 (2.9328), you would have a 46.86% chance to have gotten at least one size growth, and your chance of botching (which creates a Regio) will be rapidly growing every year. The aura goes up by on average 0.4888 each of those first 6 years.

After the first 6 years your chance of getting an increase begins to rapidly drop. In year 7 it drops over 11%. Eventually the Aura will stabilize at 4, with a small chance per year to grow to 5.

The ritual to expand the aura (from TMRE) is high level and would create a new Tether (which is already capped at 5, I figured something like this in my math above). You would want something like this to cause the aura to spread over as much of the island as possible, rather than being focused just around the middle where the towers are.

The thing you really have to take into account is that all of that magic activity will set off a chain of events which will cause the Botch Pool to grow yearly for the first few decades. So the chance of a botch happening and a Regio forming is fairly high, somewhere in the mid 40s % of happening during the first two decades.

So the thing would be to decide when play begins. If it happens the first year, then there is no aura. If it happens in year 7, then the aura is 3. If it happens in year twenty, then the aura is most likely 4 and there is a fairly high chance of a Regio. If it happens in year one hundred, then the aura is most likely 5 and there is almost assuredly a Regio.

EDIT: I just noticed that you shifted the towers so they are spread out all around the island. Unless you are using enough rituals to get a Preternatural rating of 5 at each, that will greatly slow down the growth of the aura. With only a single at each point, you lose 40% of the chance to increase the aura (it drops into single digit %).

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51

It should be noted that high level rituals can create tethers, they are not guaranteed to do so. Nor are odds given for creating one, just a guideline as to how strong it is recommended to be if it does happen.

52

All true... I missed to modifier cap (reading at work means you sonetimes miss stuff!)

My reading of the ritual is that it will create a teather and level 1 aura...
"Casting this ritual causes a +1preternatual tether,as per Realms of Power: Magic, page 10. If the site has no supernatural aura, this creates a level one magic aura."

53

I did notice you spread them out in my Edit. Spread out and with only a Preternatural Tether of 1, you are looking at only a combined total of just under 25.14% in the first year to get an Aura of 1. Chance drops after the first year unless you keep up the heavy rituals and once it goes to 1 it will not increase again without some serious work or getting more Preternatural Tethers.

However you do have a 0.37632% chance the first year that it will jump to 2. If that happens though you would have to maintain enough activity to avoid making a weakening roll.

Spreading them out the way you have, miles apart (based on the size of the island), will greatly slow down the forming of an aura and the strength of the aura without spending four times as much vis. That also increases the chance of botching one of the castings.

Since you want them spread out, your best bet is to "acquire" some ancient building or monolith which already has a Preternatural Tether/Aura and transplant it to the island. Also you will end up with 4 separate Auras, rather than 1. Even if they but up against each other, they are still separate.

If you want a single Aura, then you can only start with the center tower and do everything you can to cause it to spread over the island. Once your get it far enough to reach the site of the other towers, then you can build them.

54

While looking at "Tranforming Mythic Europe" I reread the ritual Creation of a Forest.

A level 60 CrHe (1 magnitude for controling layout, and 3 for more trees)

This would give a healthy 1,000,000 trees. For a healthy forest 40-60 trees per acre is recommended. If 50 trees are on each of the 31,360 acred of the woods it would need about 1.5 million trees.

That could help the possibility of covering 1/3 of the island.

55

That would also be able to generate a Preternatural Tether of 2, so it might be your best choice for the first of the major spells to create an aura. If you create it first, then install the Aura expanding enchantment on it then you could cover most of the island and have most likely a Preternatural Tethers of 5 before you even get to putting in any of the towers.

So create island, cast the forest creation ritual, prepare the aura expanding enchantments and install them as soon as an aura forms, then begin creating towers as the area they are meant to be falls within the aura. The center and two towers on the corners of the forest would be within range from right when you expand the aura.

Even the only 33.33~ trees per acre is not bad. While it might seem a little thin, all of the trees will be full grown compared to the mixture found in a normal forest. Any open space would allow you to grow groves of different species (using something like a wand of turning seeds to full grown trees) and transplant as many trees of virtue as you can.

EDIT: dc444 caught my math being slightly off and I have corrected it in the below section.

Since you said you didn't have it handy, I dug up TMRE and looked into the enchantment to increase the Aura size. It is a Muto (Creo) Vim Base 5 effect to quadruple. You also need Touch range (1 mag), Boundary target (4 mag), and an always on duration (Sun, 2/day, trigger for 2 mag and +4). So the level so far is 44, but this is only enough for an increase an area from 100 to 200 paces so you need enough levels of Size to cover a quarter of the island's diameter. Size +2 gets us to 37% of the island and Size +3 covers (just about) everything. A couple of growth effects from the Aura Strengthening table would cover the whole island.

So you are looking at a level 59 enchantment to expand the aura of the forest (after it forms) to cover all of the island. It would have a Size of 11 (Boundary 8 +3 size increases), multiplied by earth & wood (x2), requiring 22 spaces in each enchanted item. It would need 11 enchanted items each large enough to hold that enchantment (so at least 22 spaces each).

After creating and placing all of those, now comes the hard part. You would then cast a "Bind the Mystical Structure" ritual of at least level 89 (base level 59 + 5, +2 Mag for increased Target from Group to Boundary, +3 Mag for Size +3). This ritual would have a potential Preternatural Tether rating of 4, so it would max out what you could get from Preternatural Tethers when combined with the forest.

56

is TMR Transforming Mythic Europe or Tales of Mythic Europe?

57

The Mysteries Revised. Normally abbreviated as TMRE.

58

Sorry yes, I meant The Mysteries Revised when I put TMR. I fixed it so anyone reading through later will not run into the same issue.

59

Each Size increase is 10x the area which translates to a diameter a little over 3x as large as the previous step. I have not checked to see if this still requires the +3 to work or if +2 would be acceptable for this particular application. But this is still only doubling up to the maximum boundary size, you would need a higher base (tripling or quadrupling or more) or multiple applications (if that's allowed) to increase the size if the original aura boundary is smaller than 1/2 the diameter of the island.

60

That particular effect works on a linear scale of the diameter, per its description. The original size is 1/3 the island.

ie. A 100 pace circle (standard Boundary) becomes a 200 pace circle (area covered is increased by x4). You need it at 24,640 to cover the island.