Solving California's Water Problem, one town at a time with magic Options

[RedmondLarry]

My magician has decided that water is valuable in California, and he may have a magical solution worth lots of nuyen.

Starting with Create Food (Target 4, Permanent, +1S drain) as a template, he wants to design the following spell:

Create Water (Target 4, Permanent, +1S base drain)
Area Spell (+1 Drain level)
Extended Area (+1 Drain Level)
Sustained (+1 Drain Target)

All three of these modifiers are available for manipulation spells. The resulting drain code would be +4D. He could easily design the spell at Force 1 in 15 to 30 days, learn it in another day, and bond a force 1 sustaining focus for this spell.

He could presumably visit a town with a dry reservoir, place and activate his spell focus, and create water in an area 60m in radius every Combat Turn until the reservoir is filled. After a few days he turns off the spell lock and moves on. He may take some drain placing the spell lock (resisting 4D), but it'll go away.

Comments?

[Kanada Ten]

Making it sustained would not allow it create more water. Sustaining it would simply keep the water you made until the spell is dropped, at which time the water would disappear. Think about barrier, it does not create an increasingly larger barrier while sustained.

Area and Extended would simply spread the same volume of water over a larger area.

[Playing Games]

Force 4 Great form water elementals can make 32CM of water every combat round.I think there are at least 8,640 rounds a day.So for a days cost of a reasonably skilled hematic you get ~200,000 tons of water.

Let's make that a force 6 elemental. You get more than twice as much.

If CFS had a water problem,and would pay more for water than a shadowrunner makes,there would be little not reason for hematic shadow runners in CFS.

[Kanada Ten]

Every single 32CM of water is a service, IIRC.

Water Elementals last until their services are gone, not sunrise or sunset. Elemental conjuring materials cost 1,000 nuyen per force.

[Frag-o Delux]

I believe Create Water is already a canon spell in Target: Wastelands, the desert section.

[RedmondLarry]

Yes, thanks. Page 119. Same stats as I presented above. Creates approximately 4 liters per success. Do you think an area-affect version would create more? There is no indication that a higher-force spell has any benefit over a Force 1 spell.

[Kanada Ten]

[Moonstone Spider]

People seem to dislike using the Create Food spell as a template. Last time I suggested create ammo and create Orichalcum they got mad.

Then again considering that spells like toxic wave create highly potent toxic chemicals I think just about anything can be created with enough study.

I can't see any reason to give a permanent spell the sustained option. What's the point? It's self-sustaining.

Anyway, what's the California population? If we divide that by 100 we can have a reasonable figure for how many magicians they have, and thus how much water they could make this way.

[Frag-o Delux]

I don't have my book handy, but I thought it said it can creat water for people equal to force. 4 Liters is about what a person needs to drink in a normal climate (not desert and under normal conditions(not exsersising) per day to remain healthy. If I remember correctly force 1 would be enough for the mage to survive on 1 casting.

As for the area effect, I would have to think about that. I can't remember exactly how that spell works canonically. Is it a transformation manipulation? If it is then I could see a chance of it being an area spell. If it is not I just don't see it being one.

EDIT: I too have created a creat"Blank" spell. My GM thought it was a great idea. He tried to take my spell even further then what I wanted ti to do. Basically making super uber. I purposelly made it weak and virtually a mind screw to cast. I figued if I could just cast a spell for what ever I wanted, then why play? I jsut made the spell to help in situations that migh only come up in very rare occasions. It was a roleplaying thing that my character is into finding and developing wierd spells.

[BitBasher]

[Moonstone Spider]

[Herald of Verjig...]

The acid section in MitS states that it evaporates quickly.

Fire, lightning, blast, and light effects are instant, but the secondary effects may last.
Water, acid, smoke, and ice state a specific primary effect that lasts for the rest of the turn.
Metal and sand have neither type of limit.

[L.D]

The spell is a permanent one, which means that after you have sustained it for x number of turns you can drop the spell and the water will still be there.

[simonw2000]

Is the drain code for Create Water the same as for Create Food?

[RedmondLarry]

[Lilt]

[Guest_Crimsondude 2.0_*]

Where exactly are you going to cast this spell in Cali? L.A.? They need it, but the Magic Wars have left the astral just a tad FUBAR. The south bay? It's a toxic hell IIRC. The Mojave? Ditto on need, and they have their own magical problems. The Protectorate? ... The Crescent, where water does exist?

[toturi]

[Crusher Bob]

Cast it on your tanker truck just outside of the toxic area, and have that deliver the water...

[Panzergeist]

Rather than creating water, try condensing it from the air, or filtering it from the sea. Better yet, summon a water elemental and just have it purify water from the ocean and pump it into a tanker truck.

[Crusher Bob]

Just wait until my sustained 'heat rock' based power plant goes on line, free electricity!

[Moonstone Spider]

There's a lot of problems in SR that should have been solved a long time ago with magic. There should be no pollution as long as the purify spell exists, for instance. Quicken "Animate" on a turbine to produce pollution free power, or animate your cars so they run forever without gas. Create all the food you need to feed the hungry (although with the land clean you don't really need to, farming will be functional again). Purify water and alter the weather to fix droughts.

Of course Shadowrun is a Gritty and Dark world where problems are never solved, just made worse. I suspect that's the main reason nobody in the whole Sixth world manages to see such solutions, although I could also see some ways it could be integrated into the metaplot.

[Digital Heroin]

There's not enough mana to sustain enough spells to solve the world's problems, or those of even a single city, let alone California. It's as simple as that.

[BitBasher]

Also long term sustained spells cause mana hazing and pollute astral space.

[Austere Emancipa...]

Getting loads of ideas for my Forgotten Realms port... :vegm: