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> Creative magic - By the RAW, Let's get creative!
Thorguild
post Mar 5 2013, 08:02 PM
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As a companion to a post about making up non-shadowrunner posts, and as an extension to a post about jobs, I wanted to talk about magic in common use.

What are some creative uses of existing (written up) magic? Could the mage use stuff to make his life easier, or help his community, or make an honest buck?

How about a hermit mage with his cabin in the snowy woods? A brick firebox with a giant slug of iron in it could be heated by a force 1 fire elemental over time, and provide both a stove and a space heater. But why stop there? How about a steam engine powered generator? With a sealed system (shouldn't be hard in 2070) you could just tell your spirit "heat that part up past boiling point, but not hot enough to melt steel". Electricity galore with no unit cost!

Got a creative idea?

Thorguild
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 08:22 PM
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build a wind-farm: sustaining focus for control wether to always have a stiff breeze going on there.

build a hydroelectric power plant somewhere, have control element sustained to make water go in a circle through the turbines

build a boiler and sustain firewall underneath it to create steam with which to power a turbine again.

build a lightning rod, control weather again to constantly have it be struck by lightning to immediately siphon the electricity into batteries . .

Also, solar cells seem to be pretty damn effective in the SR Universe.
So, build a solar array, then use a sustaining focus to create light above it.

basically, you have to let go of stupid ideas like the laws of physics in general and thermodynamics in special.
all magic is creating something from nothing. be it energy, matter or even just, technically, information . .

if you go with BOGOTA!
there is an actual spell to charge batteries.


Now, away from gathering electric energy:
see that ship over there?
Have a strong enough spirit use movement on it to get it over the ocean in record time.

same with aircraft and even spaceships . .
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Lionhearted
post Mar 5 2013, 08:29 PM
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I would say Mana qualifies as Energy.
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 08:30 PM
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can you measure it?
and even if it does, indeed, count as energy, then it's FREE ENERGY.
ready to be siphoned from the warp into usefull stuff. forever. for free.
and at a better than 1:1 conversion rate of energy to matter to boot!

technically, seeing how there is a create food spell (or at least used to be in SR3), there is precedent for adapting that spell to create anything you like.
yes, up to and including anti matter.
And the wealth power is the same.
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Falconer
post Mar 5 2013, 08:33 PM
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Yeah really about the simplest incarnation of any of these perpetual magic machines is the 'Alter temperature' spell.

You simply cast it and quicken it to make a hot sink and the environment as the cold sink. Then put a heat engine like a stirling between it and the environment and collect the energy. You could alternative cast it twice to create a hot and cold sink in the environment for even more power. It requires no spirit, no mental control by the caster... it simply carries on.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there isn't a 'control water' spell. There is a shape water spell... and if sustained without mental control it will keep the water in a shape... such as a sphere with an air bubble in it... but it will not keep currents in motion. That latter effect requires caster's concentration. Replace water with earth and the spells work identically and you'll see what I mean... the caster shapes a trench in the sand... and can hold it's shape... but the sand doesn't stay in motion once it's where it belongs without the caster expending mental effort to keep it in motion. So the net result is those spells don't quicken... but you need a caster or a spirit actively controlling the magic to function.


Stahl:
My only take with the anti-matter is that it would create a very small amount enough to create a indirect combat spell blast effect of appropriate force/damage as it instantly annihilates itself.
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 08:34 PM
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that my friend, depends entirely on how you wish to interpret MAGIC.
it sounds logical, as you say, but it is nowhere written. and you can't apply logic here, for obvious reasons.
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Lionhearted
post Mar 5 2013, 08:38 PM
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If you look at the dead magic zones in Aztlan it's very likely that mana is finite and is either expended to be whisked away to wherever it was hiding in the downtime or behaves like energy and is simply transformed.
No I don't think it's empirically measureable, which is why thaurmaleugical research always struck me as odd, how do you predict and replicate what you can't measure?
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 08:42 PM
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now, bear in mind, the dead zones are an anomaly that has nothing to do with how much mana is there.
else they would (and probably will) simply vanish because the ether all around will simply swallow them.

keep in mind:
Magical Cycles are 3000 to 4000 years long.
The PEAK is in 1500 years, untill then, it's an incline in Magic.
From then on it's a decline in Magic.
Magic has been back for about 50 Years in Shadowrun. 100 TOPS.
So it will only be MORE from here on, not less.

Remember earthdawn?
Their Mastery of Magic/Magitech?
That's where the 6th World is headed again.
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Lionhearted
post Mar 5 2013, 08:55 PM
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Yes but the zones in Aztlan has several times been speculated that they were created by extensive use of blood magic.
It might be that because there is still mana flowing in constantly we don't notice the draining effect except with really powerful spells that completely deplete the ambient mana in an area.
This is pure speculation of course.
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 09:01 PM
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then, if anything, they are somthing like a plug or probably rather a scar that stops the ether from leaking into our world locally.
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Thorguild
post Mar 5 2013, 09:11 PM
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How about things other than energy? What could someone do with existing spells that's not on the power grid?
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 09:13 PM
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all the things i mentioned are perfectly well suited for supplying a small outpost like a hut or something with energy.
else, technically, there is no reason ever to need clean water. conjour up a water spirit and take a bite . . err, sip out of it, presto . .
wealth power is, i think, a once a day power, but i am not sure . . if so, get some food from that if you are in dire need.

spells are pretty limited in their usefullness outside of their niche, aside from getting energy.
spirit powers are much easier to abuse.
get some really seldom critter, cut it apart for telesma . . get a plant spirit, have it use or endow the poor thing with the regeneration ability.
bingo, you can get as much telesma as you want forever!
and as i mentioned, the movement power.
a high enough force spirit will get a super tanker or container ship across the ocean in a day.
and similarly, get something from cape carneval to space in minutes for a fraction of the needed fuel.
and this means you have a higher payload you can carry. which both means space travel should be hellishly cheap compared to today.
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Lionhearted
post Mar 5 2013, 09:14 PM
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That makes some sense, I would personally love to know more about the nature and origin of mana, yes it's an hermetic view... They're the only ones that tries to figure this shit out, the rest of them just have their baubles and mumbo jumbo that doesn't explain anything.
Also Stahl, I thought you were all about the steel and chrome... When did you learn the first thing about magic?
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 09:19 PM
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QUOTE (Lionhearted @ Mar 5 2013, 10:14 PM) *
That makes some sense, I would personally love to know more about the nature and origin of mana, yes it's an hermetic view... They're the only ones that tries to figure this shit out, the rest of them just have their baubles and mumbo jumbo that doesn't explain anything.
Also Stahl, I thought you were all about the steel and chrome... When did you learn the first thing about magic?

remember fallout?
the "living anatomy" perk?
if i know how it works, i can stop it from working better.
for example, take a cyber-zombie-torso as a backpack on a troll and you are suddenly very hard to fuck with in terms of magic.

and making money from it is good too, i just don't like playing with magic in my own characters . .
i have good/horrible ideas about what to do, but i have no idea how to do it usually and it'd pretty much break the game too.
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Falconer
post Mar 5 2013, 09:32 PM
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Actually it is written Stahl... magic is dumb and cannot make any decisions on it's own. It must be wielded by the caster and directed by his mind.

It is part of the big rules of magic bits. Right up there with no teleport and the like.


The closest magic ever comes to making any decisions on it's own is limited target spells.. and those are merely a case of construction. You can cast them on non-limited targets and take the drain but they simply don't work. The magic doesn't choose the target it merely only works as constructed on certain limited targets.

That's where I get that 'shape' spells cannot keep things in motion without their caster 'moving' the materials with his mind. It requires the spell to act with a consciousness it cannot posses by the laws of magic. You can put the water into a shape... and the spell will sustain it in that shape even if it defies gravity and the like within the area of the spell. But you need to exercise mental control to continually alter that shape and keep things in motion.


As for the other... the rules never quite state how the create and alter material spells function. If I turn a 200kg orc to goo... I end up with 200kg of goo which might not be the same original volume as the orc. In the case of the magical hobo gold... some people jump to that the hobo now weighs 20x mroe than he did in life... as opposed to simply 'atom smashing' the mass of the hobo's atoms into gold.


A lot of this reminds me of why Mage was no fun to play with other physics types... as soon as you got control of entropy... you were a god fully capable of producing subtle quantum effects with limited paradox. Then again mage was the only of the whitewolf games I ever found in the least interesting. (the whole fight over the nature of reality bit... go go technocracy!).
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 09:43 PM
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http://what-if.xkcd.com/3/

Quote by Virgil
QUOTE
Well, looking at it, Shape Material can produce an decent amount of power. The amount of material is based on volume which is measured in cubic meters, which is an incredible amount of mass. Presuming you choose a roughly fluidic material, you're moving many tons of the stuff at the low end.

Force 5 Shape (Water), only one net hit, and you've got yourself 523 thousand kilograms moving at .3m/s; which is going to get you roughly 1.7MW of power. A Force 10 version of this spell, still with only one net hit, will get you 41MW. Get some finely ground granite, Shape Stone/Sand, cast it at Force 10, and get 3 net hits; and you've got yourself ~300MW.

and other materials are even better/worse in this . .
molten gold? 17,3g/cm³, probably around 2GIGA WATTS

Quote by another guy from the Den:
QUOTE
The Shape spells simply set a material's velocity and include no language about slowing down when resisted; they are, in other words, prepared to exert exert arbitrarily large forces over a nonzero distance, giving us an arbitrarily large amount of work. Driving a load directly, the only limitation on a power plant would be how much power you can put through the gearbox that connects your giant piston to the generators.


and the most obvious use of the spell CONTROL WEATHER:
see that desert right there?
well, let us just make it rain there, presto, instant farm land world hunger problem solved!



In Effect?
Magic breaks Physics
Physics ALSO break Magic.
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Tymeaus Jalynsfe...
post Mar 5 2013, 10:29 PM
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QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Mar 5 2013, 01:30 PM) *
can you measure it?
and even if it does, indeed, count as energy, then it's FREE ENERGY.
ready to be siphoned from the warp into usefull stuff. forever. for free.
and at a better than 1:1 conversion rate of energy to matter to boot!

technically, seeing how there is a create food spell (or at least used to be in SR3), there is precedent for adapting that spell to create anything you like.
yes, up to and including anti matter.
And the wealth power is the same.


Zero-Point Energy for the Win. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
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Falconer
post Mar 5 2013, 10:51 PM
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Actually there is no control weather spell...

There is a spirit power... and even more to the point...
"The weather must be possible in the environment where cast" and it only simply summons the weather but provides no control of it.

So nothing in it states you 'create' farmland from desert without creating another desert somewhere else.
In fact, the GM is fully within his rights to state... this weather is not possible during this time of year because there is insufficient moisture in the air to precipitate rain. Advocatus diaboli.

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Umidori
post Mar 5 2013, 10:53 PM
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Magical Air-Nuke

1. Stand under the open sky.

2. Cast and sustain the Shape Air spell.

3. Use the Shape Air spell to move all of the air within the radius of the spell's effect (minus an air pocket around yourself) into a central point.

4. Air from beyond the radius of the spell's effect will flow in to fill the vacuum.

5. Repeat steps 3 and 4, continually compressing more and more air into a single point of space.

6. After a couple of days, release all the effects of the spell except for the pocket of air around yourself.

7. Revel in the glory of destruction as the expanding ball of plasma levels everything around you.

~Umi
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Stahlseele
post Mar 5 2013, 11:13 PM
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Umi that's . . that's . . that's absurd . . i love it! o.o

except . . no, wait . . where does the plasma come from?
if you compress air, it liquefies into cold stuff right?
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BishopMcQ
post Mar 6 2013, 12:03 AM
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Stahl--my understanding (and it's a rough one) is that the sudden drop in pressure will cause an equally sudden increase in the velocity of the air particles. The energy will create a huge wind capable of massive damage. The velocity would also cause an increase in temperature and thus lead to the plasma stuff Umi talked about. That part I'm taking on faith and XKCD, but the rest is Bernoulli and Newton.
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Falconer
post Mar 6 2013, 12:04 AM
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No as he compresses it further and further fusion could result.... as he forms a mini-sun. Nitrogen and oxygen still undergo fusion as high enough pressures and temperatures... and as things are compressed they automatically heat up. At another extreme if he can force it into a small enough space a black hole. The problem is that plasma isn't a good explosive... as it expands it cools just as it heated up as it compressed that's why the fusion is kinda a necessity to get more energy into it to get it even hotter than mere compression can provide... :(.


Only the catch is the spell doesn't necessarily bring or shape new air into it. He moves all the air at force m/combat turn into the center by controlling the spell. That doesn't mean the process continues automatically if he merely sustains the spell. Similarly the spell states moves... not necessarily compresses. Not that a mage who just sat there and kept mentally reshaping the compressed ball at the center with new air from the area of effect couldn't do some nasty things with this.

Again just playing advocatus diaboli.


Overpressure bomb like a thermobaric comes to mind at the less extreme ends though. Shape the air into a big ball like this... then move the area of effect as a complex action with the ball in it inside a structure, and let it go. Blow out half the windows and doors as air pressure inside shifts to 10x normal... (as well as maybe a lot of eardrums! and quite probably even structural walls think about it... 9atmospheres of pressure pushing on one side of a wall not designed to contain pressure).


Though this idea is also a nifty one if you think about the 'plasma balls' that they were tossing about in that Sorcerer's Apprentice movie.
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Errant
post Mar 6 2013, 12:19 AM
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QUOTE (Stahlseele @ Mar 6 2013, 08:43 AM) *
see that desert right there?
well, let us just make it rain there, presto, instant farm land world hunger problem solved!

Deserts don't really work that way. The major problem with desertification is that there's nothing to hold the water in place, so it mostly sits on top of the earth and evaporates back up into the air almost immediately. Most of the African and American deserts are actually quite capable of sustaining arable land, but there's no way to keep that moisture in the ground long enough for it to do any good.
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Stahlseele
post Mar 6 2013, 12:21 AM
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ah, i see . .
but the spell would not need to bring in new air.
the surrounding air would do that on it's own.
because the pressure in there is lower
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Bearclaw
post Mar 6 2013, 12:50 AM
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Magic fingers and clairvoyance are a great way to nuke a burrito and get a beer without getting out of the Lay-z-boy.
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