Is it possible to create a manatech device that can be used to power something with magic? I can see how you could maybe have some gizmo you cast a spell on, then the gizmo uses the energy from the effect you've created to power something. Maybe an Ignite Spell powers a boiler? Or a Magic Fingers Spell turns a dynamo? If anyone reads the Whateley Academy stories, it's similar to what Jinn does with the Kitty Compact.

I was also thinking there could be a spell specifically made for this purpose that causes some effect that allows energy to be easily harnessed. Maybe a variant on Physical Barrier that could be used to contain a fusion reaction, either.

Why? I mean, you can have a spirit turn a wheel, etc., sure.

I broke some serious conservation-of-mass/energy laws in SR3 by abusing the spell creation rules in Magic in the Shadows. So creating flame was a physical manipulation, right? And... physical manipulations could be made permanent in the spell design chart. Well, if you make a tiny flame aura spell, or a "heat object" spell, but the heating of that object isn't enough to physically damage it or consume it as fuel... Well, looks like you got the start of a perpetual reactor, huh? Toss a bunch of these in a pit. Run water over it. Steam is generated. Hardness steam. As long as you have water, or some way to harness energy from heat, bam. Free energy.

I suspect this would (on a large scale) start to cause some serious astral warping, though. Which is why the PC only used the tech to make cigarette lighters.

First, you have Charge from War! which charges ANY device, apparently.
Second, yeah, as pointed out up there, just summon a spirit of fire, use its Energy Aura to boil water for a turbine or whatever.

Well, in the case of spirits, there is a definite time limit and investment limit - 1000 nuyen per point of force you want to bind, first off, and it loses 1 service per sunrise/sunset, and you have to have a mage service the engine by re-binding the elemental. That's at least some level of maintenence and interaction required beyond "Cast and go", so it's not so game-breaking.

Long-term binding, obviously.

I was thinking you could sustain or quicken a spell designed for this purpose on some manatech device so it draws energy from ambient mana. Also it probably wouldn't be enough to recharge vehicles or peak discharge batteries, but maybe enough to power satellite uplinks or the like in survival scenarios.

If you sustained or quickened this 'Charge' spell (or a very similar variant), you literally would be drawing energy from ambient mana.

Maybe. I need to get War.

Not for that, anyway. If you think it's a good idea (I don't), just house rule it.

Charge is a P spell, not a S. You can't sustain or quicken it.

Two words - Ally Spirit.

Ally Spirits are expensive, long-term binding may turn out to be more cost-effective.

There's an unclaimed bounty from the Draco Foundation for finding a way to do something like this, which makes me think that things of that nature aren't supposed to be plausible.

But come on. Especially with the Calling rules it's easy to get an Inhabitation spirit bound into whatever device you want and utilize their spirit powers for whatever "MagiTech" you want.

Step 1: Design a gun-ish looking thing.
Step 2: Have a spirit with Elemental Attack (-----) and Exotic Ranged Weapon bound to it with the standing order to throw Element at whatever the barrel is pointed at when the trigger is pulled.
Step 3: Profit!

But the setting/fluff for SR makes me think this stuff is somehow not possible. Hence the massive undertaking I am making to adapt certain rules from SR and D&D into a unique blend of my own set in my own custom cosmology/world/setting.

If you are not breaking the law of conservation of energy by converting mana into an electrical effect, then you are not breaking the law of conservation of energy by converting mana into steam.

What law? This is magic.

Earlier an argument was made regarding conservation of mass/energy. I'm just pointing out that if this law coexists with magic in one kind of energy generating spell, it should do so in another.

So, practically speaking... what law? This is magic.

let's say a spell can create energy out of mana. at some point humanity will have harvested all mana and the manacount goes down. the barrel prices for mana go through the roof and we're back in 2010

Do we have any mana storage devices, then?

-- Short answer: manatech of this sort (mana batteries, fireball rifles) does not exist. There are a few pieces of technology that are specifically designed for mages though.

it's not quite a purpetual energy machine because you'd need to cart in the water.

Psh. Closed loop with condensation.

thermoelectric cell array
alter temperature quickened to raise the temp of one side
alter temperature quickened to lower the temp of the other side

Poof: forever battery

you could make something the size of a hardback book that can supply 100W DC
Or you can make it bigger and have a plane with electric motors that never has to land.

Or, the spell just spits out electricity. I mean, it's magic. Do whatever. Maybe the earth would eventually stop being a ground? I dunno, any problems are for the next generation, just like aorist rods. Er. The previous generation? *shrug*

Sounds like a anchoring effect. And it would at best be a one shot...

Or mana generators. Wind-Solar-Water mana generators.

Or kill people (/provide concerts) to make BC then aspect it for whatever you want. Emoti-Mana!


Or an Inhabitation Fire Spirit that's been Invoked to have all LoS become LoS(A) that's using Elemental Attack, in which case it'd be virtually infinite in shots.

Mana-Storage-Devices are there.
Called Loci.
Scattered all around the World.
About 3 Dozend or so left i think.
About as big as a house too.

Hell, Create Water. You don't even have to worry about the created material being permanent (hell, 5 minutes is all you need: long enough for it to turn to steam and turn the turbine). You just need the creation to be sustained.



That's why you do it at the north pole.
It's a real douche thing to do, but valid (it's even entirely debatable if that's spirit abuse too--after all, the spirit is ok working for 6 calendar months on a summon because That's How Magic Works^TM).

Sure, but the natural processes of evaporation/rain take care of that. Or you could build a closed circuit system with a cistern on one side and evaporation tank on the other. Close enough to be no different, despite friction losses.

there are thousands/millions of ways to create energy. hell, I can just plug my transformer into a quickened Elemental Aura [Electric] spell. Or quicken Animate on a windmill.

what we need to discuss is, if the law of conversation of energy is to be extended to mana and wether we'll ever run out of mana.

5000 years

There are indeed!

They walk about on two legs. Unfortunately most of them tend to object vigorously if you use blood magic to convert their life force to magical power, but you can't have everything.



-k

Psh. Short-sighted fools.

Wait. Are loci devices or locations? I always thought the latter was true.

They are THINGS.
Huge as fuck big tall x-bawks liek chunks or the deepest, darkest, blackest obsidian woven through with veins of orichalcum about as thick as a tigh . .
A locus becomes a location simply because of it being such a huge power site.

What's the size of 'a location' (ignoring the freaking word 'locus')? Seems like anything big enough is a location by necessity, whether it's a device or not.

about as big as a city block i'd guess.

Suppose we summon a dozen Force Shitload spirits and have them move said locus. Just dig a trench around it, and move it some 100 kms.
Would it still work?

yes, the locus itself is the power source.
where they are is the power site.
well, as long as it's been activated.

Are mana lines tied to loci locations? Maybe determined by which loci are activated?
Also, what precisely do loci allow to do (I've read all that talk about the corrupted Atzlan locus, and the metaplanar quests to stop Horrors, but I still crave details)?

They basically raise the mana niveau locally, and if they are all activated and linked together globally i think . .
several of those were used to keep an entire island afloat during Earth Dawn times, if i remember correctly . . .
It would make sense, if the ley lines were tied to their locations, some probably are, but not all, as you don't need a locus for a location/power site.

So, basically, just positive Mana Count? Boring.
And far as I understand, power sites are just the places several mana lines cross, are they not?

Jup, pretty much.

Not so boring when you can see what they can do.
Sure, a rain forest that grows back at speed of light is pretty boring, but imagine the potential, if they can make a forest grow back violently, they could, I don't know, kill every sapient creature for thousandos of miles too.

They still needed a Great Ritual for that.

We could cut it down over and over and over again! Free wood!

Well, that's the economic potential.
I was talking about the magical potential.

Put it in an ork neighborhood and use the offspring produced for blood magic? I like that potential.

put it into a country of your dislike.
tell the rest of the world that they basically own a magical weapon of mass destruction.
hilarity ensues!