The Outside World

These effects allow the inhabitants of the Great Tower some connection with the outside world, a place that, as the years advance, becomes ever more distant.

Window on the World

Throughout the Great Tower, there are large circular windows framed with a ring of stone. Some are glazed while others are open to the elements.

These windows normally look out over the sky, offering light to the tower but no connection with the world beyond. But the stone ring is enchanted with two key effects. One effect affords a complete view over a distant place, and another displays that view within the ring.

The Arcane Connection used by the first effect is placed in a small recess next to the window. The effect then shows the scene around the target, maintaining it constantly for as long as the Arcane Connection is active.

A third effect allows the device's user to manipulate remote elements revealed to him by the window.

It takes a lot of vis to enchant these devices. The ring is stone (base 4 pawns) and of a large size, for a multiplier of x5 and a total of 20 pawns of vis to prepare for enchantment. Given this investment, a number of effects are included to make these devices more efficient.

The Traveling Laboratory can be used to enchant these windows in situ and this provides +4 to all lab totals.

Summoning the Distant Senses

InIm 54

Pen: +0, Constant Effect

R: Arcane Connection, D: Sun, T: Special This effect uses all senses at Arcane Connection range, whether that connection is to a person or a place. All of these senses are gathered from the target area of approximately the same size as the room in which the device is housed. This is accommodated by the Special target, based on Room +1 magnitude. The effect has no particular point of view or field of vision, and species for all senses are gathered equally.

If the target is mobile, then the effect follows the target and the scope of the collected images change as the target moves.

The information gathered is directly accessible to the device's user, but the additional effect described next ensures that all present in the room can also see the remote images.

(Base 5, +4 Arcane Connection, +2 Sun, +3 Special based on Room + 1 magnitude; +1 for 2/day, +3 triggered at sunrise and sunset)

Required Lab Total: 1 season (108), 2 seasons (81), 3 seasons (72), 4 seasons (68)

Experimenting on this effect could reduce the senses that are collected, could distort the images, or the effect could become tied to a single Arcane Connection, unable to change.

As this effect is enchanted into a ring, the Lab Total has a bonus of +2, and a further +4 if the Traveling Laboratory is used.

Sight of Distant Places

CrIm 44

Pen: +0, Constant Effect R: Touch, D: Sun, T: Room

This effect displays the images gained by the initial Intellego Imaginem effect. The illusion fills the room connected to the window. All of the information gathered by the first effect is reproduced and the user is able to move through the image by walking and turning within the room.

The purpose of this effect is to display the Imaginem information gathered by the first effect. Without this second effect, the images (and sounds, tastes, smells, sensations) are accessible only to the device user, identified as the person who triggered the device by inserting the arcane connection into the receptacle. A variant device could be created that omitted this effect, which would limit the experience to a single user at a time.

(Base 5, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +2 Room, +2 moving and complex images; +1 for 2/ day, +3 triggered at sunrise and sunset)

Required Lab Total: 1 season (88), 2 seasons (66), 3 seasons (59), 4 seasons (55)

As with the first effect, experimentation may result in distorted or deceitful images.

The Lab Total benefits from the +2 ring bonus and +1 for the prior Imaginem effect, and a further +4 if the Traveling Laboratory is used.

The Wizard's Touch

ReTe (AnAqCoIgHe) 55

Pen: +0, Unlimited Use

R: Arcane Connection, D: Concentration, T: Special

Through this effect, the magus may manipulate any chosen item within the room or space to which the device has an active arcane connection. In fact, it is more proper to say that the magus may manipulate the room and its contents, but the illusory view of the place allows the magus a degree of control fine enough to identify and affect individual items.

The prior effects enchanted into this device give him the sensory information he needs to be able to lift, turn, inspect, and move objects of size, up to the standard individual of its type. Typically this effect is activated by the magus physically interacting with the illusion of the objects cast around him in his own room. But there are limits to what the magus can do. As the spell has no Perdo requisite, the magus cannot destroy items (for instance, by crushing the illusions in his hands), but he could lift the item into the air and drop it, or throw it against a wall, perhaps causing it to smash.

The effect design has a base Rego Terram level of 3 to control or move dirt in a very unnatural fashion, which allows for fine manual control by the device's user. It also has two additional magnitudes allowing stone, glass, metal, and gemstones to be affected. The requisites listed are free, and simply allow the device to affect nonliving objects made of materials covered by those requisites.

Note an Arcane Connection range, not Sight, is required in order to allow the user to manipulate these remote objects. As discussed in Magi of Hermes, the species displayed by the device are not sufficient to form a sight-based link between the magus and his target (page 101).

(Base 3, +4 Arcane Connection, +1 Concentration, +3 Special based on Room +1, +2 affect metal and gemstones; +10 Unlimited Use)

Required Lab Total: 1 season (110), 2 seasons (83), 3 seasons (74), 4 seasons (69)

The high level of this device effect may have magi seeking for assistance, preparing to invest more time, experimenting, or reducing the scope of the effect.

Experimentation may introduce a Perdo distortion to the effect such that anything "touched" by the magus is somehow diminished. Or the effect may be limited in what it can pick up, perhaps by form, size, or weight. But given the investment in both time and vis, the risks inherent in experimentation may not be attractive. The most productive option is for the covenant to view this device as an investment and cooperate on the project, producing a Laboratory Text that can be used to create similar devices in the future.

Other than this, the standard +4 rooms bonus is gained if the Traveling Laboratory is used, and a further +1 for any experimentation during the creation of this effect.