Food For Thought

jdackow

jdackow

Adept
I have not hear may other in the dreaming lately and wanted to spark some conversation. I know I have been busy with other matter but a sharp mind in crafted by uses and exercise just like a swordsman practices with a blade. To this end I pose the following question for thought and debate.

Topic: Would it be possible with the Bond Shard Ritual to craft a music box the plays wind instruments with out a bard present.

~Aramis Seablade
 
Aramis,

I'm not a great formalist and I have read the scroll only once in my life, but I will have to say no to your question. I know that you may trap an air elemental with the ritual to create a light the would illuminate a tavern or a dark path. But because the elementals that are bound are non-sentient and incapable of understanding or following any command or being communicated with in any way, I don't feel this is possible.

Hope this answers your question,

Squire Siril of Wayside
 
Aramis,

I have cast a few Bound Shard rituals in recent years, and while I know there is more you can do with an elemental from the Plane of Lightning and Air than simply create light (for which I would suggest an Illumination ritual anyway), I would tend to agree with Foss. However, if you have a Bound Shard scroll and you are indeed a ship's captain like I have heard through the Mists you are, I have a few intriguing possibilities for such a scroll that could be very beneficial for your ship. Feel free to contact me if ever you would like to discuss ritual applications, or we could just discuss it here for others to have input if you wish.

It's been a while since I have made it out to Wayside - and perhaps I should endeavor to come visit again sometime - but I am still always keen to discuss Celestial ritual theory, especially if the topic is non-master Constructs, my specialty.

May the Light guide you, the Shadow guard your path, your Words have Power, and your Memories be Knowledge,
~ Gandian Ravenscroft
Magus of Tempered Rage
 
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The boys are correct, at least as far as it goes with an extremely rudimentary system, where you just have an Air elemental in a box with a flute. But if you're willing to give the problem a little more thought, it should be apparent that with a little ingenuity it's possible to create a system using three or more Bound Shards to produce the desired effect.

Of course, the reason a single flute wouldn't work is because the shard can only produce a wind flowing along a fixed cycle, as the Squire noted, and could produce only one note. However, if you instead used a set of flutes, each corresponding to a different note in your tune, you could set them on a rotating drum which can be moved by a Stone Shard, with the Air Shard in a stationary inside the box, and an Order Shard to keep the drum rotating at a constant interval, the device would produce a tune as the flutes move past the Air Shard.

Obviously, this way would create a music box that can play only one song unless you rearrange the flutes manually. If you want it to be generalizable, you could create a separate unit that reads music by having a second rotating drum where you attach a strip of paper with marks corresponding to the desired notes (for instance, the horizontal position indicates the note and the width indicates the length of the note). Then, with a paired light/order set of Shards, the information could be read by that device and sent to the first, with a temporo-couple linking them to keep all seven elementals working in tandem.

See? Simple. But that's just the first thing that comes to mind, of course.

Clara Clawsome, Solar of the Aether
Solars' Guild of Wayside
 
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(Obviously, in the second scenario the flutes could be arranged as a linear array instead of rotating, and the Stone Shard would raise them to meet the Air Shard positioned above the array with the wind current flowing perpendicularly to the array.)

Clara Clawsome, Solar of the Aether
Solars' Guild of Wayside
 
[The echoes of this dreaming vanish into the Dreamscape]
 
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Solar Clawsome,

I'm intrigued by your suggestions of the Stone Shard being used for movement, be it in rotation in your first example or upward in your second. In my eyes, Stone Shards are best utilized for their sturdiness or weight, with both of these traits not catering particularly well to making pieces of the flute mechanism move. That is, unless the Stone Shard was imbued within/atop something akin to a pulley or bellows system, with the Stone Shard being able to increase or decrease the foundation Stone energy it exerts outside of its own form to potentially alter its own density, causing the pulley/bellows to rise and fall as needed to generate the mechanism's movement.

That said, it would make for a good use of a pulley mechanism, but if you were intending to use the Stone Shard to specifically fuel a bellows component, I would simply use an Air Shard to generate the push of air needed, rather than going the extra mile and fiddling with the extra bits of the mechanism required by the Stone Shard.

Also, perhaps it was a slip of your tongue, but did you mention a bound Order Shard? I have never seen Bound Shard rituals capable of binding a Magistarium Shard, only those capable of binding Foundation. But then again, as a Solar of the Guild, you may have access to more uncommon scrolls than I, even if you were to need an Earth caster to cast such a thing. In any case, I imagine that, with Foundation Stone being known for its steadfast and rigid actions, a Stone Shard could potentially be used to accomplish the same sort of task as you suggested the Order Shard for, relying on the stubborn stone energy to maintain a continual rhythm. But that's definitely a tricky one that might require casting in order to determine it being a possibility or not.

~ Gandian Ravenscroft
 
Gandian,
Sure, you could use a second Air Shard to generate the rotation with a spinning fan-type thing, but if it were me I'd want to set that up so it's isolated from the Shard that's playing the flutes so you don't get interference. The function of the Stone Shard, in my view, is to generate a physical force, while the Order elemental causes it to oscillate on a fixed frequency which causes the rotation. I suppose you could use Stone for that too, if you cast it to depend on Stone's rhythm as you suggest. Of course, I don't remember off-hand if I've ever seen a Magistarium elemental captured with Bound Shard, but any ritual is theoretically generalizable if you know what you're doing. The scroll only specifies an "elemental plane," not the Foundation planes, so it ought to work, the same as how you can cast Planar Gate or Banish to <Other Plane> to a Magistarium plane.

Anyway. The other thing to remember is you'd have to cast the seven Bound Shards separately and assemble them into one device afterward, since you can only get one Shard into any one object. Always plan ahead when you're casting rituals!

Clara Clawsome, Solar of the Aether
Solars' Guild of Wayside
 
Thank you all for joining me in this intellectual exercise. I think there has been some great exchange of idea so far. but the shear cost of making such a device would make it impractical and as Solar Emeritus share we have some excellent bards in Wayside and hopeful more to come. But like the Hind Sight ritual, think of unusual option and combination can lead to invention and innovation.

As I am not able to read Rituals yet I am only able to added little but speculation. But this conversation has help in my studies of magic. My idea was to simple make perpetual wind chime by adding a Air Shard to a box with the chime hang in it.

Please let the discussion continue here and I will look for to the opportunity to speak to each of you in person at some point if our paths cross as I feel i could learn much form you wisdom. I very much would like to hear more of Gandian's ideas for Bond Shards in use on a ship as in sound like they are more practical.

~Aramis Seablade
 
A simple box of chimes being blown by an Air Shard within a box would be far simpler than the flute system discussed by Solar Clawsome, but I'd question the musicality of it. After all, if I have someone standing around and shaking a bell all the time, the sound would probably be grating more than soothing. But don't you go telling Kit I said that!

In regards to ship-applicable uses for a Bound Shard, I'm sure there are hundreds of things that you could do, but I had a few quickly come to mind:

You could bind an Air Shard to one (or more) of your ship's sails. While I am certain that such a shard would not be able to generate enough force to move your ship without the assistance of natural wind, I feel reasonably confident that having the Shard bound to the sail would bolster what natural wind did catch it, allowing your vessel to move a little faster than other vessels using the very same gusts.

You could bind an Air Shard to your ship's hull in order to increase buoyancy, allowing you to carry a bit more cargo while not compromising your speed or making the ship sit too low in the water.

You could bind a Stone Shard into an object of minimal size to grant the object significant density, allowing you to use it as a small-but-effective anchor. Depending on how it was cast, you might even be able to control when the Shard exerts it's increased weight, toggling the object between light and heavy when needed for ease of lifting or setting the anchor.

If you do any winter sailing in icy waters, you could bind a Flame Shard into the base of the bow of your ship in order to heat it and help cleave through icy floes you might encounter.

If you have any cannons on your ship, you could bind a Flame Shard inside one to potentially help enhance the firepower when you use it.

Thoughts?

~ Gandian Ravenscroft
 
Gandian,

I have a lot of money. I'm about to commission a larger ship. I'm hiring zhou as official ship mage. Also, vhere can I buy zhese bound shard scrolls....like....all of zhem?

Binks
 
Gandian, I see how those could defiantly help a ship. I could also see a Stone Shard being used as a break for a wagon or carriage. if the spinning mechanism could be figured out it may be possible to have the carriage move without a horse.

To move back to the original topic i was musing on the idea that an Audible Projection may be able t record a bard for a short play back. Perhaps for a party a noble could have a Audible Projection on a doorway to sound a trumpet or maybe a whole song upon a person walking in to the ballroom. or it could be used a a type of alarm to alert of instructors.

~Aramis Seablade
 
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