One of my players once asked me what would look like a magica Item that could count time.

My proposition was something like an astrolab, with a InIm spell to "look at the sun and the stars", so that it can count passing time. A ReTe spell would make the Item move accordingly to indicate the passing time.

To respect the medieval paradigm, such an item would not be near the precision and coordination we get now with time.window.com. (Precision in time as a concept was not common before the 19th at the earliest)

What do you think? Does it make sense ? Have other ideas to do it ?
Would you consider such an item to be "intelligent" ?

InIm [Base 3 "See clearly at a distance" ->for some more precision.
Personnal +0, Sun +2 , Vision +4
= Lvl 25 effect
+1 lvl 2 use per day, +3 lvl Triggered by sunset/sunrise
= Lvl 29 Item effect]

ReTe [ Base 3 "Move *Metal* in a natural fashion"-> to move the pointers.
Personnal +0, Momentary +0, Group +2 -> their are many moving parts, that can move at the same time. (I wounder of Ind would be sufficient?)
= Lvl 5 effect
+10 lvl Unlimited uses
= Lvl 15 Item effect]

"What do you think? Does it make sense ? Have other ideas to do it ?
Would you consider such an item to be "intelligent" ?"

That looks like the most reasonable way to do it to me.

A more convoluted way to accomplish the task would be to link your rego terram spell to an intellego vim spell of duration sun that detects how long it will be until it expires (once again triggered by sunrise/sunset and cast 2X’s per day).

The concept of an intellego vim spell that only detects information about itself appeals to my sense of aesthetics.

yeah, that's a pretty cool idea. I like that a lot. A clock. Hmmmm... Now how to make it look gaudy...

Chuck

//To respect the medieval paradigm, such an item would not be near the precision and coordination we get now with time.window.com. (Precision in time as a concept was not common before the 19th at the earliest)//

Mainly by observing culminations (i. e. passages through the meridian) of fixed stars and interpolating with hourglasses or clepsydrae, astronomers achieved a very precise notion of time during all the middle ages.
Such precision was not needed for the everyday business of the common serf, knight or monk, of course. So learned astronomers - even popes like Sylvester II or John XXI - often were suspected of magic use.
Direct voluntary or involuntary magical tampering with the fixed stars is not possible because of the Limit of the Lunar Sphere, so Magi can rely on astronomical time as well as astronomers. They might uses spells like InAu15 True Sight of the Air to assure a daily observation of the passage of their chosen fixed star through the meridian, and have magical means of calibrating and turning hour glasses as well.

Kind regards,

Berengar

Hmm - this could be made using more local effects (that could be used inside). Example:

A CrIm effect that gives the impression of an hourglass and shows the sand moving for its duration of diameter. Allow this to be triggered by the second effect, a InVi that detects if the first spell is still active.
The second effect also triggers another effect that indicates how many times the the first spell has been triggered.

This is an interesting idea, but it makes a real hourglass look more appealing. No Vis, No seasons, and you don't even need to pay an apprentice to have him flip the glass or record the time past.

Seriously though, I enjoy this discussion, but reminds me how redundant/overkill magic can be compared to 'mortal' methods.

Chuck

another conveluted solution;

1. Enchant an hourglass with a rego Te/He effect to flip itself over when the sand runs out.

2.Put the hourglass on a circular track that it takes 24 hours for the hourglass to flip itself around.

3.Label the track with the hours of the day.

It’s raining too much for me to do my typical walk during my lunch break so I thought that I’d give this question the “more than one way to skin a cat” treatment.

I’ll say that we’ve done terram and vim above leaving us eight more forms to do.

Here they are

Animal:
I’d use the level 2 guideline “plant a single suggestion in the mind of an animal”. Raise the effect to range sight, duration sun (add the levels for constant duration), and target group (perhaps with allowances for very large groups).

Enchant a circle to attract ants in the area to stand on it, the portion of the circle that the ants are attracted to moves slowly throughout the day.

Place a second (un-enchanted) circle in the center or around the outside of the enchanted one. Write the hours of the day on this second circle.

Aquam:
Make a glass cylinder with a hole in it just large enough to allow a given quantity of water to pass through it every 24 hours.

Mark the outside of the cylinder

Enchant the cylinder to prevent evaporation of any of the water. Enchant the cylinder to put all of the water back into itself when it empties. (calibrate by changing the quantity of water).

Auram:
Enchant an item to create a breeze to blow constantly.

Put a windmill in the breeze and hook up the windmill to some clock hands (the amount of mechanics required for this might be out of period)

Put it in a room with no breezes

Corpus:
Use the level 2 guideline change someone to give them a minor ability.

Enchant a ring with an effect (possibly requiring a rego requisite) to have the wearer’s fingernail grow unusually quickly and in a manner that can be used to tell time, such as red, for an hour then, orange ,then yellow, etc subdivide the growing colored fingernail sections by texture for smaller units of time.

Have your lab assistant wear the ring (or stick it upon the severed hand of a corpse if you don’t want your assistant warped and you have body parts strewn about your lab)

Herbam:
Make a wooden stick that has the hours of the day marked upon it.

Enchant it to muto herbam the nearest blades of grass to grow gradually over the course of a day so that their height lines up with the markings on the stick. Make the enchantment duration sun and triggered by sunrise and sun set but do not make it constant. The spell will flicker at sunrise and sunset and the grass will revert to it’s natural length.

Jab the stick into the ground.

Ignem:
Enchant a wick with a creo ignem to create a fire, a muto ignem spell to change the fire into one that will not burn up the wick, and a rego ignem effect to ensure that the fire burns at a regular rate.

Tie the wick in a circle

Imagonem:
Create an image of the stars that slowly rotates over the course of a day

I just noticed that I forgot mentem.

Create an overwhelming obsession in your lab assitant to monitor what time it is.

Give them an hour glass.

LOL

I play a Tytalus who tries to not use magic. My original proposal was "Have my apprentice keep track of time."

While I could use Mentem to 'Create an overwhelming obsession in your lab assitant to monitor what time it is.'

I've found breaking is hands is just as effective and doesn't use magic at all.

Yes, my character is pretty sick, but my Apprentice is "nigh-Unbreakable"

Chuck