Spellcasting aboard a ship?

[Craftzero]

I have a scenario coming up, where my group will be investigating a russian freighter that is dead in the water.  The 'weapon' it's carrying is actually the bones of Baba Yaga, coming to America to spread her evil and sorcerous ways.  My question is this: On board a ship, in the middle of the ocean, is there any penalty for spellcasting?  Or anything regarding thresholds over water?  I know *running water* can cause spellcasting issues, but what about the ocean?

[Lanir]

Harry casts spells in at least one sequence while on a boat. I don't recall him casting any while actually in the water though. Casting a spell that has an effect on the water around him doesn't seem to tax him any more than any similar spell on land. One key thing to note would probably be where the spell effect is targeted. It's fine if it has an area of effect but I'm guessing spellcasting from one ship to another would be problematic. This is all guesswork however.

[Craftzero]

Nah, this would be on a fairly massive freighter.  No ship to ship magic.

[wolff96]

Harry casts spells in at least one sequence while on a boat. I don't recall him casting any while actually in the water though. Casting a spell that has an effect on the water around him doesn't seem to tax him any more than any similar spell on land. One key thing to note would probably be where the spell effect is targeted. It's fine if it has an area of effect but I'm guessing spellcasting from one ship to another would be problematic. This is all guesswork however.

Doesn't he cast a spell in one book while standing hip deep in Lake Michigan?  (Trying to avoid any spoilers here, can't verify which book at work.)

If I recall, it was a simple one and incredibly hard for him to get the power...  but he still managed it.  A threshold-type effect?

[Lanir]

Yeah, you're right. I looked back and found it.

(click to show/hide)

It's towards the end of Small Favor, chapter 45. Probably some good ideas there to mine if you want some ideas on what sort of threshold to assign for different types of watery situations.

[toturi]

There seems to be some inconsistency with respect to running water. Harry does not seem to have a whole lot of trouble with his spells while on board a boat. But proximity to running water in YS seems to have some sort of barrier to magic, enough for a Threshold while on a bridge across a river it appears.

[jalrin]

There seems to be some inconsistency with respect to running water. Harry does not seem to have a whole lot of trouble with his spells while on board a boat. But proximity to running water in YS seems to have some sort of barrier to magic, enough for a Threshold while on a bridge across a river it appears.

The easiest way to square this with Small Favor and the battle on the Water Beetle in White Knight is to hypothesize that large bodies of (relatively stagnant) water do not create the same problem that the smaller quantity but faster moving river water from the Nevermore chapter of YS does.  I am not sure the best way to implement it, but weakening the threshold value of the water based on its slow moving nature would seem to be the easiest way to do it.

[Todjaeger]

A couple of points for consideration.

In the various DF books, a fairly significant amount of running/flowing water can ground out magic.  I would need to double check, but I believe that Harry mentioned at least the volume of a small stream in Storm Front.  Essentially what happens is the water absorbs and carries off some/all of the energy in the magic.

Harry has also mentioned that magic doesn't travel over/across bodies of water all that well.  Examples of that come from White Night when Harry cast a tracking spell to locate someone on a boat which was docked in Lake Michigan.  Harry mentioned that he knew that the person was docked fairly close to shore, since the magic of his tracking spell wouldn't travel out very far over the water.  For some reason, a distance of about 100 yards for the tracking spell comes to mind.  Also, most bodies of water do have some form of flow or current, so even large bodies of water are virtually never still/stagnant.

Now, if the question here is about whether or not a caster can do magic aboard a ship on the water, then the question becomes what sort of effect are they trying to have?  If the ship is fairly large, like a cruise ship, container ship, or supertanker, and the spell is supposed to effect someone/something which is also on the ship, then I wouldn't really think that water would impact the spell.  After all, the magic isn't actually traveling over open water to get from Point A to Point B on the same ship.  Now, if the caster was targeting something on another ship nearby, then I would absolutely take the intervening distance over the water between the vessels into account.

[blues.soldier]

Considering that the phenomena we're talking about here is metaphysical (and fictional), the fact that there are apparent inconsistencies isn't really surprising. Rather like physicists seeing something in the universe but not knowing *how* it works, and wanting to know why.

The definitive scenes as far as I'm concerned are the Aquarium and when Harry is imprisoned by Nicodemus on the boat. In both instances, when the water is MOVING, it's described as a problem. The metaphysical properties of moving, flowing water is what affect magical energies and washes them away. In a sense, the molecules of water attach and carry the "particles" of magic and they flow away. In both of those scenes and several others Harry ends up soaked to the bone with water, but it doesn't affect his spellcasting except peripherally because he's usually freezing his @$$ off at the time, too. But basically, as I see it, when the water stops *moving* it stops being a detriment to magicky types.

Of course, YMMV.

[Becq]

Running water doesn't make spellcasting impossible, just more difficult, to my understanding.  In fact, YS cites large amounts of running water as a 'prime example' of a threshold.  While I can find no details, I would tend to rule that proximity would be significant.  Standing in a rainstorm or in a river is bad news for spellflingers.  Casting from a rowboat rocked by modest waves ... probably somewhat less of a problem.  In the ballroom of a luxury liner where the water isn't visible and even the wave motion is nearly nonexistant ... I'd say negligible impact on spellcasting.

Of course, if you *want* there to be an impact for story purposes, then just do it.  Or, to be more consistent, just add stormy seas into the mix.

[Belial666]

Also note that Harry's power significantly increases through the novels. When Nicodemus first captured him and put him under a shower-equivalent amount of water, he could not hold his power. Nearly ten books later, being half submerged in a vastly greater amount of water is very hard on his magic, but not impossible to work through.


If a shower or stream is a Great to Superb threshold, the early Harry, without his foci, would not be able to use magic at all.
If being half-submerged in a body of water the size of Texas is Fantastic to Epic threshold, the SmF Harry, with his foci, would still be able to use 4 shifts of magic or so.

[Figging Mint]

I have a scenario coming up, where my group will be investigating a russian freighter that is dead in the water.  The 'weapon' it's carrying is actually the bones of Baba Yaga, coming to America to spread her evil and sorcerous ways.  My question is this: On board a ship, in the middle of the ocean, is there any penalty for spellcasting?  Or anything regarding thresholds over water?  I know *running water* can cause spellcasting issues, but what about the ocean?

Rats.   Don't forget the rats.   

"Dead in the water"  is an interesting term.   

Unless the prop(s) are still turning, and the bow is pointed into the wind, "dead in the water" gives you a strong  suggestion of a  time limit before  the ship is one or more of:   a) swamped b) driven onto rocks/sand c) caught in a strong current.

If the ship IS in a fast moving current I know I would probably treat that as relatively "grounding" so that no energy is available to the spellcaster outside of the life on the ship itself.   There better be a bunch of rats on board or everyone is gonna get real weak.

[babel2uk]

I do like the idea of the Russian Freighter bearing the bones of Baba Yaga, but I have to ask - if they are being brought over as a magical weapon of sorts, why wouldn't those involved transport them through the Never Never? I'm not saying the ship's an invalid option by any means, I'm just curious.

The ship idea has great possibilities for a straight up horror scenario too. Taking the idea from FM's post above about drawing power from the people on board the ship rather than the magical energies of the environment, I quite like the idea of the bones starting to reanimate, rebuilding the Crone using flesh and blood from the people on board. If each time she does it she's drawing power from the rest of the living on board you could run symptoms a little like radiation sickness spreading among the crew - just to muddy the waters as to whether the occult threat is the only dangerous thing aboard... first the rats start dying off, then the ships cat. After that one of the crew in the ship's sick bay is found shriveled and eviscerated, then everyone starts experiencing headaches and nausea, and the body of the ship's engineer is found. Yes, that's right, the engineer who was trying desperately to get the engines started again. Now would be a great time to call the coastguard, but around the time everyone got sick all the electrics on board ship went out. So now you've got to hunt through the bowels of the ship with some flashlights and cigarette lighters, and the flashlights are starting to fail....

Actually, maybe I just answered my own question as to why they were sent over water rather than through the Never Never. Maybe they're one of those weapons that you just don't want to be holding when it goes off.

[Craftzero]

I do like the idea of the Russian Freighter bearing the bones of Baba Yaga, but I have to ask - if they are being brought over as a magical weapon of sorts, why wouldn't those involved transport them through the Never Never? I'm not saying the ship's an invalid option by any means, I'm just curious.

The ship idea has great possibilities for a straight up horror scenario too. Taking the idea from FM's post above about drawing power from the people on board the ship rather than the magical energies of the environment, I quite like the idea of the bones starting to reanimate, rebuilding the Crone using flesh and blood from the people on board. If each time she does it she's drawing power from the rest of the living on board you could run symptoms a little like radiation sickness spreading among the crew - just to muddy the waters as to whether the occult threat is the only dangerous thing aboard... first the rats start dying off, then the ships cat. After that one of the crew in the ship's sick bay is found shriveled and eviscerated, then everyone starts experiencing headaches and nausea, and the body of the ship's engineer is found. Yes, that's right, the engineer who was trying desperately to get the engines started again. Now would be a great time to call the coastguard, but around the time everyone got sick all the electrics on board ship went out. So now you've got to hunt through the bowels of the ship with some flashlights and cigarette lighters, and the flashlights are starting to fail....

Actually, maybe I just answered my own question as to why they were sent over water rather than through the Never Never. Maybe they're one of those weapons that you just don't want to be holding when it goes off.

Some great ideas and images there, babel2uk.  But in answer to your question, the bones were found by a group of cultists.  Cultists with just enough magical knowledge to recognize what they have, but not enough to fully understand it (or use the NeverNever, for that matter).  'Borrowing' the flesh of the rats and seamen is exactly what she plans on doing (has done, by the time the PC's catch up with her).

Thank you all for your help!

[babel2uk]

the bones were found by a group of cultists.  Cultists with just enough magical knowledge to recognize what they have, but not enough to fully understand it (or use the NeverNever, for that matter).

A, nothing's more dangerous than enthusiastic amateurs!