Author Topic: Quick Question(s) on Conjuring  (Read 1510 times)

Offline Richard_Chilton

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Quick Question(s) on Conjuring
« on: December 23, 2010, 09:37:51 PM »
I've got a question about something I don't think is covered by the rules:
Is conjured food and drink "real" while it lasts?

As in could a wizard conjure up a feast when he was hungry or get drunk off enchanted wine? My gut feeling is that the duration would have to be long enough for it pass through your system or it would cause hell with your digestive tract (the food turning to ectoplasm inside you), but even if the duration was long enough I'm not sure if the person would get any nutrition from conjured food.

The only reference I can remember from the books is Harry saying he didn't want a conjured doughnut.  He never conjures food or drink, but that could just be Harry being Harry and not wanting to disrespect magic.  He also doesn't conjure garlic when it could be handy, but that might mean that conjured garlic doesn't satisfy the Catch of Black Court Vampires.  Or maybe he didn't have time to do thaumaturgy.  Or maybe he didn't think to do it.  Or maybe he though the BCV would notice his spell.  Or maybe he didn't think of it....

And now I have to expand the question to:
1) Is conjured food and drink "real"?
2) Can a conjured item satisfy the Catch?

Richard

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Re: Quick Question(s) on Conjuring
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2010, 10:00:12 PM »
I've got a question about something I don't think is covered by the rules:
Is conjured food and drink "real" while it lasts?

As in could a wizard conjure up a feast when he was hungry or get drunk off enchanted wine? My gut feeling is that the duration would have to be long enough for it pass through your system or it would cause hell with your digestive tract (the food turning to ectoplasm inside you), but even if the duration was long enough I'm not sure if the person would get any nutrition from conjured food.

The only reference I can remember from the books is Harry saying he didn't want a conjured doughnut.  He never conjures food or drink, but that could just be Harry being Harry and not wanting to disrespect magic.  He also doesn't conjure garlic when it could be handy, but that might mean that conjured garlic doesn't satisfy the Catch of Black Court Vampires.  Or maybe he didn't have time to do thaumaturgy.  Or maybe he didn't think to do it.  Or maybe he though the BCV would notice his spell.  Or maybe he didn't think of it....

And now I have to expand the question to:
1) Is conjured food and drink "real"?
2) Can a conjured item satisfy the Catch?

Richard
Chomping the food up and then dumping it into acid is likely to cause it to return to its ectoplasmic form, so it's not even likely to make it past your stomach before it disappears. Not to mention since it's just ectoplasm and not actually the material, I don't see how it could satisfy any Catch that didn't require ectoplasm or give you any form of nutrition.

Offline devonapple

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Re: Quick Question(s) on Conjuring
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2010, 10:09:18 PM »
For food, it depends on how scientific we want to get. My generous ruling would be that the conjured food would be real until it expired, which would mean that all of those human tissues which had been bolstered and renewed by conjured food would suddenly have holes: first filled with ectoplasm, and then nothing. Probably not fatal, though it would be like using hydrogenated oil, but it would have lost any nutritive advantage. Depending on how long it lasted, the consumer may not even feel hungry suddenly, but there might be some sort of general malaise.

That said, we renew our cellular materials completely every 5 years or so, IIRC, so theoretically, if someone set up the ritual to last for "a few years" or "a decade," that food would, as far as I am concerned, be nutritive and whole for human consumption, and the individual components will have been fully used and recycled out of the body before it expires into ectoplasmic goo somewhere else.

I think the stomach acid issue is an important consideration, and may mean that even this generous interpretation wouldn't be feasible.

I wouldn't allow conjured versions of real-world items to satisfy a Catch. However, this brings up a good question: could some Catches be designed to *require* conjured substances to be satisfied?
"Like a voice, like a crack, like a whispering shriek
That echoes on like it’s carpet-bombing feverish white jungles of thought
That I’m positive are not even mine"

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Offline Richard_Chilton

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Re: Quick Question(s) on Conjuring
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2010, 10:17:37 PM »
Think about it on a tangent, the problem with conjured food might be the reason why you run into trouble if you eat fairy food...

I started this line of thought wondering how to make a Horn O' Plenty that wasn't an item of power.  A magic item with conjuration would have done it, but only if you could eat conjured food.

Richard

Offline devonapple

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Re: Quick Question(s) on Conjuring
« Reply #4 on: December 23, 2010, 10:25:54 PM »
Think about it on a tangent, the problem with conjured food might be the reason why you run into trouble if you eat fairy food...

Dresden traps Toot-Toot by tricking him into consuming a bit of his human blood. Perhaps getting a mortal to eat fairy food causes a similar Binding effect?
"Like a voice, like a crack, like a whispering shriek
That echoes on like it’s carpet-bombing feverish white jungles of thought
That I’m positive are not even mine"

Blackout, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets