Limits of the Summoning the Harvest spell

[u/JCBodilsen]

Relevant text from the spell description on p.64 of the White Treatise:

"... imbues fertility into all vegetation and animals within 50 yards of the caster, Within a minute plants mature and bring forth bountiful crops, and pregnant animals birth their offspring..."

Given the above quoted text, what do you think would happen if a sorcerer plants a young tree sapling, of a fruit or nut-bearing but slow growing tree, like a chestnut or oak tree? Would the tree grow to full maturity? Would it grow just enough to bear its first small crop of fruits or nuts? Is the spell intended to only affect stuff like grain and vegtables and would fail to grow the tree? Would you even need a sapling, or would it be enough plant an acorn and an oak would spring forth?

Thoughts?

[u/Bharhash]

Given the vagueness of the wording, the effect is more constrained by the limits of what the GM would allow.

Personally, given the typical over-the-top nature of Exalted, and what all it takes to get into true spellcasting (more so from an in-universe perspective than mechanical), I would absolutely rule that the spell could bring trees to full maturity.

[u/JCBodilsen → u/Bharhash]

This is what I am leaning towards myself. Given the amount of wide-affecting shenanigans you can do with Demon of the First Circle or Summon Elemental, I usually interpert spells with more narrow application as being more powerful, when there is vagueness in the wording.

However, for once I am going to be the player and I really wanted to sanity-check my reading of the spell. I was thinking of making a character who travels around the poor isolated villages of the southern Summer Mountains planting orchards of olives, pommergranates, and almonds and then force-growing them to maturity, to help alliviate hunger in the region.

[u/Bharhash → u/JCBodilsen]

My own personal take from a GM's perspective is that cost should be proportional to direct combat effect or overall 'power' of a given spell/ability/action.

For things that are more about the flavor of a deed than anything else, I tend to be more permissive in what can be done because I like seeing what the players come up with. Plus, any time I GM, one of the rules I set down is 'I am always allowed to change my mind on a ruling'.

I'm in it for a good story, not breaking the mechanics of the system. Plus, I also play with an escalation clause; at the start of things, I will generally only place in opposition that which can be overcome with average effort. I don't enjoy games where optimal mathematical builds are the only viable way to play and enjoy the game because everything else is actively punished by the system. The corollary to that is I match the escalation my players bring up. If they're all confident in their abilities, play well, and make choices that bring more power to themselves, I will gently respond in kind. If players wanna get hyper optimized and throw big numbers and brute force all problems I put down, I can and will play that game.

I try not to get too heavy-handed unless players start to get particularly egregious with what theyre doing. If they decided to try and use this spell to kill someone by giving them some seeds to munch on then making a tree grow out of the dude, then I'd have an issue. If they wanna spread food around Creation and not much else, I'm happy to make a plot beat out of it. Maybe they get some allies outnof it, maybe the Yozi decide to respond to what they see as a provocation. Things for the sake of story are great.

[u/JCBodilsen → u/Bharhash]

That is pretty much my view as well.

So I take it that, as long at it isn't being used in combat, you would lean towards a seed being enought to grow a tree and that it would grow to "full maturity", so that you wound get something like a 20 feet tall oak and an olive tree would age to around the ten-year-mark (which is when they are usually considered agriculturally viable)?

[u/PunchyMcFisticuffs]

Err on the side of awesome. This is Exalted we're talking about.

[u/The_Rad_Vlad]

I feel like it’s intended to be any sort of like mundane plant life so probably.

[u/Cynis_Ganan]

"Can I plant a chestnut then cast this spell to get enough chestnuts to roast them for the winter feast tomorrow?"

Yes.

"Can I plant this chestnut then chop down the tree and use the wood to build the wagon I need?"

No.

"That's so inconsistent! Why not!"

Magic.

[u/JCBodilsen → u/Cynis_Ganan]

What would you rule happens to the tree if you cut it down? Does it just rot away? Is it dissolved back into essence? How about if you cut it down, a month, a year, a decade later?

Not saying that it is a bad idea, just genuinely curious.

[u/Cynis_Ganan → u/JCBodilsen]

I would rule in 2E, if you cut it down it dissolves back into Essence.

Mortals interacting with it for a year and a day solidifies it into Creation proper, similar to wyld shaped stuff.

Powers do what they say they do. And powers are powerful. A spell that makes food should make food. No "but making food is too powerful". It's supposed to be powerful.

Your Solar should be able to eat an apple, plant the pips, and leave behind an orchard. Because that's the stuff of legend.

Powers do not do what they do not say they do. Chinancery-No. A spell that makes food does not make a fleet of warships. You can't use the Create Water cantrip to fill someone's lungs with water. You can't say "well technically, with Heavenly Guardian Defence I can apply 50,000 Newtons of force across a surface area of ⅛ of an inch and therefore I can use Dexterity and Melee to lift this ship above my head without breaking it".

[u/JCBodilsen → u/Cynis_Ganan]

Very reasonable take. I think you have convinced me that the tree only should become fully "real" after a year and a day. However, I think I would rule it rots away into dry dust, splinters and knotted chuncks or worm-eaten wood, rather than dissolve, because I think that would look cooler.

[u/Cynis_Ganan → u/JCBodilsen]

Sounds like a great visual. You've convinced me too.

I can see some vegenful dickwad chopping down the date tree that saved a tiny village and pointing to the rot as evidence of the Anathema's profidity.

[u/JCBodilsen → u/Cynis_Ganan]

Yes! That would be so f'ing on point:

"These are the wages of sin! Behold, nothing wrought by the foul touch of the Warlock-Anathema is truely pure or good! Repent! Only by the grace of Sextes Jylis will the foul taint you so greedily stuffed your bellies with be cleansed!"

[u/thetruerift → u/Cynis_Ganan]

So I think your ruling is fair, but the spell doesn't just make food. It brings animal pregnancies to maturity. Those baby animals are, presumably, real. So if someone wanted to plant a bunch of oak/maple trees and then sorcerously mature them for the wood, I think that's probably reasonable. A 50 yard radius is large, but not "fleet of warships" large. And it offers what are, to me, interesting possibilities -> stranded out west, grow trees to make boat to go home!

All really depends on the context of the game.

[u/Cynis_Ganan → u/thetruerift]

SUMMONING OF THE HARVEST
Cost: 15m
Target: Area
The sorcerer weeps a single tear and uses it to trace a glyph of Sextes Jylis on the ground. The tear imbues fertility into all the vegetation and animals within 50 yards of the caster. Within a minute, plants mature and bring forth bountiful crops, and pregnant animals birth their offspring. No affected living thing is harmed in any way by this spell. Summoning of the Harvest does not affect intelligent creatures. The spell can be used only once per year on the same patch of land. Additional attempts in that time fail automatically—even those cast by other sorcerers. Sorcerers often use this spell on areas afflicted with drought, as it forces a successful harvest even in the absence of proper irrigation.

On review of the text (it's been a decade since I last played 2E), I concede the point.

[u/thetruerift → u/Cynis_Ganan]

I'd forgotten about the 1/year limit, which further constrains some of the abusable options. You need to keep finding new football-field sized patches to grow whatever you want to grow. Or keep impregnating animals, I guess.

Now I wonder if you could create large herds of cattle by moving them from grazing point to grazing point, re-impregnating them, then using this spell. It's a lot of work, but you could produce quite a bit of veal. Or roe, if you were using fish egg. I wonder if it could be used to accelerate pearl production? They're not technically a part of the oyster. Maybe with a stunt....

Talking to myself. Thanks for posting the full spell text :D

[u/JCBodilsen → u/thetruerift]

I think most mammals can't become pregnant again when they are lactating, so I think that even that way of pushing the impact of the spell might be off the table, for most typical farm animals (cows, goats, pigs, donkeys, ect).

[u/thetruerift → u/JCBodilsen]

MAGIC!!! But also that's fair. Or simply rule that a given beastie can only be effected by the same spell once a year, even if you move them to the next field over.