Help finding an old concept; natural RAW result being magocratic city-states

[Satinavian]

"Instantanous" is not "measured in rounds". You can do the teleportation circle as a use-activated item, but you can't do it with instantanous spells.

You could have a "once per day" instantanous spell item for the command word formula which provides conveniently the very similar Cape of the Mountebank example. But you won't get once per round effects for a similar price.


Luckily "Create Food and Water" is not actually an instantanous spell, it has 24h duration. You could make a use activated item for it for only 15k. But that would not produce food every round. It would continuously produce exactly as much food as 15 humans or 5 horses need in the same timeframe.

That makes roughly 1k per person for (bland) food for all eternity.

That is cheaper than Ring of Sustenance, but not that much cheaper that it changes the setting and the ring would also reduce sleep time.