At the Spring, 1221 meeting, each magus (including Boudicca and Eilid) is entitled to 30 pawns Vis Salary. Any vis not taken will be put back into the pot to be distributed in 1221 if it's not used before then.
The vis available is:
8 Creo
22 Intellego
17 Muto
15 Perdo
25 Rego
20 Animal
12 Aquam
12 Auram
33 Corpus
5 Herbam
13 Ignem
12 Imaginem
9 Mentem
22 Terram
31 Vim
Gavin/Trogdor suggests leaving a buffer of 20-50 pawns of vis, which would reduce the salary to 25-28 pawns each.
Angus wants Ignem, Auram, and Herbam, and votes in favour of the buffer.
Corbin wants Creo, Mentem, Intellego, Corpus, then any Technique. He also votes in favour of the buffer.
Gavin wants Intellego, then any Technique but Creo, then any Form (except Corpus, Imaginem, and Vim) – preferably Herbam, Ignem, or Terram.
So, if we keep 50 pawns on hand, that means everyone's entitled to 25 pawns each.
5 In
5 Mu
5 Re
4 He
4 Ig
2 Aq
I realize that the He request might not survive given that we spent down our He reserves on the cottages. But I figured I might as well ask.
Because I like spreadsheets, here's one that tracks who wants what vis. It also shows where the conflicts are. As it stands, we already have too much In, Mu, and Ig being requested.
much like the library, it tends to go to first request. We could have a rotating list of requesting so the same people are not first all the time. We could serpentine ( reverse the list for next season) or rotate ( first becomes last, second becomes first, ext). I would go with the later as serpentine is tough for people in the middle.
I would propose that instead of first come (or first posted), first served, we try and arrange a proportional assignment that meets everyone's needs to some degree. I don't want to penalize those who can't post as frequently or as quickly as others (and I'm speaking as someone who can post quickly).
Trades and changes to requests could always be arranged, of course.
ETA: THough having a rotating list is not a terrible idea if we want to use a first come, first served model.
I missed that Gavin wanted Ignem, I have moved 4 of Angus request from Ig to Terram on the spreadsheet. I've also added some auto-summing and conditional formatting, though it is much easier in excel than google docs...
Is that our vis income, 30 pawns per magus? I count 101 pawns/9 magi. I would think we would want to divide up any unused income, maintaining covenant stores for when things are needed. Generally, subtract the Aegis and a little more for whatever uses (healing, building houses, purchasing books, ...) and we should see 8 or 9 pawns apiece. There are two reasons for this:
Logical, in-game consistency: If this were not the case, those stores would not be there because they would have been divided up between the few magi that were here before we arrived. If we haven't immediately changed the covenant charter, then something is inconsistent.
It allows for things like rituals for several buildings as needed, and we just replenish supplies over the next year or two. That should keep things steady.
I think the real question is how much of a vis reserve we want to keep. As it stands, we're keeping a reserve of 50 vis. Given current vis stores, if we dropped distribution down to 10 vis/person (which doesn't seem an unreasonable number to me), we'd have a reserve of about 200 vis. That leads to two questions:
(1) Do we really need a reserve of 200 vis, especially given that we have a huge vis generation each year (~100) that can be tapped at need? Is 50 enough? Would 100 be better? 200 seems extreme to me.
(2) How did we get so much vis to begin with? (All I can assume is that since the other members of the covenant have disappeared, Eilid has been quietly collecting vis and letting it accumulate.)
In the end, this is a one-time issue, since from now on vis will be distributed regularly. But still, I take your point.
It does, however, emphasize that this is not going to be a vis-poor game.
I think some adjust needs to be made for the vis salaries. I think we need to separate the income from the stock and have different rules for each. The very best we can hope for is 102 pawns per year if everything goes right. If we say that 80% of income can be used in the salaries for magi and any remainder goes into the stocks. This allows for the income to vary per year but always put some in the stocks.
Any magi can make a request from the stocks. Need a LR? just request the amount from the stocks. Making an item? Make a request. The rub would be it might not all or any be granted depending on the stocks and the need for the Covenant. The stock would be available to negotiate for Covenant items ( buying a book or magic item for all)
Of course that might not be an equitable distribution, which could lead to some problems. Take for example two magi, one who's plan is to make a lot of items, and one who's plan is to learn a lot of spells (both perfectly reasonable options). The crafter would be able to request vis over and over to make items, while the person learning spells would get nothing.
One reason to have even distributions is to allow everyone the choice on how they want to use their fair share of the vis gathered. You want to make items, great. He wants to feed it to his familiar, fabulous. She wants to store it up for future need, wonderful. Everyone is treated the same, so there's no claim of favoritism.
Having the stocks be there for covenant items (and maybe even for LRs) seems a good idea. But I tend to prefer the idea of vis salaries for funding personal projects.
The person making spells/feeding his familiar is still getting a vis salary the same as everyone else. All magi would get 9 pawns per year if everything goes right( under the 80% rule). If something happens to drop the vis income to 90 pawns per year, everyone would still get 8 pawns per year of their choice to do what ever they want to do. If all income went to the stocks and was then distributed as a vis salary you would not be limited to what the income is bringing in. Eventually, we would have to monitor the stocks to limit certain vis if it runs low ( example: only 5 pawns of Vim is available in a year to account for the AoH)
If a magus is concerned about the amount of vis being taken by someone from the stocks making enchanted items then he speaks up and perhaps there is a debate. Perhaps you have to take an interest in what your fellow magi are doing.
I think the key would be that the stocks would not be approved for just any project. Mostly they're there for the covenant as a whole and so for items, books, etc. for the covenant, not for individuals. However, I could certainly see longevity rituals and a few things like that being exceptions.
Still, with 9 or so pawns per year, it doesn't take long for that to cover your personal needs quite quickly even if you have to pay for your own longevity ritual.
Ah, I think I misunderstood. So If I understand correctly now, what you're proposing is something like:
(1) Granting a vis salary of 80% or 90% of the actual intake for the year, with the rest going to the covenant reserves. (Percentages may vary depending upon need.)
(2) What's in the covenant reserves will be used for covenant purposes (e.g., Aegis, devices for the covenant, books, maybe LRs), and will be approved on a case-by-case basis.
But yea, you're right. Compared to other sagas I've been in, 9 vis/year is a staggering amount (on top of PVS's and the like). I don't see anyone running short of vis unless they're being really ambitious.