I'm still trying to get a feel for how she transitions from being a cave-siren-spider to being a familiar. She spends the first 6 years of her new life voraciously reading to take on the duties she's agreed to (MT, Code of Hermes, Philosophiae(natural). She'll be spending the next 5 years helping in the lab 3-4 seasons/year. So, I'm trying to figure out what she does with her down time.
Wanting to reach out into the world she's discovered seems natural. As a spider, she'll want to see the webs of power and intrigue, and then dance along them. Writing primers on OoHLore and CoH "from an outsiders perspective" is a good way to step into the arena.
(Plus, I thought it'd be nifty if she were to write books on cloth spun from her brood's silk, using ink distilled from their venom.)
Having her correspond with the familiar of another magi about how the Code applies to familiars was going to be an extension of her desire to understand her place in the new world.
I'd like her to get involved with the political machinations of the larger order, especially since Appolodorus was so well-connected. Her intrigue is only at 3(plotting), and her Loathesome Appearance means she'll want to work through catspaws and letters. Maybe she corresponds with Andru's familiar? Ariel's? Neither actually seemed to have one.
Basically, I'm trying to find interesting things to do with her, lest I have to re-write her flaws and just leave her in the foyer, playing violins all the time.
EDIT: Hrm....she has Free Expression, maybe she'll write those summa disguised as Wagnerian operas!
Rereading the letter Alexei got, it says "a period of time to not exceed two seasons, which must be taken consecutively, to copy books from our library." So I'm not sure we'll be able to get away with copying spell texts like I thought. So, we're back to trying to barter for or invent the spells we need/want. For example, a better Aegis, maybe 7 League Stride or Leap of the Homecoming, or whatever.
We already have better AoH that came from Apollodorus.. Seven league stride is already in our spell lists and Alexei has agreed to make a lab text of Leap of Homecoming.
We are warriors first and foremost, so we seek to surprise our ennemy. He expects the one-trick fire pony, and gets hit by Alexei's mundane attacks, Isen ice spells and Jacques arrows.
So he diversifies, and this is when he stumbles against the FireGuy and gets toast
Great!
Isen is keen on learning Leap of Homecoming
Peregrine suggested this in Fiona's story, so I thought I'd take an opportunity to revisit that here.
Make some companions and play some companions and/or grogs in some of the other stories going on.
Fiona
If last time was any indication, Peregrine's story probably has the most potential for conflict, so combat grogs and companions are especially well suited to this environment. If a combat oriented magus wants to go along, it's going to take some convincing. Also note, that going into this regio has a time dilation effect, so it will impact seasonal activities.
Viscaria
She's got Vin, but who else is going along, besides those mentioned already. This is about the only Fairie story I plan on running...ever, in this saga.
Korvin
This one's up in the air, pending the player...
Isen
Isen suggested springing a trap, so someone helpful in that regard might be a good play...
Alexei
Both are plagued by the same supernatural entity, one got caught, and the other is going after him. This entity, as created by qcipher is from the Levant. Mufarjj was last seen taken by a great whirlwind which took him in that general direction. Again, this is likely to be a long story disruping seasonal advancement plans.
Isen would gladly visit the realm of magic (he's curious), but, well, he'll be mostly brooding, as always (ie don't know how much I can participate, so will be silent)
Moved this over here. See above, about my post about combat. While Isen is a worthy combatant, your character is also going to be quite busy with Tria... Not that you can't do both, but I ask you to really weigh where you can focus your attention...
Just out of curiosity, how do we want to handle vis allowance for the five year jump? Do we want to go through and figure how much each person's entitled to, or everyone do like Fiona's doing and donating whatever they don't use to the covenant to use for Tribunal preparations, and then divy up whatever doesn't get used after Tribunal?
Also, are we keeping the Hermes Portal after the one year and paying to have them recast (and then reaping the profits from them being used), or was that a one-shot deal?
I thought it was a one shot deal. I say we keep it that way and not set up a permanent portal, but leave the idea that we can (with proper reason) set one up. It implies power, wealth and discretion.
Seriously, guys, somebody has to do it. Somebody has to start casting the higher Aegis. Viscaria showed up and took over a major time sink (admittedly for her own purposes). Fiona is spending two seasons scribing for the covenant. Other magi have to do service seasons too. If we were running the campaign linearly, then we'd run a Council Meeting wherein we mention all the tasks outstanding that need to be done and offer payments of vis to entice people to do them.
As a player, I need to have an idea of how much vis we average as covenant members, but I don't want to force anyone to do another massive chunk of math. On the other hand, the spreadsheet should make it pretty easy, if you just list each magi's allotment as Unclaimed, and then we can go back and adjust our rows as we desire. How does that sound?
I had suggested opening a portal to the new Val Negra, where Ariel has moved the Flambeau Domus Magnus., whether we keep the portal to Harco open or not. However, maintaining two portals ends up costing more than even our massive income of ReTe vis, apparently.
I'm assuming that was 35 vis for the whole year, and not just for the Race For The Pennant?
Viscaria would happily do that bargaining as part of her Princeps duties, if no one else wants the job. I think having a portal to Val Negra would be a strong move for Mons Electi, since we have 3 Flambeau who were stongly involved in getting Ariel the gig. Harco is also damn useful, but two portals would generate a lot of traffic and income, as well as give our mundane factors some opportunities for international trading.
Val Negra, being a newly formed covenant, might not have the resources to get their own portal to Harco, and might even appreciate the security buffer going through Mons Electi would involve.
I agree that making a DEO wand would be mechanically different than making a DEO blasting ring. However, I'm talking about your talisman here. You should be familiar enough with your talisman that adding to it should be easy, not hard.
As per the RAW, I can't avail myself of any lab texts in order to add a power to my talisman. That means that my talisman will never have any powers in it more than half my lab total.
Here's an example from Viscaria's next five years:
In 1224.Spring, Viscaria will be enchanting The Candlewand, a greater device that has been opened with 6 pawns. She has a Lab Total of 69.
Using a lab text written by someone else, she instills Unending Circles of Light, a CrIg 20 enchantment. She can only use this lab text if it is for adding that spell to a greater enchantment.
Using a lab text written by someone else, she instills Home is a Hearthfire, a CrIg 25 enchantment. This lab text can only be for a greater enchantment, but it doesn't matter if it is for the same greater device that the other one was for.
*She has 24 points of Lab Total left over, and has just generated personal versions of the lab texts for the other two spells, but cannot use either of them to instill one of these spells in her talisman. She can only use lab texts for spells she has already installed in her talisman, or create a new one of no greater than CrIg 12.
How many components is that? How high is her MT going to be when she initially opens the Talisman for enchantment?
And I swear we've had this discussion before about Major Philosophic Alchemy. It does not say that you can open an item in 7 days. It says, in the automatic extraction of vis, that you can set an extraction process to happen over the course of a season, and you treat it as a 7 day distraction from your other lab work, later restrictions and descriptions follow. Going onto the Ready Opened Devices section, it states that it an item can be pre-opened with enchantment spaces, as if it were soaking up the vis that would normally be distilled[1] during the period of vis extraction, and then it can be opened for enchantment, normally during the season. If you disagree with this interpretation please find and cite the page for me.
[1]I would allow distillation into Vim and distillation into a device happen in the same year, the amount that gets distilled into the device is going to be based on the lowest lab total involved, in the event that there is more than a 10 day distraction from labwork during a season, note 7 count against you to start.
Check your datestamps. That was the previous discussion about Major Philosophic Alchemy. I was only giving the URL to point to the description of the talisman, not to rehash an old argument. We've agreed to disagree on this point, and its your saga. I freely acknowledge that my viewpoint would probably be different if I wasn't the player trying to min-mix the loophole.
Rather than clutter this thread, I'll post the component list over on Viscaria's thread. Is there a limitation on the number of components somewhere? I don't recall such a thing.
I admit, I wasn't looking at date stamps.
And as to it being my saga and what not, that's not really a fair assessment, it's the troupe's saga, I'm the SG. And I've made it clear that if there is a consensus against my understanding of the rules, I am more than willing to reverse my decision. Yeah, I'm taking this one a bit personally.
Magic Theory limits the amount of components in a talisman. Page 97 of the main text, Preparation for Enchantment section lays out the limitations of components in a compound device, and also how it can be opened.
