1222.OOC

Onesiphorous kinda didn't leave. Fieltarn did. Mad Max initially left, then asked to stick around, but I haven't heard a peep from him. He hasn't advanced since 1220, either. I'd taken jebrick at his word that Jacques was preceps for summer, which makes some sense, and I'd seen him saying it before.
And about the wiki, yeah, we should probably make a page there. I'm going to do some other work on it, too. My kitchen fiasco is almost complete. Counter top installed tomorrow and final plumbing work happens Monday. We will have a functional kitchen, with some final pieces of trim work to install.

Okay, I've got a page up. Hopefully, since it's on the wiki, anybody can tinker with or update it if they need to. And the info is more or less current, last I checked.

So reading Apprentices.
I'm not really sold on can only teach/pass on Hermetic Virtues or Flaws you have. If that were the case, I think there would be much less variation of magi throughout the order. So a story way to counter that would be, if you want your apprentice to not have the same flaws and virtues you do (which I can see someone doing) is to have another Magus come and do the teaching of that Virtue. I think that is very interesting, bringing the possibility of hired guns to come in and teach a specific Virtue or Virtue/Flaw combination over some period of time. Now the order can have teaching specialists, not just LR specialists. It makes the idea of fostering a little bit more interesting.

Also, with regards to fosterage, since we're using and abusing it here, it's technically a low crime. I'm going to rule that Normand, Rhine, The Tribunal of the Greater Alps and the Transylvania Tribunals have all ratified a peripheral code ruling that it is not a low crime, that properly executed contracts of fosterage transfer the duty of teaching to the fostering magus for the period of the contract. I'd already said this earlier, I'm just going to clarify it.

I updated season activities for Korvin, Abagail and Jacques. I'm going with the option of learning Perdo up to 10 in 4 season even though it takes away from any XP or the 1222.2 season. I had 5 of those already spent too :frowning:

I updated the LR to include Abagail and exclude Glaukopis (since Korvin does not have leadership). Over all gain of 2 points.

LR for L Cr27+Co 17+In3+MT7 + MT3 + In2(Paion) + 5MT (Abagail) + 3 Int (Abagail)+Lab(+3)+Inventive Genius (3)+aura 5 +10 from Laetitia = LT 88 (Leadership+2)

i totally agree. I did not want to make a carbon copy of Korvin's virtues and flaws.

Note Leadership +2 is for Bonisagus, all other Houses have Leadership +1, so you need to do something Leadershipy in the Phoenix thread, somehow, somewhere (not off scene). Your familiar is always included and doesn't count against the limit.

Um...whoops. I don't know how, but I somehow confused A Matter of Degree (the regio exploration thread) with Race for the Pennant (the I have no idea what we're doing thread).

Wen will still go (she's Reckless, and her parents have given her until Yule to find a husband or they're going to find someone for her, plus she's already had lines), but the rest of the grogs I mentioned won't. Jury's still out on Wilhelm.

Race for the Pennant is the Flambeau thread.

Yeah, but I totally missed the setup for it. I remember preparing for exploring the regio, than a thread opened up saying "Okay, who's going?" and I thought the two were related somehow. I'm guessing the Flambeau thread has...something to do with all the letters going around trying to get the new Flambeau primus elected?

Yup.
Many Flambeau show up.
Vote
Have a Tournament
Maybe get killed
Go home giddy

Okay, I'm an idiot. I went back and reread, and when I saw the post on "let's get the ball rolling," I didn't read the post directly above it. (I do have a regrettable tendency to just skim over posts that don't involve my characters, and it looks like it bit me in the bum again. My bad.)

It happens. It happens when you're an SG. And sometimes you want to smack people around and get things moving and get impatient and say/do something that doesn't follow, and create a point of discontinuity.

The Leadership +2xp is for exposure. Not many leadership opportunities in researching genealogical records in the Library with a live and dead rabbi and a vine. He got close to leadership like things in the Requested and Required thread. But that would mean skipping a season studying Perdo.

I may have a backup plan. Note, you're older than all three of the Magical Mercere's there. (If amul indicates otherwise, I'll pull ASG rank.) A season's a long time, and getting home may be faster through a Mercere Portal available at one of the other Mercere Houses...

I'm inclined to think that there are instructions, which all the Houses freely provide new masters on how to teach specific virtues, especially those that are common in their Lineage. Since Apprentices tends to enforce you're like your parens, and the more I think about it the more I really hate it as a player (that my character is like my parens) it does make some sense. So, I'm going to lower the difficulty for teaching Hermetic Virtues that the parens knows, and use the ease factors indicated in the book to reflect other Hermetic Virtues that might be taught. Note, this still leaves open the possibility of hiring someone to teach your apprentice the Virtues that you want, with negotiating room for him inflicting his flaws on the apprentice in the process.

Touching on Korvin's specifc Perdo issue, I just want to be absolutely clear that I and Ra'am are completely OK with her having Deficient Perdo (when I originally designed him I was debating between Restriction and Deficient Perdo). And again, if you manage to get your Art score in Perdo to 15 early enough, it might be enough time to fix her problem, and also solve some of your problems with the Art. You might be thinking that we don't have a book on Perdo that can get Korvin to 15, easily. Well, that is a problem that can be solved with sufficient effort and planning.

I do not mind some overlap of virtues/flaws. What I want to avoid is a carbon copy. With Ra'am and Korvin as teachers, I sure she will have affinity to creo. And unless Korvin takes a special action, she will be Mercurian.

Speaking of Mercurian. I've been thinking of changing the nature of that Virtue, and invite troupe input. I'm sure you're willing to ratify any change I make, because as it is, it's a pretty mixed Virtue...
Instead of requiring Mercurians spontaneous magic to be ceremonial, I'm thinking of imposing a penalty of -5 to any spontaneous spell, unless it is ceremonial, in which case, no negative, and all the benefits of Artes Liberales and Philosophae. The virtue has a very nice feature, especially for a healer. I think the drawback to the flaw is too onerous. I notice that Arya HR'ed it away entirely in Albion, but I don't want to eliminate a downside entirely, because that half vis feature can be really, really nice. Also thinking Mercurians should have stalwart mastery for rituals for free...

Comments from the troupe?

I didn't HR it away entirely. I HR'd that Mercurians of the Mercere lineage do not suffer the penalty to sponting, but non-Mercere Mercurians do. I felt that better reflected that it is primarily a Mercere thing, but that there are still some Mercurians out there of differing lineages.

The main reason I nixed it is that we use spontaneous magic ALL THE TIME. Mercurian Magic is a major virtue, yet its benefit only ever comes into play for one spell every year, and its drawback comes into play constantly. Balance-wise, that makes no sense.

To put it into perspective, the average Mercurian will save 4 pawns a year, max.
Waster of Vis is a major flaw, and costs you probably no more than 3 pawns in a year.
Waster of Vis lets you pick a major virtue, and Mercurian Magic makes you choose another major flaw... but Mercurian Magic already comes stock with essentially Weak Spont.

I think your mixing editions or something. Waster of Vis doesn't allow one to pick anything.

And while it's true, I think that's a distinction without any reason between Mercurians. They're all descendants of the Cult of Mercury, and I can't really fathom why one Mercurian is better than another Mercurian. I know you're House Mercere biased, but I'm not. :stuck_out_tongue:

Ok, I went to my office and thought about this a bit, and then I reviewed the Major Hermetic Virtues. Except for Diedne Magic, no other Major Hermetic Virtues[1] add a penalty while granting a virtue, and I generally agree that the benefits are slight if Rituals aren't being tossed about. So i'm going to revise my Virtue. Diedne also adds a story flaw, that ostensibly the player/troupe/SG desire to have on some level, too, there's really no penalty, except you have to take a counterbalancing virtue, and your Story flaw slot is full.

Mercurian Magic
(changing the last paragraph)
Your concentration in ritual magic has other benefits. If you cast spells ceremonially, whether because you have a formulaic spell with ceremonial mastery or it is a spontaneous ceremonial casting you may add a bonus of 5 to the roll. Ritual spells which you know can be cast as if you have the stalwart mastery, but this does not add to a mastery score. Now, there are no negatives and there are a few more tangential positives relating to a focus on ritual magic.

[1] There can be ample discussion, and there has, about the quality of Elemental and Secondary Insight as major virtues. IMO, Flawless Magic is the single most powerful Hermetic Virtue, and it is incredibly versatile across a range of magi types.