Right, I knew requests were outside of the contract. I'm sure, because the Praeco can request something, it's primarily used to get people out of the Tribunal. Either riff-raff or people who have completed their contract, but they no longer want the services from...
It is for the benefit of the Tribunal. Says that in the clause.
I really do not have much fun chewing on this over and over. THe clause is in the Oppidum charter and it stays. If you do not like it then either make a character that can accept it or move on.
She can accept it, but that doesn't mean she will blithely trust Tremere if they act untrustworthy.
True, but the Tremere claims to be about the "Greater Good".
@qcipher: One of the things you were annoyed about was having a Verdi who didn't make anything. If Jebrick is okay with it I could change to a different House. Boni probably. That would also alleviate one of Eve's worries, Boni research must be shared. (There wouldn't be any retconning except the name, and removing a few as of yet, unused mysteries.)
Well, having a Verdi with Inner House Mysteries who spent no seasons actually making stuff is one of those things that broke my suspension of disbelief. It would also supplement her lack of spells.
Now you want our help?
Ok.
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Whatever concept you start with, think of why the Magus would want to be in Transylvania. So regardless of anything else...why does your character want or even need to be there? As you pointed out, there are issue in Trans. you need compelling reasons to be there yourself. Duty? On the run? Paid well for a service you can provide better than others (if it's this reason, you need to strengthen it. Eve had no rep at all, almost no reason to be desired by Trans)?
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Why would the Tremere want your character in Trans? They need compelling reasons. They own it, no one can get in or stay for long if they don't want you there. Shirkers and those who complain about the rules will not make it through the front door. So negotiating with them requires finesse. complaining about their tactics...try that in a job interview, see how well it works.
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Be cohesive in story, virtues and flaws. I'm not saying this is easy, so please, accept our help and criticism rather than rail against it. I worked with JL on Alexei, we had plenty of back and forth and in the end I feel we came up with a successful character concept that added to the story. We didn't always agree, but we built off each other's advice. So if we offer some advice, instead of digging in your heels, give it some consideration, we're not going to give you bad ideas, maybe you might not agree with them. But we offered advice, pages of advice, and you mostly rejected them, finally taking some of them into consideration and making some changes, but now here we are again. We're not trying to make your character for you, just help you make a better fit for the story, because it's all our story.
Now then, to give a start to a concept. Let's say you want to bring in Eve still. She has all the House Mysteries? One of the biggest ones is Item Attunement, allows for huge Talisman level items, tons of versatility and power. That might be what gets her an interview. Maybe the Tremere want to try her out, a few small items, like items of quality. You see the clause in the Oppida about weaponizing the fae, Eve might not know jack about weaponizing them, but maybe she knows how to harness them into items...that's as close to weaponizing as it gets. Now that would likely cause issues with Zoltan, but who cares? She's making vis! That's how we'd like you to look at this.
So, if you want to change your character a bit, start with this. If you look like you're taking our suggestions seriously maybe we can make this work.
All I remember about Alexei is suggesting going for the Quietx2 and Subtle combo. Casting spells on people with them being none the wiser.
I remember I had someone try joining Bibracte work with me over PMs, the timing was before I killed Apollodorus. He wanted to bring a Blatantly Gifted Tytalus Necromancer. I flat out asked him why would a Gently Gifted Jerbiton bring such a character into a covenant? He couldn't come up with a reason, and so he never made it into the saga.
It's the player's responsibility to build a concept with concessions to the saga/covenant. I think there could be a lot of texts Eve might find useful. As I recall Gnosticism had a resurgence or development in Dacia in the 9th century. the then Roman Empire (now called Byzantine), cracked down really hard on it, driving them out. So her being here is reasonable. She will just have to do other stuff as called upon while searching for the texts she needs.
No, I remember you gave me the idea to go with Gentle Gift (initially I went with Flawless I think), and also helped me define his code of honor. That honor was something he struggled with in the early stories. But, that helped make for a good fit I think.
You don't get jobs based on rep. You get them based on ability. At least if the employer is competent. Eve has ability.
That said: my original idea that the Tribunal was run reasonably fairly. No random abuses of power. That combined with the Tremere stance against WW makes it actually fairly attractive. That doesn't look to be the case, or at least it doesn't look like the Tremere will be remotely convincing of the no random abuses of power.
That said there are several possible reasons, the first is payment. If your character is getting payed well there is no reason Eve can't be as well. She can demonstrate her abilities or get the references attesting to them. (Arts with spont magic, magic theory with a quiz, philosophae with a quiz, crafting with an example, books with her portfolio and Verdi mysteries with letters). The second is JL's suggestion of gnostic resurgence. However the first two are out of my hands and in Jebrick's court. The third is always fleeing from other embarrassments and less favourable tribunals. (Every thing she sends through Normandy gets raided, she sort of got blacklisted from all the cool folks in Rhine, Stonehenge is way to close to those guys who are ending the world and bringing back the Titans, etc.)
Someone who can write top tier books? Someone who has two inner Verdi mysteries? For crying out loud she can call up a daimon, one that produces vis. She produces vis! There is no way she won't end up a plus in their accounting.
She doesn't have either of those mysteries.
Item attunement is sort of a terrible mystery for a few reasons:
- Eve can already open huge items. 35 pawns. More if they give her books on philosophae, or magic theory. Item attunement only allows for bigger items in one of four tefo combos. And even then only an extra four pawns. AND Eve would need to be the actual enchanter for every slot, something that would take... three years.
- Its a really good way to get rush towards final twilight. If you botch you pick up a lot of warping. OOC, it wouldn't be a huge issue, but IC it could take huge bites out of Eve's life.
- Other people can't add to the enchantments. Eve needs to do all the work.
Neither Eve nor her parens would want her actually initiated into that.
On binding magical creatures: Eve wants to become a being with magic might. Torturing them to death... kind of contrary to the whole idea. Torturing Fae to death on the other hand is a pretty blatant Code violation. Its not an awful mystery, but it is one Eve would never actually use. The runes and IoQ OTOH would be something Eve might actually use, hence those were the ones she got.
Anyway nothing about that would result in Eve making any items for herself to keep. Which both you and JL objected to pretty heavily.
@JL: I think your grog team is going to have trouble taking down a lot of creatures with might. Flying creatures will be a pain. The bigger problem is that all those unravelling spells? They are for Hermetic Magic. They won't do jack against a dragon's breath. You can definitely slice away with the various oblivion spells if they get in range, but against fliers... there is no guarantee they will need to close. Indeed one of the two example dragons in AtD has sight ranged attacks. He could easily just float over and murder a grog before flying away. He's infernal so he might do it too.
The only reason I mention it is because you talked about fighting off creatures with might.
An entry level job, yes. Anything based on more is a function of your network (why is LinkedIn so popular?) and has somewhat less to do with ability. Of course those with proven ability and the network will do better.
Nothing has said the Tribunal isn't run fairly.
Lots of people write books. The Tribunal has plenty of Vis.
Well, I didn't say she could take out dragons, yet, did I? She and her grogs stand a bit better chance than Eve does. Eve has spells with negligible penetration. I never for one moment claimed she was the ultimate combat Maga. I have a concept, and I'm executing the concept, for good or I'll. I could have easily designed a magus with +47 penetration on PoF, or something else. Ophelia can also counter other effects, spontaneously. (9+3+9+9+1)/2 or 25th + die level equivalent.
Ophelia was built, primarily, to go up against other magi. Compete in the Dimicatio, or something else. There may a bit of concept creep, but I'm generally happy with the build.
True, but IC Eve can't really be sure of that. If she is told they are fair because X,Y,Z. Eve will ask about that to get it all clarified to avoid future confusion. If they say "yes we are totally X,Y,Z! But we can't but that in the privilege." It looks bad. You see that right? If you buy a new car, and the dealer says "Sure I'll totally fix any problems, but I just can't put it in the contract" do you really trust him? A good reputation might help a little, but its still gonna make me look at the person sideways.
Look if need be we can handwave this. "And Eve signs the contract ignoring the fine print, even thought that's a really terrible idea". But I would prefer not to do that. For starters distrust can lead to stories and plot developments. In particular it would play great with the conversation Eve is having now in her prelude. Guy says "the Tremere are baddies" followed by the Tremere immediately being suspicious?
True the maybe 6 pawns a year won't be much. Its just sort of cake icing at that point. The main thing with the writing is the Q14 tracti. Not a lot of people write those. And again, Verdi mysteries. Those things are pretty cool.
Depends on the fight. Unless I missed a spell a dragon bombing us from half a mile up is going to be a fight Eve will do better in. If the dragon charges on the other hand? Your grogs would be much better. In general, I think most enemies are going to want to fight much closers up than Eve's preferred engagement range. Eve's combat style is the school of shooting people from outside their range. So while we can't be sure of the enemy array, I'm thinking team grog will do better than team Eve.
And you are much better rounded for dealing with magi. That's for damn sure.
Actually... that's wrong. Well, i don't have AtD, but EVERY magus can vote at the Tribunal where he resides. That's so basic it's actually in the Oath. Not even a Transylvania Tribunal decision can change that, unless we're playing in a whole different Order. Just because it won't do them any good doesn't mean they can't try to change it.
I think part of the problem here is that many of us don't have AtD... and clearly that Tribunal is way different from all the others (which we knew) in way we didn't expect when we started making our characters. For Diotima... well, as a character the real reason she comes to the Tribunal is to be close to Constantinople, and because she makes a policy of moving around as much as she can to hide her secrets. For instance, while a great many librarians might recall she borrowed books on Mentem, they'll also recall she borrowed even more books on other subjects; only if they were to compare notes (from at least four Tribunals and an even greater number of covenants) would they realize that the only subject she studied at more than one place is Mentem... And Diotima (as a character, not necessarily me as player) is actually expecting to move back to the Theban Tribunal eventually, once her work there is done and all magical traces of her work there have faded beyond any hope of analysis. So she doesn't mind taking a less than optimal contract.
But, just to clarify something that was said earlier: the Transylvania Tribunal doesn't have any ruling against magi leaving, does it ? I mean, trying to enforce a personal contract is one thing, but forbidding a magus to leave in the first place, I just don't see how they could get away with it.
Also, I think I read on the web that the covenants in the Transylvania Tribunal are actually the five types of residents you described in your description thread, is that right ? Because (yes, I may not know the Tremere but I know the Guernicus very well indeed) there is actually a clause in the Code that says that for a Tribunal to be valid, at least four covenants must be represented. So if this is the case, I can see a nice potential for boycott there...
She pretty much is, actually 
Communication 5 + Good Teacher... this is as good as it gets. According to Arts & Academe, only two mundane authors can even equal Eve (Cicero and Leonardo Fibonacci), and she leaves everyone else behind. She's better than Aristotle, better than St. Augustine, better than Plato (way better). She's not yet ready to write the definitive books on any Art (because she doesn't have the scores to do it), but her tractati ARE the best ever. The Tremere are inviting the most promising author of her generation to join their Tribunal.
And I direct your attention at Covenants p.95, Excellent Books, where it mentions House Tremere is eager to sell or buy copies of excellent book.
Personally, and again I don't have AtD, I would say Eve is in fact in position of force to negotiate.
i never said you could not vote. Everything about the Transylvania Tribunal is democratic. You are just competing with a House that will block vote. The clause is a residency requirement for the Tribunal that magi must occasionally perform tasks if asked by the Praeco. It is the same as Normandy and their feudal system or Thebes and their shards or the Greater Alps and their restrictions about each magus must have 10 pawns of vis as a source before they can be taken.
There are only 5 Covenants in Transylvania. Everyone belongs to one of the 5. All Tremere in the Tribunal belong to Coeris. all Asclepius belong to Coloniae. All Socii belong to Domostron. all Hospites belong to Diodorus. all Foederati belong to Pannonia. So Ophelia is in the books as belonging to Domostron. An Oppidum is just a temporary gathering to perform a task. Some last longer than others. Some move.
All of this goes back to the question of why is Eve coming to Transylvania. None of how the Tribunal runs is secret. You can go to the annual emergency Tribunals and try to get people to see you point. Probably a good thing for her to do in any case but it will not get you anywhere in this regard. But you are pushing that stone not me.
I'm loose enough to allow characters to come up with anything they want. Eve is just a bunch of stuff thrown together to get an effect. You do not even try to play the game. There is no real thought to why Eve would come to Transylvania. Why not go to the Rhine and live in Durenmar? If you can not come up with a reason for why the greatest writer in a generation would not be showered with vis and whatever else to just produce tracti for senior magi then you need to step back and rethink. Not a one line answer or quip. I can come up with half a dozen reasons but that is me.
It is my job as SG to make things interesting for you. It is every players job to make this fun for me. I would listen to JL and think on not HOW can you do something but WHY would you do it. Eve will be placed in situations that are outside her expertise and possibly abilities. If you do not think it will be fun then I suggest that you find another game.
There probably is one other magus who is as good as she is. Maybe two, maybe more when one takes initiations of Good Teacher as a possibility. I've mentioned Ra'am of Bonisagus. By this time, and by dint of his birth daughter being a Merceris maga and other services to House Mercere, he probably has access to the lab texts to push his com from +2 to +5. At this age, he's 45 years PG, too. I don't know if jebrick is limiting these spells to House Mercere as suggested in HoH:TL. In Bibracte, I would have allowed anyone to invent them from scratch, but doing so requires a lab total well in excess of 60; a 65 lab total would require 12 seasons of effort to invent it. 3 years might be worth it, depends on the character. It'd be better to get the text or have a much higher lab total, though. Ra'am's daughter is the Merceris maga in this Tribunal, too. After he invented or has invented his Longevity Ritual that doesn't cause sterility, he's probably moved on to writing a summa of Magic Theory to put Bonisagus's to shame. I could see him having a MT in the mid teens at this point, maybe as high as 17, because he was relentless in corresponding with others on MT.
There is a limit to everything. My general feeling is that Eve will be hitting that limit sooner than later.
It's pretty likely that the Tremere will catch wind of this, and assign Tremere to each of the other covenants at the last minute, in order to counter such a maneuver. It's quite possible that the Guernicus in this saga have or will try to do something like this. The Guernicus in this saga are different than the Guernicus that you know.
Interesting... so in theory if the Tremere are so obnoxious they start antagonizing everyone else to the point where two entire covenants boycott the Tribunal (i.e. the assembly) suddenly it is completely paralyzed. Not that they would ever do that, since I'm getting the impression from all these discussions that the Tremere of AtD are far less obnoxious than the Tremere as presented in other books.
Right, a residency requirement. So if the Praeco asks something the magus just won't do, he can leave. Or for that matter he can not do it and be kicked out. No need to specifically put that in the contract then, it's already a Tribunal ruling
Tribunal in 5th Edition are not obnoxious, certainly after reading HoH:TL, that's the impression I get. I think the one published Tremere, Rotgiers de Gerberoy in The Lian and the Lily is actually closer to a Flambeau than a Tremere.
No one is held captive. If you refuse the Praeco's task then you will be escorted out of the Tribunal.
The Tremere are not strong arming people. But they do require magi to act a certain way within the Tribunal. Pushing against them will cause a slap down. Keep pushing and the magus will be escorted out.
The Tremere have no problem putting other Tremere in the other 4 Covenants to just go to the Tribunal meetings. There is too much benefit for en entire membership of a Covenant to boycott Tribunal meetings. It is a good dream but there are ways around it.
This goes back to one of the questions I had, how much the Tremere will be paying her? She doesn't need to be showered with vis or whatever. She needs, maybe 80 vim to complete the whole process. Worse case scenario she just sort of waits for 40 years. If the Tremere give her a decent pay for each book: A few sound tracti, a few pawns of vis and some silver it will be enough.
Getting that set so she doesn't need to negotiate, doesn't need to put up with competing senior magi annoyed senior magi's requests and so forth. Huge boon. Another boon is the comparative lack of WW in TV. Those two things, even with some small red flags raised by the contracts would be more than enough to draw Eve to TV.
Now that changes if Eve isn't getting a half-decent wage. (Although I would wonder why the Tremere are unwilling to do so.) We would need other reasons. A harsher falling out with the other Verdi. One too many annoying Vendettas. A blacklist in the Rhine Tribunal for glossing the original work of some-famous-magi. A well placed fear of some of the rival groups of wizards. Suddenly, a Tribunal that reserves the right to abuse you looks really good compared to tribunals which definitely have abuse. That's even one of the reasons mentioned for people to come to TV in AtD! Or JL's idea of having a recent gnostic resurgence in TV. That's pretty much the perfect reason for Eve to stick around!
So that's what: three possible reasons? I've mentioned them before. Now here is the thing and here is why I have brought it up: Two of those potential reasons are outside my control. I don't control the Tremere. I don't control the setting. I've gotten somewhat unclear signals on if the Tremere will actually pay a decent wage.
Okay again I think this is somewhat of a philosophical difference: all those stats, all the mechanics, those aren't Eve. Those are the rules used to model Eve. The effect of them is to allow Eve to do her thing.
Eve is the fluff. Eve is the optimistic, arrogant, maga who wants to ascend the Order. She is the magi who took ten years to finally get away from her Parens and the peer pressure of the Verdi cult. (The added hubris from the mysteries probably helped). She is the maga who wants to have a good time while doing her work. Yeah, there is some cross-over like when the personality flaws have mechanical representations. The mechanics might influence what fluff is possible; I can't make Eve a time traveler. But the fluff is Eve, the mechanics are there to assist the fluff.
If it doesn't seem like I'm trying to play the game with Eve's character creation its because the game hasn't started.