[size=150]Being a submission for Boons and Hooks for the Covenant of the Phoenix, in the Tribunal of Iberia[/size]
I've gone through the Covenants book and compiled a list of Boons and Hooks for troupe-al approval. Basically, took my list that I've worked on, and added a bunch of stuff from The Fixer's post, threw in some other suggestions, and tweaked it until I got it to balance (12 points in Hooks, 12 points in Boons – coincidentally, an auspicious number in Hermetic numerology, so to speak).
Covenant base (for four magi, the founding magi):
[]Aura 3[/]
[]Somewhat removed[/]
[]Basic defenses[/]
[]4 labs[/]
[]4 grogs[/]
[]8 covenfolk[/]
[]No exotic specialists[/]
[]Living conditions: Aging modifers +1 for magi, +0 for others.[/]
Governance style: Autocracy (with regards to covenfolk) (p. 17, inset)
Hermetic Governance: Democracy (p. 30)
Residents: Peasants (p. 17)
Major Boons/Hooks are in boldface.
[u]Boons[/u]
[]Aura (x2): raising the Aura to +5 (p.6-7). This is almost mandatory 
[/]
[]Healthy feature (p. 8 ) x3. The wine produced by the covenant from the magical grapevines, when consumed over long periods of time in the covenant, has unexpectedly beneficial results for the residents. Probably a combination of magical wine and the effects of the regio.[/]
[]Inhuman residents:(p. 18). Rereading the description, it occurs to me that you can only take this once, and I was thinking we'd have ghosts and the grapevines. So I'm combining the two. For “Ghosts”: any covenfolk (or magi, or visitor, what have you) who dies in the regio is bound to the covenant and will continue (or at least, try) to serve the covenant in some way – I'm looking at you, Nearly Headless Nick. For Grapevines: I'm liking Amul's idea that the covenfolk think of them as “people” and not “irritating talking plants.” Maybe they even give them names...like Audrey II.[/]
[]Regio (p. 7). The covenant is actually located in a magic regio with a Magic 5 Aura. The main entrance (that the covenant knows about) is the manor house in the outside world. Perhaps the landscape in the regio echoes (but doesn't necessarily mirror) the outside – maybe a magical river or road where the river is, perhaps the trees are magical in nature (and maybe some may be enlightened). There are almost certainly many more entrances to the regio than ours, and there is a lot about the regio to discover...or to have discover us. I'm kinda picturing a pocket dimension like the one the Bazaar gave to Aahz and Skeeve rent-free...which shows how scary it might turn out being.[/]
[]Strong Community (p. 18). This, to me, makes sense because of the extremely small population.[/]
[]Vis Grant (p. 16). Mainly because I like the idea of all the magi getting x pawns of vis a year, especially if the covenant has two, three, or four steady sources of vis.[/]
[]Wealth (p. 16). The exceptional quality of the covenant's wine means we can sell it for a healthy amount. And maybe the talking grapevines can convince the mundane plants to work harder for us.[/]
[u]Hooks[/u]
[]Contested resources (p. 16). One of our vis sources must be won in a contest with someone or something. If need be, we can take this multiple times to make up for hooks that get vetoed or balance out boons that get added.[/]
[]Demonic Interest (p. 23). Dealing with Rafus has only whetted the Infernal's appetite. And they are interested in seducing other magi across the Tribunal.[/]
[]Divided loyalty (p. 19). Christian vs. Muslim vs. Jew. Not outright warfare or hostility (hopefully), but very cliquish. Combined with Strong Community, this almost sounds like the covenfolk may be more loyal to their group than to the covenant at times.[/]
[]Faerie Court (p. 23). Because Faerie Courts are cool. And it could make an awesome source of storylines.[/]
[]Gender Imbalance (p. 19). I think we've pretty much all decided to go with this one.[/]
[]Haunted (by ghosts of the solders lost in battles in the area) (p. 10). Different from the Inhuman Residents above, in that these ghosts have no loyalty to the Covenant. They're just ghosts of soldiers lost in battles in the area, and maybe were drawn here by the magic Aura. It would be interesting to try to exorcise these ghosts without impacting the others.[/]
[]Illusory Resources (p.17): Some of the resources we're supposed to have were actually negotiated by magi who were lost at the Battle of Las Navas de Telosa. Since those magi are no longer around, the other side no longer feels bound to honor the agreement. It might be a Story to try to either enforce the agreement or negotiate a new one.[/]
[]Regional Produce (p. 17): Since we already have the gossiping grapevines, it stands to reason that we would have a pretty decent vineyard as well, with some outstanding Spanish wine (guaranteed to loosen the tongue). [/]
Note that this is (probably) not a final list. I just wanted to throw a submission out for us to work on, hopefully have something done by Friday. I'm hoping that the final product will look a lot like this, but shrug We'll see. (edited the title, because apparently the Powers that Be think that 64 characters is all that anyone would ever need)
(edited 3 Feb to change the cause of the Healthy Feature Boon)
