Adelbert, a "Magi of Hermes" look at intellego and Astrology

Games Discussion Ars Magica
301

For the first year of lab time

One season to learn this from lab notes, It's not a spell in the supplements but it's (IMO) irrational for it not to be considering that Intelligence of the Heroes is

Adelbert plans to use this on Claritas and his former apprentices, also others in exchange for assistance with his longevity ritual.

Then three seasons on the Sphere of Revealed Flesh, 1 season to open it and one season each for its two enchantments

I see this device (If there aren't any issues with it) as providing a +4 bonus to the lab corpus specialization and a +4 bonus to the lab longevity ritual specialization once it is integrated in to the lab.

302

1 He was using a -12 ritual.
2.For a lab total boost he's going to use numbers from Claritas, an ex apprentice with a +5 intelligence and 7 magic theory, and Ranulf's numbers (because he's a good example of a magus of the same age cohort, and I've crossed them over before with the Wand of the Earthbound Constellation and the Pendant of the Eagle's Vision).
3. Neither, Adelbert is a magic theory beast, he just needed to spend time to get himself up to a level where he could handle job personally, what he needs now is lab total. So int + magic theory - arts are irrelevant.

303

Two lesser enchanted devices in the next two seasons which should add an additional +4 to both the corpus specialization and the longevity specialization of Adelbert's laboratory.

Any issues?

304

I'd have thought you'd need at least one magnitude for flexibility in the Chest, if you want it to be able to create a variable portion of the body selected by the user at the time of activation.

You probably also need target Part on the Wand if by "portion of human body" you mean a subset of a whole body, rather than the whole of an already isolated portion. (I suspect you mean the latter, to go with the Chest, but it's not entirely clear).

305

I've editied the original post to incorporate your suggestions.

306

Using a +5 horoscope bonus from celestial magic, a +4 shape bonus from wand (control at distance), and a +3 material bonus from amber (control movement) Adelbert enchants this effect in two seasons (even constrained by his score of 5 in Herbam). Adelbert also takes one season to open the wand for enchantment.

When integrated, the wand should improve the Lab's general quality by 2 points (and possibly something else by 1 but Adelbert isn't going to give his lab a rego pecialization - no more than two techniques, and I'm not sold on it being appropriate for something else he'd want such as enchanting items)

Five seasons left for the 121 -135 period.

307

Ok five more seasons, the first he'll use to craft another lesser enchanted device for the lab.

Adelbert can pull this off in a season as a lesser device, but it's a near thing.
Intellego 35
Herbam 5
Intelligence 5
Magic theory 18 (with specialization)
Claritas Intelligence 5
Claritas Magic Theory 13 (with specialization)
Aura 3
Rock crystal +5 clairvoyance
Opa1 +2 imaginem
Mirror +6 display images
+3 lab horoscope

When integrated, this device should provide a bonus of +1 to laboratory general quality and +3 to laboratory intellego specialization

One season to refine his laboratory, during which the laboratory will acquire the highly organized virtue.

One season to integrate the Sphere of Revealed flesh as a a lesser feature (orb) providing +1 aesthetics and +1 to intellego specialization. During this time he will also integrate the other enchanted devices as free virtues.

Here is a description of the lab

Size 0
Refinement 1
General quality 4
Upkeep 0
Safety 0
Warping 0
Health 0
Aesthetics +1
Specializations:
Longevity rituals +8
Intellego +4
Corpus +8

Virtues and Flaws:
Highly organized
Lesser Feature (orb)
Magic Item: Sphere of Revealed Flesh
Magic Item: Chest of Animated Flesh
Magic Item: Wand of Measured Decrepitude
Magic Item: Least Obtrusive Servant
Magic Item: Redundancy of Organization and Memory

308

This leaves 2 seasons to provide a longevity ritual for himself and for a colleague of similar age (but lesser magic theory) with whom he will cooperate in the lab. Adelbert will also recruit a previous apprentice with a promise to work on their longevity ritual in the near future. Prior to the longevity ritual creation he will make use of Circle of Heroic Intelligence on all of the actors.

Here's the lab total
Creo 16
Corpus 16
Intelligence 5
Magic Theory 17
Aura 3
Lab General Quality 4
Lab Corpus specialization 8
Lab Longevity ritual specialization 8
Claritas Intelligence 5
Claritas Magic Theory 13
Former Apprentice Intelligence 5
Former Apprentice Magic Theory 7
Similar aged fellow Magus intelligence 5
Similar aged fellow Magus Magic Theory 10

This comes to 122, adding a laboratory horoscope of +4 will get him to 126 , enough for a -26 modifier, more than twice what he had previously.

309

Adelbert 121-135 is mostly done. Perhaps the least interesting period I've ever done for one of these. Adelbert can now generate big lab totals, and that's about it. It actually makes him less interesting to use as an NPC. That's an observation, not an apology, I don't see any of the other paths for him to have taken to have been nearly as believable.

For the next period I'm taking some inspiration from figures like Saruman in the movie version of Lord of the Rings and Soul Catcher Glenn Cook's books of the south. Adelbert has a dangerously high warping score by this age so he really has no business going into any sort of a hostile aura. He's going to develop a suite of spells so that he can send out armies of animals to find people and or things for him and then use the controlled critters to adjust the world around him to his liking. There's probably something on TVtropes.org describing the character who looms in his tower unmoving but his spys are everywhere. Adelbert already has few tools to do this, especially the Aviary of the Watchful Covenant. But to make it work well I'd like to have a specific target for me to focus his efforts around.

I had two thoughts but I'd prefer to have someone else come up with a different option or some elaboration on one of these that makes it more intersting.
Some sort of Faerie vampires, they might present a real threat to the order prompting Adelbert's actions and Adelbert would work really hard to stay out of Faerie auras.
The Shadow Flambeau, they're third edition but I've set up Adelbert in the Iberian Tribunal as the senior Quasitor, if you include that thing in your game you'd probably include it in the recent past.

310

Wrapping up 121-135;

I don't think that I'll change his personality traits or make big changes to his reputation this period.

As part of providing a longevity ritual for a similarly aged magus I'm going to have him acquire this casting tablet (which is still covered by the cow and calf oath so he can not copy legally copy it)

Aging rolls: I don't see any strenuous lab schedules.
Age /10 (so 16 or 17), living conditions -3 ritual (-12 or -26) (edit and -3 from a bronze cord)

ages 151-160 at -1
ages 161-164 at 0
age 165 at -12

I threw this in an excel sheet and had it generate some random numbers. He didn't have any numbers over 9 and only gains 3 points of apparent age, he was lucky. Now he looks 100.

Claritas had an additional 11 seasons. She'll use them to get her stealth to 4 for 20 xp, and learn Living Language Basque at 3 for 30, that seems reasonable.

311

Here's the +135 character sheet.

No additional twilight scars for this period, at his age there's a good chance he'd never return from a twilight episode.

312

Here is the apprenticeship +135 character sheet for Claritas.

I'll still need to edit this to add the personality traits that Adelbert and Claritas have each acquired from the familiar bond enchantments.

313

Below I've listed all of the enchanted devices that Adelbert has at 135 years out of apprenticeship. Not a complete list of every enchanted device ever. I did keep some of the earlier charged devices around with the idea that they no longer provide anything that he can't do better with spells, and I can see him being reluctant to part with their very last charge.

Adelbert posses one casting Tablet that should be included in this list. (This tablet is protected by the Cow and Calf oath and can not legally be copied)

Talisman of Adelbert

Aviary of the Watchful Covenant (somewhat revised here in terms of vis capcity and physiscal description)

Pouch of Foreshortened Arrows this is a lesser enchanted device

Gaze of the watchful Father

The Face of Fear is a mask, it is a charged device with but a single charge remaining

The Glove of Intrigue is another charged device

The wand of the Earthbound constellation is a lesser enchanted device that Adelbert acquired through trade. It is important to him because, while has has it, it allows him avoid most circumstances where his restriction flaw would be in effect.

Adelbert has two azure candles that he carries with him at all times (also , like the wand, as protection from his restriction flaw)

Here is a description of Adelbert's lab:
Size 0
Refinement 1
General quality 4
Upkeep 0
Safety 0
Warping 0
Health 0
Aesthetics +1
Specializations:
Longevity rituals +8
Intellego +4
Corpus +8

Virtues and Flaws:
Highly organized
Lesser Feature (orb)
Magic Item: Sphere of Revealed Flesh
Magic Item: Chest of Animated Flesh
Magic Item: Wand of Measured Decrepitude
Magic Item: Least Obtrusive Servant
Magic Item: Redundancy of Organization and Memory

314

Below are copied all of the unique spells known by Adelbert at 135 years out of apprenticeship.

Animal spells

Corpus spells

Herbam spell

Imaginem spell

Mentem spells

Vim spells

315

The next posts will make more sense if I premptivley tell you my vision for years 136-150 (it has evolved a bit in the last 2 weeks or so).

Adelbert is going to have dozens to hundreds of animals under his control (check out the Aviary of the Watchful Covenant a few posts up) wandering Mythic Europe doing his bidding. So he'll develop spells and (mostly) devices to

Control animals at AC range
Search the memories of animals at range arcane connection
Collect AC's from other animals not yet under his control also at range arcane connection, so he can spread out his network
Enhance the abilities of animals to retain clear memories and do so at range arcane connection
Give animals enhanced senses at.. yes you get it

A lot of this he can already do with spells he has in conjunction with an arcane tunnel, but he's going to move the work to enchanted devices so he can have someone else handle it, (he's got no time to cast multiple spells on even a dozen animals much less two hundred) and, so when he's gone, his covenant/tribunal/order can still benefit from his work. He'll also develop the capacity to project his image and his magic to the location of any animal he has an AC to (at his age he wants to avoid hostile auras).

Then he'll develop a way to take the memories of all the animals and combine them into a tiny diorama of Mythic Europe using a creo imaginem effect. I understand that GIS searches or zooming in on google earth isn't period but tiny models are and I don't feel at all bad about using zoom effects to make it useful, or even an "extract metadata" device. He's been a scholar and lawyer for 140 years those sorts of ideas would come to him naturally. (Perhaps even a backup map or two to show old data or to recover from when a Tytalus destroys the current image using an invisibility spell.)

Certainly he needs an enchantment to locate a creature on his map from an AC, perhaps there'd be a way for him to locate and creatures he has AC's to in a given portion of the map , or "what's the closest critter to the cathedral that I have avaiable?" although that would be harder to design. If he has time, perhaps other integrated effects as well.

That's the gist of my plan hopefully it will help you critque better and thereby create better spells and effects and a better npc (although I still see him as primarily a deus ex machina to throw in to a story in order to expose all of the information).

316

I just looked through his spell list to see if there was anything calling out for spell mastery then considered what he'd need to pull off my plans. I think that this will be a heavier than normal load to get done so Adelbert will take 6 years for lab work rather than 5 meaning only 9 years of xp -270 points.

for Adelbert

Vim to 21 for 21
Rego to 18 for 51
Muto to 15 for 42
Animal to 20 for 39
Imaginem to 15 for 40
Carouse 1 for 5
Charm 1 for 5 (he's getting better with running Tribunals)
Code of Hermes to 6 for 30
23 xp in intellego which, with his affinity, becomes 35 giving him a score of 33 +2 (3)

Claritas (who I'm giving a full 30xp per year to somewhat balance the fact that I'd been giving her only 10 or so xp per year up through year 120). Is going indulge her inquisitive nature to learn the rest of the Iberian languages and improve her stealth and guile. She'll also throw herself in to the study of the art of memory because she's really intellegent now and can make some use of it.

Living language Arabic at 3 for 30
Living language Leonese at 3 for 30
Living language Aragonese at 3 for 30
Living language Catalan at 3 for 30
Art of Memory at 5 for 75
Stealth to 5 for 25
Guile to 4 for 20
Organization lore Order of Hermes to 3 for 15

With that out of the way I can get to spells and effects.

317

Hi,

Things to note:

  • Beware of violating the code. With all those animals at large, doing so by accident will be easy.

  • You'll need a way to preserve the animal memories, which probably do not last long naturally, especially when SQUIRREL!!!

  • 'Stitching the memories together' is probably not something you can easily automate. Should be interesting to see how you do this.

  • Automation will generally be difficult, perhaps not reasonably possible, and there's quite a bit to do as the map gets larger, to create and update it.

Anyway,

Ken

318

If Adelbert wants to project his influence through controlled and conjured animals he'll need to be able to do some sort of magic through them beyond just controlling them and reading their minds. The game doesn't provide us with a lot of ways to do this, which is understandable. You want the characters to be where the story is happening, acting through proxies or projected images lowers the stakes of a scene. Being able to cast spells any place on earth is, as a general rule, bad for stories.

I had fond memories of Ulpris of Tytalus from Medieval Tapestry, the archmagus who couldn't move so he interacted with the world via projected images, so I looked him up to see what spells he used - he had no unique spells or devices (previous editions were rather lame in that way).

What Adelbert needs is a way to collect stuff (specifically arcane connections) from range arcane connection. That's not too conceptually complicated of a task; open an intangible tunnel and then teleport the particular piece of stuff in question back to his large comfortably decorated solarium from which he observes the world. He just needs to already have an AC to the spot, or more accurately for his purposes the critter, he wants to get an AC from. I'm sure you see the issue.

Adelbert will spend a single season researching the following spell

I took the guideline directly from rego corpus. If Adelbert wants to send a raven back to the place that he just took the raven from he needs to either have the bird grab an arcane connection before it leaves or, more reasonably, send a replacement raven first. He can do this as a spell in a single season and, within his aura, cast it reliably without fatigue. But the creation of a device that can do this with all of the requisites and unlimited uses may be an undertaking he doesn't have time for at (even) this level of experience.

That works if there is an arcane connection that his creature can grab. Adelbert develops this device to make certain that there is such an AC to grab. This uses a special range/target thing that might need some scrutiny.

base 1 for manipulate animal products seems kind of low but it is the closest guideline I found. At the same time, 2 magnitudes for the indirect targeting seems high so I'm content to leave the spell as it is.

He also needs to be able to experience the world from the point of view of a distant animal. He's already done a similar effect in the familiar bond.

I just adapted this from the familiar power, I'll double check the base level later, I've run out of time for now.

319

Adelbert spends a year creating this (one season to open the device, one season for Poll of the Scattered Agents, and two for Opening the Intangible Tunnel)

According to Hermetic Projects , in order to use an arcane tunnel, the person directing the magic must be able to sense the arcane tunnel. Is knowing the location of the tunnel (like say the individual cavity within the grid) sufficient to allow a person to use an enchanted device through it, or does Adelbert need to enchant something else in order to make the intangible tunnels functional for those who can't cast the necessary intellego vim spells?

320

I wish! No, you have to be able to sense it, just as you always have to be able to percieve your target.
Just knowing that the Tunnel is not enough I'm afraid.

Yes he will.