Advice for a first time GM running a Rhine Tribunal game

Games Discussion Ars Magica
21

Thanks a bunch! You'd think that travel would be a little faster downstream. . .

I also checked out the pages of your campaign. Your campaign seems really cool. Some of the summa qualities do trip me up a bit. For example, you'd need Latin 13 (455xp, enough to raise an art to 29) to write "De lingua latina libri", assuming a combination of great teacher and communication amounting to +5. Moreover, it would be really nice to unearth that book from some dusty library and translate it, because if one were to read it, one would achieve a native level in Latin in just one year.

Then again, I think I'm not going to use the extended book rules from covenants.

22

I do not get how you arrive to the conclusion that this book would require latin 13... sorry.

23

recall that for Summas on abilities the quality increase is greater per level drop than for arts (+3 vs +1)

Bob

24

Using the core rules quality is 6+com+bonuses from virtues. Assuming Com +5 and good teacher this gives a base quality of 14.
In order to raise further to higher quality you gain 3 points for every level you lower the book. And you need 5 in latin to write the book in the first place.
So a quality of 20 requires you to lower the level by two points to increase quality by 6.
The author must then be able to write a level 7 summae in Latin requiring a score of 14.

I do not beleive this to be unrealistic. Considering the author Marcus Terentius Varro defined the concept of encyclopedia and the medieval arts. He was a greatly gifted scholar and this book was the foundation of the latin language for centuries.
Also think how easily a magus can reach a magic theory score of 14 if he has an affinity and access to the many great tractati on the subject. Most Bonisagi I would assume reach this level in their later years if they give it an effort.

The book by the way is from the living covenant of semita something.
All qualities and levels in our campaign are reasonable I think using expanded book rules from covenants and the general guidelines given in many books.
I think many of us who have played both 3rd or 4th edition tend to believe that quality should be lower. I think however in 5th edition summae on arts lvl 20 Q 15 are reasonable and certainly there will be tons of lvl 6 q 21 that allow you to go from 0 to 6 in an art over a season are abundant. (I price these at around 5 pawns vis).

25

... nevermind. Latin was the subject, not the language in which the book was written. I was wondering why such question about it.

Abilities score at 15 are not something to be expected, but are surely doable. Especially such abilities as magic theory, penetration, artes liberales, theology, concentration...

26

Yeah. I do agree that the levels and qualities are in line with the guidelines presented in Covenants. I think I played the first or second edition for a few sessions back in the day, but I don't think that I really remember anything about those sessions. We really didn't know how to play the game as kids. :wink:

I thought that Com+5 and Good Teacher would be extremely rare. The rulebook does say that highly skilled is 9. Perhaps those low tens aren't that unreasonable.

I assumed Com +2 and Good Teacher or Com +5 and came up with 6 + 5 = 11 with 9 points missing. I might have miscalculated.

You need a minimum of Latin 10 to write a summa lvl 5 about Latin, right? Now I get it, you get the +3 bonus for each level you've dropped!. So if you wanted to drop the level 3 levels, then you'd need an ability letting you write a summa three levels higher which comes to 8 times 2 or 16. That does seem a bit excessive. Maybe you do need to assume Com +5 and Good Teacher!

The book of course, is useful only for raising Latin from 4 to 5. :slight_smile:

If the book was for something else than Latin, you'd still be able to raise you skill from 0 to 5 in just one year. Perhaps that is reasonable. Some of the courses I've attended at the university have taken a season and if one were to read a good book for 8 hours straight 5-6 days a week for three months, one would expect high marks on those courses! I'm still a bit sceptical in my ability to reach a native level in a spoken language in one year though. :wink:

Thanks anyway. This was a really useful exercise for me.

27

Speaking a language without accent requires 5 for the native language, but 6 for the others. (Unless your SG accept the "accent" specialisation which would then become utmost necessary if your plan is to speak without accent...)

28

M'kay.

So I tried to familiarise myself with the way you construct spells by making one for an NPC who hopes to spread the word about epic poetry and the arts in general inside the Order of Hermes. It was a good exercise, because I had to find out that you have to use a Muto spell with Intellego requisite to give a sense to others. Also I had to read up on Art & Academe and Houses of Hermes: Societates to figure things out.

Audience for the Foreign Poet Mu(In)Me 35
The spell gives the targets the casters understanding of the spoken word including rhytm, meter, tone and other artistic considerations. Note that the spell only gives the targets understanding based on what the caster actually hears at the time.
Base 10, +1 Conc, +3 Group, +0 Intellego requisite, +1 intricate

Anyway, this lead me to read up on how to handle Intellego spells and then I had to question if we handled detecting vis correctly during the last session. (The second session, BTW, was really fun.)

Seems reasonable. The magi cast a lot of these effects spontaneously.

So vision is +4 magnitudes and touch is +1 magnitudes. Add concentration/diameter or something to that mix and I can see that actually learning the spells is meaningful. But then we have the level 5 spell "Sense the Nature of Vis" which is base 4, +1 touch. However, it does not impart the knowledge via the sense of touch.

Can you mix and match these? So you either target some individual thing in range or you use the range personal to give yourself a sense using the sense targeting rules. That would mean that there is a trade-off between giving yourself "vis-sight" as we did last session (base 1, +4 sight, +1 concentration = level 10) or targeting something you see and checking out if it has vis (base 1, +3 sight). In the latter case adding a duration doesn't make sense.

1 Like
29

This sounds about right. The idea of "Sense Spells" using the type of sense as Target is a new one for 5th edition. So many of the Intellego spells which have carried over from earlier editions don't conform to these. And sometimes one method makes more sense than the other.
Sometimes you just need some information in an instant, so an Intellego [Form] R: Touch D:Mom T:Ind is fine enough. Does this plant contain vis? Is this a natural rock? What is wrong with thic sick person?
Other times you want a magical sense for a while, like when searching a larger area for something, and then the Sense Targets are smart.

30

Yeah. I guess what threw me of was that "Sense the Nature of Vis" had +1 touch and then gave the caster visual information. But now I get how it works.

Last session our intrepid magi investigated the island with the keep a bit. They mostly talked with the guards and Herr Robert didn't see play. Meanwhile a few of them slipped to the island proper and found the vis source and milked it for some intellego vis. It prepped a lot of stuff for the island, but the players decided that they had scouted enough and headed for Trier.

It was established that the Verditius smith had lived and worked in this city before being apprenticed in the Order. We worked out that if the players choose this to be their covenant site, then the guild master that the player wrote up as the characters enemy is actually the enemy he earned the points from. The point being that a guild master in a city that the characters aren't going to frequent just isn't a worthy enemy for a hermetic magus. I also tried to give a lot of details on Roman architecture partly because this character has masonry. A lot of the places were also potential vis sites.

The Jewish mage has a spell to disguise himself to look more presentable. He kept that on for the whole time I think. He was instrumental in smoothing things out with Isaac, the Jewish innkeeper. I have to check out what is the duration of his spell and if he could have dismissed it. The point being if Isaac now knows him in as the persona he was disguised as. Anyway, we have to talk this over with the player.

I messed things up a bit with the the Trianoma illusionist, because I didn't remember that he doesn't speak German. We had a pretty long interlude with a salesman trying to sell him a piece of the Seamless Shirt and warning the players of the dangers that the Poor Brothers represent. When the rest of the magi headed underground, the player of this diplomat grabbed a grog and seemed to have fun playing him. One of the magi cast a light spell on his shield and the adventurous grog led the way.

The the follower of Pralix talked a lot with the shade of a necromancer that had lived in the covenant. The shade blamed her sodales on bringing down the wrath of the mundanes on them, but didn't think that her own necromantic practices, e.g. opening up cadavers and what not, had influenced the fate of the covenant in any way. She also went on and on how her brilliance had been instrumental in getting the vis sources of the covenant active. She told the magi that the graves worked as a vis source as long as you bury a new pagan in the alcoves each year. The players got a few more hints on vis sites. All of this was in exchange for promising to take her remains to her house (Tremere). Initially only the Verditius mage could see her, but as he talked with her, she became more and more audible and visible.

I feel that we, or rather I, made a lot of small mistakes. There is a lot to digest and lots of rules to take into account. There was also the thing with that I had prepped a lot more for the island. I think we'll have to backtrack a bit and check out if their nightly escapades (and lights) have roused the interest of the citizens.

Still, I feel that the session was a success. We had fun. We explored the rules. We also brought up a lot of stuff from the Middle Ages.

31

Cool... your recap sounds a lot like what my players did at the same sites two years ago. Except they didn't bother investigating the Island for vis. They quickly decided they wouldn't found their covenant there, then settled in the city but returned in 1227 after negotiating the rights to collect toll. Only then did they discover the vine, an abandoned lab underground and a handful of tomes they could have used in 1221.
Not always the brighest my players are.

We've been playing for 4 years (4-8 sessions a year) and this still happens all the time.
The most important is to have fun. And make up good explanations for when something happened in a session that you discover later on can't happen according to the rules.

32

As a long-time fan of the GotF book i enjoy hearing such stories. Especially since my group currently play a Rhine saga as well. ABout 1½ years into settling as a Spring covenant in a saga inspired by the Rhine Gorge thing in GotF but not quite. Players have yet to investigate Pfalz Island and Trier.

I've been playing Ars Magica since maybe 1997, but owned it since about 1990. I play with one player who has most rules from 3rd ed and on memorized. We often look things up. But more often we discover things not covered by rules, holes and exploits, wierd things - and this leads to much discussion. Often the best solution we find in one session seems completely ludicrous the next time and we flip-flop and rule differently.

33

No, they find it, have their Redcap surreptiously check records to make sure that there's no fuzzy claims, and then register it with House Mercere and send records to Durenmar. "Who found it" has to be in legitimate question (subject to the usual questions of power and corruption) for certamen or rank-pulling to be applicable - if I were such a journeyman (depending on just how corrupt the saga's Rhine is, of course) I might respond to such an abuse by bringing a case for deprivation of my magical power.

1 Like
34

Okay. I'm confused. Are the covenants and magi in a constant state of war or are they not?

Earlier, I got the impression that all of the covenants vis sources are a certamen away from being stolen away. (And in the Rhine Tribunal, an announcement from a magus of higher rank would do it.)

This would instead seem to hint at some kind of permanent or semi-permanent rights. The business of borrowing vis would not work without some kind of ownership arrangements.

Under the Guernicus chapter, it says that vis sites are a part of the magical power that you are not supposed to deprive others of.

So would the proper procedure be to register vis sites with the redcaps, but if the site is closer to another covenant or a chapter house or something, then it might become a contestable issue where the rights of masters and/or certamen will become an issue? Alternatively someone might contest the issue, because vis has been left fallow or something.

35

We got the third session in and boy did we make progress.

First the magi and two grogs packed their picnic baskets with cheese, wine and such tasteful things as a courtesy of the Trianoma magus. Then they headed for the amphitheater, because the ghost of the maga had bragged to them about it being a vis source. Some of the magi went into full paranoia mode at the site. Some of them just wanted to blow the trumpet while others started to cast wards and the Verditius Terram specialist even wanted to transform the circle drawn in the sand into some harder substance. Anyway, the magi then boosted the bejesus out of the grog they sent out to challenge one of the gladiators. The grog won, but the other ghostly gladiators took issue with what they perceived as the cheating Persians. One of Trianoma magus rolled 30+ on his Guile check when he tried to goad the remaining two gladiators into accepting challenges of the cheaters. Two of them came at him at once and he was struck by the first blow. The magi were torn between opening fire with their magical beings eternal oblivions and worrying if that might dry up the vis source. As things settled down, the Jewish maga started doing convoluted ceremonial magics trying to determine the health of the grog. The Ex Miscellanea maga just squeezed him really hard to determine that he was unconscious.

Next up the magi visited a few temple ruins and kinda figured out that they'd need to do research in order to determine how to activate the temples of Lenus Mars and Mercury.

The Jewish magus got into the Jewish circles during Sabbath and the player was anxious to get on with the program.

Last up, we had a party split and the Verditius magus and the follower of Pralix headed into the deep woods and for the ruins of a Diedne covenant only to find a village of near pagans instead. They got on pretty well, but pretty much left the locals in awe. Comprehend magic proved to be awesome.

In the end we had a bit of a debate on what place to settle.

36

Edit: I had somehow managed to write my commen inside the quoted text.
That sounds like a really cool session. You seem to be getting on quite well with your saga, alt least in the starting phase - deciding which place to settle is always difficult. Personally I enjoy storylines about situations where the charaters have to make some hard decisions, face the changes and live with the consequences.

37

Mercere registering a vis source (HoH:TL p.83) are discreet, and do not make this public. So this can be a good idea. Sending records of this to Durenmar is pretty dangerous, though.

"Who found it" is not the criterion of the Order of Hermes for ownership of a vis source, though. See for this e. g. the different Normandy Tribunal Rulings in TLatL p.19f. And GotF has explicitly:

You may well have some Rhine Peripheral Code IYC to moderate this, of course.

Note, that Archmagi and Masters each have more votes at the Rhine Tribunal than the lowly Journeymen. And that (see HoH:TL p.50 box The Rhine Corruption) the Rhine Tribunal is considered corrupt by many a Quaesitor.
Your magus would be welcome to the Lotharingian separatists (see GotF p.29 box The Lotharingian Tribunal), of course. But these also need Masters and Archmagi, and a lot of do ut des with covenants like Fengheld, to push their agenda.

Cheers

38

One of my players, the one playing the Verditius magus and the companion knight, wanted to start out with a spell that he initially thought would cinrcumvent Parma Magica. Essentially he wants to have a spell that creates a massive boulder above the targets head and then crushes the target. I explained that spells either have to penetrate or you have to aim them with the Finesse ability. Then I figured that if you create something, it is either magical and has a duration and thus Parma protects or alternatively you have to create it with a ritual spell which is inconvenient in combat.

The player found a spell from somewhere in the internet, but I'm left with the task of directing the adjucation of this spell. Nowhere in the books can I find examples or guidelines dealing with this.

Level 10 spell: CrTe base 3 (stone), +1 diameter, +2 voice

Now, it strikes me that creating a stone in mid-air is either something that is unnatural for the stone so that would mean either +1 magnitude for the unnaturalness or perhaps an Auram requisite, because you are creating the stone in air. The first option seems more suitable.

Level 15 spell; CrTe base 3 (stone), +1 diameter, +2 voice, +1 unnatural property
Level 10 spell: CrTe(Au) base 3 (stone), +1 diameter, +2 voice, +0 Auram requisite

Or perhaps you'd need an Intellego requisite to target the "empty" air above the target or something. Still, I feel that you'd have to aim. All in all, I feel that this is (I hesitate to use the term) a bit out of paradigm. Stone is solid. I hesitate to make rulings that would lead to magi dropping conjured towers at each other. Water flows, flames spout and air breezes, but rocks sit.

In Houses of Hermes: Societates page 35 we have a shaft of ice that is launched against a target. It always hits, but I guess that because ice is not naturally something that moves at a high speed towards something, it has an +1 Rego requisite. That spell has a momentary duration, but then again, it is launched against the target at high speeds.

Level 10 spell; Cr(Re)Te base 3 (stone), +0 momentary, +2 voice, +1 Rego requisite

The individual target for Terram/Stone is "For stone, it is a single cubic pace." How much would this do damage?

Could you guys offer any sage advice on how to deal with this can of worms? I do know that in the end we will resolve this among the troupe, but I'd like your insights on how would you handle this in your tables.

39

This makes me think. Guardians of the Forests mentions unclaimed vis sources, it also mentions that RĂźgen doesn't want to admit Heorot to the Tribunal, because they are concerned that they'll clash over vis sources. Then there is the bit over quareling over vis sources in the woods.

The way I see it, the point of the contention here is, at what point does a vis source become owned by someone. In the Normandy tribunal, a vis source becomes owned by someone when it is established that the runner can sprint there in the allotted time. It would seem to me that if two covenants are too close to each other, then their sources might become a contested resource and certamen would likely be involved.

Deprivation of Magical Power protects against taking vis sources away from their owners. Should apprentices and books be up for grabs as well?!?

One could argue that the example about the vis in the woods talks about disputes that would otherwise be resolved by certamen and then argue that a vis source that has been established to be clearly owned by someone is not something that can be taken away by certamen. However, the way one can claim ownership is not clear. I read the story from page 116 about the contested resource of Treverorum to mean the following. It seems to me that the Tytalan magus had found the vis source before the magi from the covenant had, because the tribunal ruled that the covenant hadn't suffered any losses because of the harvesting. I don't get why anyone would leave vis unharvested. However, despite this, the tribunal ruled that since the source is so near to covenant, they should own it by right. If one reads the source like this, finders keepers isn't the most solid of arguments.

For some reason RĂźgen is concerned about the sources though. They have an archmage and the newcomers don't. Based on one reading of the code, they could usurp all of the resources that the other covenant finds or that they have already claimed. . . I don't get why they are concerned.

All in all, this is an issue that, I feel, is left to the troupe to decide on a campaign per campaign basis. I can clearly see lines of play where the players covenant will clash with other covenants. Perhaps another covenant forms a chapter house and can then claim that they should own some sources by proximity. A survivor from one of the covenants destroyed could return and claim that he has a older claim on one of the sources. If Durenmar learns of the offshoot of their vine that produces Intellego Vis, they could claim ownership. Etc. etc.

40

Just considering how Urgen would defend their vis sources sets the teeth of Crintera Harmonists on edge. :wink:

Otherwise, it looks like you have already sorted out the information from GotF on vis ownership for your campaign.

Cheers