In MoH Ranulf has a Major magical focus in unnatural fire I guess this is pretty much the same thing...
But I undertand your frustration, minor focus have very various broadness from form to form.
Even "fire" would probably qualify as a Major Magical Focus since it avoids light, darkness/shadow, and cold. So it's less than the breadth of a Form but much more than a Technique/Form combination. How do we narrow "fire"? Ranulf has "unnatural fire" as you pointed out and what I'd been working off of. Adding "unnatural" isn't enough to narrow fire sufficiently. So I figured I'd go with a quarter of the "unnatural." However, that's a far more common quarter than the other three, unlike if you were dealing with spirits, for instance. Anyway, I tried to see if I could narrow it enough and I couldn't. No big deal.
Maybe you could make your own fire blue or something with your sigil (as ignem guideline propose) and reduce your focus to blue fire ? Or simply to your own magically created fire ?
We're starting right from Gauntlet, right?
I'm thinking of playing an Ex Misc Shapeshifter.
Something along the lines of: Blatant Gift, Inoffensive to Animals, Shapeshifter, Silent/Subtle Magic, LLSM, Faerie Correspondence: While shapeshifted, Minor Magical Focus: shapechangers, Feral upbringing and Faerie upbringing, Outlaw leader (a pack of either high cunning or low Int shapeshifting animals who were her pack, terrorizing local villages, no powers other than shapeshifting (and no xps that need to be assigned other than to shapeshifting!!); I can get rid of this, though, since magi are not supposed to have social flaws, but I love the idea of outlaws being animals), Inoffensive to animals, and so on, off the top of my head.
Beaten and thrown out of her home during the winter at too tender an age by her drunken father, all red and wrathful while her mother cowered in the background, she would surely have died had she not unwittingly turned into a wolf, which she totally was not expecting. She probably would not have made it anyway, except that she was found by a feral group of shapeshifting animals, who taught her their ways. Within some years they were raiding pastures, ambushing travelers on the road, and even venturing into villages to plunder and kill. They became infamous but could not be caught, because they were eagles when the mobs were looking for bears, bears when they sought wolves, and when one region was no longer worth ravaging, they moved to another. But eventually she was caught, by a maga who tamed her, taught her new things and introduced her into a larger, more powerful pack. But she remembers what men do -- and want to do if not deterred by tooth and claw and packmates, and is very glad to have been invited to a suitable covenant where she need not tolerate the unnatural cruelty that human men bring into the world, and maybe do something about it.
Something like that.
Ignem also might have smoke and definitely has heat. Supernatural beings aligned with fire, might be minor. Certainly magical creatures of fire.
But yeah, Ignem is tough.
It looks nice; I'm not familiar with Faerie Correspondence can you explain it ?
I haven't examined the division of xps, and defer to Chris. But I do like Doctor of Whatever being the Ex Misc major virtue: A very academic hedge tradition has embraced more powerful magics without losing hold of the fundaments of knowledge and reason. Of course, if the tradition is not academic, there's more of an issue.
I don't mind the apprenticeship running concurrently with the doctorate, if the character meets the age requirement for being a Doctor. A higher Int might help, but I don't feel troubled.
Maybe the character earns his (her?) doctorate as part of his Gauntlet, so keeping up academic reputation has not yet become an issue but is about to?
Faerie Correspondence usually derives from a virtue or flaw. It scales like an Ability, and covers the range of a circumstance or a minor focus. It can substitute for a specialty in corresponding situations, which is advantageous if the FC ability is good. However, the die roll automatically becomes stress, and each 0 that turns up on a botch inflicts a Warping Point; 2 will cause Twilight as usual.
For example, if I have a FC with iron (Because my ancestor was Iron Man, say), I can apply the FC to swinging a sword or assessing its value. I can add it to a finesse roll when using craft magic to forge that sword. I can add it to my Str+Athletics when I'm trying to smash through an iron gate or portcullis. I can add it to Phil when the topic is iron and to Area Lore to find the nearest iron mine. I can add it to both Phil and AL when casting a ritual to, say, create an iron tower. I can even add it to Magic Theory when inventing the ritual, but that forces me to experiment.
As a character, I become associated with it, which can be good for fluff. Maybe some faeries become uncomfortable around me (though many will feel closer to you because you more closely correspond to faerie ways of being). Maybe my Twilight scars have a theme of iron. Etc.
Same for "While aboard a ship," "While partying," and so on.
OK, I think I've settled on things. I think I can stick with the necromancer thing while doing it Flambeau-style. I won't bother with ghosts. Minor Magical Focus: Corpses will do the trick. She'll need to be decent at Creo, Rego, Animal, Corpus, Mentem, and Vim. I guess that's not really focusing in Arts much, but the Minor Magical Focus will make up for it. Being good with Creo and Corpus, she'll be a good healer, too, I expect.
And good LRs! And decent vis extraction.
Yes, decent at LR's, especially if you're already dead.
I ran into an odd thing. Under grave hounds it says dead things don't tire so grave hounds have no Fatigue levels. But other corpses have them. Probably needs an erratum. Also, why no Perception?
If anyone's looking up Ovarwa's comment, look for "Faerie Sympathy," not "Faerie Correspondence." I'm planning on Strong Faerie Blood (God: Hades). I figured "corpses" and "ghosts" are fitting, planning on taking the former. Not useful a lot of the time, but there are some spots. And, Ovarwa, that experimentation thing is a house rule/interpretation. I don't think it's an unreasonable one, but I would not assume it's being used here.
Hey, sorry I disappeared for a bit, guys. Can somebody write me a quick list of everything there's been adjudication concerns about? I've read the stuff I wasn't here for, but want to make sure I get everything in one post and I'm prone to miss stuff if I try to compile it myself.
Well, we discussed:
- character creation concepts to avoid overlapping we're settled on this ATM :
Bitter - Tytalus (Titanoi) focusing in spirits (mostly Airy at the time)
Callen - Flambeau style necromancer focus in corpses
Cannonball - Ex Miscellanea scholar and ceremonial caster, focusing in Terram
Jebrick - Merinita follower of Pedule
Kareruren - Verditius tailor with mostly Mentem
Ovarwa - A faery and Feral Ex Miscellanea Shapeshifter
Pralix - Focusing in Ice and having a cold heart
Wits - Intellego expert, speaking with anything
As for adjuvication :
-We also disussed the prefered tribunal and those we want to avoid.
-Doctor in law or Magister as the virtue for Ex miscellanea and xp number
-choice for ignem minor focus (dropped)
-I also have a question : do you take into account specialty in MT and magical focus for maximum lvl of spells at creation ?
Also what's the vis harvest for a personal source anually?
It should. The specialty counts as part of the MT score when the specialty applies. So, if you have a specialty in Ignem and you do Int+MT+3+Tech+Ignem, the MT value is one greater than it would otherwise be. Not that we couldn't, but I'm pretty sure it would be a house rule to not count it.
I was pretty sure about MT speciality, thanks. What about the magical focus ? Do you use it when checking maximum spell level ?
Id say as long as its applicable count it, if your MF says "Fluffy bunnies" and you have a spell that consists of caricature of the rabbit then it adds to the maximum applicability for that spell if its an art well...go from there...ive found, same with specialties. If your specs igenm, goto town.
Did a bit of back reading on peoples views for tribunal and excluding ones that actively got people who dont favor them...the top three look like. Folks who actively do not care for tribunals removes Levant and Thebes. Should we do a poll for the top 3, or debate why we should have these?
Greater Alps (central location, holds criamon, jerbiton domus magi, likely enemies, church and "order of odin")
Iberia (contested area holding alot of religious tension and influx between Christianity and the islamic moors, theres the viziers "order of suleiman" actively fighting with the flambeau, [for god the order and house flambeau],
Novogrod (The principle holding of house tremere, this area is both expansionist and has such issues as the mongols, stretches far enough into the danelands to also bump the "order of odin" and has an interesting religious conflicts for its time.
And what's going on with Fatigue levels and Perception for animated dead. (There will probably be some errata after I get things written up with page numbers for David.)
Do we have room for one more bjornaer, my significant others interested