Thebes and Rhine are both fine with me. Thebes is probably my favorite tribunal.
Scotland had some powerful Merinita covenants.
to me, make a choice on either in the mix ( Rhine) or more frontier. i am not advocating for the Rhine just pointing out that we would have less freedom closer to the center than at the frontier but we also have much less support.
I can go either direction on tribunals, really. There are interesting aspects to different ones, but I don't really favor one over another. I can see good reasons for either Scotland or Greece.
I played an IRL saga settled in Scotland a few years ago so I can live without the book I guess.
I'd rather avoid tribunals that are 4th edition, because I only have the physical copy of those books. So it makes it harder for me to look things up when I'm not at home.
The Tribunal books that I have in electronic format are:
- Guardians of the Forests - The Rhine Tribunal
- The Lion And The Lily - The Normandy Tribunal
- The Sundered Eagle - The Theban Tribunal
- Against the Dark - The Transylvanian Tribunal
- Faith & Flame - The Provence Tribunal
I initially tought of being an animalem specialist because I like minions and I could shamelessly steal ideas from Corvus Trianomae that I love and from Alexander of Jerbiton (Magi of Hermes) because turning stuff into animal and have It move by itself is quite fun.
But looking at the spells from the Core rulebook, I'm sad already. I'll look for alternatives.
Yes, that can be a problem. The core book spells work well for a certain few builds and not well for most builds, with some exceptions. But do notice SG's statement:
So you may be able to pick up a spell or two from outside the main book to fit your theme.
1 Like
I would rule out the Transylvanian Tribunal since we're not doing Tremere. Any of the rest could potentially work. I've never played in Normandy/Provence, so those could be cool. And then the Rhine and Theban Tribunals both make sense, too. So I'm good with any of those four.
Normandy has some strange rules. I have never done Provence. I will look at it tonight.
I'm not really into Normandy either.
I haven't played in the Rhine for years, so that would be great. To use Transylvania as written, we'd need to have one Tremere magus (PC or NPC) to balance the covenant. Theban and Provence could work fine.
Normany has one problem - how do you deal with the "every seven years have a massive contest to redistribute resources" Tribunal? Roleplaying through it will bring a massive slowdown when it comes to Tribunal time, handwaving it alters the setup.
Considering the effects of the Merinita disappearing on each Tribunal:
- Provence had only one Merinita covenant, and a minor one at that. So only a minimal effect. Things fairly close to what is described in the book. Also, the Tribunal is as vanilla as it can get.
- Thebes had many Merinita covenants, and a whole faction composed of Merinita. The Tribunal was massively disrupted by their disappearance. Wide divergences from the book. Probably still somewhat chaotic even after 20 years.
- Rhine had the Domus Magnus of Merinita, with a few additional Merinita scattered at other covenants. The disappearance of Irencillia was a major hit, which upset the existing balance, but otherwise not too much divergence with the book. More than Provence, but still much less chaos than Thebes.
So, how much chaos do you want? 
My other Arts idea is a PeVi specialist. Always good to have someone around who can dispel/disenchant when you're heading toward unknown magic.
I don’t want to steal your arts, but Vim is so versatile I almost always end up having some to target my own spell and affect incorporeal being. Even my herbam specialist ended up having ReVi to enhance duration PeVi it cancel his spells, Mu Vi for communion. If you want to have your own niche, Vi isn’t the best choice.
Unless you go all the way with specializing to a barely reasonable degree, which is what I might be intending to do.
The hyper focused MuVi researcher, however, makes sense only when the troupe allows Original Research in an intent to push the boundaries of MuVi guidelines box. Otherwise I'll go with the good guy generalist.
From the perspective of saving/reforming the order :
What I like about Thebes in your context is that the tribunal had an organisation before the Order of Hermes and still have a way more democratic system (in the greek sense) with random representant , ostracism, shards and tokens to ensure good behavior and citizenship. The tradition of league of like-minded individual under a charismatic leader seems to be a a good way for young magus to enter the tribunal politics.
That's probably the easy mode : SG can decide we get picked for representative function, we can found our own league and the token system enables payment even in a low ressource saga in exchange for services.
On the other end Rhine also has the gild system that is similar to the league but It seems more difficult to simply create a Gild, Archmagi and Masters own most votes, but this is also where the Order of Hermes began and there could be strong allies. This is the Hard mode imho.
I know Provence less, I own the pdf but never read it cover to cover neither played it but to my understanding, It's a lot more feodal in its organisation. Maybe Arthur can develop ?
Thanks. I'm not looking for a niche with Vim. I'm sure a few of us will have good Vim. I'm looking more at the choice of Intellego+Rego v. Perdo.
Right now, I am looking at a Elementalist. They will be more of a Form generalist. I would want them to further integrate the Elemental Hedge tradition into Hermetic theory. @Arthur Is the Hedge part alright?
My fall back will be a LR specialist because everyone loves them:-0
I'll take the gentle gifted Trianoma then with some An, Me and Co.
I'll probably start with low animalem at creation (because core animalem spells are not what I want to do) but that's probably where i'm headed during development.
I'm guessing Muto as a primary Technique.
Yes, we do. And they tend to be good at healing, which we appreciate greatly as well. As cooperative as a group as we'll likely be both for saga-specific reasons and for all being Bonisagus magi, I could see the entire group assisting in making Longevity Rituals for each other over a bunch of seasons. Sure, that would occupy all of our seasons, but with 4 assistants we could each end up with a fabulous ritual, especially if we've got someone good at it.