Ever since I got Transforming Mythic Europe, I've been wanting to see a saga that explores some of what that supplement sets forth. Seeing as the chance of someone else running such a saga is slim, I decided to give it a try myself. Here's the plug. Is anyone interested?
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[size=150]The Rise of New Atlantis[/size]
Atlantis was a place of legend. Its days of power were supposed to have been a golden age of magic. But then it fell, consumed by the seas, or so the tales say.
Now twin brothers, one a magus one not, have discovered where lost Atlantis lies, far out in the Atlantic. They have a vision of raising the fallen island, creating a haven for magi in a world that is slowly but surely becoming less accommodating to them. They have gathered a group of like-minded magi to help them see their dream become reality. But they have a very difficult task ahead of them.
How will this new land be populated? Who will rule it? How will it be defended? Will it have relations with the nations of Mythic Europe? Where will the magi obtain the vis they need for their work? What will the forces of Heaven, Hell, and Faerie do with a brand new land? All these questions must be answered if New Atlantis is to thrive. This project has the support of several powerful covenants, as well as a number of powerful magi. But will that be enough?
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This will be a relatively high-powered campaign with experienced magi attempting to transform Mythic Europe.
This is a saga will use the supplement Transforming Mythic Europe, and will explore what would happen if the magi of Mythic Europe raised an island in the Atlantic to serve as a haven for hermetic magic.
I'll probably take a firm hand to get things started, getting characters built and the general set up arranged. I don't want things to founder because there are too many chiefs at the beginning. But I expect that once the initial setup is done, I'll relax to a more troupe-led style.
Excellent, that's 2-1/2 players (not sure where Wits stands), which is enough to start talking.
So, my thought for the saga is to really explore what happens when BIG STUFF happens in Mythic Europe. I want this to involve talking to dukes and kings, negotiating with the pope, casting army-sized spells. making big magical discoveries, shaking the Grand Tribunal, and the like. It will also deal with all of the obstacles that come up when you try and create a new nation out of whole cloth.
To that end, I'm planning on starting people off with very experienced magi. I"m still debating just how experienced. What are people's thoughts on that. How advanced does a magus have to be to do what I expect of him?
30-40, or even more might work. One difficulty will be that advancing a magi to that age in isolation will produce a very different magi than one advances in the context of a vibrant covenant. For example, any mage of this age is likely to have extensive laboratory enhancements performed by a well trained mundane. Or a Verditius will have decades of item crafting supported by Forge Companions.
The easy, and obvious solution is to simply throw a few more years on our starting magi than we originally anticipate, or to maybe to add a certain number of "free" non-study seasons every decade.
I'm really excited about this story premise - To start we either need a ritual to raise a continent sized island, or alternately the wherewithall to build a civilization entirely under the waves.
The plan was to have a powerful ritual to raise the island. I'm guessing it would be ReTe rather than CrTe, since it's moving what's already there. And if it covers enough Size and has the extra magnitude for stone, it can move bedrock underneath the island to keep it stable.
Although now that you mention it, maybe a ReTe to raise the island and a CrTe to fill in the underneath with solid stone.
You make a good point about advancement. We need to find a way to make it look organic. That leads to another question: season-by-season or just by points. I tend to like season-by-season as it makes for a more interesting magus. But then there's the question of what library is available. I was thinking that 30-40 years with an excellent library, but a limit on how many seasons you can spend on studying books each year (maybe 3 seasons of study/year). That would force people to do something else with their time.
I would favor season by season also, but that would require defining what resources (not just library) are available. This is where we pull out the spreadsheets and create an entire game before the real game ever begins, but hey, some of us are weird that way!
I'm thinking this is likely to take a major commitment from a large segment of the Order to accomplish, and planned fairly carefully. For example, the initial vis expenditure will be large, not only to raise the land, but to move established labs, create buildings, and perhaps even set up an epic sized "Shrouded Glen". It is unlikely to succeed out of the personal resources of a handful of magi.
I love crafters, as you may have seen, so I'm thinking maybe a Rusticani Ex Misc, recruited to add the flexibility of his item crafting, and thrown the bone that "someone needs to looks out for the common folk who will settle". I'll thin more about character once we have a few more players and character concepts.
Would you like me to make a "background" covenant that one or more characters (not mine) could use for advancement?
I've been working on a Scottish covenant that the two men with the vision of Atlantis come from. You could piggyback on that one or make your own. I'm easy.
I was thinking of seasonal advancement as it gets a slightly more real result. We could set some arbitrary caps on the XP per season study and book levels to guide the process.
I think we also need to consider synergy in the characters as by the advanced age they would likely know if each other. Perhaps we have some events in seasonal activity which are common. Certainly tribunals.
I've also noticed that advanced Magi tend to have a retinue of other Magi. We might look to have some interrelationships there too. The retinue certainly should be named but not spec'ed.
In terms of my character I am very open. Their roles will be the key. Initially a gentle gifted Quaesitor following Terram, an obscured Criamon perhaps, or a Jerbiton looking to build a different legacy. These are just ponderings though.
I like the idea of max 3 seasons in study. Last season might be story or invention, or politics. That should also encourage a wide skillset in abilities, which is sometimes lacking in characters who are made this way.
Question: are we raising Atlantis itself, or calling a new place new Atlantis?
The idea I have is that the magus behind this plan has found the true resting place of Atlantis. The plan is to raise the actual island that sank ages ago. That gives me interesting options with ruins, old residents, etc.
I've found that it's easier to advance if you do it in set amounts at a time. Splitting things up by tribunal seems the obious way to go, with each jump being seven years. If we went with 30-40 years, that would be four tribunals (28), five triunals (35), or six tribunals (42). Given what I'm looking for in this saga, I tend to lean toward the high end. I'd like there to be time for the magi to not only get thier Arts to where they need to be, but also to spend some time learning a few mundane skills like Etiquette, Charm, Guile, Intrigue, etc., since there will definitely be some Tribunal politics. And, as has been noted, we want to have time for upgrading labs, crafting items, going to Tribunals and the like.
That will also let us coordinate events, e.g., Tribunal meeting every seventh year, assisting with lab work summer of the 4th year, going on an adventure in the spring of the 2nd year, etc.
Also, I'd like this saga to be more brisk than many others in advancing in time. Rather than having a story (or multiple stories) every season, I'd like to have stories sprinkled in with year or two year long advancements. I want there to be time for things to happen in Mythic Europe. I want armies to be raised, envoys to be sent, wars to be fought and long-term plans to have a chance to come to fruition. I also want to give the new land a chance to develop. And that means jumps of time to allow towns to grow, plantings to expand, forests to build, etc. I also think it would be neat to see an apprentice grow into a real magus over the course of the saga.
In any case, those are some more initial thoughts.
I'm considering a revolutionary magus with Herbam and Auram. He dislikes the state of things, perhaps, and wants to create a self-sufficient utopia for magus and muggle alike. So would be capable of conjuring forests and ripening fields and blowing ships away, that sort of thing, but politically naive?
Count me in for interest, considering what type of magus to make. Also I would probably prefer seasonal advancement but again that would be heavily dependant on defining what resources are available at what cost...
Do you all want to be part of the same covenant, or do you want to be split up? I could go either way. Regardless, you've known each other for years and are on the same page vis a vis raising Atlantis.
I was considering using one or several of the covenants in Through the aegis. Or I could use one here on the forum. But we could also be a covenant that migrates in toto and you? design it.
If it's several, you should probably give something like "this many BP of books at most" or "all summer covenants that have beendecribed somewhere" or something.