Most excellent
I myself an tinkering with the idea of a magus of Spartan descent, from the village of Vresthena. He would have Laconic as a Minor Essential Flaw. Not sure how to apply it though. It would affect Communications negatively in terms of trying to express details and giving thorough explanations/descriptions. Further thoughts are a Flambeau (naturally), Apromorian with Short Ranged magic and focusing on spells that alter/affect/augment himself. Based on the Wirth model.
Another idea is for a Tytalus, similar in many ways, but focused on operating through agents and minions. I also have an old concept for a magus with Quadrophenia named Polyoppeties of Tytalus
For covenant building, I think that is a painfully low number of points. Someone made the comment that they like those sort of stories, so I will go with the flow. I would hope that there is something else interesting to do besides the birth struggles of a spring covenant. To that end, I suggest we invest our covenant build points purely on Vis Resources. A strong income base. We can latter just buy the books and other goods & services we want & need. Then, if I play a Flambeau magus, I can focus my time on hunting monsters and defending the Order from its enemies. If I play a Tytalus, his goal will be forging a criminal empire
A Merinita-sponsored new covenant, trying to re-awaken an aspect of the old pagan gods still slumbering in a lost temple. Something similar could also work for a mythic regio harkening back to the ancient Cretean civilization (which was destroyed, in the main, by the eruption of Mount Santorini IRL, but there could be many reasons in Mythic Europe)
A covenant instigated by a Bonisagus of the old "Thracian Witches" bloodline, trying to preserve some of the more cultist elements that didn't get fully absorbed into the Order
A covenant based on trade and artifice, a shared Jerbiton/Verditius project
A mystic covenant, inspired by (or even on!) Mount Athos. This should have overlapping regio, which can be a lot of fun
A "front-lines" covenant, a base of operations for research and investigation into Levantine matters. Flambeau and Criamon could be unusual bed-fellows here
Just to get the ball rolling, you know! I'm sure we can find a dozen other ideas once we get our brains storming.
(minor: WIll there be a "covenant design" thread in the new forum"?)
I could not find the build point cost for a casting tablet. It seemed to be that having a grade 25 casting tablet for Aegis of the Hearth would mean that we at least have an Aegis to start with, even if it is weak. If someone is going to design a mage who will know Aegis well enough, then this is a non-issue.
Upon consideration, starting with plenty of Vis, a decent Aura (from boons I think, since that is hard to improve later) seems sensible.
Beyond the book listed baseline, the other important thing would seem to be at least some laboratories.
I do think we should discuss boons and hooks, as those will help us.
I don't have enough experience to know how badly the 150 point limit will hurt trying to make things work.
I suggest we bypass purchasing books, lab texts, tablets, items, or anything. Spend all 150 on just a Vis Source. A basic lab costs nothing, an Aegis can be handled by a magus, and we can make everything else ourselves. Stoic Austerity and a Spartan lifestyle. We will have plenty of cash on hand in short order.
If there was that much available Vis sitting in one place, wouldn't someone have grabbed it?
And if they hadn't, wouldn't our using it create an incentive for someone to "take these young folks under their wing"?
If we want a trade / artifice covenant we could use a variant on one of the ideas from Covenants, and have as the setting a newly discovered Regio, with uncertain connections and vicinity, in one of the larger towns (probably we don't want Athens itself).
Just thinking out load...
It would make sense to acquire a debt to a sponsor or someone else that is "loaning" us access to a library. Investing everything into Vis and Aura makes no narrative sense whatsoever - it's blatant powergaming, and I think we should try to be better than that.
150 build points does not purchase that large of a vis source. Only 30 pawns a year I think. Thebes is not vis starved like, say, Normandy. And the magi of Greece are more civilized, they have a whole system of penalty and reward based on civic responsibility and ethical morality.
And I can tell you guys are scared. I suppose I will play a Flambeau after all. If someone tries to steal our vis, I will have to kill them
We will probably spend around half of our build points on vis sources, I think. Marko is right the Thebes is a much more civilized tribunal, in that grabbing vis sources from weaker covenants is very much frowned upon. Unless, of course, we decide to make some of our sources contested (a covenant hook).
On the other hand, if vis sources were that easy to find at our chosen location then someone else would already live there. Andsome of the build points might be useful for other things like specialists.
At this point, the key thing to decide is the covenant's purpose. From that, we can derive the type of covenant stories we will have. Which may or may not align with the kind of stories our characters will be interested in.
For example, we could have a covenant interested in trade, with Marko's magus getting involved in stories to defend that (or destroying competitors). My Verditius could use that trade to acquire rare components for his magical items, or to sell them. A Rego Finesse specialist could use his skills to craft mundane stuff to sell, while the Mercere would use it as a way to improve the redcap network.
That's just an example. We simply need to decide what the covenant's "theme" is.
(Posting here until I can post in the campaign thread.)
I am trying to understand the interaction between the house rules on penetration and Aegis. I think I know what should happen, but I am not sure.
As far as I can tell what matters with the Aegis is what level you know / are casting the spell at, not what your casting total is. As a ritual spell, your casting total may even be 10 less than the level of the spell. Is that right?
(This occurred to me when I realized I could learn and cast a level 30 Aegis for the covenant, assuming we had the Vis.)
I like the idea of building the library from scratch. So I favor spending our build points split in three ways. A third (50 points) on Vis Sources, granting us an income of 10 pawns per year. Not much, but a good start. Another third is best spend, in my opinion inspired by Arthur's suggestion, on specialists. This would include Teachers as well as security and others. The final third, sprinkle it around. 50 points...; spend 15 on Vis Stocks grants us 75 pawns, take 15 points worth of material wealth, and twenty points on items intended for the whole of the covenant.
