Azura filia Xavier scholae Merceris

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Phoenix - Rise from the A
1

Birth name: T'chelet bat Lieber
Actual Age: 25
Apparent Age: 15
Longevity Ritual: None
Warping: 0

Character Background, Advancement Record, Entourage, and Build Points.

[table][tr][td]Int +3 (quick-witted)[/td][td]Per +2 (shrewd)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Str -3 (slight)[/td][td]Sta +1 (long-winded)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Pre +2 (prepossessing)[/td][td]Com +4 (affable)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Dex 0[/td][td]Qik -3 (deliberate)[/td][/tr][/table]

Mutantum Magic (Mercere), Puissant/Affinity with Rego, Good Teacher, Inventive Genius, Minor Magical Focus: Travel, Skilled Parens, Unaging, Mercurian Magic
Favors: Hansa, Dutybound: Judaic Orthodoxy (major), Study Requirement, Usurer

[table][tr][td]Cr 6 (21)[/td][td]In 5 (15)[/td][td]Mu 9 (45)[/td][td]Pe 5 (15)[/td][td]Re 9 (32/49) +3[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]An 5 (15)[/td] [td]Aq 5 (15)[/td] [td]Au 0 (0)[/td] [td]Co 7 (28)[/td] [td]He 3 (6)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]Ig 1 (1)[/td] [td]Im 3 (6)[/td] [td]Me 4 (10)[/td] [td]Te 2 (3)[/td] [td]Vi 8 (36)[/td][/tr][/table]

Wizard's Sigil: sky-blue
Voting sigil: a blue silk rose tied with an ivory ribbon.

Personality traits: friendly +2, stolid -2, loyalty to House Mercere +3

Portuguese 5
Bargain 2 (15) (Gentiles)
Charm 2 (15) (opposite sex)
Folk Ken 2 (15) (opposite sex)
Artes Liberales 2 (15) (ritual magic)
Latin 4 (50) (Hermetic usage)
Magic Theory 3 (30) (inventing spells)
Parma Magica 3 (30) (Corpus)
Finesse 1 (5) (grace)
Penetration 1 (5) (Vim)
Order of Hermes Lore 2 (15) (Mercere)
Intrigue 1 (5) (gossip)
Hebrew 2 (15) (synagogue)

Spells:
Doublet of Impenetrable Silk (MuAn15) (tunic turns sky blue for the duration of this spell)
Lungs of the Fish (MuAqAu20) (blue gills appear on the target's neck)
Eyes of the Cat (MuCoAn5) (eyes turn blue)
The Tireless Flight (ReCo20) (boosted, harnessed, tethered) (target's shoes turn blue)
Seven League Stride (ReCo30) (boosted) (Mastery 2: quiet, still) (target vanishes and appears in a puff of blue smoke)
Sense the True Path (InTe15) (boosted, tethered) (eyes turn blue)
Gather the Essence of the Beast (ReVi15) (blue mist swirls around the target)
Aegis of the Hearth (ReVi30) (Mastery 2: disguised casting, harnessed casting)
Wizard's Communion (MuVi30)

2

By my math, the Order of Hermes is about 2,000 people. It's pretty hard to keep secrets in a crowd that small. You'll want to define who knows What's Really True and who doesn't, and will need the skills to back that up.

3

A gregarious but somewhat flighty young maga, completely dedicated to her House.

There are many conflicting stories about Azura's identity, while the truth is known only within the House. In truth, she traces her lineage to Mercere the Founder twice: on her mother's side, she is the first (and thusfar, only) Gifted child to descend from Triceres' third child (who had converted to Judaism to marry the love of his life), while her father is a Goliard Redcap who traces his lineage from Priamitus. The House had long kept tabs on the completely inert line of descent, and to "investigate" the line, a Redcap named Lieber travelled from Durenmar travelled to a Jewish ghetto on the outskirts of Lisbon, and sequentially seduced all eight of the women descended of the line who were of child-bearing age. Nine months later, Raziela bat Danyael gave birth to a blue-eyed baby girl. When the peculiarity of the babe's appearance was discussed among the village elders, Raziela confessed her adultery and was stoned to death. The elders agreed that the child would be adopted by the rabbi and raised as a proper Jew, but when the Gift manifested, a triumphant Redcap spirited his five-year-old daughter away in the dead of night.

While her Hermetic apprenticeship was served under Xavier of Durenmar, Azura was tutored in the bureaucratic duties of the House by her own father at Lubeck. As a result she has inherited Lieber's rakish oulook, glib tongue, and fondness for swindling others (though the latter is often falsely attributed to her Jewish heritage). Like her Hermetic pater, however, Azura is a maga Milvina, dedicated to finding, collecting, and distribuing rare and important books.

Upon completion of her Gauntlet, Azura moved to Fengheld (as only one Mercere magus may reside at Durenmar). Of late she has yearned to leave the Rhine to reconnect with her roots, and as such she has sought out the Phoenix covenant in her native Iberia.

Physical appearance: tall and willowy, with long black hair and startlingly blue eyes. Typically dresses in fine silk clothing, always untouched by any travel wear or stains.

4

Year 1: 25 pts into Parma and 5 points into Intrigue
Year 2: 30 pts into Muto, bringing it to a score of 9
Year 3: 15 pts into mastering Aegis; 5 points into mastering 7LS; 10 pts in Mentem
Year 4: 10 points in Order of Hermes Lore, bringing it to a score of 2; 5 points spent in Penetration to get a score of 1; 2/4 points spent in Rego
Year 5: 15 pts in Hebrew, 10 pts in Artes Liberales, 5 pts in Imaginem

5

Binyamin ben David, the atheist shield grog
Sarai bat David, the OCD accountant
Tevye the Milkman (yes, I went there)
Motel the Tailor (yep, still there)
Lazar the Butcher (...still there!)
David ben Avram, the vellum-maker (specialist, Craft: 8)
Berkowitz the Boundary Maven

6

Ars Mutantis by Triceres Merceris, Muto summa L20 Q11 (31bp)
Ink & Vellum by Xavier Merceris, Animal summa L18 Q12 (30bp)
Ars Primus by Triceres Merceris, Vim summa L20 Q11 (31bp)
Specialist: David ben Avram, Craft: vellum L8 (8bp)

7

I have a couple of comments.
The social status virtues you've selected are incompatible with the Hermetic Magus social status, generally only one social status virtue is allowed, unless either one explicitly allows the other one (Magister in Artibus). Having The Gift, let alone a blatant one is going to overrride most social considerations. Userer as in cash? Why are you interested in silver? Or is this Vis related? Are you charging exhorbitant rates for Vis loans? Is that even a valid hermetic enterprise?
I think your minor magical focus is too broad. Transportation could cover on foot, one horse back, in a cart, on a ship, on a flying carpet, or other mystical travel, that's pretty broad, but I am not the SG.

I'm not sure your method of spell learning is allowed for starting characters. When I created Ra'am I spent XPs straight to learn spells, and didn't use the rules for study, which do allow for learning spells from lab texts up to your Lab Total-1. If that's allowable, well, I'd be very interested in that.
If it is... kosher, then the one that is likely not going to be possible is The Wizard's Mount. Your Lab Total, if my math is correct is Te (13) +Fo (5) +Int (3) +Mt (3) +MMF (5) + RAW Starting Aura (3) =32 You need to exceed the level of the spell to create it with a lab text. I can't see you getting to that one. Even if it is learnable, casting it is going to exhaust you 9 times out of 10.

8

Yup, I havent my books with me (serf's parma), but at first glance, I agree about both the social virtues and the focus.

A minor focus should have a scope lower than a single Te+Fo. Yours is part of ReCo (no problem here), but I can very well see you apply it to any ReForm (unseen porter, leap of the flame), possibly even to spells like Invisible Sling of Vilano... May I suggest you something like "Teleportation" instead? Or, better: What do you want to do with it exactly? Maybe we can find a suitable name?

The initiations! WTF???? What did you do what how?
Simply put: In game, mysteries require stories and/or flaws. The only way to begin with some at chargen is by buying them and taking the Cabal Legacy flaw (unless maybe common mysteries. Serf's parma). You're bypassing all that by simply spending a season per mystery. Simply put, I find this both uninteresting and "too easy": You tell no stories in game, you take no flaw... I'd suggest you either wait in-game to try to join a mystery, or take these as part of your normal allowance of virtues and all?

About the spells post-gauntlet, I understand, but am uneasy with it, especially as you assume avaiblable lab texts, which is, yet again, a little too easy (and pretty unfair to Jonathan). My suggestion would be to only increase your arts and skills, and invent these later, using ressources available to you in-game.

In short:

  • Rework the virtues
  • Change your 5th season. Oh, and you've spend 31XP on season 4.
9

The focus I was looking for was more "travel" than physically moving objects-- getting people (self and Redcaps) from point A to point B. As I envisioned it, it'd apply to ReCo teleportation spells and to a select few Mutantes spells like Shape of the Ancient Kite, maybe Push of the Gentle Wave and a Cr/Re Au to fill a ship's sails, but not things like Unseen Porter or an Ars version of Baleful Teleport (hehe).

As far as learning spells from lab texts go, those are all really common spells which no magus should have any problem gaining access to, PARTICULARLY a Mercere, and ESPECIALLY a member of a society whose sole purpose is to acquire, copy, and distribute important texts. I've never even heard of anyone using experience for inventing spells, how exactly does that work? And yes, I forgot that Inventive Genius doesn't apply when inventing from a lab text.

Did not realize a magus can't be an Outsider, I'll try to figure some other way to reflect the prejudices and biases against her ethnicity and religion among the Order (which is largely Christian). Regarding Usurer, yes, I was going for silver usury, which she handles through a mundane intermediary (one of my grogs, or possibly Companion, is a merchant).

10

No, I think he got it right at 30.

13 (Vim) +10 (OoHLore) +5 (Pen) +2 (Rego)=30
You may have added the 1 for the Penetration score by mistake.

11

Yeah, Outsider is trumped by The Gift/Magus. Especially in this game, where we are playing with The Gift RAW. You don't need to take a seperate flaw for Outsider. It's covered by The Gift -- magi are always fringe members of their society.

12

Hum...

"Travel" seems to me a fine subdivision or ReCo, and would indeed probably be a better name than "transportation". Wider than "teleportation" or "flight", but more restrictive in that, as you note, there's not harmful version, which balances things out nicely.

Would this extand the domain of the focus to things like "push of the gentle wave" or the sail thing? At first glance, this may seem okay and appropriate, but when I read you, this is "physically moving an object". It then seems to me like levitating a stone on which you sit so as to travel on it would be very similar. So if you're on it, it fits the focus, if you're not, it doesn't? Headache...
I understand your idea, which is "moving safely someone from one place to another", which is very nice, but it's difficult to put bounds on it.

Using XP to learn spells is the standard Ars Rule for character creation (your apprenticeship XP serve you to buy abilities, arts... and spells, so yes, you've done it already^^), but also for more experimented characters (add 30XP per year post-gauntlet, buy things with it), which we have also used.

For the rest:

  • Access depends on your location: Accessing a text in the rhine is probably far easier than in an isolated covenant at the fringes of novgorod, or in a tribunal, like Hiberia or normandy, where there's a lot of friction and little to no allies: Would a crusader covenant help a counter-crusader one?
  • You forget the Law of Equivalent Exchange :wink:: In order to gain something, you have to give something of equal value. Imagine you're here, at Phoenix, and, in-game, wishes to acquire lab texts for these spells. Mercere or not, common spells or not, you won't slap your fingers and get them. We have a good library, yet don't have them. So you'd have to trade for them, trade being the operating word: Be it for vis, books, favors or lab texts, no one will give you lab texts for free.
  • The Mercere and society bit: I'm very uneasy to allow exceptions at chargen for a character whose only specificity versus another PC is a bit of background, this strikes me as quite unfair: Ra'am or Hiems would have had to use his entire annual amount of XP to buy, say, 30 lvls of spells, why you'd sacrifice a season and gain 60 lvls. See what I mean? We had a similar discussion with the jews knowing how to read/write (and yeah, by the rules, they are Educated).

If these spells are so important to you, I'd buy them through my 100 points, and learn them on my first season at phoenix :wink:

He edited :wink:
He originally had 3XP in Rego

13

Not a "he."

14

I missed this question initially. So, XPs to buy spells equals 1 xp per level of spell. If you want a 30th level spell, it's 30 XP. Yes, an entire year. It's painful, I know. You can learn any spell as long as the following formula is greater than equal to the level of the spell
Te + Fo + Int + MT +3 (presumed aura), same rules as for learning spells during apprenticeship.

15

Yes, it would apply to push of gentle wave or a sail-filling thing, but not to levitating a stone. Sailing across the North Sea is travel. Levitating across a chasm isn't.

16

Oups, sorry.

Aaaaaah!!! Okay!!! This is like the tactic/strategic difference? Like, Seven-League stride is travel, Wizard's Leap ain't? I'm sorry, I didn't understood before.

Well, this seems perfectly fine, then.

BtW, if you've got a working description of your character, would you be ok if I did a Hero Machine 3 rendition of her? Like these?

17

Sure! She's tall and thin, should look like a stiff breeze would knock her over. Long black hair and bright blue eyes, sun-browned skin, mischievous expression. Wears well-worn leather walking boots, a leather jerkin and a black skirt, and a jaunty maroon beret. She'd maybe have a traveller's walking stick in one hand and a messenger's bag slung across her back.

Would there be too much overlap if my Companion were a Redcap? On the one hand I think it would be very likely that she'd have Redcap(s) and possibly others who serve the House, but on the other hand a maga Mercere and a Redcap would probably tend to get involved in the same scenarios. I could go either way on this, just trying to figure out if the merchant character can be my companion or if the merchant should be a grog so my companion slot is open for a Redcap :slight_smile:

18

If you want (and if the rest of the troupe/Amul agrees), you can take over Abdul the Merchant. Great concept when I came up with him, but since then I've been fuzzy on what to do with him.

19

Is she related to Ra'am? He's tall and thin the prototypical 98 pound weakling, -4 strength.

20

She's only Jewish due to laws of matrilineal descent; her mother's family is from Lisbon and her father is a German Redcap. They could either be related and know each other already (though not too closely related or Ra'am would be a Mercere by blood as well), or they could be related somewhere and not even know about it until after meeting each other. Either would work for me if you think it'd be fun.