Babette

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Stealing the Future
1

Here is my concept for the apprentice I'm thinking of. I might make some mistakes here. I'm giving adult stats and Virtues and Flaws, but I'll indicate the starting ones when she comes to notHogwarts.

She is a young girl from France, in a farming villa near the mountains. She was loved by her family despite the Gift, but others were not so fond of her, and many believed it was she that set the fire which burned down the stable and killed several horses. If she had not been found by Hermetic recruiters she might have been killed.

Int +2
Per 0
Str -1
Sta +1
Pre +1
Comm +1
Dex +1
Quick +1

Virtues:
The Gift
Hermetic Magus
Heartbeast: Falcon
Mythic Blood: Phoenix
-Minor Focus: Aging
-Coat of Flame (Touch)
Affinity: Creo
Affinity: Ignem
Subtle Magic
Greater Immunity: Fire
Unbound Tongue (HoH: MC pg 38)

Flaws:
*Higher Purpose Rebirth of the Order
Deficient Technique: Perdo
Pious: Minor
Visions
Low Self Esteem
Susceptibility to Divine Power
**Unimaginative Learner

*From Mythic Blood
**I can see this as being a consequence of the School atmosphere. One of the unintended consequences of group learning. Perhaps this flaw starts popping up among other students and the curricula needs to be adjusted. The ones underlined are Virtues and Flaws I see her starting with.

As a result of her Visions and her perceived destiny she often feels pulled by forces outside of her control. Her own choices have less consequence because she often worries that she is not even making a choice; her path is before her. She is very pious and fearful of her power and offending the Lord, but at the same time she feels she has a great and perhaps terrible purpose for the Order. A weakness that influential magi might be able to use is that she is more of a follower, a charismatic magus could easily get her under his sway.

2

The underlined Virtues and Flaws are what she's starting with?
I'll point out that the virtues remaining, except Subtle Magic are Supernatural and do have a different mechanism for being taught in RAW, but I haven't adapted them. Further, no one here possesses those Supernatural abilities to even attempt to teach them.

With the particular set of (Hermetic) Virtues, the cost of learning Subtle Magic (if a teacher has it, I don't recall off the top of my head) is much higher now with those virtues already in play. Minor Hermetic Virtue target is 15. Add 9 for Mythic Blood, add 6 (3 each) for Affinities, and then subtract 9 for Deficient Perdo, for a total of 21, meaning he will have to sacrifice XP from classes where there is a teacher with Subtle Magic to get Subtle Magic, as outlined in the Apprentices thread.

Do you have Apprentices?

3

So, these supernatural virtues don't correspond to Supernatural Abilities, and therefore I'm having some difficulty rationalizing how they will be taught.
If they were Supernatural Abilities, they could be taught, and I could adapt the rules to account for them being taught pretty easily.

4

I have Apprentices, I'll have to go through the formulas for that and see if these can be made to work.

Perhaps there can be some kind of script as well? If we're going strictly by how it is in Apprentices we will likely lose some virtues and flaws. Also, isn't it possible to initiate a virtue the master doesn't have?

5

It is possible to have a Hermetic Virtue the master doesn't have, it's an inherited virtue. I don't have a problem if you pick all the Hermetic virtues and flaws as inherited, but it's kind of missing the point of coming to the school. The idea behind the school isn't to do a lot of initiations, as that requires a lot of time. Anything else goes along the lines of Mystery Cults, and standard initiations. Elizabeth's research wasn't focused on that, merely on traditional Hermetic Instruction.

The way I see this character working best, is that she comes to the school with her Supernatural Virtues already in place. Elizabeth has to be the one to open her Arts (and she opens all of them in the traditional manner), and it forces Babette to be one semester "behind" for lack of a better word. She's the only one with an InVi Lab total of 80+, which would be necessary to preserve both virtues. She could also acquire Unbound Tongue later, through a Bjornaer initiation ritual, but that would happen well after her time at school. I'm still pretty sure that Elizabeth is the only person at the school (maybe Lateralla, too) that can preserve major Supernatural Virtues while opening the Arts. Unfortunately, this process requires one on one interaction, but then, they don't have teaching duties, either, so they can do this. I could see this happening in the "free" season of the real first year, where Latin and literacy are taught for Babette, too. So she has a choice of being behind in Arts or Abilities.

6

OK I see what you mean. So the supernatural ones she has to start with, the hermetic could be learned.

I think the Unbound Tongue is logically one that could be learned at her initiation into the cult, and perhaps at the same time could she learn the Subtle Magic? The most likley teacher being a Bjornaer Mystagogue. The Visions, Greater Immunity might clue the teachers into her Mythic Blood.

But at the end of the day I'll follow what needs to be done to get her these virtues and flaws, I think they go well with her overall setup. For Mythic Blood I went exactly by the way it was listed in the Mystery Cults book.

7

Well, it's certainly easier to do, since these don't have an associated ability, it's tougher to figure out how to teach someone to be Immune to fire, and with mystery cults, you have some kind of mystical reason that the character becomes immune to fire, but that isn't available at the school.

Well, Heartbeast is what she's going to get when she's initiated into the House. Again, I see Unbound Tongue being easiest to play if it's already existant, and Elizabeth has to be the one to open her Arts, traditionally to preserve these virtues.

I'm not following you on the Mythic Blood thing, but I don't have an issue with it as a choice. The biggest challenge is the Supernatural Virtues. They way I see it manifesting is that Opening the Arts for Babbette will unleash her Mythic Blood (explaining, in some part, her immunity to Fire) and also inflict Deficient Perdo, since Phoenix's never die. She'll lose out on a semester's worth of experience points but she will have all of her Arts opened, for sure, and will have a chance to allocate experience points for the second semester, the extracurricular semester, and will have 2 exposure XP (to apply to Arts or Magic Theory) in her first semester.

8

That works, she'll be a bit behind, but with some hard work or extracurricular she could catch up. It could also go well her personality. She might have a hard time fitting in, being a bit late could enforce that.

9

I'm about to update Babette, but there is the issue of opening her Arts. From the last post it was stating that she'd be behind in either Arts or Abilities. I'll make it Abilities. Would it be a decent trade off to say she gets Latin, Artes Liberales, Philosophaie, Concentration, but not the extra 3XP per season to spend on the additional Abilities listed in the Apprentices thread:

10

Yeah, Babette has to skip one whole season to have her Arts opened traditionally by Elizabeth.
She gets 66 xp, to be spent as I outlined. She has to have Latin 4, at least and Artes Liberales 1, Philosophiae and then the other 6 xp as you desire.
She can take 2 exposure XP in Intellego, Vim or Magic Theory for that season. Also pick the Hermetic Flaw that manifests here, and don't forget it counts as an Ordeal when learning a virtue from one of the teachers.

11

She is a young girl from France, in a farming villa near the mountains. She was loved by her family despite the Gift, but others were not so fond of her, and many believed it was she that set the fire which burned down the stable and killed several horses. If she had not been found by Hermetic recruiters she might have been killed.

Int +2
Per 0
Str -1
Sta +1
Pre +1
Comm +1
Dex +1
Quick +1

Virtues:
The Gift
Hermetic Magus
Heartbeast: Falcon
Mythic Blood: Phoenix
-Minor Focus: Aging
-Coat of Flame (Touch)
Affinity: Creo
Affinity: Ignem
Subtle Magic
Greater Immunity: Fire
Unbound Tongue (HoH: MC pg 38)

Flaws:
*Higher Purpose Rebirth of the Order
Deficient Technique: Perdo
Pious: Minor
Visions
Low Self Esteem
Susceptibility to Divine Power
**Unimaginative Learner

*From Mythic Blood
**I can see this as being a consequence of the School atmosphere. One of the unintended consequences of group learning. Perhaps this flaw starts popping up among other students and the curricula needs to be adjusted. The ones underlined are Virtues and Flaws I see her starting with.

Abilities:
Latin (Hermetic) 4
Artes Liberales (music)1
Philosophaie (moral philosophy) 1
Speak French (poetry) 5
Survival (forests) 2
Animal Handling (falconry) 2
Charm (coy) 2
Singing (nursery songs) 1/1

As a result of her Visions and her perceived destiny she often feels pulled by forces outside of her control. Her own choices have less consequence because she often worries that she is not even making a choice; her path is before her. She is very pious and fearful of her power and offending the Lord, but at the same time she feels she has a great and perhaps terrible purpose for the Order. A weakness that influential magi might be able to use is that she is more of a follower, a charismatic magus could easily get her under his sway.

45 xp from age 0-5 which went to Survival, Animal Handling, and Survival, the extra six went to Singing, and the other 60 went to the Academic skills. Is this correct so far?

12

She needs to learn Subtle Magic, and Unbound Tongue, and probably(?) does not actually have her Heartbeast yet. I figure she'll get all three when she meets with the Bjornaer and stays with them for a time?

Mythic Blood, and both her Affinities are inherited.

Magia Theoria XP 5 Spent: Magic Theory 5
De Architectura XP 5 Spent: Corpus 3 Mentem 1 Imaginem 1
Elementa XP 5 Spent: Ignem* 2 Terram 1 Auram 1 Aquam 1
Flora et Fauna XP 5 Spent: Animal 2 Herbam 3
History of the Order of Hermes XP 5 Spent: OoH 2, CoH 1, ML 1 FL 1
Artes XP 5 Spent: Cr* 2 Mu 1 Re 1 In 1

*Represents Affinity

She is a young girl from France, in a farming villa near the mountains. She was loved by her family despite the Gift, but others were not so fond of her, and many believed it was she that set the fire which burned down the stable and killed several horses. If she had not been found by Hermetic recruiters she might have been killed.

Int +2
Per 0
Str -1
Sta +1
Pre +1
Comm +1
Dex +1
Quick +1

Virtues:
The Gift
Hermetic Magus
Heartbeast: Falcon
Mythic Blood: Phoenix
-Minor Focus: Aging
-Coat of Flame (Touch)
Affinity: Creo
Affinity: Ignem
Subtle Magic
Greater Immunity: Fire
Unbound Tongue (HoH: MC pg 38)

Flaws:
*Higher Purpose Rebirth of the Order
Deficient Technique: Perdo
Pious: Minor
Visions
Low Self Esteem
Susceptibility to Divine Power
**Unimaginative Learner

*From Mythic Blood
**I can see this as being a consequence of the School atmosphere. One of the unintended consequences of group learning. Perhaps this flaw starts popping up among other students and the curricula needs to be adjusted. The ones underlined are Virtues and Flaws I see her starting with.

Abilities:
Latin (Hermetic) 4
Artes Liberales (music)1
Philosophaie (moral philosophy) 1
Speak French (poetry) 5
Survival (forests) 2
Animal Handling (falconry) 2
Charm (coy) 2
Singing (nursery songs) 1/1
Magic Theory (Longevity Rituals) 1
Order of Hermes Lore 0/2
Code of Hermes 0/1
Magic Lore 0/1
Faerie Lore 0/1

Arts:
Cr 2 An 1/1 Ig 2
In 1 Aq 1 Im 1
Mu 1 Au 1 Me 1
Pe Co 2 Te 1
Re 1 He 2 Vi

As a result of her Visions and her perceived destiny she often feels pulled by forces outside of her control. Her own choices have less consequence because she often worries that she is not even making a choice; her path is before her. She is very pious and fearful of her power and offending the Lord, but at the same time she feels she has a great and perhaps terrible purpose for the Order. A weakness that influential magi might be able to use is that she is more of a follower, a charismatic magus could easily get her under his sway.