For discussion of creation of and advancement of the title character of this thread.
of, just because I felt like it needed one more.
I consider taking a familiar for Balder. A Raven of Virtue sounds appropriate [RoP:M:62]. I suppose that would be bindable with InVi. (Not with ReCo). How easy would that be to find?
He is rather open-minded about it, and could be searching randomly for any magical beast bindable with In/Re Co/Vi.
Searching for a possible familiar in Novgorod is akin to searching for bread at a Paris market. If you are being open minded just assign one season and I'll come up with a list of a few possibilities that you find.
Unless you feel like running a story for that familiar pretty soon in-game, I'll do it pre-game. I have exactly two seasons to account for to make up full years, so please shoot.
Theoptions you find within the 4 arts are:
Marsh racer (Intelligo) Might:65
crow (Corpus) Might:40
linnet (rego) Might:25
plover (rego) Might:55
artic sparrow (Corpus) Might:35
Pied Avocet (rego) Might:65
black faced finch (vim) Might:65
porpoise (rego) Might:60
Blue grosbeak (intelligo) Might:60
Common loon (Intelligo) Might:35
yikes Much higher mights than I expected.
I think he can only bind 40.
Would any of them have Int to start?
BTW. Would a familiar earn XP pre-game? By which ruleset? And, also in-game, does training apply to magic theory?
With Alienor's familiar the answer for "pre-game xp" was that when Alienor devoted seasons teaching him MT he received that xp in addition to what he got from being a spring creature and any Virtues or Qualities that gave xp. So learning is possible but it was a sort of transfer from her to him though the quality she provided and the number of seasons she devoted to it determined his study quality for those seasons.
That's more or less what I expected, but can training be used instead of teaching?
yes, you can use training
Does any of the candidates have Int to start? Or only Cun?
In my view the process of binding a creature to become a familiar replaces its cunning with Int, as they would be worthless otherwise.
It explicitly does but their Int becomes -3 if they had Cunning before.
... in other words ... if it had Int before it is usually going to be much more useful than if it had Cun ...
not in my saga.
Faced with the options of either making most animals intelligent or giving most familiars an int of -3 I decided I didn't like either option so their cunning becomes their int.
That is certainly going to quell some meta-gaming considerations. Thanks.
Isn't the blue grosbeak an American bird?
I found it on a sight dedicated to Norwegian birds, apparently it migrates there, which is enough for it to be present in Mythic Europe... even if North America is not the North America we are familiar with...
OK. https://snl.no/blåtykknebb
says that it is a North American species which has not with certainty been observed in Norway. (That's a sound encyclepedia BTW.) I reckon somebody has claimed to have seen one, so ... mythically.
Is the blue thistle bird and the blue grosbeak the same bird though?
I'm looking at Passerina caerulea and the site seems to be about Guiraca caerulea
which is way more specific than medieval taxonomy...
Wikipedia has those two Latin names as synomyms.
The Norwegian Ornithological Association translates Passerina caerulea as Blue Grosbeak and Blåtykknebb (which is what I find in the encyclopedia).
I only got false hits when I tried to find the blue thistle bird.