Bastion of Bonisagus

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Solitude
1

This character is basically an edited version of the Bonisagus template provided on p 24 of the core rulebook

Age: 26
Size: 0
Gender: Male
Characteristics: Int +5, Per 0, Str 0, Sta 0, Pre 0, Com +1, Dex 0, Qik 0

Virtues: The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Major magical focus (Necromancy), Inventive Genius, Great Int *2, Affinity with creo, Affinity with corpus, unaging, puissant Magic Theory (house virtue)
Flaws: Weak spontaneous Magic, Driven (Major), Dependent (Family)

Abilities:
Artes Liberales (logic) 1
Awareness (Alertness) 2
Charm (Being Witty) 2
Folk Ken (Magi) 2
Order of Hermes lore (Politics) 2
Concentration (spells) 3
Language (native): Occitan 5
Language: Latin (Hermetic usage) 4
Magic Theory (Creo) 4
Magic Lore (Magical Beasts) 1
Parma Magica (Ignem) 1
Penetration (Creo) 1
Teaching (One-on-One) 3
Magical Arts: Cr 12, In 0, Mu 0, Pe 0, Re 8(4), An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 12, He 0, Ig 3, Im 0, Me 4, Te 0, Vi 0
Wizard's Sigil: Undecided
Spells:
Awaken the Slumbering Corpse (ReCo 25) +20
Charm Against Putrefaction (CrCo 10) +36
The Chirurgeon's Healing Touch (CrCo 20) +24
Lifting the Dangling Puppet (ReCo 15) +16
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10) +12
Image of the Beast (InAn 5) +0
Whispers Through the Black Gate (InCo 15) +12
Pilum of Fire (CrIg 20) +15

Pretty sure this is all correct, feel free to let me know of any mistakes.

2

Place holder for character background

I'm an awful writer and nowhere near as creative as the other players on this forum but here's basically the idea I'm working with:

Bastion had a beautiful wife with whom he had two children.

Wife was struck down by incurable disease, thinking leprosy "God's Curse"

Bastion wants to snatch wife back from God as her life was snatched from him.

I'll flesh this out eventually and give all of them names and a short description, but basically his wife is based off of Luthien from the Silmarillion a bit, this short bit here is basically so all the important details are here.

3

Bastion's childhood xpdo not add up to 45. You may want to double-check them:
Awareness (Alertness) 2
Charm (Being Witty) 2
Swim (river) 1

Weird magic and Major driven are okay, keep them by all means, but you should explain them. Unaging is interesting, too: What happened to him? What makes him the youthful Lich King?
What is weird about his magic?
What is it that drives him? Sex, drugs, rock-n-roll? Creating the perfect craft beer? [strike]Farting "Silent night"?[/strike]

My last point is nothing that is mechanically wrong, but I'd like to comment on it anyway.
I found it surprising that your character has high skills in Creo and - even more so - Intellego.
Creo can be used to create and conserve bodies and intellego can be used to talk to the dead.
But if you want to command the dead, Rego is very useful (ReCo spells are great anyway - they can be used for teleportation)

Your character looks like a longevity specialist with his focus changed.

4

Why such a high score in Vim? What use is that to a necromancer? Combined with Gentle Gift and a high score in Intellego, that is creating quite a bit of overlap with Cornelius.

5

Right, the swim is actually meant to be folk lore 2

Driven is basically his drive to see his wife again, which he hopes to achieve through a hermetic breakthrough, hence the necromancy.

Unaging I was thinking of something along the lines like he was stricken by the death of his wife in such a way that he hasn't aged a day since she died, his unaging virtue is sort of symbolic of his inability to shake his grief, he's frozen in time at the moment when his wife died.

Creo is the focus as I mentioned because he basically wants to "recreate" his wife via a hermetic breakthrough if that's appropriate.

ON the note of intellego I fucked that up and intellego is meant to be 0, vim as well. I've since fixed it.

Error, I copied the template from your post and accidentally left a few things in. Gentle gift I was considering as at the moment I'm running on the assumption that his wife was mundane, also because I don't really see any other major virtues that I'd find useful. The intellego and vim scores have now been fixed.

6

And weird magic?

7

major magical focus in necromancy would be way more useful for your concept than gentle gift in my opinion, but then again that's your choice.

8

or a major focus in women.

Bastion: "All my zombies are female. This is a deliberate protest against gender inequality among the undead."

And your weird magic options...

9

I'd agree that a MajMF in Necromancy or Women would probably be better than Gentle Gift, just from a specialization standpoint. Or, if you really wanna go hard core, get Cthonic Magic (from Rop:I) - it ends up being a variation of MMF:Necromacy, but with additional flavor bits. And it's not TECHNICALLY evil...

(My other concern is that if multiple magi have Gentle Gift, then it shifts the roleplaying style of the troupe from "companion and grogs in the front, Magi in the back" to "multiple magi in the front, and those that don't have Gentle Gift in the back". Essentially it splits the party, socially-speaking. The other option is for all the magi to have Gentle Gift, which I'm actually fine with as well.)

10

Would necromancy be a major focus? I have it listed as a minor for now.

Not sure at the moment, I just like the flaw, presumably it would have something to do with necromancy.

Hmm, I'd prefer to keep the necromancer focus, should that be major? As mentioned I currently have it as a minor but I can easily replace gentle gift with it.

11

I think it's actually listed as one of the examples in AM5th - either Major or Minor. (I thought it was major, though.)

12

Oh you're right, it is listed as a major focus, my bad on that.

In that case i"ll just replace gentle gift with major focus Necromancy and remove weird magic.

13

I want you to add one year to your character once you have finished. This is the year Bastion used to set up the covenant in its current form beore the other magi arrive.
You'll get 30xp in that year that you can spend on anything that makes sense (e.g. Pe, Te, leadership, profession: shepherd, olk ken, area lore, Magic theory...). You also get a lab text for a month duration spell that hides the stairs in the central well (probably MuIm or PeIm or CrIm). The spell is yours to choose. You won't be able to cast that spell probably (MuIm is not your forte), but you can decide who you give it to.

14

Uh alright, presumably that's some story idea you have planned?

I'll put the points into Rego so I'll have 8(4) rego

And I'll probably go the PeIm route which should be:

Range: Touch, Duration: Moon, Target: Part? Considering it's only the stares not the entire well.

Makes the stares inside the covenant well invisible

Base 4, touch +1, Moon +3, part +1

Which I think is level 25

15

if you design it as a circle/ring spell, cast on the top of the well (assuming the well is roughly circular, or that you have an inlaid iron ring around the well itself) you could do it a bit more cheaply, and have it last longer.

Note that this does assume you can play a bit with the shape of a circle/ring area - some folks have it being spherical, while others have it as a column.

16

you are missing exposure from seasons 3-6 (8xp altogether). I suppose the distraction is your family.

17

Ok so 3-4 would be MT right? 6 woudl be... Latin? And what would the distraction season be exposure for?

18

you choose. I'll accept anything that is plausible

seson 3, 4: Creo, Corpus, MT seem most plausible, but I'd accept chirurgy, too
season 5: Area Lore, folk ken, awareness, athletics, charm, teaching, carouse (board games), leadership, music (Christmas Caroling) - whatever your family wants from you
season 6: Latin, scribe, most likely

19

Hmm, I'll take Creo/Corpus actually my affinities give me 3 rather than 2 exp.

Also I like Christmas carolling as a choice, I'll take the one.

20

Ah, affinity. Useful.