One option might also be to look at some of the 'Magi of Hermes'-threads.
1 Like
Yes. That should be so. Most of them are entirely core except for some small things like Adaptive Casting (which, as should be noted, was originally weaker but automatically available to everyone in core). I think only the Criamon cannot be made core only while retaining things.
Thanks for the Path of Seeming example for a Criamon - it can be hard to think of a good base for some of the paths, and you've pointed out which flaws to avoid.
The most minor point: I would ask anyone posting additional magi to have one character per post. This way it's easier to link them!
1 Like
Yes. That's one of my worries for beginners. It's not crippling like D&D 3.5, where you had to plan out just the right things from the beginning to get into some special thing many levels later. But there are things you want to be careful of here and there.
1 Like
I am particularly fond of the Ignem and Perdo Flambeaus. The Ignem one covers the same niche as the one in the corebook, but it's just plain better - it's not an issue of being "more powerful", it's one of being at the same time more fun to play and more instructive as an example. The Perdo one surprised me for its versatility.
@callen, would you mind if I (or anyone else!) took some of your designs, tried to make them "corebook only" with minimal changes, and reposted them (one per post, so as to link them more easily)? I'd obviously credit, and keep a link to, the original post of yours.
1 Like
Those are my two favorites so far, too. Glad you like them.
My plan is to make a booklet of them in pdf form freely available once Atlas handles the copyright stuff and gives us the go-ahead. I'm hoping to build about 30 or so. I'd like to do at least 2 for each House, but there are some with more like the 4 Flambeau magi. Yes, feel free to adopt them and credit me; once the booklet is out, it would be nice to direct people to the booklet.
Bjornaer
Characteristics: Int +1, Per +3, Pre 0, Com -1, Str -2, Sta 0, Dex +1, Qik +2
Size: 0
Age: 25
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence Score: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Flexible Formulaic Magic; Affinity with Intellego, Cautious with Awareness, Heartbeast*, Lesser Immunity: Blindness, Keen Vision, Minor Magical Focus: Unhindered Vision, Piercing Gaze, Subtle Magic; Restriction: Unable to See Target, Weak Magic Resistance: Unaware of caster; Cyclic Magic Negative: Night, Heir, Proud, Vow: Hunt enemies of House Bjornaer
Personality Traits: Eagle +1, Hunter +2, Proud +3
Reputations: None
Combat:
Dodging:
Soak: 0
Fatigue Penalties: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20)
Abilities: Artes Liberales 1 (ceremonial magic), Athletics 1 (running), Awareness 5 (movement), Area Lore : Old Covenant 1 (upper levels), Brawl 1 (dodge), Charm 1 (first impressions), Code of Hermes 1 (protecting nature), Concentration 2 (maintaining spells), Finesse 1 (Auram), Folk Ken 1 (magi), Heartbeast 1 (changing to eagle), Latin 4 (Hermetic terms), Magic Theory 3 (Intellego), Native Language 5 (Storytelling), Order of Hermes Lore 1 (Bjornaer), Parma Magica 1 (Ignem), Penetration 1 (Intellego), Stealth 1 (heights)
Arts: Cr 5, In 12, Mu 5, Pe 0, Re 3, An 3, Aq 0, Au 5, Co 0, He 0, Ig 0, Me 0, Te 1, Vi 0
Twilight Scars: None
Equipment: Wizardly robes
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Spells Known:
Voice of the Bjornaer Magus (MuAn 15) +8
Charge of the Angry Winds (CrAu 15) +10
True Sight of the Air (InAu 15) +22(F)
Whispering Winds (InAu 15) +17
Clothe the Naked Form (CrHe 10) +5
Shriek of the Impending Shafts (InHe 15) +12
Eyes of the Eagle (InIm 25) +22(F)
The Unseen Porter (ReTe 10) +4
Design Notes
This is an example of a Bjornaer whose magic and character is closely linked to a key feature of their Heartbeast, in this case an eagle's sight. Their focus applies to spells to allow you to overcome natural and supernatural blocks to being able to see things, including natural invisibility and distance. It does not automatically apply to spells that simply provide information via a Vision target, such as Shadows of Fires Past.
Their Restriction requires them to have a direct line of sight to their target. Spells can be used to see through obstructions, but not to transport images - so Prying Eyes would not allow you to cast upon a target within the room, but a spell to let you see through the stone wall would. This severely limits the utility of most Arcane Connection range spells. The magus is always considered to be able to see themselves.
Customisation Notes
This Bjornaer is designed to act as a magical scout, and works best when working with other magi with more direct offensive potential. Most of their virtues are arranged around their "eagle" nature, but you could swap out some of their minor virtues (particularly Cautious with Awareness, Lesser Immunity and Piercing Gaze) for a less focussed character.
The story flaw could easily be swapped for another one, and the Personality flaws discarded or (for Proud) made Major. Weak Magic Resistance and Cyclic Magic could also be easily removed, but the Restriction is more core to the character concept.
As it stands the Bjornaer is one of the heirs to an ancient Winter covenant full of powerful magical devices (and traps). Once its final magus dies or goes into Twilight, the could stand to receive a significant inheritance - if they can claim it.
Comments
Voice of the Bjornaer Magus and Clothe the Naked Magus are both general utility spells for shapeshifters that come from outside the core book. If strict adherence to core is required then they could be replaced with other spells (such as Discern the Images of Truth and Falsehood InIm 25 - although note the default version doesn't benefit from the focus because it allows you to "see" through non-visual as well as visual illusions), but in that case you should also consider replacing Lesser Immunity to Blindness and / or Piercing Gaze with Quiet Casting to enable to enable them to reliably cast in eagle form.
The original version of this character had Skilled Parens rather than Piercing Gaze, and spells to throw their voice and create thermals.
The Focus and Restriction require more explanation than is really ideal for an example character (and I've never come up with a good way to describe the focus succintly).
Given "extra books" knowledge, this is a member of Clan Wilkis who's a filia of (4e) Aquila of Ungulus.
Edit: Happy for people to borrow and modify with credit.
More playable is subjective but they are more interesting certainly. I like them a lot especially the Criamon. A couple of them (School of the Founder Flambeau, School of Ramius Flambeau, and the Criamon) even go a long ways towards what I think of as a generalist in that they do not push towards high casting totals.
Thanks for posting them here.
I don't really like the implication that the only difference is arts at gauntlet is some form of innate natural gift in certain ones but it is interesting.
I personally don't like that for ready-to-play mage, an option to mitigate one of the most defining attribute of being a mage (dealing with the Gift side effect), even if it is inspired from an official core rulebook (the official spell is a ReMe, so it is even streching futher the spell).
1 Like
Personal tastes are fine. Since it is in one of the few books I'm using, I'm including it.
As for stretching it, if you look at the core book it's actually less of a stretch than is ReMe. The core book explicitly states that the reaction to the Gift is an emotional one, and the core book explicitly has guidelines for reducing emotions. The ReMe version seems to be stretching things more than the PeMe version.
1 Like
I can certainly agree that the implications are potentially annoying and metagamey. But it's a price I'd be willing to pay in a saga to avoid the following scenario:
'We have a L15Q15 perfectly average summa in the PC specialist's art in the library. In 2 years of dedicated study, any other PC magi will be just as skilled in this art as the PC who dedicated their character to it. With another year and some lab texts, they'll have much of the PC specialists spell set as well.'
Or:
'We have a pair of L10Q15 vain summae in the form and technique a PC focused on. In 2 years of dedicated study, any other PC magi will be just as skilled in these arts as the PC who focused their character on them. With another year and some lab texts, they'll have much of the PC specialists spell set as well.'
I don't know how often it would actually come to pass in everyone's sagas, but the idea that the focus of a PC can be copied decently with only a few years of dedicated study feels irksome. The other way to protect this focus is to keep these books from the covenant library, which doesn't really feel less metagamey to me.
But the Fixed Arts rules can reward a PC for focusing on 1 or 2 arts with a focus that the other PC's can't emulate, since the focused PC can also study those L10 or L15 books and benefit. And such books make sense for a starting library of a Spring convenant as initial gifts from their parens.
1 Like
The ReMe effect in HoH:TL ("Trust Me") is definitely iffy for a number of reasons.
But I too dislike "vanilla" Hermetic magic being able to alter/counter the social effect of the Gift (particularly in a magus meant for beginning players). The Gift is supposed to be a big thing, and take a Major Hermetic Virtue to eliminate. Also, if you assume you can Perdo the emotional effect of the Gift, then you can reverse it with (Base 4!) Muto Mentem magics... and the Blatant Gifted get a +6 bonus to all social interactions?
1 Like
This doesn't eliminate it, of course. It doesn't work on typical animals at all. It also only works on one person so there is difficulty in a crowd. Etc.
How could that possibly follow? For all other Mentem stuff the stronger the emotion the harder to create/cancel/whatever. We've seen the same for MuMe with the only sample spell that does this sort of reversal: Seed of Betrayal (GotF p.73). Should you be able to use MuMe on an emotional response? Yes. Is the response to the Gift an emotional one? Yes. Should MuMe suddenly treat stronger emotional responses as easier to manipulate for some reason? No.
Nadia Popov:
Maga Mercere:
Characteristics: Int +1, Per+1, Pre -1, Com +3, Str -2, Sta 0 ,Dex 0, Qik +2
Size: 0
Age: 20
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0(0)
Confidence Score: 1(3)
Virtues:
The Gift:Ways of the Road; Mythic Blood(Belin)[Seven League Stride]; Puissant Creo (free), Social Contacts (Pilgrims), Deft Mentem
Flaws:
Busybody(free);Motion Sickness; Deficient Technique (Rego); Disjointed Magic;Indiscreet;
Personality Traits: Wanderlust+3, Trusting +1, Able to concentrate -2
Abilities:
Artes Liberales1
Area Lore 2 (Lithuanian)
Athletics 1 (climbing)
Awareness 1 (movement)
Stealth 1 (remaining still)
Latin 4 (Hermetic Usage)
Lithuanian 5 (Stories):
Magic Theory 3 (Inventing Spells)
Parma Magica 1 (Mentem)
Arts
Creo 6+3
Intellego 8
Mentem 8
Vim 6
Spells:
In Au: 15 True Sight of the Air
CrMe 20: Memory of a distant dream
InMe 25: Thoughts within Babble
CrCo 20: Purification of Festering wounds
In Vi 20: Piercing the Faerie Veil
In Vi 20 : Piercing the Magical Veil
Nadia's gift was detected early, as House Mercere regularly tests its members. She has the mythic blood of Belin a famous non gifted redcap who always managed to reach the most distant of places, and this has manifested in her spell-like ability to cast seven league stride at will. Alas this also brought a tendency to always poke her nose into everyone else's affairs. Her natural travel ability from a young age means she has never got used to travelling by other means and so suffers greatly from sea-sickness, and being able travel at will has also manifested more seriously in an inabliity to concentrate on her magic,hence her Deficient Rego.
Wanting always to know what was going on has resulted in her Deft Mentem, and so the house has encouraged her to wander about trying to search for new gifted people and magical places. She has not yet had enough time to learn about all the different places she wishes to discover, so has tried to blend in with pilgrims as they are often out wandering.
(no idea what her mMF should be...)
[edited to change Gentle gift to Ways of the Road, which should partially mitigate the Gift penalty for those she meets travelling. At the least she should be accorded respect as a seasoned traveller, but still seen as a bit of a weirdo.]
There is another far-reaching consequence of allowing such spell: it decreases the value of Parma, and it opens the door for non-hermetic tradition to have effect that could mitigate the Gift effect.
Then one of the main premise why the Order is standing above all the other traditions - the ability to peacefully discuss with other practitioners - becomes weaker. Not all traditions are able to have Mentem-like effect, but there is enough to allow the existence of competing, organised Orders.
1 Like
Somewhat. But your argument is with HoH:TL rather than with me here. Also, there is no clarity how quickly you can share PM. And for allies there is the issue of long-term Warping.
No need. That door is already open regardless of this spell existing. But, again, your argument is with other books.
Agreed. It was not a personal attack.
My suggestion would have been to replace the incriminating spell (Soften the Gift’s Touch) with another one, not to open too widely this door for new players/mages.
2 Likes
There are obvious limitations, but a simple T:Group spell would be able to effectively eliminate most issues. I am just saying that it feels (to me, and it seems to others too) against the setting as described. Yes, this is an issue with HoH:TL too; I think it should be errata'd; I had the impression it actually had been but I'm evidently confusing it with something else.
MuMe base 4 can "completely change a person's emotions". So it seems to me it can completely rewrite emotions such as those induced by the Gift, from envy, mistrust etc. to say, trust, admiration, blind love and devotion. Note that Muto does not increase or decrease an emotion, it just reorients it, so it makes sense that a strong negative emotion would be reoriented into an equally strong, but positive one.
Anyways, I think that a lot of people have already chimed on this and there's not much to add. It's a marginal point anyways in the context of this discussion, so no big deal.
1 Like