A given wharf may not be in the Dominion, even if it's on the edge of a Christian city. Let's head back towards Athens, skirting villages along the way. Are we near a river here? There would be occasional docks on any river.
Scott
Bear in mind that even the fields around a settlement often have a dominion aura (although apparently not Eleusis) - it would be very easy to wander into one accidentally (and the direct route back along the road goes straight past a monastery).
There is a small local river, but the village also overlooks a bay, so you're very close to the sea.
Viola will go ahead and try to check for auras by casting a spontaneous version of Sense of Divine Power (or whatever you want to call it--level 2) over and over. That ought to let us avoid any surprises.
Scott
Is your plan to cast it at touch range, and are you carrying the barley on your person? If so, there's the problem that by the time you've found the aura it'll be too late to avoid taking the barley into it.
What's your plan for when you do find an aura blocking your way?
No, that's why Viola is going ahead--she'll let Calliope or a grog carry the barley. If we find an aura, we try to trace a way around it.
Scott
You initially make good progress, there being little sign of a divine aura around Eleusis. However, you have to make a substantial detour cross country around the monastery, and as you near Athens you find your route blocked by a solid band of divine-aured fields and orchards around the city.
Does Calliope have the ability to transport anyone along with her using Arcadian Travel? Viola trusts the grogs to take care of themselves, but Ipek needs adult supervision, and Viola won't be able to take more than Constantine and one other--she doubts Ipek will want to be separated from her brother.
Scott
(HoH:MC p92 - "Besides the maga, a faerie trod can affect a number of people equal to her faerie magic score" - I believe she specialized her faerie magic in arcadian travel?)
[Calliope has a score of 1 (Charms), which means she can take one person along with her. That's probably her shield grog. As Darkwing notes, though, Viola's specialised in Arcadian Travel, so she should be able to bring 3 people with her rather than two.]
Sounds good. Alas, I forgot to bring the rulebooks with me for Thanksgiving. I think Viola has to paint the target, then make a Faerie Magic roll for the travel itself?
She'll take Constantine and the two musicians. I'm not sure how easy it is to come back for the grogs, but that's a possibility if it's not prohibitively difficult.
Painting roll:
Craft (Illumination) 2 + 0 Dex + Free Expression 3 + simple die 10 = 15
Travel roll (I'm guessing on the mechanics here):
Faerie Magic 2 + 1 (specialization in Arcadian Travel) + 2 Per + stress die 9 = 14
Well, that should work regardless of what's supposed to go into the total.
Scott
Requirements for Arcadian Travel are not quite as clear as I'd like, but I think they are:
- Create a Charm to your destination. This will involve drawing in Viola's place, and singing in Calliope's. This is relatively easy (EF 6 for a temporary charm) for a place you know, but harder (EF 12 for a mundane place, 15 for a regio level, 18 for part of Arcadia).
- You can then go from a mundane level to a regio "above it", to Arcadia, from Arcadia and a regio to a mundane place below it. This is EF (Regio Level) x 3 to get into or out of a regio, and EF (13 - Aura) x 3 to get in and out of Arcadia. (So far, so HoH: MC pg 92), vs Per + Faerie Magic + Aura + die
- You can go from any point in Arcadia to anywhere there's a trod out of it (page 25 of RoP:F)
So I think you need to go into Arcadia, preferably via a strong aura, and then come back out again at the covenant? Which means you need a Charm to Arcadia (which you can get with that roll and a confidence point) and a second one to your final destination (easy, assuming you're going to the covenant), and a good starting point to get the travel roll down (rather harder - you'd need a strength 9 aura for a roll of 14 to be enough, although the aura does essentially count double which will make things easier (so in a level 9 aura your base 14 roll would actually be 23, so you "only" actually need a level 7 one, or a level 6 one, and a confidence point). Plus you need to get out of Arcadia again.
I may need to look at it tomorrow night when I get home. IIRC, my reading was that it involves one roll for the entire journey from point to point, though there's a (vague) implication that the journey is routed through Arcadia, unless of course faerie trods are distinct from Arcadia, albeit intersecting that realm. I also seem to recall that the numbers start to look screwy when you think hard about what's happening in between the beginning and end points--which is, I think, where your reasoning in coming from.
Scott
I don't think you can go directly from a mundane location to another mundane location (and it's not clear you can enter or leave a regio from somewhere that isn't "below" it, either).
The editing leaves something to be desired....
OK, here's how I read it:
- You do have to start in a regio. Hence, the sentence in the last full paragraph on the cneter column on pg. 92, "A mundane destination can only be reached by first traveling to a level of a regio above it...." Ergo, we need to find a regio, preferably a faerie one.
- To get to a mundane place, you do have to go to the regio above it first. However...
- Arcadian Travel provides an alternate means of exiting a regio, aside from any "normal" exits: hence the Ease Factor for Leave Regio in the table at the bottom of pg. 92. The Ease Factor for a mundane target presumably applies only when using Arcadian Travel in this fashion.
- If you can get out of a regio by "normal" means, you don't need to use Arcadian Travel for the last leg of a journey to a mundane location.
- You don't have to pass through Arcadia. Despite the name of the Mystery, note the text of the first incomplete) sentence of the middle column of pg. 92, "...can even lead to Arcadia." [emphasis added]
It looks like our key difficulty is that our most likely regio, Viola's lab, has an aura of 5. If she had an arcane connection, it might be doable; I've never thought to tote one around, but all of this raises the question of how she did it during the Chersonesus story.
Scott
Re-reading...you're right that I'd missed that you have to go to a regio before reaching the mundane world (I'd not been sure, but then had decided you could go straight from Arcadia. However, as you point out, there's that sentence explicitly saying you have to travel to a mundane location via a regio about it first).
However, I think that then means you have to go mundane world -> regio -> Arcadia -> regio -> mundane world (although as you say, you can do the getting into and out of regiones bits by mundane means rather than Arcadian travel if that's an option, which it will be for Viola's lab) - whilst I agree that going through Arcadia isn't an inherent part of Arcadian travel, I think it's generally required if you want to go long distances (as most regio don't connect to other regiones directly). So you can skip the Arcadia bit if you're just trying to get in or out of a regio, but if you're trying to use it to go long distances (and don't have a convenient (Land) regio network virtue) you need to go via Arcadia.
As far as the Chersonesus story goes - you had the advantage of starting with a regio there, which you don't have now, and we were handwaving, so I didn't check the requirements when you said you'd done the rolls and passed them.
(Explanation B is that Viola only used it to get out of the regio to Chersonesus, and then used LLSM to Wizard Leap back rather than using Arcadian travel).
I think at some point I made a conscious decision for her not to carry around an AC to her lab, so that explains that.
At any rate, I'm 95% sure the mystery is only supposed to require one roll in most instances. While the reasoning that trips to Arcadia would be required for long distances is logical, I don't think it's supported by the RAW at all--especially when you consider that they explicitly note that trods connect regiones, and put the "even" and "can" in front of the mention of Arcadia. From the standpoint of game balance, requiring the trip to Arcadia would make the difficulty prohibitive, especially when compared with other means of long-distance travel, most of which don't require Mysteries at all, let alone a roll that relies on a single Ability rather than a pair of Arts.
Then there's also the amusing omission of any description of what happens on a failed roll.
Has this never come up in the forums? Should we ask?
Scott
OK, I found two threads that cover the subject:
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/questions-regarding-arcadian-travel/11480/1
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/questions-about-arcadian-travel/10936/1
Of the two, the second seems to be the most useful, particular the reference to RoP: Faerie pp. 24-25 in the second post--the section in question helpfully provides color text that justifies travel of unlimited distances.
It's notable that no one in either thread seems to suggest a need to make multiple rolls. Mind you, even without this, Viola still needs to find a regio. And we need to figure out what happens on a failed roll, because that's a very real possibility. Nonetheless, if we could find a regio with an aura of, say, 3, that would be Craft 2 + 1 for specialization +2 Per + Aura 3 + stress die of 7 or more--not totally out of the realm of the possible. And with an AC, it would be easy to make a return round trip.
Scott
Free Expression should arguably apply as well, since it's integral to creating the charm in the first place--and in general creativity is helpful in getting stuff done in the faerie realm (see the section of RoP: Faerie beginning on pg. 27).
Scott
Hmmm...apparently we discussed it previously here (albeit not entirely conclusively): https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/ooc-discussion/5172/331
When we do decide this time, we should probably add it to the House Rules for the next time it comes up.
It's also discussed a fair bit in the original HoH:MC thread - I think Erik Dahl wrote the relevant section, and he's saying you need to go through Arcadia to travel long distances: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/first-glance-on-hoh-mc-and-questions/579/1 .
Yeah, I found our discussion earlier today.
Erik Dahl does seem to say that, but I still don't think that's how the rule was actually published; I don't know if an editor intervened, but looking back at the early sentence that refers to travel between "the different levels of regiones", I can see the intent. Mind you, that makes the Mystery much less useful.
OTOH, the "ARCADIAN MYSTERIES" section on pg. 23 of RoP: Faerie in effect makes it possible to boost the roll for getting to Arcadia by using all the modifiers on the previous two pages. Would those bonuses also apply to leaving Arcadia?
And on the third hand...I assume Dominion auras don't go very far into the air. Could we just have Constantine grow to large size and let him fly the barley over the Dominion?
Scott