You're right, sorry - I'd got bits of her backstory muddled with Medusa's in my head. Yes, she used to be a priestess of Poseidon (before Neptune started impersonating him and it all went downhill from there), so she'll have at least some experience with horses.
[OOC: How do you want to do the festival? Is it something you want to develop and play out in-character, in which case I can create a new thread?]
I could take it or leave it. How do you feel about playing it out? Even if we don't do it in detail this time, it could always be a setting for a story in future.
Scott
I don't have strong feeling either way either. My main concern is that the obvious time to do it is only a season after the last adventure, and I'd prefer to have a longer gap. The alternative would be to say that it takes Viola a while to get it put together, and set it in Spring 1232 rather than Spring 1231.
The other key question is are there other things you'd rather do instead?
Crap, I thought I had answered this.
Obviously, Viola would always rather be in the lab, so a long gap is fine for me as a player. As SG, I don’t anticipate anything being hurled at the covenant in the very near term–at least, nothing I’d couldn’t push back if necessary. So maybe you could just do a short paragraph or so summary of the event?
Scott
[Okay, happy to do this in summary.]
In practice, not wanting to deal with the boring details, Viola delegates most of the organisation of the fair to Phocas, the covenant autocrat. Phocas in turn, being busy with running both the covenant and the building work, ends up delegating a lot of it to Damianos the “stablemaster”, who if he isn’t massively experienced in running large events at least has both a lot of experience with horses and a smattering of Kipchak.
Damianos takes to the task with enthusiasm and a certain degree of license. Apparently the covenant is in the market for increasing its own stables, and is interested in buying or breeding from the best of the local horses. The festival therefore takes place at the end of the foaling season in late summer (in early spring the horses are still recovering from food shortages over the winter). In addition to the food provided by the covenant, the event consists largely of endurance horse races - relatively short ones of just a league for the children on yearling horses, up to 5 or 6 leagues for adult riders and horses.
The festival itself has cost the covenant around a pound of extra silver. Following through on Damianos’ expressed interested in buying and breeding the best horses will cost…well, as much as the covenant will let him get away with.
[Not that it matters much, but one-league race would be longer than any current regularly scheduled horse race–and they don’t let horses under 3 run anywhere near that distance. I’m aware of.Yes, I’ve been playing far too much Umamusume lately. 6 or 7 leagues would be a good day’s ride for most horses. CORRECTION: Google tells me that there are endurance races that are much longer–not sure you’d want to have an immature horse tackle something like that, though.]
Viola couldn’t care less about the details, but she’d really like Damianos to explain why the covenant needs to breed its own horses, let alone the best ones money can buy sires and dams for. She’s aware we wanted to field a small cavalry force, but weren’t we recruiting them from the local villages?
At any rate, how does the divine inhabitant of Viola’s regio respond to the festival?
Scott
[OOC: From what I could tell from my own googling (e.g. https://equestrianists.com/updates/mongolian-horses/), steppe horse races are very much endurance focussed. Obviously modern day Mongolia isn't exactly what we're looking at, but sources about Medieval Kipchak races are more limited, and hopefully they're at least vaguely similar.]
Damianos explains in somewhat broken Latin that horses are very important here. The magi are very important, so should own great horses. Buying the best local horses is good, but if Viola could get magical horses that would be more good?
Halia's children are busy making bets on the outcome of the races. Halia herself seems to be watching events with a mix of nostalgia and pain.
Pain? Hmm.Viola wonders if it’s more than just the obvious longing for a lost love. Ugh, time to be social. Viola is going to try to talk to Halia about how she feels about the festival.
Also, any Faerie Lore insight on what the heck Damianos is gonna do with magical horses? Or any insight on what the magi might be able to do with them?
Scott
Halia pauses before responding to Viola. "Just memories. Last time I saw something like this was before everything went wrong. Or at least, before I knew it had gone wrong. Now...I wonder what attention it will attract."
[Faerie Lore doesn't help that much with magical horses, beyond the obvious fact that faerie horses typically have some sort of "magic" powers, and presumably magic ones do too. Indeed, at least some magic ones almost definitely do, because when she was hunting horses previously she was told that the "Wind Lord"'s herd had a habit of disappearing into the distance when spooked extremely rapidly even by horse standards.
We’ve been using the rules for magical animals…I even have a couple of cats who make infrequent appearances.
Does Viola have any insight into exactly what’s worrying Halia here? Maybe some concerns about what happens when magic and faerie mix?
Scott
[Sorry - should have replied to this ages ago.]
Viola isn't convinced that Halia is thinking about the horse festival in metaphysical terms, but rather in the terms of her own personal history (however much actual reality that history may have).
[You and me both. I’m pretty sure I checked last month and saw no new posts. ARRGGH.]
Well, that sounds like a plot hook. Despite the misgiving, will Viola have any trouble convincing Halia to go through with it?
Scott
[It wasn't explicitly intended to be a plot hook, but so I'm clear - when you say "convincing Halia to go through with it", what is "it" exactly? There's a definite risk of kicking off another round of conflict between Demeter and Neptune / Poseidon with the festival involving the sea gods' sacred animal - is that something you / Viola want? Demeter won the last round when she took over the temple, but her position isn't particularly secure.]