Before Caelha departs for Blackthorn, Thadeus will sugest writing a letter that she can carry with her to that covenant. This letter would commending her on the excellent job she has done managing Ungulus.
We may also want to inform Blackthorn about the new coucil of magi for Ungulus, and express our interest in continuing harmonious relations with them.
And if they come demanding rights we can burn them back to the Stone Age!!
That's why I used "inform them". We're not asking permission, just stating a fact.
Cath'rinne cast the Aegis ReVi 20 during Spring, achieving +21 penetration on her own.
Edit: Scratch that. I thought we had ReVi 20 and 30, but we have 25 and she can learn it. Make that Aegis 25, +16 penetration.
We have lvl 20 and 30 lab texts.
The lvl 25 is a casting tablet, with a +26 Penetration embedded.
I don't know where the lvl 25 comes from. It's not in the dowries (see Covenant in spe) and in the description of the Ungulus library the only lvl 25 Aegis was a casting tablet. But I may be wrong.
Edit: Forget it, I found the lvl 25 in Chapter 2.
Chronos spends the Winter and Spring authoring two books, preparing to travel in Summer. He politely suggests that the covenant scribes copies the book for archiving at Ungulus. He wants to take the original manuscripts with him, to send to Harco, when he travels, but if you agree to copy, he agrees to leave the second tome, for which there is no time to copy, until the next time a redcap visits.
I have assumed that you agree in the wiki posts above.
The only issue with that is that our plans to learn Wizard's Vigil to help boost penetration fall apart. We'd need another magus to learn it at level 20 in order to reach double the level of the Aegis, and I'm not sure we have someone else good enough at MuVi to do that quickly.
On the other hand, if Cath'rinne learns the level 20 she can cast it by herself with full penetration without help. The question is which is best: 20 at +20 or 25 at +16?
And do we change our plans to learn Vigil? The spell is of limited use for non-rituals.
Given Cath’rinne did not make the +25 penetration level just shows how much we need people to learn the Wizard’s Vigil to support the casting. Given the Vigil is only available at level 20, giving 10 towards the 50 needed, we pretty much all need to learn it I would think. Janus will learn it when the lab text is available
Just in case the like isn't clear, I agree.
I agree
Nothing that isn't fixed by Cath'rinne learning a Vigil and/or time. If I planned not to raise Rego Vim + Al/Ph + Penetration, I wouldn't have offered to be ritualist.
Janus explores the area to assess defensibility and find an idyllic spot for himself. The aura is several hundred paces wide and extends down to the shore of the lake. The tower is placed on the most defensible spot within the aura, on a hill, and close enough for the lake to block one approach. Janus finds a beautiful spot just short of a hundred paces along the lake from the tower. The area between this site and the tower is favoured by the goats. The sheep seek flatter ground.
With an aegis a hundred paces across, covering the tower and Janus' idyll, the second tower would be awkwardly placed in goats' land. It is possible, but it would look odd (and those with a Prof: Architect score, or an AL roll 12+ can tell this in advance).
The cottages and outbuildings would be harder to defend, both by Aegis and by arms. They form small hamlets 50-500 paces from the tower.
The grogs and servants seem tired and overworked to Thadeus and Nauvi. There is constant tension. Even if they have not seen an attack for more than a year, they feel the menace, and the grief over lost comrades, and now more magi mean more work. The rangers can give Nauvi the best accounts of the area. The shield grogs know their way to Carlisle and to Workington or Keswick which are villages with regular markets and churches. It takes the better part of a day to get to either town, and 2-3 days to Carlisle. The rangers can say more about peculiar hill formations, hunting grounds, and some of them have even been to the faerie court South of Lake District to trade vis on behalf of the magi.
Sionag finds some ingredients, but Winter is not the ideal time for most plants.
Thom does not find any faeries in the immediate vicinity. He probably makes the trip to Workington and Keswick. There are lesser faeries around near the larger settlements, but nothing out of the ordinary. Brownies are known to inhabit some of the houses, but they are never seen. There is a lesser farie in the hollow tree by the road. Etc. Faerie auras are 1 or 2.
Hamish gets to know the turb. Several of shield grogs are knocked out with fever for the better part of Winter, and so are some of the servants. Those with a little knowledge of the arcane lores (magic or infernal) may put it down to disease spirits that would normally have been blocked by the Aegis.
Have I forgotten anything for Winter?
Winter 1013 Lab Work for Thom
Invent Wizard's Vigil (MuVi 20) from Lab Text
Lab Score: Mu (10) + Vi (3) + Int (3) + MT (6) + Aura (5) - Cramped Lab (General Quality -1) = 26
Successful Invention!
The Spring Equinox is ritual time. Cath'rinne casts the Aegis, and Janus conjures a second tower. Cath'rinne immediately leaves to collect the Herbam Vis.
Towards the end of Winter, you have started to feel the staff shortage. Meal times are not as regular as you have learnt to expect in covenant. When food is brought, servants are running, and Mildred, politely at first, suggest that nobody asks to have it brought to their labs. Chamber pots are sometimes not emptied for a day, and clothes are not mended.
Janus asks unGifted people to try to recruit scribes from Carlisle, and Osgar reminds you of the need to recruit servants.
Chronos promises to take any letters you write when he travels in Summer. He is waiting to see if you get word from Blackthorn before Midsummer, and cannot say if he will travel via Wallsend to Calais or to Cad Gadu and Blackthorn.
Does anyone want to take up the challenge to recruit while Cath'rinne is away? I'll run a light-weight story in parallel if you want to play. We could combine it with Nauvi's village gossip exercise.
Finn would like to go recruiting people. Here comes the Pied Piper of Ungulus!
At a convenient time, Thadeus will speak with all the magi who are available.
"What should we do about the grogs that took refuge with Lord Fergus? When we visited there, we indicated that we would come back to retrive them come spring. At a minimum, I expect that Gwaine -- that's the grog we had an arcane connection to -- should probably want to come back to see his child born. There were a few others, if I remember it correctly. Some may decide to stay there, so may want to return."
"So I would propose sending a party to bring them to Ungulus, comes spring. I'm not sure how many will want to come back, and whether Fergus will let them leave. At a minimum, the lordling would expect some sort of payment for feeding them during winter. He might even be inclined to turn us away. How should we deal with that? This may not come to be, but we should be ready if it does."
"On a related topic, I would propose that we go back to Wicker Hill and try to gather up as much lab equipment as we can from the underground laboratory that we found there. We will need it to set up the laboratories in the new tower. And we may not want the peasants to discover it when they plunder the ruins, as they will invevitably do if given time."
"I think we should give them the opportunity to return. I mostly want to avoid our neighbor Lord Fergus to know too much about the Order. We need to be mindful, however, that more shield grogs won't reduce the burden on mundane servants, and that it will increase our expenses... we'll need some silver to setup the chapter house, most likely. I don't expect the lord will request payment if they worked for him during that period of time, which is my understanding of what happened - but I could be wrong. As far as Wicker Hill is concerned... how do we discreetly move the entire contents of a lab, exactly?"
“If the Covenant is willing to commit six pawns of vis I will invent the Wealth of Croesus spell giving us 13,000 silver shillings, that is 650 pounds, of silver coin. That will give a firm base for Ungulus and plenty to support all the needs of a chapter house for a good few years I would think. Lord Fergus may object to losing his turb to us but he can do little to oppose us if we are prepared to use the treat of violence. For me it is more a question of the old turb being willing to return. This war has made the prospect of those without magic resistance poor indeed, my experience being that the death rate in our battles with the Diedne among our mundane allies have been severe” states Janus