Chapterhouse: Mallorca, roll call.

Correct. However, in the 13th century I wouldn't expect this to be so set as it is now in its structure. At the time you might find quite a few surnames being locations and quite a few others to be professions. Ferrer is Smith in Catalan, for example.

That is awesome! One of the girls I work with is Arlene Ferrer, and I bet she doesn't even know what her name means. I looked up Velez, it is also Catalan and means "from the valley".

I must confess, I like some of the solutions people have come up with, and though you have no obligation whatsoever, I would ask you to rethink your resignation as a beta sg. And this is what I am thinking...

  • There is a region network that connects all of the locations, and they are all virtually the same location. Everyone has a dead even aura of 4, no alignment or tricks. One level up is an aura of 6 and is where they are all connected, you can walk from one room in Roberto's tower and the next room is in Thalasa's cavern (a dry spot?) or in the Palma manor on Mallorca. Any story knocking on one door is knocking on everyone's door. This mid layer is easy and automatic to travel between too, a hook, and there is an unexplored higher level that leads to other locations with further unknown hazards (more shared hooks)
  • Scrap the Personal Boons & Hooks idea. We each still have a location, but since they are all magically connected, the boons and hooks are universal. All locations belong to each of us in common, and are our shared interest and responsibility. Players should have some choice of the boons and hooks we will deal with, which will delay us a bit more, but it would work.
  • Arnauf can indeed be the glue that binds us together. If only Roberto could tame him... :mrgreen: Kidding aside, I suppose Arnauf's true purpose would be to regulate and tame us. He works for the legit authorities. Rich story potential and tasty McGuffins and palatable plausibility.
  • I realize that it is not possible for me to play Roberto the way I want after all. I need to be the SG in this chapter idea, in part or in whole, and that means Roberto will always be an sg character in whole or in part. I am willing to be generous and blatantly bribe any player willing to run stories that I can play him freely in :smiley:
  • Which means that I suppose I can run this whole thing after all. I just hope you will consider running part of it, and I will work with you on a tapestry idea. But you cant keep secrets from me unless I can play Roberto as a free PC. :wink:

I would only run it if I had carte blanche on putting together stories for Mallorca and fitting them together. Which means one covenant on one island, which means I can put a hard limit at 5 players (if Jon is willing to collaborate on the storytelling end, then I can stretch to 6), and no telling me I have to SG the way you do. Note also I'm not keen on putting story threads on hold while waiting for troupe consensus on interpretations. For me, story takes steep precedence over mechanics; call it and move on, whenever possible.

Right now, I'm on the burned out side of the SG side of things. I ran Bibracte for 2 years and nearly 20,000 posts. Towards the end I just wanted to get to 20,000 posts and that's when I realized that I was out of juice; that the story goals had been replaced by mechanical goals. Everything was moving in the direction I wanted, I was just stretched thin, and the little things were beginning to annoy me.

I can be a sounding board, if you think you need one. For example, I agree that you need carte blanche with Mallorca. I will suggest that Marko is correct in having multiple threads, but I'm biased. My reasoning was what he outlined, stories will stagnate with multiple players and disparate posting schedules, and it requires frequent retconning to move the story along. I made a lot of observations of the games that had gone on before, those that were the most active seemed to have some element of multiple concurrent stories. It is a lot of work. But having one grand story where everyone or most everyone participates is also a lot of work when it starts faltering because a player is not present and stalls the advancement. I also like my method because it allows active players to play their companion or scene stealing grog. If you don't like it you can blame Peregrine. I only did it because his character in Phoenix was active in like 8 different threads spread over the course of a few days. But, as a secondary sort of thing, it might work with the more active players who want to run more than one character, so I don't know. :smiley:

I don't mean "grand story" in the sense of a single continuous narrative, only that story hooks and story flaws should be connected to each other as much as possible. I like the concurrent story threads.

I cannot give you carte blanche if I am not free to play Roberto as a player character. It is just not fair, and the primary motivation for giving you this project is so that I can play that character unfettered as an SG. But as a plater, I can be hard to handle, and I worry that you will snap on me. And here's the other thing. Ryu, I love you, but you have a tendency to have melt downs and issue ultimatums and then threated to walk away. Then you will drop a giant half woven tapestry in my lap and I won't know what to do with it. And I hesitate because of your being opposed to troupe style play and democratic decision making.
So I am totally willing to run things, since Roberto will be a SG character no matter what I do now. At this point, I am more concerned with not hurting your feelings. But I also really want to work with you, which means we both need to make compromises.

Carte blanche is what would let Roberto BE a PC.

The mess in the Evissa thread, at least as it cane across to me, stemmed from the strong implication that Mark was waving around his DM-Hammer while Roberto was being a blowhard. If Arnau and Roberto had met in a sitauation of my construction, there wouldn't have been any such implication, but the situation you constructed, Xavi got annoyed with you, and justifiably so.

Nobody wants to be players in a game where the Storyguide is the hero of every scene. But nobody wants to Storyguide when they're stuffed in a box where they cannot exercise any creativity but are expected to crank out adventures anyway.

So, be Storyguide for Andorra and Mallorca, or be a Storyguide in Andorra and be a PC in Mallorca. Either is fine. But if you want to be a PC in Mallorca, that means you have to take off the Storyguide hat. I'm okay with wearing that hat, if I'm handed it, but I'm not a trained monkey to provide entertainment on demand without any expectations or needs of my own. If I run it, I'm going to run it in a way that's fun for me, and that means interrelated stories between the characters and the covenant's overall interests. I'm not a Tivo!

Then we are agreed on that and have a major breakthrough as far as a compromise goes. I can work with this. There are still some issues that need to be worked out, but that is the major one and the rest are negotiable.

  1. I would still like to advocate for scattered yet linked locations. People really like the idea. I myself love it. But I understand your wanting a central location. I just wanna know what you mean by that. Where and what is it? Are we still allowed to own our own properties as free individuals?
  2. I advocate for troupe style play. Otherwise players are always gonna turn to me for the redress of grievances, which kills my ability to play as a PC. Without some kind of democratic empowerment, or perhaps another player whom players can turn too, that's what will wind up happening.
  3. If you must, go with the single thread tapestry style. I really recommend against it, and I speak from experience. It may seem harder, but it really isn't. The only real difficulty is keeping things from getting stacked all at the same time. But the players post much more frequently and are much more enthused and involved, and they take on a larger share of the work. It makes each individual story much easier. But do what you are comfortable with. I may suggest experimenting at some point though.
  4. do not have any melt downs or issue ultimatums. Learn to be more diplomatic. I point fingers at myself, it has been a hard lesson to learn.

By that I mean, if there is an explosion in Roberto's lab, any of the other magi would be able to hear it, and can come to investigate if the player chooses. If (okay, WHEN) the island is under attack by pirates or Tritons or Sahirs, all of the magi will know about it at the same time and can respond accordingly. I never want a story put on hold because the only character who knows about it needs to pass through a regio or portal to go notify other characters before other characters can respond. Story seeds will be planted and I want every player to have the opportunity to respond whenever they desire, without needing to wait to hear about it secondhand or thirdhand, first.

Where: Sa Dragonera
What: We can pretty much take up the whole island, it's not very big. Accommodations can be whatever the PCs choose it to be.
Properties: Sa Dragonera already has an owner. Unless anyone's taking the Landed Noble virtue (which isn't available to magi) I don't see how anyone would be managing any estates.

I also hate bookkeeping and want to avoid it as much as possible. "Roberto offers Arnau a generous but not outrageous sum for his services" is INFINITELY preferable to a long OOC argument about how much you can buy with a shilling.

I don't mind troupe input, but I do want to be the final arbiter of events in Mallorca for two purposes.

  1. As you admit, you can be a handful. I do not want to ever have another situation where the lines are blurred between Roberto-the-PC and Mark-the-SG. If other players feel like you're being overbearing, I need to be able to trust you to back off if I ask you to.
  2. I don't want stories ever put on hold while people argue for days whether or not Second Sight should have to penetrate or what-have-you. Game mechanics are secondary to story.

I never said anything about wanting only a single thread or chapter at a time, only that I want to connect story hooks and story flaws together as much as possible. Preferring that is not about difficulty, it's about preference. I don't want to run individual stories for individual magi, that's not fun. As individual people we only see things from our perspective, and in problem-solving situations like many RPGs feature, if one individual sees only one facet of what's going on, a story can get stuck. A good example being, Mark's roleplay style meant that when Carmen came across Thor and Heimdall's drinking contest, she absolutely missed the whole point; she threw around her ego, pissed off the God of Short Tempers, and an entire adventure got away from her because Mark's characters have a tendency to drop their trousers and pull out a yardstick. By contrast, if Vocis had been there, he would probably have asked the right questions, and then the adventure would have occurred.

I didn't want to issue an ultimatum, that's why I tried to hand Mallorca back to you.

:laughing:
Yardstick
That is so me. I will try to reign myself in.
But it seems we have made major breakthroughs here. Draft up your design of the chapter and I will take down my boons/hooks dealy when I get home latter (on my phone on the train at the moment)

Pere is designed for frequent mundane interaction. He's going to spend a decent chunk of time in Palma whether his sanctum is there or not. If all the PCs need to camp out on Sa Dragonera full-time I may need to come up with a different character.

Vilaro is fine in Palma, especially if he can reasonably be expected to be around at the covenant grounds on a regular basis. It's having everyone spread out across multiple islands that is unmanageable.

Island (free): self-explanatory
Aura (minor) x1, Aura (major) x2: The aura on the island of Sa Dragonera is 4, but there is an ancient tower on the eastern coast with an aura of 6.
Criminals (minor): A crew of pirates serves the covenant, who has furnished them with a magical ship in exchange for their service... and their discretion.
Wealth (major): The pirates bring in quite a haul of booty.
(Secret major hook): What the PCs don't know can't hurt them, right?
Monster (major): ...Well, okay, what you don't know CAN hurt you.
Gender Imbalance (minor): Between the pirates and the Flame Brothers, women are scarce on Sa Dragonera.
Hangout (minor): There's a well-known pirate tavern, The Blue Tortuga, at the bay.
Mundane Politics (major): Between Arnau and Vilaro, we're trolling for censure.

RIGHT!?

Sa Tortuga Blava. I am not sure that turtles of any significant size are native to the mediterranean, though.
We are not trolling, just making sensible requests using our not-specially-pacifist assets.

Funny, that's more old tytalus than anything else.

The council chamber, stores, library... You can have all these in one central location, with a magus watching other it, but no aura big enough to accommodate other labs, nor enough size. IIRC, there are even published covenants that are like this.

You don't need to have people on multiple islands. The different locations can be on the main island, if this may help. Should pirates attack Sa Dragonera, even it magi are all over the island, they should all have ample time to see them, for example. Same thing with the Sea Monster.

I believe it's more a matter of me being senile :blush:

I would say that

  1. If Ryu is supposed to be running this, he should have a significant say on how the chapter house is designed. I think this is the key point. If he prefers a central location I see no problem with it.Maybe the Barcelona magi fund the covenant on the condition that it should have a location in a specific place, like Sa Dragonera, in order to control a vis source? Maybe the contract also specifies that at least 3 magi must be present at the location to ensure its security, so 2 can leave with the third remaining there.

  2. Magi can have their labs scattered around if you fancy that. I have no issue with that, but they certainly need to be connected at the central location or the magi need to go there regularly, so 2+ characters can coincide to tell stories. Bat signal or similar (fire brother knocking at the door with a summons?) is needed for sure if the characters are scattered.

  3. Question about the scattered locations: I do not see why they are really needed. What was the idea behind them?

I will adapt Arnau's whereabouts to whatever is decided. He can be adapted to remain in one site or travel around the islands with the same ease, so whatever the rest prefer.

BTW: Yesterday I checked and as it happens Eivissa is in Moorish hands at this time (1234). The conquest of Eivissa does not happen until the 8th of August of 1235, so the whole High Noon in Eivissa thing is somewhat missguided, since it should be in Mallorca. Menorca and Eivissa are not conquered yet. Menorca will remain in arab hands until 1287. Menorca is a tributary of the realm of Aragó since 1232, so it is feasible that Roberto might be there instead.

Xavi

  1. If I am allowed to play Roberto as an unfettered PC, which Ryu has agreed to, then I can go along with this, which I am.
    :smiley:
  2. That is what I was advocating for, but Ryu wants something more intimate. I am cool with that if it is a required compromise. However, I feel that we who are wealthy and/or have accumulated the cash should be able to purchase our own (mundane) private property, such as a townhouse in Palma or a obsolete lighthouse in Ibiza.
  3. I stepped up and drew up covenant stats because it seemed like others expected it of me. At first Ryu was cool with the separate locations idea, but realized that it wouldn't work with his story ideas. The reason I came up with it, the inspiration for the idea, is that I figured that there wouldn't be a single adequate location large enough or suitable for a whole covenant. Otherwise there would be one here already. Sa Dragonera is not a good piece of property to build on, because of it's drastic sloped geography. But this is Mythic Sa Dragonera :mrgreen:

I have dug up conflicting information on Ibiza. The main Wikipedia page says it was conquered by King James I in 1235. But then the Wikipedia page for the Balearic Islands says ...

Then looking up Count Peter...

So what exactly is what, I do not know. But I feel we are authorized to write Mythic history to a way that suits us.
As a side note: Urgell is important to Andorra (the principality). Though the land has long ruled itself as sovereign and independent, using a (somewhat) democratic council system of government; there are technically two overlords that hold claim to the land, though neither one has ever set foot there or has tried to enforce the claim in a physical manner. One is some count in France, I forget who. The other is the Bishop of Urgell.

There are Catalan-only specific pages for the conquests of Eivissa and Menorca.

Basically it says that it is EVEN MORE complicated than that :mrgreen:

  1. MENORCA
    ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tractat_de_Capdepera
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ab%C3%BB_% ... al_Qurashi (english version of the second moor guy)

TRANSLATION:
The treaty of Capdepera was signed on June 17th 1231 in this population of mallorca between Jaume I and Abu Abd Al·lah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hisam (talk about long names), qadi (ruler) of Menorca. The moor guy recognized the suzerainty of the realm of Aragon over his island and agreed to pay tribute for it. The moor guy was sacked out of office by Abu Uthman Said Ibn Hakam al Qurashi (AKA Moor guy #2) in 1234 After the death of Jaume I the beneficiary of the tribute was Jaume II of Mallorca, and it was valid until the conquest of Mallorca in 1287. The treaty presents similarities with a Muslim Ahd but with exchanged actors.

The Moor Guy II was the Al-moixerif of Mallorca (administrator of taxes and the army) before the coup. He is credited for being the intellectual creator of the document. He seems to have been a smart guy and philosopher that implemented important and far reaching administrative reforms in the island.

So the conquest was not military, but we have a coup in 1234. So this just happened or is about to happen. Wanna go on a rampage on the island Roberto? Maybe the first moor guy is a Sahir...

According to his wiki page, the new Ra’îs of Manùrqa contracted a small force of mercenaries for his military. Certainly, the Balearic islands are proving a great bsuiness opportunity for the flame brothers :mrgreen:

EIVISSA AND FORMENTERA
ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conquesta_ ... Formentera
Translating dirctly, sinc eonly Catalan version available.

So we have this:

  • Mallorca 1230: military conquest
  • Menorca june 1231 by treaty (no troops).
  • Menorca july 1234: coup and change of moor leader. Moor II goes by the title of Ra’îs of Manùrqa.
  • Eivissa and Formentera August 1235: military conquest

Cheers,
Xavi