Might need to adjust background a little, to indicate that his heartbeast was a surprise considering his magical ineptitude with Aquam. As noted by Halancar, you don't choose your heartbeast, it chooses you.
Waddenzee exists in the saga, and your pater used to live there, but he left before taking you as his apprentice. He is not in good terms with the covenant, although he doesn't talk about it much. He considers the newest members to be vile examples of the Order. The covenant itself is fairly secretive, but it is well-known that it relies on piracy to acquire much of its resources. As such, there is a decent chance that you will interact with them at some point. More chance of bad than good from them...
We could say that you first lived at Fengheld, but that your pater moved to a location between Oculus Septentrionalis and Crintera (along the coast) when your heartshape was brought forward. You two lived in relative isolation in a small cove/cavern. Your pater left the Rhine Tribunal after your were officially recognized as a magus by the Order. He seemed bitter about the situation here and invited you to come with him, but you obviously decided to stay for some reason.
Note that, in general, there are more magi living at each covenant than what is stated in GotF. There are also magi living in isolation in the Tribunal. Peregrinatores (magi moving from one covenant to another) are still quite present, but are often granted limited access to the libraries of the covenants they visit.
That sounds good. My mater (if it's ok that it's a she) left Waddenzee or Terschilling as it must have been known as then about the same time she found me in a fishing village in Frisia. She brought me to Fengheld and started my apprenticeship there so this must have been about 1195. In 1203 they went to Crintera to attend the Gathering of Twelve years and then it came as a surprise that his Heartbeast was the dolphin. Given his playful, optimistic and prankish personality and his love of the sea (he never really liked the landlocked location of Fengheld) it wasn't that strange though. It's his deficiency in Aquam that is a bit more strange. I was thinking his mater also had an aquatic or amphibic heartbeast, maybe beaver or otter?
So after the Gathering the two settled down along the coast of Holstein and finished the apprenticeship. My mater left the Tribunal as you proposed but I stayed. Since I'm now on the same side of the Rhine tribunal as Wits character maybe we should hook up on the way to our new covenant?
Here are some ideas for Virtues and Flaws I'm juggling with (not balanced yet):
V: Ways of the Sea, Deft Imaginem, Affinity with Imaginem, Great Stamina, Subtle magic, Quiet magic (these two makes Deft Imaginem redundant)
F: Waster of vis, Deficient Aquam, Optimistic (minor), Enemies or Hatred (not sure about these anymore since I have no direct connection with Waddenzee)
You probably should take Quiet Magic twice so you can cast without penalty as a Dolphin. That, or take Deft Imaginem and relies mostly on Imaginem spells in Dolphin form. Although Ways of the Sea would offset the remaining penalty in part if you took Quiet Magic only once.
Hatred is far less dangerous to the character and the troupe than Enemies, because you have some control over what happens: as a Story Flaw An Enemy will come find you, ready or not; whereas you can rein in your Hatred somewhat until you are ready. Still, if your character has never been at Waddenzee himself, they may not be so appropriate. Have you considered taking Optimistic as a Major Personality Flaw instead, and making Hatred minor ?
Maybe the Waddenzee people hunted down your mater in Wizard Wars? Or maybe they simply were responsible for a raid on the village where your family lived. There were few survivors, even if no Hermetic crime was committed at all. I like this last bit. Gives you a reason to hate them, even if they have no freakin' idea about it.
A myth that you might want to research is that of Arion. Poet rescued by dolphins et al. Might put you in a good path for a relation with Wits
Yes I have actually since I think it's a good personality trait for a dolphin along with reckless and perhaps careless as in Waster of vis and perhaps Careless Sorcerer.
I like this idea if Arthur approves it. I came back to Frisia a few months after splitting with my mater and then found the village in ruins maybe even burning after the raid and after some investigations i found out who was behind it. Then I might take Optimistic as major and Hatred as minor so i can control it better.
I'm not convinced that Ways of the Sea would reduce the spellcasting penalty. The virtues says it gives +3 on rolls that directly involve the area and its inhabitants, because of a deep understanding of this type of terrain. I'm having trouble seeing this to including spellcasting when in animal form. You can try to convince me.
It is certainly be a reasonable explanation for the flaw. Just make sure your background specifies what made you think it was Waddenzee who raided your home village. Was a clue left behind? Do you have a spell that helped reveal this, like Whispers Through the Black Gate or some other Intellego spell?
It's certainly not automatic, but...
first, since his animal form is a dolphin, it's extremely likely that he will be in the sea when he tries casting in animal form.
Then, since he'll be in the sea at the time, there is a good chance that his target (with a small t) will be in the sea too, and a fair chance that it will be either an inhabitant of the sea (including his own dolphin self), or the sea itself, and either will let him claim the Way of the Sea +3 bonus.
Granted, if he tries to create a magical sword, or to cast at a poor cow that was thrown overboard from a ship, then the bonus would not apply. On the other hand even if he were swimming in human form, if he casts at a fish the bonus does apply.
It just seems to make the virtue much more powerful when it is taken by a magus, as this is akin to giving him a free Special Circumstances virtue (and one less botch die!) in addition to what a non-magus gets as a benefit.
If I allow it, I will be quite strict regarding what the magic targets for the bonus to apply. Stop a wave or talk to a fish? Yes. Calm the winds or move a boat? Probably not.
As I read it, as long as you interact with the inhabitants or the environment, it gives you the +3. Swimming is certainly interacting with the environment, so yes. Ships and sailors to me are "native" to the sea, but am over to be countered bere. As bearlord says, it is a major virtue after all, so I would expect it to apply to most sea actions.
You should still take Swim as a human, though, otherwise you'll suffer from the extra botch die not having the skill. Your dolphin shape is assumed to have it already. You'll need to propose stats for the dolphin shape, btw.
Ships and sailors and not a natural part of the environment, anymore than woodcutters are part of the environment of a forest.
And it should apply to most actions involving the sea and its natural inhabitants, not most actions taking place at sea.
Swim is taken although only at rank 1 as it would be a lot of wasted xp to raise it higher since I will probably go to heartbeast form if I want to go for a longer swim.
I have started to look at the stats using the guidelines in HH:MC to create a mundane dolphin and then transform it to my heartbeast form. Whales and dolphins I guess are grouped into Fish under those rules I assume, but I think dolphins should be more clever and perhaps more communicative than fishes. I guess I just add the qualities that raise those characteristics. I will present a draft here or in my character thread for proposal later.
Yes, in medieval times dolphins and whales counted as fish. Clever doesn't matter too much, because your intelligence will override it anyhow. Still by all means give it the Crafty quality a couple of times (or more), and Vocal...
Arthur has invited me to join this, assuming I can propose a character concept the rest of you are comfortable with.
I have three ideas. It may be that some of these are too close to ones that you are already running, in which case they are out.
The general idea would be a Bonisagus match with a significant curiosity (+3) and maybe some other character traits to explain his choosing to join this group. The three ideas are:
A Healing / Longevity magi. Initial arts of Creo and Corpus. A minor magical focus (if allowed) in improving people (to cover longevity potions and other improvements he would like to work on later).
An Intelligo / Vim Specialist. Interested in understanding the supernatural. (Eventually able to open arts of someone with a major supernatural virtue while preserving the virtue.) Should be easily able to help find vis sources, ...
A Rego / Finesse specialist. Initial interest is in using Rego to make things for the covenant (improve lab equipment, make tools, clothing, ...) He would look for interesting things to make.
Trogdor's magus is a healer bonisagus, but we are not quite sure if he's interested in cointinuing or not. Other than that (and I think we can soon strike out Trogdor's as well), those look good to me. Welcome!
Just as a reminder of some of the saga's House Rules, for the new players, as this may preclude some concepts (or at least make them more difficult to implement):
One more thing to consider when desingning the concepts. Each of the magi mustbhave some reason for not joining an existing covenant, with all the benefits that come with it. So they may be rebels out to stick it to established order, misfits that cannot live with the constraints imposed by elder magi, or rejects that no one wants to accept.
I understand that there has to be a reason for our character doing this (by the standards of the order in general) outlandish thing.
If the existing players have a preference among the three concepts I proposed, it would be good to hear it. I am happy to run any one of them (my preference seems to shift each time I consider them.)
