Well, once settled at the covenant, we have Eberhard that has Greek 4 and Latin 5. He's not a great teacher (Com 0 and Teaching 1), but that would still mean 10 xp per season of one-on-one teaching. Just slightly better than Practice at 8 xp per season, though, so there might be better alternatives for learning.
In the meantime, Eberhard could act as a translator.
A related question: how differentiated are Greek and Ancient Greek? I don't have The Sundered Eagle, so for Eberhard I simply used "Classical" as the specialty for Greek to reflect the fact that his knowledge of the language is mainly classical (Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy). I could change it to Ancient Greek if that's more appropriate.
To read a Ancient/Classical greek text one needs a score of 4 in Classical Greek or 6 in (Romaic) Greek, according to page 29 of The Sundered Eagle. I'd suggest that (classical) is probably a reasonable specialty and allows him to read, but he would be unable to write unless he actually learned Classical Greek and became fluent (score of 5, without specialty) so that he could write. I take a bit of a hard line on the language rules. Yes, the language rules are a mess, but I don't have a good way or ideas on how to fix them.
Ok, ArM5 (p.66) already indicated that a score of 4 in a language is required to study from a book, and a score of 5 is required to write them. So I got that part. From the rest, I understand that there is a -2 penalty between Ancient Greek vs Romaic Greek...
The possibilities for Eberhard seem to be:
Modern/Romaic Greek 4: A "Classical" specialty would still not be enough to get the score required to read the classical texts (1 point shy). He would be better at speaking, but this doesn't really make sense for the character.
Ancient/Classical Greek 4: Able to read classical works. An appropriate specialty (?) would also allow him to write books. I'm thinking that a specialty "Artes Liberales" would make sense for him (to read the classical authors on the subject), but would not allow him to write books (unless they are about AL?) which is not a big deal for me.
So I think I'll go with the Ancient Greek, with the "Artes Liberales" specialty if you think that's appropriate. Since the guy was a monk in Germany, he doesn't care about being able to converse with current-day Greeks -- he's much more interested in the writings of the ancient philosophers.
I think meeting at the Tribunal was the plan, based on the letters exchanged. I'm ready whenever the others are, obviously.
Gulla's character concept is fairly clear (Ex Misc longevity expert with some ties to the fay), so including Hippocrates in a discussion does not present a problem.
We don't have a character concept from Kilgs, so we would need at least that for the discussion to include his magus. He mentioned on August 7 that he would post a character idea or two by the end of the week, but I haven't seen anything. Want to poke him again? (I could do it, but I think you know him better than I do -- which is just from a few posts on the boards.)
I've finalized Gregor the magical cooper, slightly modifying the third way he could use his Mythic Cooperage virtue (some numbers didn't make sense). Please let me know here if that virtue is acceptable to all. I can still tweak it if necessary, even after play begins, based on how weak/powerful it actually ends up being.
(Moving the discussion here from the "Specialists / Grogs / Covenfolks" topic, as it seems a more appropriate place to discuss a companion.)
Having a local noble would certainly be appropriate, although the magi will need to be careful of "interfering with mundanes".
Note that the city of Koblenz belongs to the archbishop of Trier. I am unsure of what this means for nobility living around the city, but I would assume that they would still be at least somewhat independent from the Church.
There are many castles along both the Mosel and Rhine rivers, so there are many possibilities. At a quick glance, Eltz is fairly close (within 20 miles of Koblenz) and there was a manor house there in 1157 where Rudolf zu Eltz lived.
It all depends on how powerful a noble, and how close you'd like the noble to be to the covenant.
I like the idea of having some relations with a local noble, or having that fleshed out a bit. It certainly doesn't have to be a beneficial relationship, where the covenant is effectively controlling the noble... There is likely some noble here, but his scope of power is probably limited or his fief is rather large, due to the Archbishop holding sway. I know for Bibracte I did a fair bit of research on medieval French towns and discovered that the current town of Clermont-Ferrand was formerly a twin city built on two hills. Clermont was in the hands of the clergy and Montferrand was established by the Counts of Auvergne in an effort to stand against the growing political power of the bishops of Clermont.
Something like that could be going on here, however ineffectual it might be. It might also create enough room for the covenant to maneuver, keeping both the Archbishop of Trier and the local noble happy or off-balance as the occasion demands. Granted, I have no idea of the history of this area, and whether anything I've described actually existed, it's just something that might be possible and might be worth dropping into the saga...to create interesting stories.
The imperial castle at Cochem can also make a potentially nice base of operation for a noble companion. He might be part of the retinue that manages the castle in the emperor's absence, or live in the surrounding area.
Depends on what kind of stories you'd see the companion having.
Well, if he's the steward of the castle in the emperor's absence, he may still be minor. He just answers directly to the emperor, rather than another liege in between. And, of course, because of the influence of the Archdiocese he may not have a lot to do... And thus can make/be all sorts of trouble.
As I am writing some additional background for Aedituus, I am realizing that the flaws I picked are not sitting right and I am wondering if the troupe would be okay with me making some adjustments?
First, a little background that I would like to include, after reading the Criamon section of HOH:M a little more deeply ... I had envisioned Aedituus' parens, Sonia, to be on the Path of Strife, and guiding her apprentice to avoid that path for himself. (That's why he has the Perdo Deficiency.) It occurred to me that a skinny Anglo monk might be the "cosmic opposite" that Sonia needs to marry to proceed to the next level of her Path. This seems reasonable given Aedituus' age. (I think Sonia is only 10 years older, although 20 years older post-gauntlet.) This could result in the True Love (NPC) flaw, but it would be minor, given Sonia's experience. It might also provide some story seeds, as she would not be present while she pursues the expectations of her Path, but could appear now and again to drag Aedituus away from the lab and abbey.
So, here is what I am proposing:
Replace the Pious (major flaw) with a Restriction (must be tonsured)
Replace the Ignem Deficiency with the minor Pious flaw
Replace Visions with True Love (NPC, minor)
And my feelings on this as an SG, I hate it when a player is fighting with their character (and they don't want to be), and so changing stuff around, especially if it hasn't had an impact on any stories isn't a big deal to me. IF it has been used, that alters things...and requires a more thoughtful analysis.
I'm considering a change to the virtues & flaws of my magus to get rid of the Weak Enchanter flaw. Looking at the kind of projects I'd like my character to do (particularly his talisman), this specific flaw is beginning to irk me.
So I'm considering the following scenarios and would like the troupe's input on them.
First scenario is simply replacing the flaw with another minor flaw. Looking at the possibilities, I have the the following:
Incompatible Arts (MuMe): I'm wondering if that one isn't abusive, considering that the character already has Deficient Mentem.
Flawed Parma Magica: In either Ignem, Auram or Imaginem. Does Imaginem even make sense, since most Imaginem magic bypass Parma anyway?
Second scenario is to replace Deficient Mentem with Deficient Perdo. That would bring his Flaw points to 10 (he only had 9 before), so would allow me to pick an additional Virtue. Aedituus already has Deficient Perdo, but I don't think that would be crowding each other's concept. The additional virtue could be Free Study, Magical Memory or possibly Social Contacts (House Mercere).
Ok, I'll replace Deficient Mentem by Deficient Perdo and remove Remove Weak Enchanter.
I'm leaning towards Social Contacts to balance everything out. This would certainly explain how Petronius would be able to lay his hands on so much information when planning the creation of the covenant, and later on hear about rumors of things to investigate for his original research.
To explain it, I will integrate the fact that Clemens was fond of the apprentice and introduced him to every redcap who dropped by. The apprentice was a good listener, begging for tales of far-off places and charming the redcaps despite the effects of his Gift.
Would redcaps be considered a different social circle than Mercere magi? Or if "House Mercere" narrow enough for the virtue? It would make sense for Petronius to be known by, and know of, many Mercere magi. His area of research would certainly be of interest to the House, and the fact that is also a Mercurian magus means there would be kinship there.
As a side note, I'll also update his pater, Octavius, to replace Weak Enchanter with Deficient Perdo. That also makes sense for a healing specialist. I was thinking that Octavius should probably have Puissant Creo and Puissant Corpus. That would increase his CrCo lab total by 6, meaning that the longevity ritual he crafted for Petronius before saga start is a bit stronger. I don't think a base CrCo lab total of 55 is abusive for a healing specialist, and the fact that he made one for Petronius in exchange for only a single season of service is not unreasonable considering the Mentor relationship.
