Character creation discussion

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Via Experimenta
21

Here is Praxiteles. It's the first one I'm happiest with at gauntlet. Lots of stuff left to do. Including sigil, parens, animal companion.
I need to do some backstory on him. I also need to have a rationale behind his high finesse, since none of his spells use it, so some spells may get revised. My intention is for him to be a crafting magus, making sculptures, primarily. I want to explore the Rego crafting rules a bit, I think they have some problems, so he might "break" them a bit.

Praxiteles
Characteristics: Int +1, Per +5, Pre +2, Com +3, Str -4, Sta +2, Dex -3, Qik 0
Size: 0
Age: 28 (28), Height: 5'6'', Weight: 158 lbs, Gender: Male
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Affinity with Terram, Puissant Terram, Educated (50/50)*, Affinity with Finesse, Puissant Finesse, Cautious with Finesse, Gentle Gift, Great Perception × 2, Waster of Vis, Greedy, Compulsion (Eating), Deficient Form (Ignem), Animal Companion, Poor Strength × 1
Combat:
Dodge: Init: +0, Attack --, Defense +0, Damage --
Fist: Init: +0, Attack -3, Defense +0, Damage -4
Kick: Init: -1, Attack -3, Defense -1, Damage -1
Soak: +2
Fatigue levels: OK, 0, -1, -3, -5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: -1 (1-5), -3 (6-10), -5 (11-15), Incapacitated (16-20), Dead (21+)
Abilities: German 5, Latin 5, Awareness 3, Charm 2, Folk Ken 2, Bargain 3, Artes Liberales 1, Magic Theory 3, Parma Magica 1, Finesse 6+2, Order of Hermes Lore 1, Code of Hermes 1, Intrigue 1, Architecture 1 [Category: Buildings], Guile 1, Magic Lore 1
Arts: Cr 5, In 2, Mu 4, Pe 4, Re 4, An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 0, He 1, Ig 0, Im 0, Me 6, Te 15+3, Vi 0
Equipment:
Encumbrance: 0 (0)
Spells Known:
Confusion of the Numbed Will (ReMe 15) +12
Panic of the Trembling Heart (CrMe 15) +13
Sight of the Transparent Motive (InMe 10) +10
Words of the Unbroken Silence (CrMe 10) +13
The Unseen Porter (ReTe 10) +24
A Window of Singular Direction (MuTe 15) +24
Stone to Falling Dust (PeTe 20) +24
Seal the Earth (CrTe 15) +25
The Call to Slumber (ReMe 10) +12

22

So, I'm thinking of how Praxiteles can make art more easily. I neglected Free Expression. I'm thinking if the Art is created with a Rego spell and a finesse roll should be eligible for the +3, just like Sculpting, Painting, whatever would. Am I being too permissive for the character? Also, it would apply to Muse, and if the troupe doesn't think it is too permissible. So, when crafting a sculpture, or a painting with rego magics, his base would be +3 (FE) +3 Muse +5 Perception +6 Finesse +2 Puissant=19. That sounds high, but consider that work it takes an artist a year to do subtracts 9 from the roll pushing it down to 10. An average roll is 5, so 15, which makes it equivalent to the work of highly skilled artists. This would only apply to art, not any other possible Rego Craft spells he might have, if the primary purpose is not for art, such as a building or a sword, I might make separate rolls to see if the item is possible and another roll for how beautiful it looks. A beautiful sword that doesn't perform well, a beautiful building that soon collapses in on itself. :laughing:

Oh and if there's concern about abuse, such as Praxiteles creating statues of David or equivalent splendor, it took Michelangelo over 2 years to sculpt David. Extrapolating the east factor out, Praxiteles would have a Base 19 -18 (work of an artist for 2 years), so a +1 to his finesse roll, and would still have to hit an Ease Factor of what...24 or 27?

23

OK, First part of the Character Generation Process.

"The Old Fay Healers" is a hedge tradition living partly with but also with close ties to the faeries in the Bohemian Forest. They were found by mages of Irencilla before the Schism War and incorporated in the Order. They had a firm tradition that only apprentices with the blue blood of the Shide could be thought, and a belief that each Healer should teach one (and only one) apprentice. From the start there were 5 lines, but slowly the lines died out. A few centuries back the last Fay Healer lost her apprentice and realized that the ancient tradition would die out unless she put the call from the Order ("train aprentices") before her own rules. Celianna then chose to seek out more than one apprentice, and the tradition have grown (slowly) since. Celianna also made a deal with the Fay that any apprentice of her line should be specially skilled in avoiding death by old age.

The Tradition comes with the Virtues: Strong Shide Blood and Minor Magical Focus: Aging. The assoiciated flaw mirrors the close ties to the Fay: Restricting magic to be cast when not wearing any iron.

So since I cannot finish this tonight, I'll put it up here to make sure I'm not losing it :slight_smile:

Hippocrates, Magus Ex Misc.
Int: +4
Per: +1
Pre: -2 (including the +1 from the Shide Blood)
Com: +3
Str: -2
Sta: +3
Dex: -2
Qik: 0

Virtues:
Hermetic Magus (0), The Gift (0), "Fay Healer" (Strong Shide Blood, Second Sight, Minor Magical Focus: Aging)(0), Great Int (1), Unaging (1), Affinity: Corpus, Creo, Magic Theory (3), Puissant Corpus, Creo, Magic Theory (3), Book Learner (1), Good Teacher (1)
Flaws:
Restriction: Not wearing Irion (0), Necessary Condition (Unboud/moving freely) (3), Deficient Perdo (3), Deleterious Circumstances (Affecting Iron) (1), Mentor (1), Weakness (children) (1), Carefree (1)

Skills, arts and spells will come later, hopefully tomorrow :smiley:

Hippocrates is a very happy wizard somewhat young looking (he stopped aging at 18). He was raised traveling around Germany with his Master Greinholt, who never really appreciated the stationary life of a covenant. Most of the time he spent as a let-out help at Durenmar, though. Greinholt came by once a year for the required teaching and one of the elderly Bonisagi of Durenmar found the talented young man a good help and a good conversation partner.

After gauntlet Hippocrates has taken good use of the "travel around" system of Rhine covenants, but always have remained in good touch with his mentor at Durenmar. When the word have gone out for a new covenant near Koblenz to be set up as center of research for the extra talented young magi, he has been encouraged by his mentor to seek membership to find a good community to "settle down and get working on that research on eternal life"

He will be bringing copies of some good tomes from Durenmar.

24

Wow. I was trying to keep up on the reading; lots has happened in the last week!

I am thinking about writing stories involving power and responsibility, and exploring how a young magus matures in his quest for knowledge and power. My current idea is a Criamon magus or maga, interested in joining a covenant of researchers while exploring the Enigma. He is Gently Gifted, allowing for some interaction with mundanes as I explore my themes. I had been thinking about a Jerbiton, but I have been playing those for a while, and would like to explore something different. Unfortunately, I still have HoH:M on order, so this one may have to start out pretty vanilla. I don't have the idea completely formed yet ... researching regiones was one avenue I had, as was the possibility of the relationship between the Enigma and the Divine ... Having an abbey nearby is intriguing.

I'll try and post more about the character tonight. Suggestions are welcome. In the meantime, I'm going to try to finish reading the Coventant Development thread.

25

I'm thinking that makes sense - probably.

26

By the way any good suggestions to how we keep character sheets updated? Unless someone has a wiki or database online I suggest we have a thread for each character where we have the updated character sheet in the first post and then we could post seasonal logs beneath?

Anyway here is what I hope is a correct version of Hippocrates at the time of Gauntlet.

Hippocrates, Magus Ex Misc.
Int: +4
Per: +1
Pre: -2 (including the +1 from the Shide Blood)
Com: +3
Str: -2
Sta: +3
Dex: -2
Qik: 0

Virtues:
Hermetic Magus (0), The Gift (0), "Fay Healer" (Strong Shide Blood, Second Sight, Minor Magical Focus: Aging)(0), Great Int (1), Unaging (1), Affinity: Corpus, Creo, Magic Theory (3), Puissant Corpus, Creo, Magic Theory (3), Book Learner (1), Good Teacher (1)
Flaws:
Restriction: Not wearing Irion (0), Necessary Condition (Unboud/moving freely) (3), Deficient Perdo (3), Deleterious Circumstances (Affecting Iron) (1), Mentor (1), Weakness (children) (1), Carefree (1)

Abilities:
Second Sigh (Regios) - 1
Charm (women) - 2
Folk Ken (Magi) - 2
Athletics (running) - 1
Awareness (alertness) - 1
Brawl (dodging) - 1
Magic Theory (Creo) - 3 (+2)
Parma (Perdo) - 1
Finesse (Precision) -1
Latin (Hermetic usage) - 4
Artes Liberales (Ritual Magic) - 1
Philosophiae (Ritual Magic) - 1
Bargain (Services) - 1
Leadership (???) - 1
Teaching (apprentices) - 1
German (Storytelling) - 5

Arts:
Creo - 7+3
Intellego - 0
Muto - 0
Perdo - 5
Rego - 5
Animal - 1
Aquam - 0
Auram - 0
Corpus 7+3
Herbam - 0
Ignem - 0
Imaginem - 0
Mentem - 10
Terram - 0
Vim - 4

Spells:
Bind Wound (CrCo 10)
Cheating the Reaper (CrCo 30)
Lifting the Dangling Puppet (ReCo 15)
Restoration of the Defiled Body (CrCo 25)
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10)
Purification of the Festering Wounds (CrCo 20)
Rise of the Feathery Body (ReCo 10)

Personality Traits:
Happy +3
Optimistic +1
Focused +2

Hippocrates is a very happy wizard somewhat young looking (he stopped aging at 18). He was raised traveling around Germany with his Master Greinholt, who never really appreciated the stationary life of a covenant. Most of the time he spent as a let-out help at Durenmar, though. Greinholt came by once a year for the required teaching and Andrus, a Bonisagi and librarian of Durenmar found the talented young man a good help and a good conversation partner.

After gauntlet Hippocrates has taken good use of the "travel around" system of Rhine covenants, but always have remained in good touch with his mentor at Durenmar. When the word have gone out for a new covenant near Koblenz to be set up as center of research for the extra talented young magi, he has been encouraged by Andrus to seek membership so he can find a good community to "settle down and get working on that research on eternal life"

He will be bringing copies of some good tomes from Durenmar (and knowledge of where to find some vis...)

27

I'm an ascendant member at Obsidian Portal, so I can add another saga there. There are some things I like about it, and some things I don't.

28

Aedituus ex Criamon

Characteristics: Int +2, Per +1, Pre 0, Com +2, Str 0, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qik -1
Size: 0
Age: 34
Decrepitude: 0 (0)
Warping Score: 0 (0)
Confidence Score: 1 (3)
Virtues and Flaws: The Gift, Hermetic Magus, The Enigma, Book Learner, Educated, Gentle Gift, Priest, Puissant Mentem, Second Sight, Sense Holiness and Unholiness; Deficient Rego, Noncombatant, Pious, Visions, Vow (of celibacy), Weird Magic
Personality Traits: Patient +1, Impulsive +2

Character Concept: Abelard was the fifth son of a wealthy land owner in England. His mother died while giving birth to him, and his father donated a large sum of money, along with Abelard, to a local monastery, in exchange for prayers said for his beloved wife. Abelard was always a strange child, and not always trusted by the monks, as he sometimes seemed to know what they were thinking. Most tolerated him however, and at the age of 18, Abelard was given Holy Orders. He hoped this would ease his sense of loneliness, even among the monks of the order, but his spirit still felt the need for something else. When a wandering scholar stopped at the monastery, he asked if Abelard might join his entourage. The Jerbiton magus recognized the Gift in the young priest, but not being in need or desire for an apprentice, paid off a debt to a Criamon maga with the gift of an apprentice. The maga was careful to try to preserve her apprentice's supernatural abilities upon opening his Arts, recognizing the value for a Criamon. She was never able to completely distract him from his priestly vows, and gifted him with the name Aedituus at his gauntlet.

I have one more minor virtue to take, but I was going to wait and see what abilities Aedituus has first.

29

My main concern with the Craft Magic rules described in Covenants is that, no matter how complex the task to be performed is, the spell only takes a single round. There is no limiting factor as to how many times you can try and still can expect success. So, in your example of David, there is nothing to prevent you from casting the spell again and again until you get an exploding die. You are only limited by the availability of raw materials -- with unlimited raw materials, you would easily be able to produce one such David a day.

There might be some other limiting factors. First is how detailed your plans for the results of the spell need to be before you can cast it? Can you just spend a few minutes pondering the result before creating a masterwork? Or do you need to spend weeks drawing the different parts of the sculpture, getting the proportions right, etc? I would tend to think the the second one might be more playable. Craft magic only reduce the time spent on the physical aspect of the work. The creative process itself still takes a lot of time. (My wife does oil painting and illumination as a serious hobby, and planning out the end result is certainly a large part of any work she produces.)

Second might be how specific a formulaic spell must be. Does a single ReTe spell allow you to craft any stone statue up to a given size? Only one of a human-shaped statue? Only one of a specific type of stone (such as marble)? That is an important decision to make. If the answer is anything made of stone up to a given size, then your character has created a big enough ReTe spell he has limited reasons to keep creating new ones instead of simply applying the same spell over and over again. (which may become boring quite fast for the player, if not for the character.)

30

I don't believe in unlimited raw materials. Whether acquired mundanely or magically there is a cost. I could create such a block with 4 pawns of Terram or Creo vis, but that's expensive, too. Factor in his Waster of Vis flaw, that's actually 6 pawns. The piece of marble David was sculpted from was incredibly expensive for the time and it had to be shipped from Greece, too, which wasn't cheap. While your concern is valid in theory, in practice, I don't think it will make a difference due to the scarcity of materials or vis. There are problems with the Rego Crafting rules, and he's designed to highlight these and with troupe consensus find a way to address them. Unlimited resources, shouldn't be a concern.

If he's to go through the trouble of planning out all the steps, then he needs to have an underlying knowledge of what he is replicating, which suggests an ability score in sculpting. I may explore having some mundane knowledge of a craft being beneficial to the craft being replicated magically at a later point, but I'm wanting to see how far I can take the rules as written. There is a mention on HoH:Societas on the familiarity with something having a bonus or minus to the ease factor, but it's not well developed, or at least I haven't read it well enough. :smiley:

The size of the ReTe spell would be based on the standard size for the Form. In the case of stone that would be 1 cubic pace.

31

Just a few random thoughts about the character and background.

Why Ex Misc? With the background for the tradition and the name of it (based in Irencillia and about the fay), I would have thought they would have been absorbed into House Merinita long ago.

What makes his magic different? I understand that you are looking for going for the "search for immortality" concept, but mixing in a "healer" tradition with faerie roots seems just seems like a crutch to "explain" the strong faerie blood.

The tradition itself, aside from the name, seem to have very little to do with healing. A focus on aging has very little to do with healing, and the tradition has nothing else related to healing.

I'm not trying to put down your concept. Mechanically the character is fine -- I'm rather outlining some weaker spots in the backstory.

And I'm fine if you go with it as described. Just expect Petronius (whose pater is a Mercurian healing specialist and hence knows several healing rituals) to look down on the "Hedge Wizard" claiming to be a healer. :laughing:

32

Background-related question: How do you explain him being freed from his duty to the Church to become an apprentice? Usually the virtue "Priest", as a social virtue, is not available to Hermetic Magi. As a priest he would have been assigned a parish or church (something like that), and would be bound to remain there. Similarly, he would have to be "assigned" by the Church to move in the area close to the covenant, and would probably live outside of the covenant. He'd have duties to the Church, and little time for his magic. My suggestion would be that he was raised by the monks and is deeply religious, but either never took the cloth, was released from his vows, or possibly expelled. A deeply faithful magus who has been excommunicated because of his dealings with magic might be a little extreme, but always possible. :smiling_imp:

33

I think you miss my point, which is that no matter how high the ease factor is, with Craft Magic you just need to cast again and again until you get an exploding die.

Yes, marble might cause a problem due to availability. But use bronze instead. Rego Craft Magic does not destroy the material, so if you cast the spell on a big chunk of bronze, all the material will still be there and reusable (even if it is shavings) since you can make multiple pieces of metal into a single one by "melting" them together again with Rego Craft Magic. Then you try again and again. Even with a low Finesse score, any Rego Craft magus will eventually be able to create a masterpiece if you use a stress die. And how bad can a botch be? Are you going to make a piece of material explode and become dangerous? You've already mentioned that botches will only be a factor if it serves the story.

One way to answer this might be to say that a stress die is only used on the first attempt to produce a specific craft project. After that, only a simple die is used. So you get only 1 chance to an extradordinary result (more than 10 above your Finesse total) or catastrophic failure (botch).

Actually, the rules mention that the degree of familiarity with the result to be created gives a bonus, not necessarily simply the appropriate Craf/Profession ability. So to create a sword, being a skilled swordsman is sufficient to gain a bonus.

Personally I would go a bit further, and make it a requirement for the higher Ease Factor projects. So you can't simply cast a spell, get lucky, and create a masterwork. Your result is capped by your familiarity of the object to be produced by Rego Craft. With no familiarity you can still create good things. But if you want to create a masterwork, you'll need more. This can be having a high enough Craft/Profession (or other appropriate) ability, or it could be spending some time familiarizing yourself wit/planning the specific craft project (drawing the statue and its different components) -- thus time invested for the masterpiece. It is still much less time than an actual artist might have to spend, but makes the creation of a masterpiece not something you can achieve in a single day's work.

And metal is a cubic foot. So creating a large statue may require one or more size-related magnitudes.

Have you tought about making him work in wood? And does painting require Aquam instead (or in addition to) Terram?

34

Not entirely, I was thinking in his preferred form, stone. When you chip a piece of stone away you can't put it back. But he's undergoing a transformation and becoming a rego specialist to better work with any of the forms he needs. Still terram will be his highest form.

He's a Jerbiton, interested in Objects d'Art. I can see him wanting to work in a medium that has a life to it, that the piece speaks to him about what it is. Wood and stone are both mediums that have a sense of life to them, and cannot be easily "recast." While he could easily create things in bronze, he's not particularly interested in doing so, because of the lack of challenge you mentioned. That's one of those conditions where I would make it a non stress situation, and therefore cannot botch; he's also incapable of replicating extraordinary feats without further improving his skill, and therefore intelligible for multiple tries to achieve an extraordinary result. You have to trust that I'm not going to allow myself to try things dozens of times until I get the final result. If the medium is such that it can be reworked, reforged, if you will, then an extraordinary result is not possible. Sound fair?

I have thought about different media, see my note above about making him a Rego specialist, instead. If he paints, he probably needs requisites for terram, animal, herbam to affect the canvas, pigments and tools to create the art piece. It's something he'll explore in the fullness of time.

35

I'm not afraid of you abusing the rules. "Fair" is an illusion, IMHO, particularly in Ars. :wink:

No, what I'm thinking of is playability and enjoyability from a player's perspective. It sounds fun to have a character that creates fine art using Rego Craft. But if creating a masterwork takes only a round to cast a single spell, along with a lucky roll, then what will the character do with his time? Simply invent bigger and bigger ReTe spells to create larger pieces? Wait until he receives that new piece of marble from Greece that he ordered? (That last sounds frustrating for a magus! He would certainly push for a Hermes Portal toward a good quarry.) What kind of stories are you seeing for your magus?

36

Probably snippets of mundane life. I'm viewing my role as primarily that of facilitator, so I'll write stories as I have time. But yes, acquiring materials and even commissions will be a big part of it. While it's possible that the creation of an art piece may happen in a round, the lead up time will be more drawn out.... There's the fraud aspect, he's pretending to be a sculptor, but isn't. Lots of areas. This is a more mechanical character than some I've made...meant to explore the Rego craft rules. Yeah, I have a problem with replicating things in 1 round, but those are the rules as written. I'm thinking that by playing through it I might find a reasonable alternative for getting things done...

37

Cool. :slight_smile:

Just had an image of a beautiful but damaged statue of Mercury (originally brought from Rome) in the center shared lab, which is the center (source) of the aura's strongest area. And how your character lobbies for time to examine it. Has a goal to try to sculpt an intact version of it. Tries to convince the others to invent a ritual (CrTe, Vi req) to restore the statue to its original state. And so on... Or maybe exactly the reverse, keep it as it is because it now has character.

And please, sodales, don't hang your dirty lab robe on the statue's remaining arm when you use the lab. It's fragile!

A true lover of the arts. :smiley:

38

Sold. :smiley:

39

Updated Petronius to add the "Cautious Sorcerer" virtue (to mitigate the risks related using vis for rituals) and the "Magical Animal Companion" flaw (a magical wild cat named Rufus with the ability to teleport between nearby patches of shadow).

The modifications have been highlighted in red in the initial message.

40

Would Aurae be a permissable magical focus?
Major or Minor?

I will need Hermetic Architecture at some point, but I'm not sure if I should start with it, or initiate it during 'play'.