Character Creation Discussions (OOC)

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Heir of Laimunt Valley
382

A few more ideas for covenfolk:

Levi. Too proud of being a carpenter (did you knew the Lord was a carpenter?!), father Luc has tried (until now without success) to make him a bit more humble. Not very dexterous. Good father.

Timeo. A gentle giant. Coward, Animal Ken.

Astro. An old magical horse (Might 1). No vis. Delusional (thinks he is a dog). Good watcher. Barks sometimes.

Emma. Fled from the nunnery. Literally glows when praying (gets really scared from this, but to not pray is a sin).

Sarah. Married to Nikolas. Her youngest son is the bastard of a minor noble.

Nikolas. Branded criminal. Knows he isn't the father of Elijah. Doesn't care, love his wife and children.

Dorian and Elijah. Sons of Sarah and Nikolas. Dorian has a way to find lost things (dowsing?). Elijah has a way to get into trouble.

Giovanni. Always drunk. Swears to God he sees fairies. Maybe he tells the truth.

Laura. Has a green thumb (literally).

Asim. Egyptian. Got lost from a caravan one day, slept in the desert, awoke in the middle of a forest in Rhine. Barely speaks the language.

Renard. Everyone knows he has killed someone. He has the look of a murderer. (Has the Magical Air flaw, but yes, he also killed someone.)

Natalie. Appeared in the church door on christmas eve, twenty years ago. Still looks ten.

Guida. 40 year old. Born holding an apple, was never able to let go of the fruit. As far as anyone with magic senses can tell, it's really a fruit, not magical. To all practical purposes has the Missing Hand flaw.

Lucille. Washerwoman. Curses like a drunken sailor. One eye is blue, one is green. (A normal person.)

Gabriel. Baker. Sleepwalks. The bread he makes at night tastes horribly.

2 Likes
383

I have a pitch for a companion:

Jacob: A wandering scholar

Jacob was born in the famous ghetto of Cologne to an influential and wealthy family of moneylenders. As a young man, he was sent to Cairo to study in the rabbinical colleges under the great Maimonides. There he learned a great deal but also took after the teachings of Abraham, Maimonides' son. These were a mix of Jewish and Sufi thought, emphasizing the mystic unity of being.

On return to Europe, these ideas which were mainstream in Egypt were thought to be entirely heretical. He was thrown out of Cologne and took up the life of a merchant and wanderer. He is trying to see all of creation, so he can experience the mystical "one".

384

He sounds cool but not sure why he'd settle in a covenant.

385

I was thinking he settles down because

  1. they are a community of scholars, and he has been looking for one of those since he left Egypt
  2. he wants somewhere less persecuted than all of Europe for his family
  3. he thinks magi might have some useful insight on the unity of being
  4. they will value his knowledge and literacy
386

I still like him, and I still doesn't know how I'd run stories for him. XD

Are you thinking of a purely academic scholar, or would he have a couple of Methods and Powers? Do you have ideas for his story and personality flaws? What kind of stories do you see him in?

387

More important, what stories which also involve a magus would he take part in? IMHO, companions should be there to support the magi, help them accomplish something that they can't do using just magic.

Having companions which generate their own stories, apart from the magi, is kind of counter-productive from a saga perspective.

388

Well, he was designed to be a useful person to bring along for adventures. The version I have of him sketched out speaks about 5 languages, has the well travelled and educated virtues and would be an asset for taking on missions for social and knowledge based non magical things.

Basically he has been around a large part of the world (with several area lores to back it up), speaks the language and knows the customs, making him a valuable companion on adventures.

389

If we want to make sure we have companions suited to magi, maybe we should figure out what kinds of companions our magi might look for or include on adventures? Otherwise, we might spend a lot of time generating concepts that nobody will use or run stories for.

390

That makes sense to me. If we are going on the companions as assistants to magi, then we should be saying what our Magus would value

391

I don't see much problem with a more proactive companion, who drags magi into suitable stories instead of being dragged by them, as long as the magus has a "legitimate" reason to participate... I'd only be wary of making an ultra-specialized companion that will only be functional when paired with a specific magus, or that has reasons to work with one magus only.

About Jacob, I like him, and I can think of a couple of things to throw at him.

But I'm not sure I would do a good job incorporating his Jewish side into stories (I've little knowledge of Judaism, except for golems), or where his quest for the divine would take him (and why/how would the magi be involved).

392

Same for me.

393

I am happy to drop the jewish side, but it was mostly just because I was listening to a podcast about jewish mysticism

394

I accept any podcast recommendations that you think are good. =9
There is one in my pipeline about the Reconquista (it goes exactly by this name), for when I start a saga on the Iberian Tribunal.

In this case would you go for a catholic heretic? Or maybe simply a merchant who has been around?

Just a thought, but do you plan for Marcus to have a venditor? The concept of a wanderer merchant (heretical or not) could fit.

395

Just a thought, but do you plan for Marcus to have a venditor? The concept of a wanderer merchant (heretical or not) could fit.

I am not sure, honestly. I don't envision him making a lot of items to sell to mundanes. He's more focussed on getting hermetic wealth and being a seeker and searching for arcane secrets to try to add to his family's knowledge. So for a companion, he is thinking of more needing an action-adventure type who can accompany him to abandoned covenants or old magical sites etc.

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396

I have previously stated my interest in a hedge-wizard companion (I'm replying to that post so that it can be more easily located). He'd be a guy oriented to stories about magical creatures and fey around the covenant, possibly capable of helping with exploration (but not exactly a martial guy).

A second option I'm entertaining is to stat Father Luc as a priest with holy powers. In that case I'd be thinking of True Faith (or maybe Self-Confident) and one holy Method and one Power from RoP:D. He could manage consistent, but low level divine support in a narrow field (think level 20 non-ritual effects) about thrice per day.

(As another option he could drop the Method and Power and take a handful of supernatural virtues aligned with the divine: magic sensitivity, premonitions, lesser purifying touch, sense holiness and unholiness, maybe entrancement...).

For the story flaw I was thinking either enemies (a bishop or the abbot of the nearby monastery maybe, someone to bring religious trouble to the magi) or plagued by supernatural (something fae).

He'd be a guy geared towards the protection of his flock, who don't really bothers with the scholars of the manor as long as they are good people. Probably thinks of them as part of his flock too. As such, any story where there is a threat to the covenant that also affect his flock (enemy magi, Realm creatures, witches, nobles, you name it) is a story in which he would be willing to participate.

Thoughts? Either about this concept or the hedge wizard one?

397

I think father Luc could be a lot of fun.

The issue I always have when playing a hedge wizard as a companion is that they fill the story and narrative role of a wizard, while just being demonstrably worse at the job than a magus. As such I always just wish I was playing my magus. But that is just me!

398

Also, in iterations of the concept that I was working on as a companions:

Greek byzantine trader who thinks of himself as a merchant adventurer, who went into dangerous places to find a new market and trade route. Previously he had worked on the trade route from Baghdad to Constantinople, and in doing so got exposed to the Sufi line of thought and some other weird mysticism.

Obviously, the sack of Byzantine means that he has fled the city, looking for somewhere else to settle. He has heard that a lot of the strange mystics from the city have come to this area, where they had a center of power, so he has come to follow them.

He was and is probably a trader in strange and specialised goods, like books, rare materials and specialist commisions. So he was known to the Jerbiton of Byzantium, or at least to their stewards. He now thnks the west might be safer to trade and find new customers in.

Why he comes to the covenant:

  1. he is quietly a mystic and a heretic, so an isolated community of scholars is good for him
  2. they are the sort of people who buy his unusual wares
  3. it is a safe spot that is close enough to major trade routes that he cna profit, while not being in the hanseatic league, so he is not excluded from trade
  4. if @Lacnunga does not mind, I thought he could be trailing her magus

Why the covenant would want him

  1. he's tied into trade routes for lab goods and books
  2. he is interested ion going strange places and meeting strange people

What he would be good for

  1. social contact, deals and schmoozing people
  2. knowing languages and people
  3. exploring and adventure, though probably not combat

Missions he could support on

  1. exploring places
  2. long distance travel
  3. diplomatic missions or dealing with the common folk.
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399

Also, I would do father Luc with a bunch of holy aspected virtues rather than a holy method. But having a righteous person in the covenant sounds good to me.

400

I like the slightly heretic byzantine merchant better than the slightly merchant heretic Jew :slightly_smiling_face:

Also, maybe he would like to accompany Regulus to Normandy (we will pass by Paris when returning after all), or follow Perion or Wolfgang when they go to the Rhine.

I can see him working with either of the covenant's magi, so for me it's a yes.

401

About the hedge wizard, I get you... but at the same time, it's kinda like saying "a knight is the poor man's Flambeau". =9

If I stat Father Luc, he is going to be a divine hedge wizard, in function if not in name. But I'm having trouble thinking of a pair of Method and Power that is both useful for the group and brings something that couldn't easily be done with hermetic magic. Maybe that's why you recommended avoiding M&P?

Also, do we prefer faerie trouble or church trouble?