Character Creation for Egon

-I would not take ride unless you are inoffensive to animal/gentle gifted or plan to ride a magical horse or beast.

  • you can take a self cast 1 lvl spell like a PeVi to cancel your own spell of a specific form (Terram seems interesting with your selection of spell)
    -I would not take that much spells that I can spontaneously cast (everything you double on casting and don't need to penetrate or plan to use on hostile aura I would drop)
    -You have no rego spells, so you can drop it and increase your muto and creo if you want to reach lvl 25 with your spells.

Ride was part of the sample childhood package I took from the book. I suppose I could switch it out with Teamster (land-based vehicles, using animals to pull them), but it seems highly unlikely that a child would pick up being a teamster, yes?

I am not all that familiar with creating my own spells and such, so can you elaborate please?

I have no idea how to do what you are suggesting. Can you elaborate on this please?

I thought about doing just that. Except I was thinking of dropping Rego, picking up Vim, and then doing some spell rearrangement to get some Vim spells. The whole magic and spells thing is rather baffling at times to me, so I need some serious help with what Arts and Spells I should be selecting here.

Perhaps, or perhaps not. It all depends on background.

Personally, I would suggest working on his background before going into what his exact abilities are. From the draft you've submitted so far, I can intuit that your magus grew up in (or near) Strassburg.

Start with childhood. What did his parents do for a living. When and how did his gift (some would call it a curse) for magic manifest itself? How did the neighboors react when he started manifesting the negative vibes that come with a normal Gift? Did he socialize at all before it did?

Then move on to apprenticeship. Who was his master? Is he from this Tribunal, or was he just visiting? What were (and are) his interests and how near were they to your magus' own? These will determine how your character was shaped by his master, and set the table for future interactions with him/her. Particularly if said master/mistress (now called the pater/mater of your magus) still resides in the same Tribunal. That would color any reputation and perception of potential political power in the Tribunal.

As for the Abilities themselves, I would note that a score of 3 in an ability is considered competent, but just that. If you were a mundane carpenter, then you'd still be considered an apprentice. Journeymen usually have a score of 4-6, while masters have scores of 6 and more. In general, scores of 3 in Magic Theory and Craft are usually considered low for a Verditius magus. These two abilities are very important for a Verditius, with Philosophiae being considered quite important as well. On the other hand, Finesse and Penetration are less useful for a Verditius, as they don't apply to items you enchant, only spells that he casts.

I'll try to expand on this, presuming that you are less familiar with Ars Magica's ways of using magic.

There are two kinds of spells that a magus can cast. Formulaic spells are those that your magus have spent seasons learning. They allow him to use his full power and are much safer to use. Spontaneous spells, on the other hand, are spells that you cast "on the fly", improvising them based on your immediate needs and circumstances. You don't need to learn them in order to cast them. Spontaneous spells are less powerful, as you need to divide your casting total by 2 (fatiguing spontaneous spells) or 5 (non fatiguing spells). Fatiguing spontaneous spells are also a bit more risky, as even if your circumctances are not stressful, their casting can result in a botch.

What it means, for the creation of your magus, is that if your casting total for a given spell is twice (or close to) twice the level of a spell, you can decide not to learn it as a formulaic spell and instead rely in spontaneously casting it whenever you need it. It is only if you think that a you will use a given lower-level spell often (so you don't want to take the risk of botch it), or in difficult situations (when you would have penalties to your casting total) that it is usually considered worth it to learn it as a formulaic spell.

As an example, Air's Ghostly Form allows you create a fog that lasts for a little while. How often do you expect to cast such a spell, in in what circumstances? If you don't plan on using it often, then instead of learning it as a spontaneous spell, you could rely in spontaneous magic to create that effect the day you'll need it. You would take your casting total (Cr 5 + Auram 5 + Stamina), add the modifier for the aura, and divided it by 2. So unless the aura imposes a negative modifier (as a Divine or an Infernal aura would), or you want to be able to cast it without using words and/or gestures, then you can still cast it. Spontaneous magic also has the advantage of flexibility. So if you want to cast the same spell with a duration of Concentration (instead of Diameter), you can do that -- your spell will probably last longer.

On the other hand, if you want to be able to cast a spell without spending a Fatigue level, or without words/gestures, or less risk, or if it needs to overcome the Magic Resistance of the target, then perhaps you will still want to learn it in advance.

See ArM5 pp.81-82 for more on formulaic and spontaneous magic.

And now we start to get into why I want to play Ars Magica but have completely shied away from it for so long: it's too darned involved for character creation.

Background? I'm not used to having to deal with every year the character was alive to define where he came from and what he did. In fact, for childhood, I literally took one of the sample backgrounds that I thought was close enough to what he would have done (Explorer) and used that. I figured that, with his Study Bonus and Study Requirement, he'd have spent some time in his childhood wandering about looking for different places to be. And then I added to them with XP during later life. But what you have put down above about what I should be doing with Background is far too intensive for what I want to do during character creation. I can't go through every life stage and define what he may or may not have done.

Simply put, I took those abilities that I thought would be useful and coherent with the concept as I have it without being too restrictive on him. I know that having a score of 3 isn't being a master at anything; the guy is just out of his magical apprenticeship, so isn't a score of 3 in an ability actually a good thing? Shows he just starting out and has room to grow? I'm so confused on this.

I want to play. I just don't want to have to spend DAYS or WEEKS on what should be a simple process. Again, this is why I have shied away from this game for so long; it's so involved and intensive, and I don't have the kind of time that I'm reading into what you've written is required for this. I thought what I had was ok, but maybe needed a few tweaks. I'm reading that the entire thing is wrong, and that's a bit depressing.

Well, I can understand you don't want to spend too much time on the technical part, but from our point of view this is difficult to help you define the technical part without the background as both as suppose to be linked.

The background is basically defining what you did in 3 main steps of your existence :Childhood (0-5 year) later years (5-10) Apprenticeship (10-25) you don't have to go to every bit of detail, but give us a general idea and focus on one or 2 details you think defines your character. The question Arthur asked are very well chosen, you should really take some time to answer them. One of the uses of the story flaws and personality flaws is to help you with the process and give you opportunities to help the SG to drag you into less generic stories but stories that makes sense for your specific wizard.

It should not take you very long to make the background (mine is only 15 lines or so) post it and we'll help you make the character sheet that fits that concept, once you're use to it that's actually very interesting.

What Bitter wrote, basically.

Each phase of life can be described with one or two sentences (though you can add as much as you'd like). So you could end up with a background that contains most of your character's life described in about half the text I wrote in my last post. :smiley:

The most time-consuming aspect of it is deciding who is this person that you want to act out in play.

Here's a sample background that I wrote for a magus I play in another saga:

This is probably as much background as you need. In fact, you could forego the second paragraph, which mostly paraphrases some of his stats (virtues, choice of Arts, personality traits and physical appearance).

And see, I usually do things backwards. I generally get the concept (which I have; Verditius lab rat, focused on crafting land-based vehicles, specialized in Herbam), then go to the abilities/skills, and then go to background from there. I'm not much of a background person when it comes to characters, preferring to figure out what they are good at now and THEN worrying about where they came from after that. But, if background is really important, I'll have to work on that.

I guess I was hoping for feedback based on the concept. But if that's not enough to make an informed decision, I'll see about getting some background information up today or tomorrow.

There's many ways to build a new character, so don't worry about it. Yours is as good as any other. It just makes it a bit more difficult to comment on it while it is being built.

That being said...

Regarding his stats, here's some comments on his virtues and flaws. Please note that although I will comment on almost everything, it doesn't mean that everything is bad. I just want to make sure you understand the consequences of each choice:

  • Right now, various parts of the character (characteristics, virtues and flaws, abilities, arts and spells) are scattered in different posts. It makes it a bit harder for us to get a full sense of his capabilities and comment on those. Perhaps the next version could have everything in a single post.
  • Virtues:
    [list][*]Adept Laboratory Student will help your magus learn new spells... but a Verditius is more interested in creating enchanted items, rather than learn spells. So it isn't the best choice for a Verditius lab rat. On the other hand, knowing a spell that you want to enchant gives a small bonus to enchantment, so it isn't necessarily a bad choice.
  • Cautious Sorcerer will help with spells, making their casting safer. A good choice if you use spontaneous spells a lot, although they never become fully safe (there's always at least one Botch die on them). This is usually a better virtue for combat-oriented magi, or those that cast ritual spells. While not a bad choice, it isn't well oriented with a lab rat. Unless you plan on experimenting a lot (which is almost the only way to have Botch dice in the lab), it isn't a strong choice for a lab rat.
  • Educated would indicate that your character was educated before becoming an apprentice, so background will need to reflect that. Gives you some extra xp, which is nice.
  • Inventive Genius is always a good choice for a lab rat.
  • Magical Memory is only marginally useful. Sure, you no longer need to take notes, but it doesn't provide any tangible benefit unless you some day have to flee and leave all of your possessions behind, or if an experimentation results in your lab being destroyed (along with your lab notes).
  • Puissant Magic Theory and Puissant Creo (didn't you change it to Herbam?) are simple and good for a specialization in specific fields of study.
  • Skilled Parens provides extra xp and spells. A good choice. Background will need to reflect the fact that your pater/mater is probably well-established and known.
  • Special Circumstances only provides an advantage when casting spells. Not a great choice for a lab rat. If you keep it, we'll need to know what those circumnstances are.
  • Study Bonus will require you to leave your lab when studying, so it kinds of run contrary to your lab rat concept. Getting the bonus also becomes harder as your Arts advance. Book Learner is often considered much more effective.
  • One virtues you overlooked that can provide a major boost to your lab totals is a Minor Magical Focus or a Major Magical Focus. This would allow you to specify something in which your magus is better with. Considering the kind of things you want to make, a Minor Magical Focus with "wheels" could be interesting, or "wood" (an example given in the core book). Major Magical Focus with metals would have also worked if you'd gone the way of metal machines.
  • An Affinity with your primary Art, or with your Craft ability, would provide a lot of extra xp, and keep giving you a boost as your character advances. Long-term, it is better than a virtue like Educated, which gives you a flat amount of xp at character creation.
  • Personal Vis Source can be very useful for a Verditius, as it would give you a steady source of raw vis with which to create enchanted items. In this saga, it would provide you with either 2 pawns of Technique vis or 3 pawns of Form vis per year.
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Flaws:
  • Short-Ranged Magic, Study Requirement and Twilight Prone makes for 3 major hermetic flaws. As Bitter mentioned, having more than 1 major hermetic flaw would probably mean your master was somewhat of an incompetent. The stigma of this would be even worse in the Rhine Tribunal, where magi are required to prove their competence before taking on an apprentice. It also seems contrary to the Skilled Parens virtue.
  • Study Requirement will mean your magus will probably not be able to increase some of his Arts above 20.
  • Twilight Prone will mean that every time you botch a spontaneous spell, you risk going into Twilight. Verditius magi tend to rely a lot on spontaneous magic, because they need casting tools to perform formulaic magic.
  • Weird Magic adds an additional Botch die when casting spells. Although the result of those botch dice is "strange and bizarre rather than dangerous", they can still trigger Twilight.
    [/*:m][/list:u]

Arthur, that is the kind of feedback I was looking for. Concise information about what would/may work for Virtues and Flaws. Based on what you've given me, I am reworking my character. Lots of good suggestions there, and I'm going to be putting up Background, along with reworked Virtues/Flaws/Abilities/Arts/Spells in the next day or so. In fact, you've given me an idea about machines that I'm going to try working in here, which changes the primary material.

Also, I did make changes to the Flaws after seeing what Bitter wrote. But, I'm going to end up reworking those as well, with a decent overhaul that makes more sense for my character based on what you wrote. I cannot thank you enough for the tips/advice; I should have this up in the next day or so!

Ok, so I'm going to try and put some details here so I can get some more feedback. Please bear with me as I don't have the full background done, which will impact one of my flaws; I need to figure out the details behind Blackmail yet, so please keep that in mind.

Parens: Gudrun Tigurina, Durenmar Artificer
Apprenticeship Covenant: Durenmar

Background
[Unnamed] was born to a semi-prominent ironworker/forge-jockey in Strassburg, the 3rd of 5 children. And although he had a special affinity for working with iron from an early age - it was estimated that he might outshine his father by the time he hit his early teens were he to continue as a metalsmith - his disability would probably cause more problems than it would be worth. Having dwarfism is not a recommended stature when working with hot metals and fire. But he loved being in the shop with his father, even if his father was somewhat less than enthused about his only son's disability.

By the age of 9, he had started to display some interesting talents. It seemed that metals were more pliable in his hands, and his definite gift for being a metalsmith was showing through. However, his magical Gift was also starting to show through, and it was beginning to make people around him more uncomfortable than normal. If not for a chance meeting with Gudrun Tigurina - who was in Strassburg to purchase materials for his own crafting - the boy may never have been discovered. But when Gudrun ran into the boy in the shop, it immediately struck him that this youngling was definitely Veriditius material. An affinity for a craft, and the Gift? A few hours of conversation later, and [Unnamed's] father was happy to ship the boy off to Durenmar as an apprentice magus.

Background to Finish
I need to work on the Blackmail aspect of the flaws here. I'm not sure which NPC I'm going to hold a secret over, or why. I'm thinking - and this is just a preliminary thought - that he might actually have caught Gudrun making some item for someone outside the Covenant, but without the proper paperwork or approval to do so. Keeping this character (I have to think of a name for him soon!) quiet on this would be in Gudrun's best interest. It's only about 50 silver pennies per year, but it's also a great way to get him to leave Durenmar for Fengheld. You know, the farther away he is, the less likely he is to bug Gudrun or the elders at the covenant about it.

Characteristics

  • Int +2
  • Per +2
  • Pre 0
  • Com +1
  • Str -1
  • Sta 0
  • Dex -1
  • Qui 0

Virtues

  • Affinity with Metalsmith
  • Book Learner
  • Inventive Genius
  • Major Magical Focus (Metals)
  • Personal Vis Source (Terram; need to define where the source is)
  • Puissant Magic Theory
  • Puissant Terram
  • Skilled Parens

Flaws

  • Blackmail
  • Dwarf
  • Overconfident (yes, due to his affinity he firmly believes that anything he creates in the lab derived from his craft ability will always work and never fail)
  • Short-Ranged Magic (pun fully intended)

Abilities
Note that Specialties are not defined; with reworking the character, I actually started over and didn't do specialties yet. I'll get to those shortly.

  • Area Lore, Strassburg 2
  • Artes Liberales 1
  • Awareness 2
  • Charm 2
  • Concentration 2
  • Finesse 3
  • Folk Ken 2
  • German 5 (Native)
  • Guile 2
  • Latin 4
  • Magic Theory 3+2
  • Metalsmith 4
  • Parma Magica 1
  • Penetration 3
  • Single Weapon 1
  • Slavic 2

Arts

  • Creo 5

  • Intellego 4

  • Muto 5

  • Perdo 4

  • Rego 5

  • Animal 0

  • Aquam 0

  • Auram 0

  • Corpus 0

  • Herbam 0

  • Ignem 4

  • Imaginem 0

  • Mentem 0

  • Terram 9+3

  • Vim 3

I have not selected any spells yet; I think it's important (now that I'm a bit more familiar with what's going on here) to get everything else defined first and THEN get spells.

Anyhow, this is where I'm at. Any/all feedback is most welcome!

It seems fine to me.

Again, low magic theory (the amount of vis you can use depends on this and is often a limitation for enchantment) , high finesse and penetration for an average Vertidius but maybe you've got offensive formulaic spells in mind ?.

I generally do the opposite :slight_smile: but as Arthur suggested there's more than one way to skin a cat.

What would you suggest Magic Theory being at? It's currently at 3+2 (or 5), but I can drop both Finesse and Penetration to 2 and use the extra 30 XP to jack MT to 4?

Some comments:

  • General:
    [list][]What is the character's age? That affects how much xp is available to be spent on abilities and arts.
    [/
    :m]
    [*]Characteristics:
  • [strike]I'm getting a total of only 6 points instead of 7 (two at +2 for 3 points each, one +1 and two -1).[/strike]
  • Dex is the characteristic that drives mundane crafting, so perhaps it should be positive if his talent with metals was noticed at an early age?
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Virtues:
  • Personal Vis Source could be something that is produced from his own body, like iron nail clippings or a stone he regurgitates once in a while. It could also be something external to him, but then it would either needs to be secret (otherwise someone would have claimed it while he was an apprentice with no rights) or there would be a background reason why his claim to it was upheld.
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Flaws:
  • Blackmail is more of a flaw for mundanes, it's harder to translate for a magus, for whom silver is pretty much irrelevant in such small amounts. Since the flaw states "you receive payment or services in return for your silence," the services part would be what might benefit your magus.
  • Note that the Overconfident flaw applies to everything the character does, not just what's related to his crafting. That certainly make sense for a dwarf, as a compensation mechanism.
  • Short-Ranged Magic also applies to any power you enchant into an item -- meaning that your lab total to enchant it will be halved if the item's effect is to have a range greater than Touch.
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Abilities:
  • Remember that Finesse and Penetration don't apply when enchanting effects, only to actual spells that you will cast. They seem needlessly high for a Verditius. The points would be better spent in Magic Theory or Philosophiae.
  • Speaking of which, you don't have a score in Philosophiae. It's an important part of Verditius Magic (more specifically when using Verditius Runes), as it gives a general bonus to enchant effects into an item you've opened for enchantment. Your master would have taught it to you, at least to a score of 1.
  • You picked Single Weapon, but don't have Brawl? The use of knives and daggers fall under Brawl.
  • You don't have a score in Organization Lore: Order of Hermes? That would mean you know very little about the Order which you are part of. Code of Hermes is also valuable for the legal aspect of the Order, although that might be learned later during play.
  • Bargain might also be useful for a Verditius. After all, you may want to sell your items...
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Arts: I bit scattered, particularly in the Techniques, but not overly so. Depends on what spells (and enchatments) you want to be able to achieve.[/*:m][/list:u]

I'd suggest 4, perhaps even 5. And a score of 2-3 in Philosophiae.

Finesse of 1-2, with Penetration of 0-1. Penetration has very little use except for a combat mage or (even more) for one that will use Arcane Connections a lot. With Short-Range Magic, you are unlikely to do either.

Scratch that. It's because of the Dwarf flaw.

Ho, I forgot about the puissant magic theory, 5 is decent but Vertidius are probably those who benefit the most from high magic theory I would probabably get 4+2 (spe : enchantment) as is allow to spend 14 pawns of vis in a single season which is necessary to open gems or big chunk of metals or such for enchantment and it also allow you to get higher lvl spells at creation

Dropping finesse and penetration is really dependent on your spell selection.
-finesse has 2 main use : spells with aiming roll that bypass magic reduction and crafting things magically (the later isn't really compatible with vertidius mysteries if I remember well)
-penetration allow you to bypass magic resistance and is only marginally efficient unless you're able to get an arcane connection with your target and is usefull mostly for offensive spells (and not enchantment where penetration is bought at creation with additionnal levels)

So if you get aiming spell --> high finesse
If you get non aiming offensive spells --> high penetration (+ high decent artes liberales with specialty horoscope imho )

-concentration rolls are very demanding so at creation i usually either leave it at 1 or that means I plan to invest into it in the future (IMHO this isn't a priority for an average Vertidius)

-I would probably pick vim virtus instead of terram as this is usually one of the easiest to get (but this depends on Arthur's saga mostly) and is necessary to open materials for enchantement.

  1. I used what the other 3 PCs were at, which gives me 0-5 as childhood, 6-10 as later life, and then 11-25 as apprenticeship.

Did not know that. I've rearranged my characteristics based on this (you can see the updated sheet below).

I have to figure out what it is. I'm thinking that, based on his affinity for Terram, it's possible that the Vis is collected from iron shavings in the dirt on his clothing from time to time? I know that it's the equivalent of a few pawns per season, but maybe he's always collecting the dirt and storing it in some jar or vase or something, and then at the end of the season is when it becomes usable Vis? Is that viable?

I switched this out for Heir. I've already got it in my backstory that my father was semi-prominent AND that I was the only son of 5 children.

I know. I wish I could make this one Minor so it only applied to crafting, but it is a good compensation mechanism for always being told he can't do something because of his size.

That I did not know. Well, that changes things up a bit. Switched this out for Weak Spontaneous Magic. I think - if I'm reading things right - that my character is going to be using more Formulaic spells, especially in the Lab. Yes?

I struggle - mightily - with Abilities. I'll have to rework them and see what I can see. I may end up dropping Finesse and Penetration altogether, but I doubt that's going to give me enough points to spend on the things you're suggesting I spend them on.

Well, I know what effects I'd like to try and work out at some point. The reasoning behind choosing them, though, might give you a better idea of what advice to give me.

  1. Terram, obviously, because of metals.
  2. Ignem, because a forge needs fire.
  3. Vim, because power is power.
  4. With no formal canon write-up on my parens, I decided that the Forms would have been developed near-evenly. Plus, Terram has a lot of different Formulaic spells, and all 5 of the Forms are used in the low-level ones.

Anyhow, I'm going to rework some things and post another version of my character in the next few hours.

And the updated character.

Ok, so I'm going to try and put some details here so I can get some more feedback. Please bear with me as I don't have the full background done, which will impact one of my flaws; I need to figure out the details behind Blackmail yet, so please keep that in mind.

Parens: Gudrun Tigurina, Durenmar Artificer
Apprenticeship Covenant: Durenmar

Background
[Unnamed] was born to a semi-prominent ironworker/forge-jockey in Strassburg, the 3rd of 5 children. And although he had a special affinity for working with iron from an early age - it was estimated that he might outshine his father by the time he hit his early teens were he to continue as a metalsmith - his disability would probably cause more problems than it would be worth. Having dwarfism is not a recommended stature when working with hot metals and fire. But he loved being in the shop with his father, even if his father was somewhat less than enthused about his only son's disability.

By the age of 9, he had started to display some interesting talents. It seemed that metals were more pliable in his hands, and his definite gift for being a metalsmith was showing through. However, his magical Gift was also starting to show through, and it was beginning to make people around him more uncomfortable than normal. If not for a chance meeting with Gudrun Tigurina - who was in Strassburg to purchase materials for his own crafting - the boy may never have been discovered. But when Gudrun ran into the boy in the shop, it immediately struck him that this youngling was definitely Veriditius material. An affinity for a craft, and the Gift? A few hours of conversation later, and [Unnamed's] father was happy to ship the boy off to Durenmar as an apprentice magus.

Background to Finish
Heir. I'm not sure how much of this I need to flesh out vs. how much Arthur needs to. It's already defined above that the father was semi-prominent, while the character is the only son of 5 children. It works, and it's a minor Virtue, so I don't expect much in the way of an inheritance at any point.

Characteristics

  • Int +2
  • Per +2
  • Pre -1
  • Com 0
  • Str -1
  • Sta 0
  • Dex +1
  • Qui 0

Virtues

  • Affinity with Metalsmith
  • Book Learner
  • Inventive Genius
  • Major Magical Focus (Metals)
  • Personal Vis Source (Terram; need to define where the source is)
  • Puissant Magic Theory
  • Puissant Terram
  • Skilled Parens

Flaws

  • Dwarf
  • Heir
  • Overconfident (this is an overcompensation due to his short stature)
  • Weak Spontaneous Magic

Abilities
Note that Specialties are not defined; with reworking the character, I actually started over and didn't do specialties yet. I'll get to those shortly.

  • Area Lore, Strassburg 2
  • Artes Liberales 1
  • Awareness 1
  • Bargain 2
  • Brawl 1
  • Code of Hermes 1
  • Concentration 2
  • Folk Ken 2
  • German 5 (Native)
  • Guile 2
  • Latin 4
  • Magic Theory 4+2
  • Metalsmith 4
  • Order of Hermes Lore 2
  • Parma Magica 1
  • Philosophiae 3
  • Slavic 2

Arts

  • Creo 5

  • Intellego 4

  • Muto 5

  • Perdo 4

  • Rego 5

  • Animal 0

  • Aquam 0

  • Auram 0

  • Corpus 0

  • Herbam 0

  • Ignem 4

  • Imaginem 0

  • Mentem 0

  • Terram 9+3

  • Vim 3

Note that you can modify his age to anything above 23 (which is pretty much the minimum age for a magus). However, the older your magus is, the sooner he will need to get a Longevity Ritual to protect himself from the effects of aging. If he wants to create it himself (And why wouldn't he? No one could do it better! -- Overconfident), then that mean improving his CrCo lab total. If he wants to hire someone else to do it, he'll need something to pay it with -- either raw vis, or perhaps trade for an enchanted item.

Don't go overboard on it, though, as it is only mundane crafting that uses it. For Verditius crafting, he will be using magic to help him along and the actual Craft total (as in score + characteristic) has no real impact on the physical quality of the item. When enchanting an item (while crafting it at the same time -- see ArM5 p.93), it is still Int that has an effect on the lab total.

Sure, that can work. Note that it is 3 pawns per year (not season).

Remember that Story Flaws are a bit special. They tell me what kind of stories you (as a player) want your character to be pulled into, whether it is convenient or not for him. So, do you want your magus to be pulled into stories regarding his mundane father and inheriting from him?

If you want to go with something related to House Verditius, there's a similar flaw described in HoH:Mystery Cults, called "Primogeniture Lineage". This would basically put you in line to become the Primus (leader) of House Verditius. Which means other magi would regard him differently, and other potential inheritors would consider him a rival. This flaw would pull you into quite a few political stories.

Not in the lab -- formulaic spells are not much used in the lab. They can help a little bit when enchanting a similar effect into an item, but that's only a small bonus (1/5 of its level). And with Weak Formulaic Magic, your magus will only be able to cast the weakest of effect spontaneously (fatigue-less spontaneous spells divide the casting total by 5 with no die roll added). Consider also that Verditius magi need casting tools to use formulaic spells. If you are caught without them, or if they are destroyed, then you cannot cast them at all.

Just making sure you understand the implications of those choices...

Verditius magi are xp-intensive, because there are many things that are needed (good scores in Magic Theory, Craft and Philosophiae) in addition to what magi of other Houses also need (Latin, good scores in favored Arts).

I would suggest the following basic package for abilities, with other stuff added in based on your preferences: Artes Liberales 1, Craft: Blacksmith 5, Latin 4, Magic Theory 3, Parma Magica 1, Philosophiae 1. That would cost you 140 xp (including the effect of an Affinity with Craft: Blacksmith), which is a third of what you have available (excluding the score if 5 in native language). I'd suggest 140 xp spent on Arts (focusing on those you need to pull off specific effects out of Gauntlet). The rest would go to other abilities. Then you can raise Magic Theory and Philosophiae once play has begun.

One thing I forgot to mention is that your craft needs to be more specific, such as Blacksmith (works with iron), Silversmith, Goldsmith, etc. You will still be able to use your craft ability when working with a different metal, but at a small penalty. So a blacksmith is still able to craft something out of a metal other than iron, but suffers a -1 penalty to his score and cannot apply his specialty.

Vim is not really raw power, but rather meta-magic. It allows you to affect other magic, but has very little applications outside of that. You don't need it to "power" other effects, if your Arts related to that effect are good enough. So I'd consider it less important initially. Ignem is good, but if it's just to fire up the forge, a score in Creo will allow him to learn low-level fire-creation spells.

Again, I'd suggest the following initial package for Arts: two Techniques (Cr and Re?) at 5, one Technique at 4 (In?), Terram at 10, another Form at 4. That would cost you 105 xp, leaving you with a little (35xp) to play around or even boost some of his Abilities.

Arts are fairly easy and quick to raise when play starts. With a reasonable low-level summa, you can go from 0 to 5 in a single season of study. Abilities are much harder to raise, particularly the non-academic ones like Craft. So focus on a few higher-level spells you want to be able to learn and cast, as well as one or two effects you'd like to be able to enchant (work out what your lab total would be).

More answers! And clarifications! Now with extra cleaning power!

  1. Age. Again, I just went with what the rest of the group is going with, just to keep things consistent. I know that you get more XP for every later life year, but you are also (potentially) shortening your character's life because of this. But to stay consistent, I followed what the group used.

  2. Dex. I didn't go overboard. I merely made this +1 while making Pre -1. Just switched a couple of things around.

  3. Vis. Cool - I will add this description to the Virtue. And thanks for clarifying that it's per year, not season.

  4. As I mentioned previously, I'm game to be pulled into any story regardless of whether or not my character is/is not directly involved. However, as I was thinking on things with the Virtues, I kind of thought about the property that may be held (forge/workshop), current employees, and the potential for generating income in a mundane city. Magi need cash too, right? Inheriting the workshop at some point would give him the chance to do that, while also having access to a legitimate business that he has to run. That, yes, will interfere with his other duties. And dealing with an estranged family who basically gave him to the covenant? There's some good RP opportunities right there. All kinds of chances to do some good RP, not to mention that the RP over this flaw will give me a chance to further learn the ins and outs of dealing with mundanes in this system.

And on that note, I thought we could only use the core book? I'd rather flaws from Mystery Cults, but MC won't let me switch to a mystery template. Which means the flaw isn't available (unless I modify one of the generic ones).

  1. Interesting. We cast spells using formulaic magic (mostly), but stuff in the lab - stuff that you would think requires exact notes and all - doesn't. I'm going to have to think on this one a bit. I want to try and get things that make sense for my character; I'll have to revisit this...unless the Mystery Cult flaws are on the table now?

  2. For Abilities, I've got Metalsmith instead of Blacksmith. The two are, if I am correct, similar, yes? And I've got that entire starting package, except Philosophiae is at 3 instead of 1, and Metalsmith is at 4 instead of 5. If I make Metalsmith 5 and Philo 2, I end up with...1 XP over what I have to be at to spend (I need to spend 150 on spells, and with what I've got currently, changing these puts me at only having 149).

  3. So I am going to play around with the Arts, and go with what you've got mentioned there. That leaves me with 20 XP to deal with to get to 420 (remember, need to have 150 for spells). Now, someone mentioned Corpus, so if I make Ig 5 and Co 5...that puts me right there on 420.

Summary: I'll repost the character at some point. :slight_smile: