Of course
EDITED: Smileys removed. I just remembered you were French, and the I realized that youmay have been thinking of something different than I was (I was just thinking about all the little everyday tragedies that happen if you give teenagers smartphones).
Christmas 1195
Eikona looked at her own picture. The black dress, cut simply yet made off epensive fabrics, was truly showing off her figure and her golden curls in a most advantageous way. She had added a touch of magic to look even better. The covenant had a number of suitable men to spend cold winter nights with, not only among the covenfolk, but also a charming young Verditius named Peter, and a Redcap, a fascinating fellow she had spent a few evenings with since her arrival. For a moment, she wondered what the elder magi would think of her outfit, then realized she didn't care since she wanted to bed none of them.
This was the first time since she had accepted a research stay at Fengheld that she was going to meet a sizable number of magi. That wasn't surprising: Fengheld had a great library, and even she had been unable to resist borrowing a book: An Applied Awakening to the Art of Animal for Amateurs by Flavius ex Tremere a book equally famous for its quality and its art, so many of them were busying themselves in their labs or were living in one of the many chapterhouses. She knew that Peter was researching the art of growing grapes and that Horst was a polymath. She herself of course knew that she would have to become more proficient in the Bestial Art before she had a chance to find a familiar.
She had been surprised how mild the conditions of her stay were: Unlike the Alpine covenants who would have allowed her to stay only if she had bought a seat with her hair, Stentorius and Eule hadn't even mentioned vis. They had offered her a free trial season, a finished lab, and library access. The only stipulation had been an annual season of service and a few promises, recorded by the charming young redcap, that she all found perfectly reasonable.
21XP reading Animal
February 1196 (year 2, season 1)
The cold season seemed to last forever, and so Eikona borrowed a second book with just a promising title to read: The Mirror - Illusion and Distance by Fellgwyhic ex Merinita that turned out to be less instructive than she had hoped.
She kept dividing her attentions between the two magi, both open-minded enough not to mind an arrangement that knew only winners.
13xp Intellego
Mai 1196
True to her word, Eikona returned to Cologne to seek out Renaldine. The solution she was going to propose had been Horst's idea: Binding Renaldine as a familiar would save her from losing herself to a world of waning magic. She wasn't sure, if the fox was going to accept, but she needn't have worried. She found Renaldine, pale and weak, in one of the poorer parts of town. The fox gladly took up her offer, and they returned to Fengheld quickly, for Renaldine to recuperate in a magic aura and to get to know each other better before joining their fates in a magic ritual.
Adventure: Magic Lore (creatures) 5xp, 1 point of warping from casting too many spells in a Dominion aura
Does the wolf have standard values from Houses of Hermes True Lineages p. 129?
Is it played by me or another player?
If the wolf is too powerful to be a familiar, we could remove one of her Powers, some Magic might, and/or nerf some abilities.
The wolf from True Lineage is slightly more powerful than the limit we set for a grog-level familiar (on which you have completed control). You would need to reduce its Might to 8 and reallocate some of the Abilities (I doubt it would have Latin and Folk Ken). Nothing major.
If you want to have the wolf be more powerful, than one of the other players (or several) would have to agree to play the wolf as if he were a companion (though it wouldn't count as their companion slot), because more powerful familiars have more independence. It would also need to be designed pretty much from scratch using the magical character rules from Realm of Power: Magic.
Your nerfed version sounds fine to me. Losing Latin isn't really important anyway, since Aurora gets it back once bound. Those magic creature generation rules are rather scary - I better leave creating a creature from scratch to people who know what they are doing!
I just reread the rules on binding a familiar and realized that she will never be able to do it!
Magic might 8 + 5 for size 1 + 25 is a lab total of 38.
Even in her best TeFo combination, InIm, which seems completely inappropriate, she only has a lab total of 26.
It would mean that she'd have to spend years in the lab to raise her Intellego (now at 7) and Mentem (now at 6) to 15 each.
120xp - 21xp = 99xp
120- 28xp = 92xp
So it would take about 14 seasons to learn enough magic from books to pull this off. I don't want to write a post that says that she spends the next 5 years in her lab reading (including seasons of service).
I realize that a size -2 animal like a bird would be easier to turn into a familiar (She could use her InAn lab total for that without further learning, or even her InAn if the Animal was appropriate. Maybe an eagle: because of its eagle eyes, but then I would have to rewrite the last season, and I would have to create a magic bird using the convoluted rules in Realms of Power Magic and the Bjornaer chapter in Houses of Hermes. And those are scary.
Is binding a familar a commercial service that is offered in this setting, with her as a lab assistant? If yes, where and how much would that cost?
Or how hoe about turning the wolf into a fox? I found Felix the Fox in a book called Magi of Hermes (p. 123). He'd be smaller, and he'd be Imaginem, but again, he'd need to be nerfed (and probably a wanderlust of +5 wouldn't fit a familiar).
Indeed, binding a familiar is something many magi cannot do right out of Gauntlet. The bigger and stronger the creature, the harder it is.
Which is why many magi select relatively small and weak magical creatures that are aligned with their strongest Technique and Form. And why so many Jerbiton go for magical cats (Size -3).
Making your wolf the same size as a normal wolf (-1 instead of +1) while keeping the same Might would solve the problem, bringing down the required Familiar Bonding Level to 28 instead of 38. You'd be able to raise your Intellego score to 9 in a season or two.
Changing the animal to a fox (Size -2) is certainly an option.
We don't have stats for a fox, but we could just start with the stats of a dog (Realms of Power: Magic p.143) and adjust it to Size -2, add a few magical powers (some of those for cats on pp.71-73 can be used). Or start from the cat template on p.70 and make a few adjustments.
Yes, the design rules for magical characters are quirky. It takes a while to get used to them.
Note, however, that directly translating a mundane animal's stats to a magical animal is not always perfectly balanced with the magical character design rules.
What about the Fox from Magi of Hermes, p.123. Nerfing it would be easier than creating a new animal, and he's pretty cool even if he's weakened a bit (or a lot) and might be used to create stories to boot because he seems to be a bit of a troublemaker.
All is better than creating an anmal from scratch!
That would work well. Felix the Fox is smack in the grog-level territory, with a base Might (before adjustment for Size) under 10.
If you want to tweak him a bit by replacing some of his Abilities, V&F, Magical Q&I and powers, that is fairly easy to do. Your fox might not be as city-savvy and more wilderness-oriented, to fit your narrative better.
Actually, I think I will simply adapt the two seasons how she met him - that's more fun and less work. He'll speak german rather than French though, obviously.
Okay these are the altered passages (reprinted here for greater clarity).
Summer 1195
[…]
At some point, in Cologne, she met a witty young redhead who called herself Renardine. She knew how to party, and to flirt, and for about two weeks, they took the pubs of the city like a storm. Renardine also showed a keen interest in Eikona's mirrors. And then, suddenly, Renardine was gone, and so were two of Eikona's favorite motifs, an Alpine panorama and the picture of the stag.
Using Summoning the Distant Image and a lock of Renaldine's hair, Eikona was able to track the thief easily. Much to her surprise, she discovered that Renaldine wasn't just a woman, but also a fox. When she confronted the strange fox-woman, she learned that Renaldine was a magic fox, and that she had stolen the mirrors in hope they contained magic to help her stave off the magic degradation that was eating away at her substance. Taking pity on the wondrous creature, Eikona offered her a pawn of her Imaginem vis to heal. She also promised to return to Cologne after the cold seasons with a more permanent solution.
[...]
No mechanical changes in this season (mastery xp “photo”-spell) other than the loss of 1p of Imaginem Vis.
Mai 1196
True to her word, Eikona returned to Cologne to seek out Renardine. The solution she was going to propose had been Horst's idea: Binding Renardine as a familiar would save her from losing herself to a world of waning magic. She wasn't sure, if the fox was going to accept, but she needn't have worried. She found Renaldine, pale and weak, in one of the poorer parts of town. The fox gladly took up her offer, and they returned to Fengheld quickly, for Renardine to recuperate in a magic aura and to get to know each other better before joining their fates in a magic ritual.
No mechanical changes (5xp magic Lore, 1 Warping point)
Overview mechanical changes
Mechanical changes to Eikona: -1p of vis
Changes to Felix the Fox: female, speaks German rather than French, name: Renardine
1196, Aequinoctium Secondum
The day had finally arrived. It was an auspicious day combining balance and beginning: In 1196, the fall equinox fell on the day of the New Moon.
Renardine and Eikona, after having spent 3 moons of preparations in close cooperation, spent this final nights apart, to contemplate their vows.
A dawn, they were blindfolded with a cloth of black silk by the witnesses: Renardine had chosen Horst as her witness and Peter had agreed to lead Eikona.
At sunrise, Eikona spoke the of praise, she had chosen for her familiar:
Renardine, trickster and reveller,
clever and lucky,
let me bind my fate to yours
from this day until the hour of death.
And Renardine, in human form, replied:
Florence Eikona ex Jerbiton, filia Lyrus, artist and celebrant,
lighthearted and adventuous,
to yours my fate is bound
from this day until the hour of death.
They took off the blindfolds and embraced.
Then, Peter and Horst stepped forward and wound the braid that Eikona and Renardine had woven from Eikona's hair around their hands. It was a strong braid, and Eikona was rightly proud of their work: It had two golden strands, and two silver strands.
Peter tied the knot and Horst checked it and declared it fast. Then the braid tightened and vanished in a rainbow glow as it inscribed itself on the essences of Eikona and Renardine.
Peter and Horst had prepared a celebration, and all of the Fengheld magi came out of their labs to join, except for Eule who excused herself and declared that her labwork needed her attention. Stetorius himself handed them a gift of 3 pawns of vis from the covenant stores, and the covenant celebrated a spectacular feast.
Mechanics:
Imaginem 11 + Intellego 7 + Aura 3 + Int 2 + Magic Theory 3 + Familar (Int + Magic Theory Imaginem) 6 = 31
Bond: Intellego Imaginem 30 (+2 gold, +2 silver, +0 bronze)
2xp exposure ein Magic Theory for Eikona (none for Renardine), +3 p of story vis, -6 p of personal vis
1196 year's end
Although Eikona and Renardine would have loved to celebrate their union, a curt note by Stentorius made it unmistakable that she was finally expected to make herself USEFUL. So rather petulantly, Eikona decided to write a tratctatus for the Fengheld library. So she put her knowledge on Finesse to good use and wrote a small tractatus called Light reflexted in Mirrors [Tractatus Finesse Q8].
Renardine, who was bored, would have liked to read as well, but the librarian was adamant that animals could not borrow books. It didn't help that he caught Renardine twice in what looked a lot like an attempt to sneak into the library and 'borrow' a sensitive text with adult content (the Rod of Archmagus Potentus) without asking. So instead, Renardine set out to sir up the covenfolk by testing the loyalty of young men to their sweethearts.
Stentorius, of course, was not amused, and so both Eikona and Renardine had to endure a public dressing down in front of the assembled council of Fengheld.
Eikona consulted Peter about the costs of buying a Verditius-made cloak of flight or teleportation, insisting that she wanted to use it to travel at high speeds. He promised to ask around.
2xp exposure Profession: Scribe (carefully)
1197, season 1
It had been agreed that both Fengheld and Eikona would have the right to copy her newly made tractatus, and so Eikona made a personal copy of the book. She had no illusions about its quality, but, nevetheless, felt a sense of pride in her first, and most likely only, contribution to the hermetic canon.
Reanrdine was not pleased about her spending another season watching her scribe, so went off to spend the season making wine with Peter.
That winter also brought news: Demosthenes was writing from Constantinople that he had joined a covenant in Constantinople and that Mirabelle was going there, too. Getting away from ill-tempered Stentorius sounded tempting to Eikona, but she knew she had to learn some Greek if she wanted to live in the East.
2xp exposure Profession: Scribe (carefully)
Question:
I've been thinking on how to spend all that Imaginem vis.
How much would a cloak that allowed flying quickly at will (ideally one that would allow for a backpack containing Eikona's familiar, and belongings), or a staff of teleportation cost (again, she should be able to take her familiar and her belongings with her, though not necessarily all in one go). She might be able to use an Auram spell, because her finesse is good (and unbotchable), or a seven-leage stride. I'm not sure how Verditius magi are paid for items that have lots of requisites.
1197, season 2
Renardine and Eikona set off to Cologne for another round of partying as soon as the snow melted and travel was safe. Between their charms, their wiles, and their silver, they turned the Goldene Ochse brewery into a place of madness and gladness.
A tracker working for the Cologne chapter house soon joined their feasts. He supplied the young and the wealthy who were at the Goldenen Ochse with mind-altering fungi that intensified the experiences there. But then, the scion of a trading house jumped off the roof and would surely have died at once if Eikona hadn't Bound his wounds. In the ends, they were unable to save him, but he was able to give his confession and save his soul before passing away.
He also had time to warn Eikona and Renardine that the tracker's mushrooms had made him hear voices that urged him to take his own life. This smacked of infernal machinations. Eikona quietly alerted a quaesitor. Until his arrival, Renardine feigned an interest in the corrupting mushrooms and Eikona secretly observed the tracker, managing to link him to a demon named The Whip of Addiciton.
When the Quaesitor arrived with a pair of hoplites, Eikona and Renardine could show that the tracker had corrupted several mundane members of the local Fengheld chapterhouse, a priest and the head of a Cologne trading family. The Quaesitor, who initially frowned on the activities at the Goldene Ochse and put a decicive end to the carousing there, not only exonorated Eikona and Renardine after a thorough examination of the situation, but also praised there swift action which had averted a spread of the corruption.
Adventure: 5xp Infernal lore (identifying), 5xp carousing (knowing your limits), this is this year's season of service
1197, season 3
Ludwig, a Redcap with beautiful freckles, brought great tidings to Fengheld: Eikona had been invited to the annual dinner of the Gastronomer's league that was going to take place at the end of summer in Brittany: The event was going to be Arthurian themed. Renardine and Eikona set to planning immediately, practicing varying illusions: In the end, they traveled in the guise of Glastonbury nuns riding Unicorn, who had been made to look like a real unicorn with a bit of Imaginem magic.
En route, they composed a faux poem that detailed Lancelot's exploits against the three witches of Bath, an elegant and highly amusing parody.
The evening was a complete success and their contribution won the prize, a silver sangreal.
adventure: 5xp etiquette, 1xp scribe, reputation gained: artistic talent 1 (magi), the sangreal is a silver cup containg 3p of vis
HoH:MC sets the price of verditius items as the vis to make + 2x the cost (eg. for an item that requires 11 vis the price is 33 pawns). It seems like a lot at first, but when you factor in that the Verditius is going to spend several seasons doing this, the price is diluted.
1197, season 4
This time, when Eikona and Renardine returned to Fengheld for the winter, Stentorius didn't yell at them, but spat and returned to the lab. Renardine was quick to point out that this was a clear sign of improvement. When Eikona announced she was going to use the winter half year for studying, the vixen busied herself organising a singing contest that found great acclaim among the covenfolk.
Eikona, in the meantime, buried her nose in Elemental Change.
reading 21xp Muto
I've seen that bit, but that doesn't answer how they factor in requisites. A seven-league leap with 9 requisites is still lvl 30, so it's the same price as the spell without any requisites. That seems unfair.
A not so old Verditius specialized in Rego could do this (I'm thinking Re 15, forms 5, craft 5, MT 5,philosophiae 5, Int +1, Aura +3, similar spell +6 (assuming he knows SLS), +5 form/shape bonus) in 11 seasons for an item with 1 use/day that casts a range touch, target group version of SLS (the staff must cast the spell at range touch at both you and Renardine). 6 seasons for an item that lasts only 70 years, 3 seasons for one that lasts 7 years.
Meeting the requirements is not that hard if you assume apprentice-opening levels for the arts, the problem is the lead time for delivery, and the fact that the value of Verditius elder runes or a magical focus is pretty much negated. And your item cannot have a lot of uses/day, penetration or whatever.
(Also, whatever the cost are, if it is less than 33 pawns the Verditius is on the losing side with the 11 seasons deal (assuming he could manage at least a CrVi lab total to extract at least 3 pawns/season)).
For a more practical item I would suggest you to go with Wings of Soaring Wind. A lvl 37 item keeps concentration and has 3 uses/day, you can take photos while flying and it has no requisites to take Renardine together.
Anyway, I don't think I have ever seen hard guidelines for how long would you have to wait to find a magus willing to work for you (and than waiting in line for your turn). I would go with a season spend sending letters and an OoH Lore roll against an EF based on the effect magnitude, number of requisites, need of applicable focus, specific craft required... And pretty much pull the numbers out of my pocket for this. =P