I wanted the child to be female first and missed that.
1202, season 2
In one of their long distance conversations, her father had advised her to use a sleeping spell on the baby. Although she wasn't supposed to do anything in the last trimester, she felt she had to research a sleeping spell before the baby came. So she asked Renardine to help her out, so she could be sure to make it before the birth: And she really managed to develop Call to Slumber on time, saying the last words as her water broke!
The birth wasn't an easy one, and strong magic was required to save her life, but she made it through. When she held baby Guiscard in her arms, even the wounds her small frame had sustained were momentarily forgotten.
Re 5 + Me 6 + Magic theory/Int/Aura 9 + familiar 5 = 25, which means she can miss 12 days in the lab!
2xp exposure, I'd like to give her 5xp chirurgy (childbirth) on top, but this may be too much, 2 warping points, medium wound: -3 to next season, I assume she'll be fully healed by the end of season 3.
Agreed that it would be too much for that season. Giving birth may be a life-changing experience, but not in that way!
1 Like
How hot (in magnitudes) does a piece of silver have to be to melt? When the spell ends, does it cool naturally, or does it cool suddenly? Can the spell be applied to silver only, or to other metals as well (which would make it a good knight roaster/disarmer)?
Blade of Virulent Flame melts metal over the course of 30 minutes. That's baseline 5 (fire with +5 damage, unnatural shape). The blade cools over 30 minutes.
To melt silver over the course of 1 diameter, maybe a fire causing +20 (baseline could be either 15 or 20, depends if the shape is unnatural or not)?
level 10 guideline melts lead, so it has to be a bit higher than that, by my reckoning
What is the cheapest way to fuse silver pieces into a lump of silver?
CrIg is way too expensive, especially since this cannot be done at touch range, obviously.
Does it work to turn silver into sand, stir it and then wait for the stirred sand to lump together? (MuTe, diameter, touch)
a variation on rock of viscid clay, adding one magnitude for metal and not stone?
It actually can, if you use a Rego requisite.
I think MuTe could work... but what stops you from inventing another Rego Craft to do that? It could create the silver mirror from small pieces of silver with additional magnitudes to compensate for the complex process, no?
I think I'll just leave that spell.
Season 3, 1202
Julia decided the best thing to do was spending time in bed reading. Demosthenes and Reanrdine supported her, as she made her way through a terram primer: Properties of the Elements Volume 3: Terram.
More than once, she thanked her father for the advice with the sleep spell. Guiscard was a very well-behaved baby, who showed no sign of the Gift, but he was still a baby.
Eikona took several mirror images, including one portraying Demosthenes, Guiscard and herself (a selfie).
15xp terram
Season 4, 1202
With a baby at home, going anywhere wasn't really an option, so Eikona decided to spend more time at Thermakopolis reading. She knew she was just two books away from closing what House Jerbiton called the lesser circle, a basic competence in all arts, so she dug into The Four Winds with relish. Like most babies, Guiscard was at his sweetest, looking at her from his carpet in the corner of the lab.
Renardine, in the meantime, using the new spells to improve appearance, had wormed her way into a circle of rich young people to party with. Rarely was there a breakfast without another tale of carousing.
21xp Auram
Season 1, 1203
She had used a sleeping spell on Guiscard for the celebration. She didn't do that often, but she wanted to enjoy the evening. All of Thermakopolis, plus selected guests, including Lyrus, had come for her lesser circle celebration, which had been organised by Demosthenes. Now she was sitting on the floor in the middle of the council hall, holding the Herbam primer Flower and Tree. The table and chairs had been removed for the evening.
One by one, the magi, dressed in an outfit befitting the art they were representing, stepped forward, linking their hands in a circle around her. When all fourteen guests had linked, she put the book on the floor and closed the circle by joining the others.
There was wine and talk and music after. Little did Eikona know that their carefree celebration would be the last for Thermakopolis to witness.
21xp Herbam
Season 2, 1203
The sound of glass breaking in her lab told Eikona that something was wrong. When she stormed in, she found Guiscard sitting on the floor, crying, surrounded by broken glassware. The cut in his hand was minor, and easily taken care of, but the basic question remained: How do you baby-proof a lab?
So she spent the whole season tinkering: making sure that glassware and the kniveswas out of reach, that the ingredient cabinet had a good lock, and that the fire was behind what she called a fence.
4xp Magic Theory: practice maybe? Less than she'd gain from reading another book, which would be boring, but more than exposure.
Season 3, 1203
In her quest for lab safety, Eikona decided to invent a spell to reduce the dangers from fire. She asked Renardine to help her, who was glad to spend some time with Eikona. baby Guiscard was handed of to Demosthenes, who promised to take good care of him.
Torch without Flame, CrIg10
This spell is a variety of lamp without flame (torch brightness, sun duration). Eikona's sigil means that the torchlight is reflected by people's hair in a way that creates interesting impressions. Eikona usually uses the spell on small coins that she can put in a pouch if she needs darkness before the spell ends.
Lab total 20: Cr 5 + Ig 6 + Magic Theory/Int7Aura 9 = 20, Renardine is just there to keep Eikona company
2xp exposure Magic theory
1 Like
Season 4, 1203
While cleaning her lab, Eikona had noticed that keeping track of her vis supplies was difficult. Of course, she had transferred the vis from her hair into little wooden figurines, and the other vis as well, but somehow, it felt disorganized. When she asked Deosthenes, how he was doing it, and he pointed her to two Intellogo Vim spells: Scales of the Magical Weight and Sense the nature of Vis. Although he remarked on her paleness, she decided to spend one more season in the lab, telling him that they could go to the theatre in the evening a few times, which mollified him.
When she was finished with the spells, she spent a few hours gazing at the auras: She especially liked Imaginem's rainbow colors reflected off the item.
2xp exposure
PS: Done with the boring lab stuff, the next seasons are going to be more fun to write!
1 Like
1204, season 1:
"The city is burning!"
Eikona blinked, still half asleep. Demosthenes had had a nightmare, a vivid one, she realized. That evening, there was a council meeting at Thermakopolis.
Demostehenes explained that three of the magi had had visions of Constantinople burning, and that they thought this constituted a warning. Filigraine, the Redcap, added that a crusader army was advancing on the city. After some heated debate, the covenant decided to use the season to prepare. Some members grumbled, but in the end all agreed to participate, and Michael grimly volunteered to teach the Demosthenes and Eikona in exchange for their yearly vis allowance. Other members rode out to spy on the crusaders and use their mind magic to direct them elsewhere.
Day after day, Michael bombared them with spells, and in the evening, they fell into their bed exhausted. When the other magi returned, they reported failure. Something had interfered with their spells, most likely something infernal. It was time to defend the City!
Teaching Parma (2 students) 10xp, 1 warping point
1204, season 2
As the crusaders began to siege the city, Eikona hurried from church to church, documenting the art there and making plans where to hide those pieces that could easily be moved as a precaution. She hoped the attackers would never make it inside the walls. All the time, she felt rather useless. She had no idea of battle magic at all, and knew that she had little to contribute to the city's defense.
The other magi, in the meantime, discussed strategy, as outside the city, the fearsome siege engines gew into the sky. A Thermakopolis strike team managed to burn some of them using an invisibility spell provided by her, which filled her with fierce joy, but there where simply too many of them and the crusaders simply built new ones.
On April 9th, the Crusaders started an attack from Galata, across the Golden Horn. It was the day of Hopplomachus ex Jerbiton , who wielded the weather like a deadly weapon, sinking numerous Venetian ships and stranding enemy troups in the range of the city archers. Unfortunately, the enemy also had weather magi and on the 12th, the weather cleared, so the Crusader succeeded in creating a breach.
The magi of Thermakopolis decided to send Eikona out of the city into hiding with 100 pawns of vis in arts that were seen as useless in the defense of the city. As she embraced Demosthenes a final time, they both cried bitter tears. She promised him to take care of the child, as the man she loved, so beautiful and serious, turned to die beautifully.
Sneaking out of the city with Renardine, the baby and the vis turned out harder than expected. Plundering and rape had started, and so they assumed the forms of elderly men, and gave young Guiscard the appearance of death. Several times, her Parma had to defend her against magical effects, but in the end, their disguise worked and nobody stopped them.
The news from the city came in small bits, each piece worse than the last. The city had been burned, nuns had been raped, magi had been killed, some by citizens in fear that they were in league with the devil. She saw Demosthenes end using a Distant Mirror spell: Demosthenes and Petros were hiding some of the covenant's good at the old Mithraeum, when the crusaders appeared. Demosthenes orchestrated a distraction, allowing the apprentice to vanish, but was killed by an arrow through the eye.
After that she curled up in a fetal ball, and refused to speak for a moon. Only then did Renardine and the baby coax her back to a semblance of life.
When the plundering had abated, she returned the safeguarded vis to Michael's Tabula, the successor covenant of Thermakopolis. Petros begged her to stay, but the memory was just too painful. So, she slowly began to make her way to Valnastium.
5xp parma, 5xp Stealth
Note. I think I want to remove the personality trait carefree +1, I am going to try to write her mourning in game, and I may eventually come up with a name for a fitting replacement trait, but I'm not yet sure where this is taking the character. If I have to take a replacement, how about Scarred by Constantinople +2
1204, seaosn 3
Eikona arrived in Valnastium unkempt and with thick rings under her eyes. She had taken to using the sleeping spell on herself and even then she had nightmares. She begged her parens to teach her more parma magica, especually how to protect others with her parma, and worried by her appearance, he gave in to her demands.
Slowly, Lyrus and her father, but also Renardine and Guiscard, helped her out of the deep black desperation she had fallen into.
10xp teaching parma
1204, season 4
Eikona, much calmer now, talked to lyrus about self defense. He suggested that she learn a finesse-spell called invisible sling of Vilano and offered her his lab, which he didn't need for the season. It would all have worked out well if it hadn't been for a nosy Alpine Quaesitor visitor to Valnastium pointing out that foreign magi weren't allowed to reside in the Alps. When she told him he needn't worry because she was a vis source, his attitude immediately changed and he incouraged her to buy a seat. She paid 4p of her Imaginem vis to buy a temporary seat, but announced that she had no intention of permanently staying at a Tribunal that knew no hospitality.
2xp exposure Magic theory
1205, gap season (January-March)
Eikona traveled through the Alps, visiting as many covenants as possible, showing her pictures, collecting donations for Michael's Tabula.
[Unclear: who invites her to her new home?]
Idea: 0xp in any art or ability, but a reputation of 1 in Constantinople refugee(magi) and/or raising the existing reputation artistic talent from 1(5) to 2
I think, this character needs a major redistribution of story and character flaws at this point:
She needs True friend (Renardine), along with a personality trait Loyal to ranardine +3
Carefree and lecherous don't fit anymore, and mentor could be replaced, too, so:
driven (collect specious), minor, personailtyx trait +2
Dependents (her father and Guiscard, major), loves her family +3
oversensitive (Sack of Constantinople), minor: this would include a strong dislike of crusaders, art thieves, and a wilingness to help refugees from the city, Personality trait +2
I still have to completely update the sheet, but I think that I'm mostly done!
1 Like
See Ink of Noblest Metal (MuTe 20, Aq req) from Covenants p.97, which turns gold into a liquid. A variant would work with silver (that spell seems specifically designed for gold).
Melting lead requires a temperature of 327 C, while silver and gold require a temperature around 1000 C and iron around 1500 C. So I'd say melting gold or silver would require a Base 15 CrIg effect.
Rego Craft magic would be another option, using a variant of The Spell of Wrought Iron (ReTe 15) from Covenants p.51.
Yes, that is possible.
It is becoming increasingly difficult for us to check your math, because you haven't posted your maga's stats along with an advancement log by season. Please take the time to do so and update this topic! 
Since her pater is a Jerbiton, he has certainly heard of the call for magi sent by Clusius. Joining a covenant that is right at the border of the Greater Alps would be sticking her finger into that Tribunal collective eye, so it would certainly appeal to her. So it would make sense that she exchanged letters with him during the previous season and got an invitation.
I don't understand what you mean by "collect specious"
Will her father join her at the new covenant?
What you describe for Oversensitive sounds more like a mix of Hatred and Weakness. We can work with that.
1 Like
Post 3 in this thread contains an updated version of all her seasons. I thought I'd wait before moving the approved version to the other one. I had (foolishly) assumed you knew.
Typo. The version at gauntlet had Driven (Major: the art of catching species), the idea isthat she is more mature now and has other worries than "photography" - so I suggest downgrading it to minor.
It is also near her (early) childhood home. As a Jerbiton, she'd love being able to use her native tongue.
The label is fine with me if it is okay for you.
Yes, for two reasons:
- I want someone around who takes care of the child when she does routine stuff. I don't want the dependent interference include stuff like changing diapers. I don't mind writing about it occasionally, but she won't be a full-time mom. He'll love to be around his family, and she'll appreciate the free childcare (and she seems to really like her Dad, too. I think, parent-child relations get better after a few years of adulthood).
She'd easily go onto almost any adventure if one of them got sick, or kidnapped, or had a wish only she could fulfil, so it is a story hook that is easy to use. - The second reason is that her father can also be used to generate stories. There still is the mystery of his fairie-ish wife, and as a silversmith, he might have craft needs. I don't see him going on adventures much though. With a daughter of 32 years, he is 50+ (no, I'm not crossing that out even though reading it tells me I'm getting old fast). Not sure that he needs stats though (he is good at silversmithing and playing chess).
I either didn't notice or didn't remember that you were doing this. Anyway, going back over 100 posts to check on the stats is not exactly convenient. I have more than one character to track and comment on, which is why I asked people to update the stats topic as a they went along (as a standardized way of doing things).
Water under the bridge.
That works!
Just make sure the more detailed explanaiton is part of your maga's stats, so that everyone reading it will understand the scope and nature of the flaw.
Clear!
Sorry, I've posted it in the correct place now.
How do I do those triangles for the yearly reports the others use on their sheets?
A few general comments that may or may not be of importance:
- If this is summer, Constantinople was besieged by the 4th crusade for the first time in this season. In 1st August a new Emperor, Alexios IV, pro-cruzaders, was crowned. Also in August a great fire destroyed a huge part of the city.
- Alexios IV was deposed and killed on February 1204 (that would be Winter 1203 by our agreed reckoning of the years/seasons). The new Emperor, Alexios V, wanted the cruzaders to exit the city (without receiving the payment promissed by Alexios IV).
- By April 1204 (spring 1204) the city was besieged again. The city fell on 12 April and was sacked and pillaged by the crusaders for 3 days (I see you included this in the text already, I'm keeping the dates here for sake of clarity).
Given all that, maybe you would want to rewrite something to give that sense that trouble was already brewing? But I don't think there is a need to change her seasonal activities, maybe Eikona didn't really thought that the city was in danger until it was; actually, most of the medieval world didn't think the city would fall until it fell.
The 4th crusade begins marching for Constantinople in January 1203, and with the army approaching the city and tensions escalating, from March to July (spring and beginning of summer) Regulus and other quaesitores would be traveling Thebes to advise magi on what is allowed or not according to the Code: basically the magi can protect themselves, their possessions and covenfolk, but anything that is either helps or stops the crusader army would be mundane interference. The advice would be for the magi to flee the city, if possible (of course, this doesn't need to stop the magi from Thermakopolis from doing whatever they deem necessary). I think Regulus and Eikona would have meet in this way.
- Question: does Eikona have pictures (how does she calls them? "Mirror images"?) of the Siege and/or Sack of Constantinople?
Use [details="The title you want"] and close with [/details]. You can check by clicking on the gear symbol while typing a comment, there is a "Hide details" option.
1 Like
Ups, I must have missed that, or maybe she simply ignored it in the beginning? Probably because she was thinking about her baby and her lab? Happens if you use the wrong wikipedia page!
Definitely, yes, but probably only a few, none of them showing live rape or murder. She uses them, and a dozen pictures of the city before the fall (architecture and art) to remind people of the Sack.
Thermakopolis is canon (see Sundered Eagle, p. 139). There really was a covenant of fighting Jerbiton magi! The meeting idea works!