Placidus ex Mercere
Str 2, Sta 2, Int 2, Pre 1, rest 0 (I don't like attribute min-maxing)
Virtues:
Mutantes House virtue: Puissant Muto
Inoffensive to magical beings
alluring to magical beings
Puissant Parma
Gild trained
Puissant Magic Lore
Mutantum magic
Self-confident
unbound tongue,
tough,
improved characteristics (strong)
3 Driven (Major, further the Agenda of the Weissdorngilde)
1 Compassionate
3 Favors (House Mercere)
3 Deficient technique: Perdo
Segafreda:Placidus’s mother, a formidable NPC redcap. I’ve created her to bring action into Placidus’s life (as a representative of her House, and someone not unlike Lwaxana Troi. In other words, she is a scary plot device, and not definitely not some kind of hidden boon.)
You can’t talk about Placidus without talking about his mother first. Segafreda ex Mercere is a boisterous, large-boned redcap, with unruly ginger curls and a voice that carries her lively Swiss accent. She is rumored to be in her 60s or 70s, but looks like she is barely 20. Her lecherous appetites – she isn’t choosy - are rather surprising in an elderly woman. Rumor has it the last person asking her for her age was a bookish Bonisagus about a decade ago, and they say you could see her fingerprints on his swollen face for a week after. Despite (or because of) her rustic ferocity, Segafreda is well respected in both the Rhine and the Alps, and counted among the most reliable redcaps in the region.
The only thing Placidus knows about his father is that he was, to quote his mother, “quite a lover”. Placidus suspects that he also wasn’t human, but some sort of being from the magic realm. That would certainly explain why Magic beings instinctively accept him as one of theirs. Placidus has half a dozen half-brothers and half-sister, but since he is the only Gifted offspring of Segafreda’s, he has a very special place in her heart. She expressed her maternal pride in having given birth to a Gifted Mercere of the Mutantum lineage by having the baby christened Merlin. To his utter mortification she still insists on using that name, which he had hoped to get rid of by passing his gauntlet.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Young Merlin spends the first years of his life travelling with his mother, picking up the skillset of a wandering redcap, and leaving him stronger and tougher than the average boy of his age.
Young Merlin’s education was considered of great importance by House Mercere, so he was taken from his mother at the age of seven to be apprenticed to Xavier in Durenmar. Of course, this didn’t stop her from visiting and meddling. Being looked up to by many ungifted members of the house gave young Merlin a sense of self-confidence.
Xavier’s magical instruction included the secrets of Mutantem magic. The young man showed an unusual interest in magical creatures and beasts. He also experienced major difficulties with spells of destruction.
He passed his Gauntlet, a season of Redcap duties, easily, spending so much of his time in the shape of a bird that he actually learned how to speak in bird shape.
Even before he passed his Gauntlet, he announced his intention to join the Weissdorngilde as a protector of the Wild.
A few practical question for post-gauntlet:
- Does the character automatically get an LR?
- How is vis availability determined?
- Any special rules for finding/binding a familiar?
- Do I assume the stats of his new covenant for post gauntlet development or is he still a Durenmar magus?
- is the character a master at the end of those extra years? Automatically? Under certain conditions? Never?
- Does he join the new covenant right after gauntlet, or at the end of those years (this, unlike the question before it, is a plot question, not a mechanics question)