I had kind of envisioned our labs being spread out throughout the regio, much the way our residences are spread out throughout the city. I had imagined a simple building with a lab, sanctum, and some outer chambers for grogs, lab assistant, etc., one that wouldn't interfere with the beauty of the garden. I hadn't made it a dedicated building because it would have other rooms besides the lab, but I can if people think it appropriate. I hadn't imagined that it was a super large building with multiple labs and sanctums.
(Yes, I know technically your lab is in your sanctum. But I needed to refer to protected living quarters and lab as different places.)
Wasn't the talk that our regio is only some kind of isle and so to much spread out isn't possible anyway? Beside sure you might have some building around your lab for servant and grog but I think the living buildings for all our covefolk is in the city because of our high magic aura.
That raise a good question as to just how big the regio is. I had assumed a relatively large island, but maybe my assumption is wrong. What are other people's interpretations?
Also what is the layout of the regio? Are we all clustered in a single compound? Are our labs spread out across the island? It's not hugely important, but it'd be nice to know.
As for the living areas, I was thinking that they would include somewhere for Zacharias to eat, a kitchen, a workroom for whatever grogs were serving Zacharias, a bedroom for Zacharias for when he wanted to sleep near his lab, and some living quarters for his lab assistant for when he needed to sleep near the lab.
I assume that most of the grogs don't live in the regio, though many of them do work there, serving the magi. We make sure they don't spend too much time there, but they do need to be there for a little bit to serve us. As for the lab assistant, I haven't made him up yet, but I'm assuming he has a magical virtue that allows him to stay in the magic aura without warping. That will have been one reason that I picked him as my lab assistant. You can rotate other grogs in and out as you like for many positions. But it's hard to guarantee that your lab assistant will not spend too much time in the aura.
I personal would say its just 1 or 2 mile across so if someone what to have his lab outside a central cluster he can have it but most lab and building are in a central cluster so that the grog and servant have not to large ways and can serve more then just 1 magus.
A central cluster makes also the Aegis easier to do
If people are happy with a central compound in the regio that we're all a part of then I can work with that.
I assumed we'd make the Aegis cover the whole island. After all a Boundary ritual "affects everything within a well-defined natural or man-made boundary. This could be the wall of a city, the edge of a village, the shores of a lake, the edge of a forest, or the bottom of a mountain. " I'm assuming that the shores of a small island would qualify as a Boundary.
I would prefer if the regio entry are not direct in the Aegis. Otherwise we would need to handle the strange situation that a magic creature or faerie found a way in but then direct end up within our aegis.
That's a valid concern. But it brings us back to the whole question of the regio and how you get into and out of it.
We've said that the regio can be entered (and exited) from many points in the city. Furthermore, you can clearly enter via one portal and exit from another, since we have the Hidden Ways boon. Now, I don't think we want to get too much into the weeds regarding this issue, but we should figure out the basics. Are there multiple entry points inside the regio? How common are they? Is it even possible to pick a spot inside the regio that doesn't have an entrance point.
This also leads to the question of what happens if a portal is in the Aegis and a creature who would normally be blocked entry tries to enter the regio. Does the Aegis keep them from entering? Do they bypass the Aegis in some way? I'm curious what people think should happen. I think there's a good argument that the Aegis would prevent entry to the regio in that case.
Of course. having troubles with the Aegis might be part and parcel of the proce we pay for having the regio accessible to us.
I would say yes there are ultiple entry points inside the regio. Whether they have some sort of grouping... for example I expect Daedalus will have an entry point in the city which will land him inside the covenant near his lab. There may be other entry points outside the covenant that we do not control, or there may be entry points inside the covenant that we do not control. There is also the question of whether the aegis would prevent a supernatural creature from using a portal into the covenant.
We all probably expect a convenient entrance point in the city that exits near our lab. I suspect that we all picked a lab location that was convenient to the regio entrance we most often use.
For example, I assume that Zacharias has a regio entrance in the lacuna that his residence is located in. (It seems reasonable to say that areas of Magical power might be more likely to have a regio entrance.) I also assume that the regio entrance leads to a spot relatively close to his lab. What I'm not sure about is whether that location is a cluster of labs in a sort of compound that we all work out of, or whether it's an isolated building/set of buildings that caters to just Zacharias.
I'm looking at figuring out background activities (i.e., what my magus was doing during pre-game to flesh out the numbers) and I wanted to confirm something. The 10 xp/season is just an abstraction. As I understand it, sometimes you're getting 15 xp from a teacher, sometimes 18 xp from a book, sometimes 2 xp from exposure, etc. It just all averages out to 10 xp/season.
Based on that, I assume that some of Zacharias' seasons were spent doing things that only get exposure xp. One of those things, it seems to me, ought to be lab work for other purposes. For example, I was thinking that some of that exposure xp might be from lab work preparing LRs for people, crafting magic items for Redcaps, etc. I'm happy to say that Zacharias gains nothing but the abstracted xp for this (no lab texts, or the like). But it just seems that for my character, that's the sort of thing he'd do with his exposure seasons.
As I say, I'm not looking to get anything out of this but a good back story. Yes, Zacharias would have obtained tokens for doing these things. But I'm happy to say that in the ebb and flow of tokens, he comes out the same as everyone else to start. I just want to make a good background for the character in which he did things that make sense for him. And since there are exposure seasons built into the 10 xp/season abstraction, I'd like a few of those as lab seasons that don't benefit Zacharias, but do explain what he's been doing. (FWIW, I'd assume the other magi could do the same, as appropriate.)
As an aside, speaking of tokens, I assume we'll pick a number of tokens we'll all start with, and go from there. It would be just too hard to decide how many tokens an individual magus got (and retained) over the course of a few decades. I expect we'll say that everyone has obtained and spent many tokens over the course of time, and ends up with a set number of tokens at the start of the saga. It's kind of line Confidence. Yes, we'd probably have accumulated a bunch, and yeah, we'd probably have different amounts. But to make it simple, we all start with 3.
our labs are within a confined area within the regio, though not especially tightly packed,
there are areas outside the covenant and the aegis within the regio
the aegis prevents magical creatures from crossing regio boundaries into itself, but does not prevent mundane people or animals from doing so.
magical creatures which have developed inside the aegis naturally (mundane creature warped into a magical being for example, or a magical creature born in the aegis) are unaffected by the aegis.
I will also note that we have some differences in terms of how we visualize this regio, where I see it as a magical urban area reflecting in some way its mundane connection to Thessalnika, which my magical character worked to maintain before joining the covenant, while another has described it in terms of a magical tree and surrounding wilderness in creating their magical character
I'm personal don't like to have the city as direct representation in the regio and a tree as the regio is the first I hear about this.
What I remember was that me and someone else liked the isle idea but the other person could be mplsmagus.
I never intended to imply that the tree and its surrounding garden had anything to do with the regio, save for being in it. (Nor would a describe a nice garden as "wilderness.") I apologize if that was unclear. All I ever intended by my dryad magical grog was to say that her tree just happened to be in the regio and that she has tended a nice garden surrounding her tree. Nothing more. The garden is maybe an acre or two, hardly a wilderness that defines the regio.
As for the regio being a magical urban area that reflects the city of Thessalonika,that's not how I envisioned it either. So you're right, we need to discuss what things look like in the regio. Is your interpretation that it's a kind of a ghost town with buildings and streets, but no (few) residents?
FWIW, here are some of my assumptions, Whether they are right or wrong is for us to determine.
I had assumed that the regio was smaller than the actual city of Thessaloniki. I base that on the fact that we can use the regio entrances to quickly move around the city. To me that implied the regio was smaller.
I had assumed the regio was an island based primarily on silveroak's suggestion that it was.
I had assumed that the regio looked kind of like Thessaloniki did before people erected buildings there. We'd have a bunch of buildings that we built (or maybe some predecessors built, but nowhere near the number that would make a city. But I realize that my assumption was not based on anything but my own desires. I guess I think the idea of a huge ghost city is a bit too creepy.
I had assumed that there were multiple portals into (and out of) the regio, and that each of us has at least one that goes from in or near our residence to in or near our lab.
I'm perfectly happy to modify my assumptions based on what others want the regio to look like. But it probably deserves some discussion to make sure we're all on the same page.
than we could set the general metric at a 1 / 10 scale or something like this and so the place before building where erected in the regio looked like a miniature place how Thessaloniki was 1-2 millenia back in time.
(I think our regio entry and exit should cover more then just the city it self.)
Since we're unlikely to hear from him, may I suggest a compromise position?
Since we can't agree on whether a ritual cast in (relatively) calm conditions has zero botch dice or (1 + 1/5 the level of the ritual), would people be at all amenable to making the number of botch dice in relatively calm situations equal to (1 + 1/10 the level of the ritual) (rounded up, of course)? That puts the number of botch dice at a little over halfway in between the two options. It still makes things like the Gold cord and Cautious Sorcerer useful, and it still makes mastery above level 1 something you might get for high level rituals (especially if you don't have a good Gold cord or Cautious Sorcerer). Rituals cast in (relatively) stressful situations would, of course, use full botch dice.
I know it's not a perfect solution for either side, but I thought I'd at least propose the split-the-baby approach.
I would be fine with that.
As to the regio, perhaps not so early that no buildings were in existence, but more of a really ancient city with much lower density/quantity of buildings? It was founded in 315 BC, though apparently before that it was the city of Therma, established in the 7th century BC and named for malaria due to the mosquitos and swamp land... so perhaps an abandoned bronze age settlement that was Therma before it was forced into a regio? While Thessalonika built up land from the swamp, Therma became surrounded by water...
So, the regio is a fair amount of open land, to accomodate the labs that take advantage of the natural settings, while having a few buildings that represent an ancient settlement. The ancient settlement could have secrets of its own, which we'll defer to a storyguide who wants to pick up on it. How's that?