Character Development: Magus Atheus of Tytalus (Player: Rafael)

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Isle of Wrath
10

Ended up taking more time than I expected:

Characteristics: Int +1, Per +1, Pre +3, Com +3, Str -2, Sta +0, Dex -1, Qik -2

Virtues: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Self-Confident*; Sanguine Humor’s Blessing (+3); Persona (+1); Life Boost (+1); Social Contacts (Merchants) (+1); Well Travelled (+1); Puissant Intrigue (+1); Quiet Casting (+1); Inventive Genius (+1)

Flaws: True Love (-3); Proud (-1); Avaricious (-3); Warped Magic (-1); Weak Parens (-1); Unimaginative Learner (-1)

  • Proud: he is a Tytalus, after all. He is fundamentally better than other magi, isn't he?
  • Avaricious: He tends to hoard vis (TBH I'm still thinking about this one)
  • Unimaginative Learner: Normaly I barely consider this one a flaw, because studying from vis goes unnused so often, so I'd like other people's opinion on this.

Early childhood +1 year

Henry was born in Limerick, on the English side. His Gift manifested early, with his visage occasionally changing. He would return home with a different eye color, hair length, skin tone, all in an uncontrolled manner. It didn’t took much for his parents to abandon him, but thanks to his unreliable ability he managed to survive until rumors about the weird child reached the ears of a Redcap, who found him and sold him to a magus from Circulus Ruber.

Charm 2 (15xp)
Folk Ken 2 (15xp)
Guile 2 (15xp)
English (Anglian) 5 (75xp)
Awareness 2 (15xp)

Apprenticeship (12 years) (180xp)

Henry had the Arts opened by Nobutes of Tytalus, a Leper Magus from Circulus Ruber. The magus managed to channel the boy’s ability to change himself into a subtle way of self-transformation known by House Tytalus. This allowed Henry the necessary control to change to and from his original face.

Nobutes then proceeded to the standard training of house Tytalus. Much of his proficiency with bargaining was learned by trial and error, trying to convince his master to change the ways of instruction (every time his master agreed and he thought he had succeeded the next day the training became even more unbearable).

The boy’s talent for laboratory work and experimentation came as an opportune surprise, and lab time was the only moment when his master forgot about the unhinged training.

Nobutes eventually started to introduce spells on the boy’s life, but not to make it easier: to give him chores. Henry became responsible for assessing the health of the grogs (and occasionally of cattle, using spontaneous spells), and from time to time of accompanying them on short travels in case anyone needed magical assistance. Around 1215 Nobutes began to tell Henry of his future-to-be, his participation on expelling the English from Ireland and taking back the covenant of Praesis. That was when Henry decided he had enough of his pater and began to dedicate himself in Mentem and help himself to a few lab texts, planning an early end to his abuse/apprenticeship. Three years later, he fled.

Abilities: 115xp
Persona 2 (+10xp)
Gaelic 1 (5xp)
Artes Liberales 1 (5xp)
Latin 4 (50xp)
Magic Theory 3 (30xp)
Parma Magica 0* (5xp) (still does not know how to actually cast it)
Code of Hermes 1 (5xp)
Order of Hermes Lore 1 (5xp)

Arts: 65xp
Cr 4, In 4, Mu 0, Pe 0, Re 2,
An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 6, He 0, Ig 0, Im 0, Me 6, Te 0, Vi 0

Spells (90 levels):
Bind Wound (CrCo 10/+10)
Purify the Open Cut (CrCo 10/+10)
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10/+10)
The Noble Visage (MuCo 10/+11)(S)
The Raiders Drop Their Weapons (ReCo 15/+8)
Perception of Conflicting Motives (InMe 15/+10)
Convincing the Raiders to Give up for Today (MuMe 10/+11)(S)
A Good Suggestion (ReMe 10/+13)(S)

*Things marked with an (S) are where I believe Sanguine's Humor Blessing might kick in (+5 to casting totals for spells to impress or persuade), but I'd appreciate other people's input. I'll detail the spells below.

Macgnimartha (2 years/ +30 xp) + Well Travelled virtue (+50 xp)

  • Note: Instead of putting two extra XP years before the apprenticeship begins I shifted them to the macgnimartha. Atheus is gaining 15xp each year, as he is without the support from the covenant. It looked better than saying his two years merit nothing, and overal the math is not changing (it's just a matter of where those 2 years enter, before or after) but if that looks unsuitable I will happily edit it.

In the last two years Henry has travelled Ireland under the guise of one of his personas, Mathias. By luck or fate he ended up saving Simon, a merchant, while traveling with his group, by managing to convince a group of raiders to give up the attack. That, summed with his knack to know when someone is sick and his ability binding wounds managed to build up Simon’s trust, opening the doors to make contact with several of his friends. As “Mathias the Peacemaker”, Henry works as a counselor, advising his contacts on actions and deals that are beneficial to them (those which he discovers through careful usage of Perception of Conflicting Motives).

It was Simon who introduced him to Guillouic, a wealty merchant, and that would end up being the most recent turning point in his life, comparable with the beginning of his apprenticeship. Through his connection with Guillouic he came to know his daughter, Marie Jeane, and fell in love. Decided to work hard to increase his standing in the eyes of her father he extended his network, mediating several deals... But realizing he was starting to stretch himself thin, he decided to go back to Inchmore, were Nobutes intended him to join, and count with the covenant’s support to further manage his network and marry Marie.

Etiquette 1 (5xp)
Chirurgy 1 (5xp)
Area Lore: Hibernia 1 (5xp)
Intrigue 2 (15xp)

Well Traveled (+50 xp)

Intrigue 3 (+15xp)
Bargain 2 (15xp)
Area Lore: Hibernia (+10xp)
Gaelic 2 (+10xp)

11

Spells:

Bind Wound (CrCo 10/+10) - As corebook.
Purify the Open Cut (CrCo 10/+10) - Purification of the Festering Wounds at base 2, for a +3 bonus to recovery rolls.
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10/+10) - As corebook

The Noble Visage (MuCo 10/+11)(S)
(Base 2, +1 Touch, +2 Sun, +1 Part)
The idea is to make a small changes to someones appearance (smaller than base 3 utterly change the appearance) to achieve the effect of a "natural makeup" look, slightly enhancing appearance (healthier look, reduce wrinkles and eye bags, things like that) and meriting the same bonus as Aura of Enobled Presence. As the effect is aimed at enhancing the ability to convince and influence, Sanguine's Humor Blessing +5 to casting total would apply.

The Raiders Drop Their Weapons (ReCo 15/+8) - Spasms of Uncontrolled Hand @ D:Diameter, T:Group
Perception of Conflicting Motives (InMe 15/+10) - As corebook
Convincing the Raiders to Give up for Today (MuMe 10/+11)(S)
(Base 3, +1 Eye, +2 Sun)
Base 3 major change to emotion to convince a single target to repent hostile intentions and letting their target go. Assumes the target begins with intimidation (so there is room to try to talk his way out of it). Against a group of attackers Atheus uses this against the one who seems to be the leader. Once he changes the leader's disposition it's usually possible to drive the raiders away with a well placed argument and a bit of pleading (assuming the leader has good control over his men).

A Good Suggestion (ReMe 10/+13)(S)
(Base 3, +1 Eye, +2 Sun)
The target gets more receptive to a verbal suggestion made right after the spell is cast. The suggestion doesn’t need to be made by the magus. This isn't magical coercion. The spell makes the target more likely to consider the good sides of the suggestion, but it won't make him agree to what seems like a bad idea.

12

Since they likely spent a great deal of their apprenticeships together it seems likely that Vorsutus and Atheus have at least a developed relationship (whether positive or negative). It seems like Atheus has developed towards desiring to act indirectly and/or through agencies? And to be subtle as often as possible.

One could see the judicious employment of Hex or like magic as being useful to such aims, if there are targets/individuals that aren't acting as desired and/or the desire is for them to fail. So some collaboration there seems like a potentially fruitful enterprise.

Also the Duidsan and Tytalus seem like types that just might get along in their mindsets about things. It is possible anyway. The two apprentices could have even been encouraged to cooperate and/or be friendly, though that certainly wouldn't be a given.

In their current versions Vorsutus (ironically enough) seems the most capable of direct violence/confrontation, so that could be something he assisted with perhaps as well?

13

I think it makes complete sense for they to have at least a friendly competition on what is better, to curse from distance or to direct from the shadows in a less forceful way.

As I see Atheus started to develop towards agencies because he himself was basically his master's factor while he was an apprentice, interacting with people when it wasn't convenient for him. He should also have learned early on that as long as he is not asking something unreasonable from the covnfolk he doesn't really need to threathen or sweet talk them too much.

Still, he is not against the occasional hex, and it's likely that he will go to Eadric if/when the necessity arises. I think its quite likely that they have already cooperated on something like that during apprenticeship, or even during Atheus' macgnimartha?

But since Atheus tends to subtly guide instead of coerce his network, he should lean to hex only when he gets an AC to an adversary, to hinder them.

I got caught up in a few things, but I will try to get another pass at Atheus tomorrow and bring a definitive set of V&F for evaluation. I think his spells are pretty much the ones listed (if approved), I'll just adjust the descriptive text (as of now I've only presented the rationale behind the spells, not the actual description).

He lacks direct damage, but I hope to compensate that with a handfull of grogs (+ the Group Spasms of Uncontrolled Hand when he actually needs protection).

14

So, I was somewhat unsatisfied with his flaws, specially personality flaws. Major Avaricious should be a defining factor and drive the character to stories, but in my mind it was driving the character towards something unpleasant. Changing Proud to major and avaricious to minor wasn't solving the issue, so I'm puting them both at minor and changing Warped Magic to Deficient Technique (Perdo). So after a second pass I thik I'll settle for the following:

Virtues: The Gift; Hermetic Magus; Self-Confident*; Sanguine Humor’s Blessing (+3); Persona (+1); Life Boost (+1); Social Contacts (Merchants) (+1); Well Travelled (+1); Puissant Intrigue (+1); Quiet Casting (+1); Inventive Genius (+1)

Flaws: True Love (-3); Deficient Technique: Perdo (-3); Proud (-1); Avaricious (-1); Weak Parens (-1); Unimaginative Learner (-1)

Warped Magic (pungent odor) would be a strong inclination of mine in case of, say, a bad twilight experience.

Personality: Love (Marie Jeane) +4, Avaricious +2, Proud +2

  • Proud: he is a Tytalus, and therefore, fundamentally better than other magi. He usually does not make a big deal of that, but he knows it to be true.
  • Avaricious: He avoids using vis unless it's really necessary.

Description:
Henry/Atheus is a young man around his 20's. He has high cheek bones, blonde hair and an aquiline nose. His eyes are pale blue, almost grey.

Sigil: when casting a spell, Henry's body slightly shifts depending on the spell parameters. If eye, vision or sight, his eyes temporarily change color to a different shade of whatever the current color is. If touch or AC the skin on his hand ondulates (think mystique on the x-men movies, but really subtle, and not blue). In other cases, both his eyes and his face slightly shift. This is subtle enough that it can be confused with lighting or a natural movement of the muscles if one doesn't know what he is looking at. Under InVi spells the sigil manifests as an ever shifting undulation in the magic waves (again, think Mystique).

Personae:

Mathias the Counselor

  • Reputation: Trustworthy counselor 2
  • Personality: Cheerful, Careful
  • Description: a strong jawline, dark and wavy hair, green eyes.
  • Note: Many from Circulus Ruber actually think this is the real appearance of Atheus, and Henry is a fake one (and except for Nobutes, no one knows about his virtue. They think he changes his face through regular hermetic MuCo). It's also under this persona that Henry manages his contacts.

Fedelm the Silent

  • Reputation: Hedge-Witch 1
  • Personality: Silent, Brave.
  • Description: frail looking, with long auburn hair, diamond-shaped face and large, green eyes.
  • Note: An Irish hedge witch with "dowsing" (which Atheus reproduces with sponted Intellego spells) and the ability to concoct small healing potions (actually harmless drinks and a disguised casting of Purify the Open Cut. Atheus speaks as little as possible while under this persona (due to the almost non-existent Gaelic) but intends to learn the language to be fully able to use the persona (or learn Toughts Within Babble).

Note: as stated under the Persona Virtue, a new persona starts with a reputation of 1 and any XP applied to the ability also increases the reputation of all the existing personas by the same amount. Due to that, Mathias already has a reputation of 2 and Fedelm starts with a Reputation of 1.

I'll work a bit more on his contacts, True Love, and possible hooks. If there is anything here that doesn't sound good, please let me know! =]

15

Social Contacs

Atheus' contacts are a few merchants scattered through Leinster and Meath. He connected with these people under the face of Mathias, and his advice has several times been pivotal to help them close good deals or avoid bad ones.
(In game terms, Atheus uses Perception of Conflicting Motives and A Good Suggestion to subtly probe and direct the merchants.)

Simon
Simon is a traveling merchant, bringing goods to and from Dublin. His main product is fur and leather (a huge export of Ireland at the time). Atheus/Mathias has travelled with Simon a few times, and Simon was the one who first called him "the Counselor". A couple of months ago Atheus was forced to use overt magic against a group of raiders, making them drop their weapons and creating an opening for the grogs to deal with the raiders. Since then Simon has known that "Mathias can do magic". He has no idea on the extent of Mathias powers, however. Mathias claimed to have learned "a bit of magic from an old wizard", which is technically true.

Gael Guillouic
Gael is a wealthy breton merchant, currently living in Dublin, who exports goods to England and Britanny. Simon introduced Mathias to him about one year ago, and since them they have cooperated a few times, resulting in very good deals, and leaving Gael very pleased.
His wife is Denise, a woman of french heritage.
He has four male sons and two daughters (I used the random way of designing heirs from LoM p.9, but feel free to adjust if better for the story). Atheus has completely fallen for the youngest daughter, Marie-Joane.

Marie-Joane
True Love of Atheus, Marie-Joane is a young and naive girl with very dark hair and blue eyes, just like her mother. Since meeting Mathias, a young and dashing business partner of her father, she has become infatuated with him.

Possible Hooks

1. Marie-Joane: Anything related to her. Atheus will go to great lenghts to please the lady, and to protect her. His social contacts provide him with enough information about her when he is far away so that he knows if she is safe or not. If he comes to know of anything that might threaten her well-being (a weird string of deaths in Dublin, rumors about a hedge-wizard) he would jump to action. The same if he hears of something that migh entice her (eg., if he discovers she loves Connemara marble he might set for Connacht and secure a piece of enough size and quality to make a fine statue to gift her).
Indirectly he might try to woe her father to stand out as a suitable groom.
He wants to marry Marie-Joane soon, and will try to focus on that in the short-term. Anything that threatens this goal needs to be dealt with. For example, if one of her brothers strongly opposes her marrying a no-name gentleman he will need to build rapport with him (through a story)... or grasp a secret he can blackmail her brother with, if needed be.

2. Simon and other merchants

  • Atheus takes care of his contacts, and would go to their aid in order to keep his network safe and functional. In particular, Simon knows he has magical powers, and is likely to rely on Atheus/Mathias if he has magical or supernatural trouble on the road.
  • On the same token, if Simon, Gael or anyone else of his contacts requests his support for a troublesome deal he would help them.

3. Intrigue Against Ashenrise
Atheus keeps an attentive eye on the mundane dealings of Ashenrise. If he sees an opportunity to strike at them he will try to grasp it. His goal is to be enough of a nuisance such that the magi can't focus on their studies or magical experiments, but at the same time he recognizes that at the moment he is not strong enough to seriously hamper the magi themselves. Instead he'd focus on troubling the mundanes of the castle (which works pretty much as an English castle, according to TCI). For example, causing a shortage of traditional English goods and luxury items to lower the morale of the covenant and local English lords.

If he can grasp an income source of the covenant and hamper it enough he can make it dwindle.
(Eg, an impact equivalent to a Contraction on the Income Modification table on Cov. p.57 would cut an income source by half in 4 years. We need not to use those rules, I mention them just to exemplify the kind of thing he will be trying to accomplish.)

Atheus will go on stories to inconvenience Ashenrise, or to increase his agency and grasp intel that he can later use in his schemes. For example, turning the nobles who are nominally the lords of Ashenrise's castle into his agents.

He is entertaining ideas of developing a persona and infiltrating the covenant as a mundane, but this is better left for the future.

16

@Vortigern @Nithyn I think this should be the gist of it. If it seems all ok I will parse the posts above in a more readable manner and post it into the final thread. If you need/want more details, just tell me.

I avoided to develop his contacts too much, in case you want to use the rules on ArM p.49, but I can go deeper if you prefer and draft all of his current agents.

17

Nope, looks good to me mate!

Nope, I'm all in favor of developing the contacts, so feel free!

18

So, on developing contacts. Atheus can manage up to 10 people currently.

[Pre 3 + Intrigue 5, - Gift 3 (I assume his reputation can't offset this)] x2 = 10.

The Social Contacts virtue provides 12 points to spend on contacts, who are bought at the cost of their Bond + Resistance.

I'm thinking about 6 contacts. I designed them using the rules of HoH:S:

  • a social status (all are merchants)
  • a bond strenght that details their relation with Atheus (most are grateful due to his support on previous dealings)
  • a handful of resources that Atheus can exploit (besides each one I've listed it's modifier to the resistance)
  • and a few hooks (found on p.143 as Modifiers) that can involve Atheus in his agents' troubles, or that he will eventually/occasionally need to deal with if he wants to keep that agent (besides each one I've listed it's modifier to the resistance).
  • the total cost in points for buying these as starting contacts (Bond + Resistance)

While hooks are not strictly necessary I’ve given them to most agents. In one hand this increases the amount of resources available to them. On the other it works as flaws for them, making so that each one is a bit more “human”. Most of them can be fleshed out as grogs to be played in the stories they will drag Atheus into, and I suggest that they are fleshed out as such if the time comes. =]

Just to remember, the rules for agencies assume he can occasionally order the agent to accomplish a task within his abilities, and this is the primary use Atheus has for them (request things, sit back and wait, profit).

In my view the bond strength represents, to a degree, the depth of investment that Atheus has in that relationship. Because of that, I’ve opted for +1 bonds in most of the cases (he hadn’t much time to develop his agency, so it doesn’t make sense for most of those to have high bonds).

Atheus takes a few days every season to visit one or two of his contacts, just to keep in touch.

Simon Murtagh
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Gratitude +2
Resources: Temporal Influence [+1], Extraordinary Skill (Bargain 6+)[+1]
Hooks: Black Sheep [-1]
Cost: 3

Simon is a traveling merchant, bringing goods to and from Dublin. His main product is fur and leather (a huge export of Ireland at the time). Atheus/Mathias has travelled with Simon a few times, and Simon was the one who first called him "the Counselor". A couple of months ago Atheus was forced to use overt magic against a group of raiders, making them drop their weapons and creating an opening for the grogs to deal with the raiders. Since then Simon has known that "Mathias can do magic". He has no idea on the extent of Mathias powers, however. Mathias claimed to have learned "a bit of magic from an old wizard", which is technically true.
Simon is the middle son of a minor noble, but has distanced himself from the family. He doesn’t enjoy a lot of material benefits due to that relation and a few people may try to cause him trouble for it, but he still has a few friends in the upper ranks of society who lend him an ear.

Gael Guillouic
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Gratitude +1
Resources: Wealthy [+3], Temporal Influence [+1], Extraordinary Skill (Main ability 6+)[+1]
Hooks: Feud [-3]
Cost: 3

Gael is a wealthy and competent Breton merchant, currently living in Dublin, who exports goods to England and Britanny. Simon introduced Mathias to him about one year ago, and since them they have cooperated a few times, resulting in very good deals, and leaving Gael very pleased. Thanks to his Temporal Influence (a result of his wealth), he has some say in how Dublin operates.
He is married to Denise, a woman of french heritage, and has four male sons and two daughters. Atheus has completely fallen for the youngest daughter, Marie-Jeane.
Gael has a long term feud with another merchant, and often they bring trouble to each other, both in open and hidden ways.

Killian
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Gratitude +1
Resources: Underlings [+1], Magic Sensitivity [+1]
Hooks: Favors (to Ashenrise) [-1]
Cost: 2

A merchant from Carlow with a network of his own, Killian has a finger on many of the local deals, and has even directly dealt with Ashenrise before. He has a modicum of understanding about the supernatural thanks to his Magic Sensitivity, but he has not discovered about Atheus’ nature. He owns a favor to Ashenrise, and he might call upon Mathias for help to pay it back.

  • Note: assuming Persona registers as a lvl 10 effect to MS, the EF to perceive it is 19. Well beyond Killian’s capability (Assumig Per+MS ~4), unless he is on a fairly strong magic aura and rolls very well.

Niall
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Gratitude +1
Resources: Gossip [+1]
Hooks: ---
Cost: 2

A small peddler from Athlone, Niall can usually be counted upon to obtain the latest information around the city. He is grateful to Mathias due to his help in stopping a rival merchant of causing Niall’s bankrupcy (but Niall still became impoverished due to the trouble).

Katie MacNally
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Gratitude +1
Resources: Protection [+1]
Hooks: Infamous [-1]
Cost: 1

Mathias came to know Katie in the last fair in Kilkenny. There are rumors about hauntings in the cathedral, and he decided to keep her as a contact due to the suspect that this might be related to an actual supernatural entity. She is protected by a local priest, which means she can meddle in a lot of things with little opposition. Word goes around that she is his mistress, but no one knows for sure.

Arthur
Social Status: Merchant
Bond: Blackmail +4
Resources: Extraordinary Skill (Dex+Legerdeman 8+) [+3]
Hooks: Blackmail [-6]
Cost: 1

A small merchant from Carlow, Arthur was formerly a thief who managed to escape hanging and escape his old life… or that was the idea, but due to a bout of bad luck his former deeds came to be known by Atheus, who uses it to keep Arthur under his thumb. Atheus uses his true face (Henry) to manage Arthur, in order to avoid tarnishing Mathias’ reputation.
Arthur is a difficult underling (due to the blackmail hook), and will do what he can to escape the magus’ grasp. Atheus intends to eventually let Arthur go free if he becomes too troublesome to manage.

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19

@Vortigern @Nithyn if you have no comments regarding Atheus' agents above I'll post them in his character thread, ok?

Otherwise the character should be finished, so I have time in my hands to help fleshing out other things if you want (our covenant, Athlone, major NPCs, etc).

20

Looks good to me mate, go ahead!

And let me chat with @Vortigern when he gets his lazy butt out of bed today and we'll be more than happy to put ya to work on something covenant related!

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21

I like all of your contact writeups. (A lot.)

I will address this in another thread, and thank you for the offer.

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22

Was this aspect further defined?

23

Not really, no. I think this depends a bit on how you and Nythin want the beginning of the saga to go.

It made sense to me that he wouldn't necessarily have learned the Parma (since he decided to end his apprenticeship on his own). But this does impose some hurdles to his first stories, so we can just have him learning the Parma as soon as he arrives at the covenant, with no great loss to me or the character.

EDIT: Upon further consideration, I see no real gain for him to start w/o Parma. It will just delay us and unnecessarily muddle the waters.

So I think that before going to Inchmore he went to Circulus Ruber, met quaesitor Visioturpis and said "I'm a magus now, teach me the Parma" and the Guernicus went with it (probably having already gotten Nobutes' go ahead). How does that sound?

24

I think I feel solid assuming that Henry met with Visioturpis directly, was conducting through an Oath Swearing ceremony, and taught Parma by him. We could also assume something of a direct personal relationship between the two that may or may not go anywhere in the future, but they have spent at least a couple of seasons together during this process and thus are known to one another.

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25

For a Companion, would you be opposed to a Goblin concept? And would you prefer a bruiser/combatant/agent or a factor to expand/amplify your agency?

26

By "goblin concept" I imagine you mean more than just having goblin blood?

You had previously mentioned an underworld guy with connections to the goblin market in Athlone. It sounded interesting to me.

Since we are yet to begin proper play with Atheus' agency I think it might be best to wait and see how that will unfold before adding a factor... but if you think it would be more fun than a combatant, no problem on my side. =]

27

I have been thinking about it. But I believe the Mage sets the tone when it comes to their surrounding cast of characters. So, I want to be sure you feel it meshes well with your concept and how you see playing your Mage.

As that material has developed there is a hybrid Goblin and Dokkalfar city called Forionnag (Under Star, in what is most likely extremely bad Gaelic) that is home to the Court of Goibniu. This is also the home of the Goblin Market. Any of the Goblin concepts I had in mind would be associated with the Court to one degree or another.

So I think I have three basic concepts that I think I could do with such a Goblin base idea, that would all mesh with your concept but bring different things to the table.

  • Goblin Agent

A stereotypical sneaky goblin who can fight, steal, spy and otherwise do nefarious things. If you are looking to shore up some direct combativeness in your entourage, this might be the better option. Someone to intimidate, steal ACs, collect on debts, and generally be your one man goon squad.

  • Goblin Crime-boss/Factor

Essentially a Factor specializing in criminals and misdeeds, which are also things the Goblins are interested in. If you want more indirect plot power through your agency being expanded and diversified into misdeeds and shenanigans, this may be the better choice.

  • Goblin Faerie Merchant/Factor

A merchant of the Goblin Market who buys/sells mystical faerie things, and like you is a Factor through such dealings. This would reinforce your agency with ... more of the same really. Amplify rather than diversify, though with a lean towards Faerie and the connections that the Goblins have in their trade network.

Or I could do something else. Like I said ... this is your Companion and if you have different ideas about what makes sense for being a friend and entourage member for your Mage just let me know what you have in mind and we can work on finding a mutually agreeable concept.

28

Thinking about Atheus future path and goals:

Atheus is not likely to look for a factor, at least on the beginning. In essence, a factor would mean that part of what he considers to be his strength (the agency) does not actually belongs to him. For a Tytalus this is not acceptable.

Thus the goblin agent would be the one he is most likely to accept as a companion.

His two main objectives (currently) are to marry Marie-Jeane and to @$#& with Athlone.

The first one he will most likely try to accomplish through respectable means.. or at least, means that do not implicate him. He will surely need agents to do that, and he can find the right guys... but it would be so much better if he had someone he can trust with the more delicate missions. Someone not expendable.

For the second he will do his best to put a strain on Ashenrise's existence, and he would in no way be shy of nefarious things for that. Again, someone capable of taking care of things would be great.

I think the Goblin Agent would fit the bill more for these purposes. But I have no idea what he can offer in return, except for a vague promise of future support. Thoughts?

By the way, the reason Gael (Marie-Jeane's father) has no idea (yet) of her infatuation with Atheus (and his with her) is because I didn't want to take the marriage for granted. Essentially Atheus is in a race against time: he needs to become someone before Gael decides to marry Marie-Jeane to someone else.
(Of course, maybe he will fail. Plan B is to elope with her... but he'd rather not need to.)

29

First, if he is an actual Goblin, vitality through stories is its own reward in some ways. But he wouldn't tell you that.

Second a lot depends on how the two are originally tied together. A Goblin could be hired for the right amount of wealth, or story seed/potential, or vis etc. Or come to a friendly arrangement as regards that with a Magus who happened to do them a good turn in some way as well. Perhaps saved his life, or perhaps helped him get away from a mob or some knights or a jealous husband etc.

I'll ponder building a Goblin Agent and show you a basic spread sometime soon.

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