Character Development Questions

can we have a magical or faerie character as a companion?

Yes.

What do you mean by "a Tradition-specific Initiation for an ex Miscellanea Mystery Cult?"

The other Mystery Cults begin with one mystery Virtue. Ex Miscellanea magi begin with a major non-Hermetic Virtue and a minor Hermetic Virtue.

What would a a Tradition-specific Initiation for an ex Miscellanea Mystery Cult be?

I ask because I'd like to play an ex Miscellanea Mystery Cult member.

If your Tradition's Minor Hermetic or Major Non-Hermetic is a Mystery (for example, Hope's Philosophical Alchemy), that would be the "Tradition-specific Initiation for an ex Miscellanea Mystery Cult".

Damn. Consummate Talisman is a major Hermetic Mystery Virtue. I had been thinking of going the uber talisman route for an ex Miscellanea magus. But now that's out.

Back to the drawing board.

So many good ideas are already taken.

I have a question for the handful of years we may advance after gauntlet. Will we get a vis salary during those years? That's relevant for things like familiar bonding or talisman production.

The RAW stipulates MTx5 in available vis per year, which may not be carried over to the next year.

I saw in HOH:S, pg 29, that "human bones" is given as an example of a minor magical focus for Corpus.

Would this focus include bones inside a person? If so, how are such bones sensed for spell targetting? Or can they be automatically selected with Target: Part spells?

Also, what would the troupe think of a major magical focus of "bones" in general? Is it too broad? E.g., do faeries and demons have bones?

Well, if you use PeCo on a person to break a bone, you only need to be able to target the person. But using a ReCo spell to shape a bone into a wand would normally require sensing the bone itself (plus you cannot normally use craft magic on a person's body part like that).

Bones in general should be OK. You're basically multiplying "human bones" by a bit but not an overly large amount. Similarly, if you went with "skeletons," (or whatever would be the appropriate term for the bones of the dead without the rest) that would be minor because there is more breadth of type but you lose a lot of breadth because it doesn't work on the living nor on the dead with meat still on them. Basically, a third of necromancy, the other thirds being corpses and ghosts (though there is a little more than those thirds so they're each less than a third, more like a quarter). As for faeries and demons, I don't know. I would guess if a demon is slain mundanely there isn't much left. But with a faerie there may well be.

Virtue question:

Faerie Blood: Undine (RoP:F pg. 109-110) gives you a +2 bonus to any action taken underwater. The Faerie Legacy virtue gives your version of faerie blood a bonus. The undine legacy gives you the same +2 bonus, but the bonus specifically replaces any penalties you're getting from being underwater.

I believe this would also apply to - e.g. - the penalties applied to spell casting while underwater for things like not being able to speak properly, etc. Are there any disagreements?

I would agree so long as you don't mean not speak at all. Not speaking would incur penalties for casting silently, which are different than penalties for being in the water. From experience trying to talk underwater without gear, it's probably the equivalent to whispering for those without that Virtue.

It's nice to see a Faerie Legacy that isn't just a waste of points. Usually the bonuses are about half of what you could get via Puissant or similar and so not worth taking.

Yeah, I think it might be the only worthwhile one...It's still not necessarily amazing, mind. Given you need two virtues to get it (the Undine blood itself, and then the Legacy), but it's something you can make work.

Trying to fall back on my original concept of having an underwater lab and such. So the +2 for underwater lab work and such will be nice to have. Really virtue expensive concept though.

So, from what I can tell V&F from HMRE are generally in and V&F from A&A are totally out. I've been considering making an unGifted Mythic Alchemist (variant on Learned Magician), as mentioned before but I like the flavor of the Mythic Alchemy even though the straight-up Learned Magician seems much stronger. Mythic Alchemy uses the same rules as in A&A and I can see that you (Peregrine Bjornaer) have A&A, and A&A has the best explanation of the base levels. So can I assume that I can follow the A&A bases and guidelines for experimental philosophy as opposed to essentially copying them to write them afresh? I still like the idea of this guy and think he could work well in the covenant.

Along those lines, I was thinking of having him be from Ireland. There were tons of immigrants to Scotland at this time, so that's really not an issue. In terms of language we're looking at only a different dialect of Gaelic. Are we using any house rules for languages? For example, starting with Living Language: Gaelic (some Irish dialect) 5, what if you want to learn Living Language: Gaelic (Highland/Erse, whatever you want to call it)? Is the best choice just to communicate at effective 4s (assuming speaking with someone with Gaelic (Erse) 5) until exposure brings Gaelic up to 6 for effective communication of 4,5 or effectively 4.5 and then further up to 7 for effective communication of 4,6 or effectively 5?

To verify, if I make a companion character who is a magical human they would have 15 might and be a summer character (base 360 points in abilities), is this correct?

I think that is right. PG did say before that companion-level is 15. Spring just doesn't cut it because you end up spending all the points to get to Living Language 5 and the equivalent to the 45 points of a 5-year-old. 240 more is 16 years at 15/year, for equivalent to a 21-year-old. The trade-off is that though you can't start with more there, you have points through Might that you can spend. So this actually comes out a little on the better side than a typical companion, but pretty comparable overall.

The down side to make a Magic Being as a Companion is the Might penalty to all your advancement totals. So, basically, unless you find a really awesome book or teacher, you're going to be stuck at your initial Ability scores for a long time.

Or a reasonably implausible quantity of vis to eat.

(nom nom, tasty Vis Mice).

Yes, but consider the following: You spend 15 points of Qualities as 3 points on Gentle Air and 12 points on Improved Abilities. Now what do you have?

Normal companion reactions and V&F.
15 Magic Resistance.
Immune to aging a Warping.
Experience equivalent to being 61 years old.

So if you learn nothing over the next decades, you'll be around the same as a companion who's been gaining many experience for many years. So, sure, gaining experience is difficult. But even so, such a companion is stronger than an average companion, just not so much stronger as to not be at the companion level.

Posted my familiar, and would like feedback, I used MetaCreator to design it from the ground up.