I ended up going with the last line where he is a Path of Strife Criamon. So his training was finished by a Criamon.
ADDED EDIT:
Normally familiars are Mighty and only die when their master dies. A Warped animal presumably dies as normal? Does it benefit from Bronze chord for aging? It shouldn't get additional warping from the bond since it is explicitly designed for it? Does the bond protect it from any other warping (it gains MR from form bonuses but does that matter for that?)?
MORE EDIT: You gain 2 warping per year for post-apprenticeship. Is this in addition to things I'm doing that specifically gain me warping points or do I just not track my warping? The section mentions Longevity Rituals (which I should be tracking pretty precisely) but if I work over time do I track the warping or do I let it be covered by the 1 per year? I can't think of a reason I would be under a constant magical effect or what major spells I would document being on me but would those count? (I suppose there is a level of Magic Theory you could get that would allow you to pay someone to cast a stat bonus ritual on you, is that allowed?)
It won't die whilst the magus is still alive, and only suffers the ill effects of aging when the magus does (pg 105 of the main book).
The Familiar Bond (and enchantments placed in it) doesn't warp either Familiar or magus (pg 168 of the main book). I don't think the Form bonus is directly relevant.
True, and he's got the virtues for it (Affinity* and Puissant Finesse), but his Per is decent (+2) rather than great, and he hasn't assigned much xp to Finesse, so I was guessing Creo Crafting.
Precise Casting has the disadvantage that you have to learn it for every single spell individually, so its utility (or at least efficiency) depends on how much you're going to be using each spell.
Edit: *Speaking of which, I've realised where the 7 xp / 8xp question on the Finesse assignment came from. I forgot about the Affinity with Finesse (I only tend to check for them on high scores), and thought 1 (7) was 7xp in total rather than 7 xp above 1. Apologies on the number of errors on the check - it clearly wasn't my day!
Typically a familiar has Might, so neither of those things typically apply, they are being restated (Warping at least is brought up elsewhere). As far as I can tell the book doesn't talk about a warped animal being an option (hard to call the magic 'inherent' at that point) hence the questions. My biggest concern was future warping. Gaining major flaws (even every decade if we are going based on the CC warping gains) is sort of a pain.
My thought on Form bonuses wasn't entirely coherent in my head. I was thinking maybe the MR would prevent other warping. I was also thinking about having a 0 form bonus as a vulnerability, but this is a game where you round up (one of my constant blind spots, generally) so having 0 in an art shouldn't last very long.
I added another edit about warping curing CC.
Exactly where I was coming from on the virtues. Mastery always has that problem, but crafting spells are very versatile (they gain a mag for it). But it is hard to think of a situation where you need to craft with more than size 4 or size 6 of stone. Mastering just those 3 level 35 spells I posted (or waiting and inventing new ones with Herbam and Animal Requisites/bumping it up to cover metal as well) seems like it would cover most architectural concerns.
P.S. Note to Darkwing, feel free to ignore me, I won't feel bad, I just like the character concept and have a lot of time to think about wizards in my down time.
The book doesn't address specifically warped animals (I'm not sure they were introduced as a specific concept until RoP:M), but it doesn't require an Animal to have Magic Might (although those will be most common), just inherent magic:
"The first step in getting a familiar is finding an animal with inherent magic. With inherent magic, the beast is likely to have a Magic Might score..." (pg 104).
I've seen creatures with magic-aligned supernatural virtues counted before, although I can't now remember where.
If the bond doesn't warp the magus, I don't think there's any reason to think it would warp the familiar. The familiar will be subject to other sources of warping outside the familiar bond, though, in the same way the magus is. I don't think the familiar would gain warping at the same rate as the magus (given it's probably not spell casting or under a longevity ritual).
You just don't track your warping (with the possible exception of if you're planning to do something ridiculously warping inducing). It's the occasional Twilight plus various random little effects like botches and constant effects and high power effects cast by someone else and what-have you.
My feel is that I'd rather only have stat-boosting rituals if you cast them yourself (or possibly if you're a Cult of Heroes Mercere, given it's one of their big things) - readily available stat-boosters fit better into a higher power saga than this one is. That's my personal judgement rather than an explicit Rule or House Rule, though.
Hmm. I think people have generally been assuming an aura of 3 at gauntlet, but I'm not sure if that's just because they're missing a trick rather than because it's what's required.
MTKnife - you'd said in the "About This Saga and How to Create a Character" thread:
Does that apply to the maximum spell levels at gauntlet, or only to later lab totals?
I could understand that more than Warping. Warping is specifically something you are subjected too, not something inherent. But that is just arguing over definitions which isn't fun for anyone.
It just seems silly that I could cast a few spells at a cat and it suddenly becomes magical enough to be a familiar. (I think a circle spell on a bird cage would be the cheapest option)
Yes, the "don't be a dick clause" I'm familiar. Working overtime every season until he is 35, not OK then.
It is the formula from the book. (Core p.32) It doesn't actually say you are calculating a Lab Total, Just that Technique+Form+Magic Theory+3 is the limit out of apprenticeship.
Stat boosting is a specific reason that I took a mMF in Self Transformation - the beast forms with Muto were an immediate goal and then into personal stat boosts. It’s a long way off and the saga is slow moving so I appreciate it may never happen; but ruling them out isn’t at all good imo.
Right, but you will be able to cast them yourself or accomplish it in game. That is different than me saying I spent my near infinite amount of level up Vis to pay and have someone cast it and then waltz into the game with +5 in every stat.
I don't remember my original intent, but I'd think it would apply to any part of the character's Hermetic life that took place in these high-aura tribunals. Characters from farther afield we'd have to talk about, but I can't imagine that an extra 2 points to retrospective lab totals is going to radically alter the game balance of the saga.
Great. That means, the last shaky bit of game mechanics has been dealt with. It only affects two seplls anyway. Can I create a shield grog (or two) for her?
So, oddly enough, this particular sort of situation is precisely the one that has caused me grief with the shift in the rules on learning Parma from ArM4 to ArM5. Viola, as it happens was created 20-something years ago (yes, I mean 20 years in real time), under the old rules. Her one and only filius to this point was a former Hermetic apprentice who'd slipped between the cracks after his master was marched. When he showed up at Viola's first covenant, as a wandering monk, a bloodthirsty Criamon covenantmate wanted to kill him for knowing Parma Magica (actually, he just wanted to kill people in general, to watch them die, but...ick, never mind)...and as soon as he made his intentions clear, Viola claimed him as an apprentice (which, uh, probably means she should have gotten a shard in the Theban Tribunal...or something--yet another problem this backstory causes), in order to prevent the violence.
So...an important part of Viola's backstory hinges on the idea that an apprentice is taught a functional version of Parma well before gauntleting, which flatly contradicts the ArM5 canon (and I'm still not convinced the change in canon was really necessary). Nonetheless, it's possible to bend that backstory to say that the ex-apprentice was subjected to Join or Die without the Join part, solely on the basis of his magical abilities, without doing too much violence to the story--and so I don't think there's a strong case that we need a magus character to be gauntleted with a Parma Magica over 1.
[Oh, yeah, and Viola has refrained up to this point from pointing out to Gregorius that her filius is an ordained priest.]
I don't strictly understand. But like I said it's 10 XP, They are already swapped around in my sheet.
Other question, Correspondence is basically just 1 extra XP in what ever you are doing that season?
EDIT: I am capable of reading. Can you correspond about something if you studied it in ONE of the past four seasons or in ALL of the past four seasons?
Final question, Scott, do you care to weigh in on the "Can I pay for stat boosting Rituals in post apprenticeship Character Creation." thing? Mostly just so Salutor doesn't get arthritis writing disclaimers.
I lied, Partially related to the above since inventing a level 35 ritual is a lot harder than learning one. What is the policy on buying spells/learning them from lab texts in post apprenticeship Character Creation? Kris is notably bad in the lab (not well mechanically supported he's just not that interested) and notably good at casting spells he has learned. He would probably see out spells to learn rather than inventing them. Perhaps he has to do favors for them learning them as a consequence of a 5XP adventure?
EDIT: Do I need to spend time establishing a lab at my home covenant? Finding a Familiar is a 10xp adventure or a 5xp one because I'm getting something (is that even the way you are parsing the XP distribution)? In any case it must be involved enough that I can't also set up a lab in the same season?
EDITEDIT: Criamon see binding a familiar as a way to elevate other souls. So I am going to take a Warped animal as my familiar, if you are going to raise something up it might as well be the lowliest available option. I think a slat ribbed mongrel dog warped by the many conflicting auras of Constantinople should be lowly enough. Rego usually works for dogs (shepherds) and I think the sympathetic link between their circumstances is almost too on the nose.
Ugh is that too many canines at the covenant? I suppose a starving runty tom cat works just as well, less on the nose but any domestic animal is a tool just like Kris was meant to be.
EDITIDE: Sorry I just work on things and think periodically through the day. Post-apprenticeship Character Creation, Do you want me to roll or do you want me to take some normalized number for studying from Vis?
Also my third Initiation requires a wife. I was thinking that maybe one of my typical correspondents could be that person. A Gurnicus recently Gauntleted at the time of my master's death. They kept in touch and while Kris is very focused on beating people up, she is very investigative. Some of his adventures will have been acting as her Hoplite (since I didn't have any better ideas for them). Opposites that complete each other is the suggested motif.
Not to complain, but why are the CC books so... bad? Just assuming that we will have a fair bit of uninterrupted navel gazing study in our pre-campaign days? a 14/5 and 10/9 Summa are worse than any single book in the covenant library. Could I use the costs in covenants to buy a better book on one of my favored topics?
I think you've forgotten to actually make the change on the sheet posted on the previous page.
One of them. You should have a limited number of defined correspondents with limited fields of interest, though (so carrying on a regular correspondence with one of your House Mates about the Enigma or House Criamon lore fine, automatically assuming you've got a correspondent on every single Art less so).
My take:
Very common spells, fine - can probably assume are available in your covenant. (Very common would be things like Pilum of Fire, Frosty Breath of the Spoken Lie, sensible level Aegis of the Hearth, and Demon's Eternal Oblivion spells etc.)
Spells that are in the core book can probably be traded for, but will cost you either time spent copying up your own spells for trade or vis, and there will be limits on the level available for General spells. Spells in other books may or may not be available.
Spells that aren't in the books probably aren't available, or at least not without paying someone significant amounts of vis to develop and copy them up for you.
You can have a standard lab for free. If you want it to be any better than the standard, you will need to put seasons into developing it.
5xp, and you can't also set-up a lab.
I'm not too fussed. If you take a normalised number, I'd say assume a roll of 6.
Just investigative vs beating people up doesn't feel like enough of an opposite to me. Maybe try to work out some way in which your wife's past and attitude to it / future goals interact with yours? I also need to think a bit more about it being a maga - what are other peoples' thoughts?
The issue you've got is that, in ArM5, an apprentice would not have the Parma skill. Period. You get some basic training in it, but it doesn't actually work until after the Gauntlet. Therefore, the backstory about the marched master who left behind a bunch of apprentices who all knew Parma doesn't work (in contrast to ArM4, where it would have worked just fine).
I think I intentionally left this vague, but stuff you've worked on in the past year is a good rule of thumb.
That's a can of worms I haven't dealt with yet, though my inclination is to make sure it's fairly rare (because otherwise, you then have to explain why all the other magi haven't done it). I'm comfortable with Salutor's take on the subject.
On the stats-boost issue, let me add an important rule of thumb:
If we discover that something threatens to break the setting (for example, by introducing a capability that short-circuits what are supposed to be difficult adventures), my most probable reaction is to find a way to explain why it doesn't work (or works only in difficult and rare circumstances), even if it's perfectly canonical.