Which is honestly pretty close to what I came out to.
Companion ready to go with Timaios of Guernicus.
Eudora the Crafty
21 year old Greek woman
Characteristics: Intelligence +1, Perception +1, Strength +1, Stamina +1, Presence +1, Communication +1, Dexterity +2, Quickness +1
Virtues and Flaws: Peasant (Social Status, Free); Improved Characteristics (General, Minor); Puissant Ability: Wilderness Sense (General, Minor); Tough (General, Minor); Wilderness Sense (Supernatural, Minor); Carefree (Personality, MInor); Favors (Story, Major)
Abilities: Athletics 2 (running), Brawl 2 (dodging), Folk Ken 1 (peasants), Living Language: Romaic Greek 5, Hunt 5 (tracking), Stealth 2 (natural areas), Survival 5 (coastal), Swim 2 (diving), Wilderness Sense 5 (7) (hazards)
Personality Traits: Carefree +3, Brave +2, Dependable +1
Eudora is a woman familiar with the wilds. She is an excellent hunter (mostly using traps) and familiar with hiding and living in the wild - whether foraging for roots and berries or snagging coneys for supper. She is well-rounded and generally competent, but uneducated. She is pleasant to be around, partly because of her upbeat personality, partly because she is a good listener and tends to be a succinct speaker.
Eudora never really took to the idea of marrying and settling down to farm life, as she simply spent so much time in the wilds that she never developed the kinds of close community ties that lead to families connecting and marrying. She has little fear of the wilderness, even at night, although she is cautious around supernatural phenomena on the rare occasions when she encounters them.
Eudora's father, Belen, is a bit annoyed that she never married and settled down, and as a result it took a good deal of pleading and haggling for her to get her family to agree to leaving on a journey to the east. (She could have just left anyway, but then there would've been bad blood with her family.) Her mother demands that she must send messages or tokens to show that she is getting on well, and though her family doesn't really understand the details of the Order of Hermes, they know that she has fallen in with powerful and mysterious folk and expect her to convince those people to use their abilities to make sure that her family receives news from afar about her. They also occasionally call upon her for money or assistance with their local village problems...
Eudora would be happy to just leave that old life behind and learn to explore the new territory into which she's moved, but she still feels a sense of some obligation to her family. In the meantime, the Order (specifically, Timaios) has need of her useful survival skills and has taken her on as a henchman for the time being.
Two grogs will go here as soon as I finish stats. They will be a shield grog for Timaios and a gardener (helpful in growing fruits and vegetables for the covenant!).
No - even base 55 isn't inherently forbidden. It's only if you have a parameter that requires a ritual, or it needs to be one because it's a major effect.
I'm pottering with companions and grog concepts to add more flesh into the body of the covenant - any objection to me writing up the carpenter and blacksmith?
I'm thinking of one as a grog and the other as a companion.
I've no objections.
JesseHeinig - I'll try to look at your companion tomorrow.
Sounds great to me.
Scott
Basic concept looks fine, although I'd be wary about tying her too closely to your main character - not only are conversations with yourself and conflicts of interest awkward, but you generally want to be playing your companion in different stories to your magus. The traditional advice is to tie them to another magus instead, but that doesn't work so well in online sagas due to their relatively high ratio of player turnover to stories.
Be aware that the two main types of wilderness local to the covenant are steppe and river delta (although there's also some woodland, I'm not sure how extensive it is), so she'll probably be a bit of a fish out of water initially - her supernatural ability should help her there, though.
Stat-wise, I think you've missed recording the +2 to Wilderness Sense for her Puissant Ability, and you also need specialisations for abilities (unless you take the blessing-for-quick*-character-generation minor flaw Unspecialised from grogs pg 85, which means you don't have any).
*Well. By Ars Magica standards, anyway.
Yeah, I haven’t had time to pick the specialties, and I only had the actual skill levels listed.
Background-wise I was just looking for an excuse for why she happens to show up at the same time as Timaios, but that’s flexible if someone else might’ve hired her on behalf of the covenant.
I think that advice still works, more or less: a given companion will appear in the same types of stories as a given maga, though the lives of the two don't have to be so tightly intertwined that one's departure will foul up the other's story arc.
On that note, Viola would definitely take an interest in Kyranos, though his skills overlap somewhat with the NPC Ipek.
Scott
It's less important how she got here than what she does when she's here--if she's not going to tag along with Timaios on adventures, she'll work fine.
Scott
Yep, the companion is the "alt" and while Timaios is off doing legal stuff she'd be making maps or whatnot, and while he's in the covenant doing lab work she'd be out in the field with the other magi.
"Vacation" (ha ha) is over and I've almost finished up my two grogs; one is a tongue-tied young shield grog, the other a crotchety gardener (mostly a flavor character who helps keep the covenant stocked with cabbages). I'll post them likely tomorrow.
What would be a good entrance for me, and which character should I try to introduce first?
Ah, yes, I wanted to ask that, too.
The Tribunal is always good. Otherwise, just show up at the covenant at a time and in a manner of your choosing.
Scott
MTKnife - can you start the tribunal thread? (I do have a few minor things I want to drop in as part of it, but I assume you'll be running the main show).
Sure. It might take me a couple of days before I'm ready, though (I'll be unusually busy this week).
Scott
If us newbies are about to join do we transfer our characters in to the appropriate area?
As soon as they're approved, yes.
Scott
I've finished my two grogs. I also switched one Flaw on Timaios: Swapped Difficult Spontaneous Magic for the Temperate personality flaw. He is a bit of a reserved "no wacky fun parties" guy because of his legalistic obligations and his tendency to take that role seriously.
Ye New Grogs:
Spiro Zografos the Gardener
Age 30, male Greek
Characteristics: Intelligence 2, Perception 1, Strength 0, Stamina 1, Presence -3, Communication 1, Dexterity 1, Quickness 0
Abilities: Awareness (eavesdropping) 2, Bargain (produce) 4, Climb (trees) 2, Concentration (weeding) 2, Craft: Cooking (soups) 4, Craft: Gardening (vegetables) 5, Folk Ken (covenfolk) 2, Guile (insulting) 2, Intrigue (plotting) 1, Living Language: Romaic Greek (colorful invectives) 5, Stealth (gardens) 3, Survival (coastal) 2, Teaching (gardening) 3
Virtues and Flaws: Covenfolk (Free, Social Status), Cautious with Craft (Gardener), Common Sense (Minor, General), Light Touch (Minor, General); Pessimist (Minor, Personality), Weak Characteristics x2 (Minor, General)
Personality Traits: Pessimist +3, Grumpy +2, Diligent +1
Spiro is an experienced gardener from a covenant near the border of Greece and Romania. Unfortunately he is also an extremely bitter, pessimistic, and unhappy man, and he doesn't hesitate to let the world know it. Usually people leave him to his work in the gardens, weeding and tending to vegetables. The alternative - drawing down his spiteful, acidic tongue - is not very pleasant.
Spiro has been sent to "help" the new covenant as a gardener and cook, but in reality nobody wants to be around him and this is a perfect opportunity for him to get foisted off to be some other covenant's problem.
Giles the Blatherer
Age 20, male Greek
[b]Characteristics:[/b] Intelligence 0, Perception 1, Strength 1, Stamina 2, Presence 0, Communication -2, Dexterity 1, Quickness 1
[b]Abilities:[/b] Athletics (running) 2, Area Lore: Black Sea Region (trade routes) 2, Awareness (bodyguarding) 2, Brawl (dodging) 2, Carouse (staying sober) 2, Climb (cliffs) 2, Crossbows (standard) 5, Folk Ken (covenfolk) 2, Living Language: Romaic Greek 5, Ride (battle) 2, Single Weapon (spear and shield) 5, Survival (coastal) 2, Swim (long distance) 2, Wagoneering (safety) 2
[b]Virtues and Flaws:[/b] Covenfolk (Free, Social Status), Enduring Constitution (Minor, General), Warrior (Minor, General); Afflicted Tongue (Minor, General), Weakness: Tasty Shellfish (Minor, Personality)
[b]Personality Traits:[/b] Brave +3, Loyal +2, Introverted +1
Giles is a young man with poor prospects. He has a terrible stammer, and he is a younger son of a Greek farmer from outside Constantinople, which affords him few opportunities for marriage, advancement, or ownership of his own farm. Because of his terrible lack of communication skills, any chance at becoming a poet, judge, or merchant was also impossible. He found himself increasingly in scuffles and minor disputes and finally started earning a few coins here and there as a slightly disreputable hireling, which gave him the opportunity to learn some skills with weapons.
After an unhappy childhood on the family farm, and a few lean years as an almost-criminal mercenary, Giles had the good fortune to gain an opportunity to work with a magus from the local covenant. Though Giles was wary and suspicious (due to the Gift), he was open to the chance for some kind of opportunity to earn money. His poor speech became a virtue when he proved unable to really talk about the magi or their business at all; even those who would spy on them rarely had the patience to try to pry anything out of him.
He was offered a chance to work at a covenant and took that opportunity, spending several years training to become a shield grog so that he could defend the magi.
Now he is looking for a place to call a new home, as he is a trained soldier and looking to aid the magi who took him in. (Also, he likes having a regular income and not having to do farmwork.)