Character: Yannis

Ah. Right. My fault.

Shroud sounds a suitable power for an area considered to be unsuitable for massed travel, so yes, we can have it. Could tyou post the diverse powers of Anduinna that you were thinking in the public thread?

I thought you had abandoned the Merinita Mysteries in favor to a spiritual pact and forest lore. Spiritual pact and other stuff makes for a more in depth association with the forest than the Merinita Mysteries after all. And they are less convulated mechanically and conceptually it seems to work the same.
You can have a familiar using Animal Ken as per the folk witch rules if you want.

Sounds good?

Supressed Gift is from Apprentices?

@Xavi I guess we need a ruling for this. Will Awakening still function with Suppressed Gift? If not, then I have a free Virtue point to spend.

Found suppressed gift. The rules basically say "you are gifted in the bad stuff, but none of the good studfdf". You canot advance your Arts or use them, or perform parma magica. Your only advantag eis that your current Arts level give you a measure of magic resistance.

As such I would say that a suppressed Gift is like NOT having the gift, onlyu magical air. If you need the gift for Awakening, you cannot use it.

The quesiton here is: why do you want Suppressed Gift? It is designed as a way to have companions that can advance to magus, basically, or a magus that has lost his Gift. A character like Yannis, tha tis basically a guy that has made a pact with Anduinna does not seem a likely candidate for further advancement into the folk witches. Wouldn't it be better to have Magical Air and be done with it?

If, on the other hand, you want to have a story arc regarding your recovery of the Gift that is something we need to work on. it is a major flaw, not a minor nuissance, so it should be an integral part of the character's development. otherwise it is a background thing and the fact that you used to have a Gift is just background info, like you having 2 older sisters that died or that you used to have a dog called Bob when you were a kid :slight_smile:

That's the question; do you need The Gift to use Awakening?

It's an integral part of Yannis' background. He was sent to Reims to apprentice with the Witches of Reims, but when it came time for the Opening of the Gift Mistress Greta found it blocked. (Hermetic Experience + Failed Apprentice.) That was the time he went back to the Forest of Cuise and Ardennes. He developed his Forest Lore fully and made a pact with Arduinna.

Mechanically this also allows me, the player, to have an option later on in the game to have Yannis' Gift opened. I would want to have a story arc to recover Yannis' Gift, but it's not an immediate concern.

BTW, if I need to remove Suppresed Gift I will not get the Failed Apprentice Social Status.

The back story would be easy to tweak, butI will need to shuffle around some V&F; replace Failed apprentice with Arcane Lore and find a replacement Major Flaw. Lose the Latin, Artes Liberales and re-allocate the points.

This will happen if Suppressed Gift is not allowed or Awakening won't work without The Gift

I think failed apprentice is very hermetic in design. I would prefer an alternative status and way to represent a failed witch initiation (if you want to make an issue out of it and not just a botched opening the arts roll). To represent the potential for the development of the Gift, maybe latent magical ability would fit better?

Your story seems to hold the same without the failed apprentice/suppressed gift thing.

The major flaw is an issue, I agree, but I prefer them not to be story flaws if it can be avoided. Still. For story flaws maybe some kind of witch or fae enemy? Or an obsession to get rid of something like churches or faerie festivals in the Ardennes?

What if Greta did just fail to open Yannis' Gift, and told him humbug afterwards?

Fugazi about the numbers from HMRE p.43 Opening the Gift might not even be necessary for this. Greta is no genius at Folk Witch MagicTheory, her coven is small: if Yannis at the time of the ceremony has already a Nature Lore 4+2 or so, it may just fail without further ado. But some Faerie incursion due to his Greater Malediction may also happen: "The Wild Hunt! Run! Hide! The Wild Hunt!"
Afterwards Greta tells with great sorrow, that Yannis' Gift was unfortunately "suppressed".or even "lost".

Result: Yannis has his Folk Witch Experience giving him some useful skills, feels like a Failed Apprentice, other Folk Witches consider him one: just the Flaw Suppressed Gift does not actually apply and should be replaced.

Awakening can be decided in any way - just that Yannis does not know why.

And we need new Flaws.to replace the Suppressed Gift.

Some Gift-related ones might be useful. ArM5 p.53 Delusion (his Gift is gone) and/or Driven (get the Gift back) come to mind. An ArM5 p.51 Animal Companion - or even a p.56 Magical Animal Companion - might need continuous protection from the Faerie hordes that even messed with the Opening of Yannis' Gift. They may even sub for Awakening while it is sorted out.

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For me Awakening sounds like a derivative from your developed forest lore. I think that a spiritual pact can include such a thing and would not bat an eye about it. It builds on the concept of the character.

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I will remove Failed Apprentice, replace it with Arcane Lore and keep Hermetic Experience to reflect Yannis' "apprenticeship" with the Witches of Reims. Either Yannis wil decide at the last minute not to go through with joining the witches and just go home to try and live a normal life (yeah, look how that turned out for you boyo) or Mistress Greta refused to accept him into the Witches of Reims and sent him home.

The Greater Malediction is actually connected to Yannis' getting Spiritual Pact due to Arduinna's enmity with the Faeries who have been trying to replace her all these centuries, so I can't use that as part of the back story since it's a recent development. Yannis would have gotten Awakening and Susceptibility to Divine Power at the same time.

My backup Major Flaws are Driven, Essential Flaw, Hunger for (Form) Magic, and The Falling Evil. I was also considering Environmental Magic Condition, but as Yannis Gift has not been opened I didn't know if it would be allowed.

@Xavi @OneShot

  • Replaced Failed Apprentice with Peasant and Arcane Lore
  • Edited the back story
  • Abilities have been modified
  • Replaced Suppressed Gift with Hunger for Herbam Magic, since I could harvest 4 pawns of Vis per year in the Ardennes in a few days due to Forest Lore.
  • Capped Crafter/Master of Herbam at 25th level
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I noticed Yannis' low Legend Lore, which goes directly into the RoP:M formula for generating a Might Pool from a Confidence point. So increasing his Legend Lore might draw him to Triamore library.

EDIT: I just found this. It adds a nice personal touch to Yannis' relation with Arduinna.

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Given the more specific Forest Lore that you have and that represents your connection to Ardenne, I think we can use that for your might pool. Sounds more appropriate to use Forest Lore. You certainly are limited outside the Ardennes (there we can use magic lore to find connections to Arduinna outside your natural medium and generate the pool), but in your home forest it is where you shine.

Ooooorr.... we can use this. Whastever MalakhGlitch prefers.

What I have some concerns is about the "lab activities". Basically because after binding a familiar I am not very sure of what Yannis will be doing there. Any ideas on this? since you already maxed out the character in terms of mystical power (Forest Lore et al), it seems that evolution is a little bit flat for the character...

An idea I have is for Yannis to be an actual witch. Take the (gifted) folk witch tradition and then the virtues that make you into a forest priest in practical terms (spiritual pact and forest lore). What you can do is take the flaw that removes some parts of the witch's powers if you want a flawed initiation. This would open some options for the character.

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What?! :scream:

I totally forgot about needing Magic Lore for Spiritual Pact. And there I was agonizing where I was going to put those Arcane Lore XP. I will move XP from Divine Lore, Finesse, Penetration, and Folk Witch Magic Theory. :flushed:

Actually I still need 3 more levels in Forest Lore to hit my plateau, at that point I will have Forest Lore 9 in all forests with a genius locus.

Then there's Awakening. If I use Awakening on a Magic Aura without a genius locus, that Magic Aura will increase by (Magic Might / 10) within a year.

Then of course I can use "walking the path" to get more powers including the non-Magic Might versions of Focus Power, Personal Power, Greater Power, and Ritual Power. So even if I don't get my Gift opened I can still grow in magic.

@OneShot Thanks for catching that. Should be better now.

@Xavi
Since the existing traditions did not mesh well with the core theme of the character, i.e. nature magic, I opted not to be a part of a hedge tradition. Technically there could be a hedge tradition of nature magi, but I have to find such a tradition, i.e. build one atop one of the existing ones.

I did want to do that using the Augustan Brotherhood as the base, and modifying them to be the descendants of the Exsules. Modifying their Arts to be Divination, Vigilio, and Nature Lore. You said that I should choose to be a Virgilian or something else.

At this point, as per the Gifted Companion creation rules, Yannis' Favored Ability is only Forest Lore , which means it's simple for a tradition to open his Gift.

Ernest, woodsman of Ardennes, shield grog of Yannis

Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre (Shy) -2, Com 0, Str (Strong) +1, Sta (Enduring) +2, Dex (Deft) +2, Qik (Quick) +2
Size: 0
Age: 16(16)
Decrepitude: 0 (0)
Warping Score: 1 (5)
Confidence Score: 0
Virtues and Flaws: Peasant †, Puissant Survival, Warrior, Wilderness Sense, Anchored to the Forests †, Carefree, Jinxed, Warped by Magic
† Free
Personality Traits: Brave +3, Curious about Magic +1, Loyal to Yannis +3
Reputations:
Combat:
Brawl (dodge) : Init +2, Attack n/a, Defense +6, Damage n/a
Brawl (unarmed) : Init +2, Attack +5, Defense +5, Damage +1
Brawl (kick) : Init +1, Attack +5, Defense +4, Damage +4
Brawl (knife) : Init +2, Attack +6, Defense +5, Damage +3
Single (Axe) : Init +3, Attack +11, Defense +7, Damage +7
Soak: +2
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20), Dead (21+)
Abilities: Area Lore: Ardennes (Legends) 3 (0), Athletics (Swim) 2 (0), Awareness (Forests) 3 (0), Brawl (Dodging) 3 (0), French: Waloon (Poetry) 5 (0), Legend Lore (Spirits) 1 (0), Single Weapon (Axe) 4 (0), Survival (Forests) 5 + 2 (0), Wilderness Sense 3 (0)
Equipment: Woodsman's clothing, Axe, Knife
Encumberance: 0 (Load 1)

Looks good!
Except that your encumbrance is 0 since you have a strength of 1 and a load of 1 :slight_smile: that increases the initiative of all your weapons by a point.

Your combat totals also seem to be on the low side. An axe is +1 +4 +0 +6. Adding your characteristics and effective WS of 5 your totals should be +3 +11 +7 +7

Same with the knife (2 6 5 3) kick (1 5 4 4), brawl (2 5 5 1) and dodge (2 n/a 6 n/a).

It seems that poor Ernest meet more supernatural stuff than he asked for. Any small background for him and hjow he became devoted to Yannis?

Ack! That means I made a mistake in Yannis' totals also. I'll correct them tomorrow.

Well, Ernest was fortunate(?) enough to have attracted the attention of Arduinna and she guided him to her locus. Yannis took the man under his wing.

@Xavi
I never really thought of Yannis as a "priest," though mechanically that's what he is via Spiritual Pact. I see him more as a protector of the purity of the Ardennes rather than thinking in terms of sacred and profane.

Ah ok. I will edit the entry in those terms. Protector of the sacred forest. Nice. I think that Remi will think of you as a priest, since it firs his mental classification.