Strangely enough I've never created or visited a covenant that was partially in a regio, and now I'm wondering if an Aegis covering a covenant is also considered to be in effect for any parts of the covenant located in a regio within?
I think I do not fully understand the question. Do you mean a covenant in several regio levels covered by a single aegis? IMS we would say "no" to that: a separate aegis would be needed in each separate reality pocket.
Xavi
Appologies for any lack of clarity. The covenant has buildings in a Magic aura and within it, and inside the Aegis, is an entrance to a regio also inhabited by the covenant (likely used for laboratory spaces to some of the Magi).
In the Saga I play in, our covenant is a castle in Cornwall. A Regio sits atop this castle and all our sanctums are located there, because of the higher aura. However, this level of the Regio is plagued with various powerful monsters.
We perform the Aegis twice, once on the mundane level and once in the Regio. This means we use 14 pawns of vis every year, which has created a significant drain on resources and caused the value of vim vis to rise in our Tribunal.
AFAIK, this is undefined in the RAW.
For my money, it would depend on the size of the regio. I think I would normally consider that a small regio is "within" the Aegis (say, a regio that contains little more than building or only a room). But a big regio that contains substantial countryside probably wouldn't be.
I also see no reason why regiones should interact consistently with an Aegis. Although, a character with Magic Theory should at least have a chance of being able to predict the behaviour of a particular regio (given access to suitable information about the regio).
IMO: When creating an aegis, you define a boundary.
Whether or not you include a regione depends on 1) Whether or not its entrance is one of the edges of the boundary
and
2) How big it is. If it's too big you'd need extra magnitudes for size in order to include it. And Aegis of the Hearth, being non-hermetic, doesn't play nice with adding extras, so that might not even be possible.
Thank you all for all your input and food for thought!
I'm not entirely sure which interpretation to go with yet. I would rather not have the Covenant having to do two Aegis of the Hearth rituals. Not so much for the costs, as from wanting to keep the ritual a special and mystical event in the yearly cycle of the Spring Covenant; and I feel having to duplicate it somehow waters it down.
I like the idea of it being very contextual, though I might leave it somewhat unanswered whether there might be 'breaches' in the Aegis, as it is always lovely to have potential future hooks in hand as the Storyguide.
Some bonus information on the saga and the covenant.
The Saga is just beginning and the troupe consists of three Magi coming together to form a new covenant, making most of the stories on the horizon about the troubles and toils they go through stamping a new covenant out of the ground. The three players have little to no experience with Ars Magica and one is even playing her first traditional roleplaying game (as opposed to a handful of Freeform / Nordic games). This may sound like a daunting project, but I've tossed myself at it partly from already having 10 years experience running Ars Magica, partly knowing the players to be very group and narrative driven, partly from wanting to limit the time needed for me to prepare everything in advance (for my other, still running, saga I spent nearly half a year writing and preparing...). At the some time I want to introduce them to the rules and the settings in a step by step way that should make them feel like pioneers rather than having to crash the entire setting on them here and now. I've done this in the past by starting a saga with everyone (all new to Ars Magica) as apprentices and this time I wanted to explore the same approach, except letting the building of a covenant giving the same sense of literally building up the saga, as playing apprentices did in the other.
The covenant is to be created on the island of Samothrace in the Theban Tribunal. I had actually prepared three suggestions for the Magi - presented to them by a Redcap savvy in yet untapped resources of the tribunal - and they picked Samothrace over (Crete and Nisyros) making the Temple of the Ancient Gods the likely location of their covenant (once they manage to travel there in the upcoming session). I imagine the mundane level to be nothing more than an overgrown ruin littered with the more recent remains of a 11th century Byzantine attempt at fortifications, while the first level of the regio would look as the outside grounds as the cluster of temples looked a thousand years earlier, letting yet higher tiers of the regio be within some of the individual temples. Now, as I've been looking through a lot of literature and sources as I tend toward medium-to-high research Ars Sagas and I've come across this archeological project that is very useful in translating the many excavations done there into a format making it possible for me to describe the place to the players (though not necessarily through using the videos). It only adds more depth to the setting up of a covenant on the site of one of the ancient world's most important mystery cults that all my players, by pure coincidence, decided to create members of a Mystery Cult House (Merinita, Criamon, and Bjornaer).
Ramblings aside, I'm considering having them do the Aegis of the Hearth in the first non-mundane level of the regio - the one that outlines the temple grounds - letting it cover the higher tiers while at the same time leaving the mundane level, where most of the future covenant staff will likely settle, unprotected by the Aegis.
Let me know what you think! In fact this has sparked another question on regiones, but I think I had better push that to a seperate thread.