This is a council thread in which magi can cooperate when planning their seasons.
Alright well to begin with Bastion can help in two ways that I can obviously see:
He is the only magus that has a score in teaching, he can get provide a one-on-one source quality of 11
Alternatively he has a very high Magic Theory/Int combination and can help people in their labs with a bonus of 9, 10 if it involves creo.
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Well, St. Avery is a crazy-insane min/maxed research labrat - and can add an 17 as an assistant (18 if doing Research Integration, +3 if anyone wants to experiment). He's also humble enough (or at least doesn't have all that a high opinion of his own skills) that he'd likely be willing to do it, on occasion.
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He also comes with an already-written experimental Lab Text that he made for his Gauntlet: a lvl 30 universal ReVi ward that doesn't work (well, it does, but it will break if the caster sins afterwards - which includes 'casting Hermetic magic'.) However, it does contain 6 Integration points for Adjuration or Holy Magic, so it may be of interest to some groups. (aka Duremar, or possibly the Catholic Church).
3, He knows warding effects, and would be happy to put his ring wards around anything that anyone cares to have (ie, doors, or their labs, or inscribed summoning circles). Currently he's got a lvl 25 magical ward, along with the requisite penetration.
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He would also be willing to go around and summon the local nature spirits or genus loci, to see what bargains can be made with them.
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the character is specifically set up to do Integration research - so he will likely be creating a lot of prototype spells and Integration tractii in the years to come; assuming he can get some full integrations going on, those can likely be traded for some pretty nice texts to other covenents.
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Finally, his Rego and Vim lab scores are high enough that he, with some help, is just about capable of writing a Root (L5/Q15) - assuming the covenant can get the requisite Binder/Illumination/Scripter bonus, someone with a Com of 3+ will have to edit it, to get the final +1 quality.
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(EDIT) - And he's got a high enough lab total that he can probably teach a good portion of his ReVi spells to any of the other Vim specialists - it's not like they're copyrighted, or anything. (His unique, Insight-based spells? Not so much. But standard hermetic stuff? Sure.)
I believe Inventive Genius adds to lab totals, even if you're an assistant. (so, an additional +3/+6 to that bonus).
So like I said, first about a decade is gonna be spent on practice of Cult Lore, however she'll be happy to contribute her mentum vis that she'll spawn during that time. When she gets her first initiation though she'll start offering Membership. The starting ones will be based around spread and generation of knowledge. The basics of enlightenment, so stuff like Good Teacher and what not.
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I've got Latin 5 and scribe profession so i'm able to actually copy books or lab-texts in Latin.
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I'm probably the most well suited to invent imaginem spells to hide the covenant activities, with your help assuming a get a few points in leadership.
In thinking about this a bit more, it does seem that Pralix is setting up this game to push us to have a scriptorium, which is fine. What do you figure the importance of getting one set up is? That is, Getting a master scripter/illuminator/binder in-house, and then getting enough people trained in Magic Theory that they can copy the books correctly? I'm actually thinking "more important than having labs", actually.
I'm also thinking that we need to spend a season or two training a relevant grog up to Magic Theory, so that THEY can set the labs up. The easiest way would actually be to have other things (besides lab work) to do for the first few seasons, and have all the magi use the "apprentice 1 person in an ability while the magus works full time" training rules, then have that person set up the lab for them.
This does assume, of course, that all the magi have projects that they can work on without needing a lab.
Yeah, I also forgot to include my puissant magic theory in that, so it's 11 base, 12 with creo and 14-17 including incentive genius
What does our new covenant need? IMHO the goal is to establish what we want to achieve as a group (rather than our individual goals) and how to achieve that.
The way I see it, we need resources for the magi: a library, labs and vis sources. How can we get those things?
Library:
- Write books
- Trade books for other books (need to write a few first)
- Trade raw vis for books (need vis first)
- Purchase mundane books for silver (we have a little extra building up)
- My magus isn't particularly well suited to writing books. He can put out a few bare-bone Quality tractatus.
- The quality of any books we write will be handicapped by our lack of book specialists (scribe, illuminator, binder).
- I think we should probably start by trying to purchase a few books first using vis and silver. At least that way we can get started on a little library.
Labs:
- We just need to pay 5 pounds of silver and spend 2 seasons to install one
- I don't see any need to wait until we have a mundane trained to install them (we need them to harvest vis, invent spells and create enchanted items)
- My magus can start doing that as soon as he arrives if the other magi prefer doing something else
Raw vis:
- We have a vis source at the site (10 An)
- I thought we had a Vim source as well, but it's not listed now
- We can extra Vim vis (we need a lab for that)
- We could search the surrounding area for additional sources
- My magus has the skills to search for vis, although he does not have the formulaic spells (but he can spont fairly well in InVi)
Note that I haven't seen us having Aegis of the Hearth anywhere (I may have missed it), so we either need to get a lab text to learn it, invent it from scratch, hire a specialist to cast it for us, or purchase a casting tablet. But we'll also need Vim vis to cast it.
Gotta go, more later!
When I changed the center of the covenant from dolmen into a well, I felt that An Vis (or Co vis) was more appropriate than Vim vis. Since I regard Vim vis as more useful, I increased the amount of pawns from 8 per year to 10 per year. So no, you do not have a vim vis source atm.
You can always use a season to look for vis. That would be an adventure that is resolved ooc (with one dice roll). The difficulty of the roll depends on how easy it is for your character to either find vis (e.g. by hunting magical animals) or a vis source (by walking around casting InVi spells; by seeking out fairies ,...). Describe how you want to acquire vis, and I'll tell what to roll.
Understood. I wasn't sure whether that was the reason or if it was simply an accidental omission.
Out of hand, here's the activities that I would propose for Cornelius. This is still only in the planification phase and can be changed based on our discussions.
- Winter 1220: Set up lab
- Spring 1220: Set up lab
- Summer 1220: Invent spells for vis search
- Fall 1220: Search for vis sources (someone else could use his lab during this season)
- Winter 1221: Extract raw vis
- Spring 1221: Write down lab texts (someone else could use his lab during this season)
St. Avery's plan would like be the following - with the caveat that he will be training lab assistants while he works. (quality 12 for Magic Theory); a grog needs a MT of 3 to set up a lab, so he'll need to train someone for 3 seasons to get that going. Unless specified otherwise, that "someone" will likely be his 10-year old niece.
- Winter 1220: Do research at Duremar, looking for low-level projects that could be continued. (Train grog in Magic Theory).
- Spring 1220: Get to covenant - scout nearby land and towns for sources of mystic insight. (Still train grog in magic theory) - includes possible vis sources and genus loci.
- Summer 1220: Study 1st source of mystic insight he may have found. (Train Grog) - not a lab activity.
- Fall 1220: Have grog set up lab. Either continue studying sources of insight (if he has more than one), or else teach someone his ReVi spells, if a lab is available.
- Winter 1221: Finish setting up his own lab.
- Spring 1221: Stabilize his 1st Insight.
Arthur, do you want St. Avery to teach Cornelius some of his Vim effects? He's got a nice InVi (lvl 35, that he can barely cast) "detect all active magic, which includes vim" hearing effect. Unfortunately, it's concentration-based, so Cornelius would either need to have a decent Concentration score to use it often, or else toggle it on/off a lot. (Or learn a high-level Maintain the Demanding Spell, which was the original plan.). I can swap my Season 4 activity to Season 3, which will line up with your "develop vim spells to locate vis" plan.
- Do you plan to hire a new grog? Or is it one of the 5 that I have listed for Solitude? Isn't training grogs a bit of a waste of time? They cannot help in the lab unless they are gifted (and gifted children/people are hard to come by). So he can set up the lab, write about magic theory (with Latin and artes liberales), and teach magic theory. But I see no other uses. The magus gets just 2xp in a training season (same as setting up a lab).
- That would be a one roll adventure season without the xp that go with it.
- If you found a vis source, you'd study it? (Are there rules for that? Those are not the bonisagus research rules You'd just get 2xp out of it anyway) confused
St. Avery can develop a lvl 35 Aegis in a season (assuming it counts as a ward) - but that's a lot of vim to spend every season - would everyone prefer a lower option? Also - how large is the covenant? Can it be covered by 1 boundary effect, or does it need a +1 size modifier?
Note that we all have lab texts for our existing spells, so we can trade those for the essentials. (Although - do they need to be cleaned up first?)
Actually, from what I can see Cornelius wouldn't be able to learn a level 35 InVi spell. His lab total is only 30 so far.
Indeed, a level 35 Aegis is far too expensive vis-wise. For the moment we need to extract the vis in order to be able to cast it.
As for the lab texts of spells we know, we would indeed need to translate them into readable form. That's (Latin x 20) levels per season.
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The grog in question will, if it's OK with you, be his 10-year-old niece. I took "mentor" as a story flaw, which (rather than a single person) represents his previous covenant - with whom he has a really good relationship with. His family works there (they went with him when he got Apprenticed), and as a favor to both his previous covenant, and to give him someone to act as a general helper (and to have someone keep an eye on him), they sent the eldest child along with him.
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One of the ways you can learn a skill, rather than Teaching/Practice/Exposure/Books, is through the Training rules. This allows the magi (or the master, or whatever) to do their normal seasonal task, while a single person gains XP equal to (Instructor's Ability level +3). The rules are listed in the core rulebook, under "Training". (They're right above the Teaching rules.) This style of instruction can be used for anything except actual Hermetic Arts.
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Magic Theory is useful mainly for the 1st season of setting up labs, which can be done by anyone with a Magic Theory of 3 (ie, no Gift required). This will get you a generic lab, which the magi must spend a season to personalize. Also, people with MT can act as copiers and scribes for magical texts. (Again, no Gift required, but you do need to have both MT and Scribe, I believe.) And as a practical matter, it means that whoever has the skill knows something about Hermetic Magic, and can actually have a conversation about it with the magi - which is useful in and of itself.
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The adventure season (going through Duremar) thing is fine - I was expecting him to mainly get 2 xp exposure. The general rules for "rummaging around Duremar and cataloging what you find" is essentially "spend a season, and roll Int+Magic theory".
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For wandering around (the other adventure) - Generally, he's running around for a season, looking for sources of Insight for local and low-level magics - this will likely be wise women, people with The Sight, dowsers, and so on. The actual practice will be him walking around with a local guide, going into towns, and casting his "Sense active magic" - along with simply having his guide ask "hey, are there any dowsers/wise women/etc. in the area? I've got a scholar who is researching this sort of stuff, and he's willing to pay for it" (coinage dependent on confirmation of ability) - this stuff is pretty out in the open, after all. The goal here, rather than actually getting Insight, is to get a LIST of possible sources to work from. (ie, "yeah, we've got a folk healer over in the village yonder. And Ol John Wall-Eye has the Sight, but only if he's drunk...hey, can't Miss Emily talk to robins? etc.")
In addition, he'd be looking at interesting local geographic features, and casting his "Detect Magic" spell in the area, and summoning the local spirits to talk to them about it. Incidentally, he may stumble across some vis at the same time, but he's not specifically looking for it.
4b. So rather than granting him a source of XP or Insight, he'd probably end up with 5 xp in Area Lore (Tribunal). However, the end result should be a list of "obviously magical places and openly-magical peasants in the surrounding area". Once he finds someone to study, the plan is to have him spend a season researching their ability (not taking them back to the Covenant - this type of research can be done in the field.)
- That being said, it's possible for him to stumble upon an interesting magical phenomena that he could ALSO study just for straight-up XP. That's a GM call though - but regardless, he wouldn't be studying them in that season: rather, he's making a list of things to study for later. The rules for studying magical phenomena for XP is in Covenents, in the Library section, in the back - basically, they act as a tractus. I would imagine that most vis sources could be studied like this, but it's a GM call.