The transfer of information is assigned to a redcap known to do only Magvillus business.
As far as Cornelius can tell, this is really Magvillus he is communicating (down to the ink dot after the third word in line 3 that is used to identify instructions among quaesitores in these years). The instructions come from the Magvillus Council secretary,a young Magvullus mage named Pietro ex Guernicus. The letter requesting information on how to send the arcane connection has a postscript signed by the Prima in which she commends him for being suspicious.
Unless there are instructions to keep this setup secret from the other magi of the covenant, Cornelius plans on informing them of the existence of the mailbox at the next council meeting. (Probably the same meeting where we will discuss our plans for the Tribunal meeting.)
season: roll stress dice to find a vis source: you'll get exposure xp
<7 no vis source found: 2p of aquam vis acquired (fairie wine)
7 to succeed 1p form vis
8 1p technique vis source
9 2p form vis source
10 2p technique vis source
11 3p form vis source
12 3p technique vis source
13 4p form vis source
14+ 4p technique vis source
Future rolls may vary - finding new sources will become more and more difficult
It is 1 per year. After only 4 years, this will be worth more than a season in the lab extracting vis.
If you want to decide yourself which technique you want, you'll have to come up with what exactly it is and how it is harvested. Otherwise, I'll come up with something. Unless you write something differently, we'll simply assume that harvesting can be done by a grog (automatic success - at the beginning of each new year, simplified for bookkeeping reasons).
You can increase the vis source vis to 2p/a if
the vis source requires a special spell to harvest the source (which takes at least a season to invent)
OR
the grogs harvesting it require a lesser item to do so (e.g. a rod that makes the magical horse fall asleep so his 3 golden hairs can be plucked out)
OR
A magus has to spend a full season harvesting. Harvesting doesn't have to be done annually - unused vis accumulates (e.g. a farie smith who creates a farie painting once a year)
You mentioned that we get exposure xp for the season of searching for sources. Can it count as a practice season for Area Lore (5 to 7xp) or in the local language (8 xp) instead?
Proposed description of the vis source Cornelius found in fall 1220:
The Ledge of Echoes: About two miles west of Chilhac, far above Lavoûte-Chilhac and the priory of Sainte-Croix, there a ledge of rock with an overhang, almost impossible to reach without the use of magic. The ledge is fairly small, barely wide enough for three people to sit there and a weak magical aura (2) can be detected here. The echoes of the activities from the village reach here due to the peculiar acoustics of the mountain and winds, so that snatches of conversations can be heard clearly, as can the daily hymns of the monks. These sounds appear to crystallize into small delicate shells, like those of snail. When one brings a shell close to his ear and warms it with his hand, a snatch of conversation or song can be heard. One thing that may not be realized initially is that not all of these come from words that were actually uttered; some were were never uttered, sometimes revealing a secret thought captured from afar.
A year's worth of accumulated shells is worth 1 pawn of Intellego vis. The shells can accumulate for some time, but winter storms can blow them away from the ledge so it is best to harvest them in the fall. The shells must be handled with care, as they are very delicate and damaging them release their echoes and magic.
Sure thing - I was reading through the phenomena rules, and it SOUNDS like almost every vis souce could conceivably be a phenomena, if the Order wasn't stripping them every season. It seems like low-level vis sources like this are more effective as learning sources, rather than vis sources, if that's the case.
Alternately, it could be a 2p/year, if you needed to fly up to the ledge to get it.
Just reread the relevant section of Covenants and these would actually be called significatos, which is one of the two types of phenomena (the other being realia).
Sure, the site could be hard enough to reach that Cornelius had to ask one of the other (probably Bastion) to help him get to it using Lifting the Dangling Puppet, for example.
I'll wait to see what Pralix thinks of the source, as well as what the initial harvest was, before adding it to the wiki.
EDIT: I modified the description slightly, adding the inaccessible part and also the twist that some of the words captured by the shells are actually thoughts, not simply sounds.
You don't have to design a spell for it, because Bastion already has one.
So if collecting vis takes him long enough to lose his season, because the shells are hard to harvest, it's a two point source. Otherwise it's one. Creating a cloak of flying would of course allow you to send a grog instead.
I like the site, but since it is on the ground, the aura below it is Dominion 2. Only furthe rup does it become magical.
Start with 3p of In Vis that can be taken during the first havest (if Cornelius managed to harvest it somehow).
The site can theoretically be used to learn from as well, but only in situ: Hanging in mid-air for weeks so close an abbey might raise an eyebrow or two, of course.
Actually, the site is about 1 mile away from the priory, not close to it at all. It is only the sounds of the priory and the village that reaches there, due to the strange magical acoustics of the place. One can look down at the village of Lavoûte-Chilhac as well, but the site is higher up on the mountain's flank.
(Lavoûte-Chilhac is about 1.5 mile west of Chilhac, as the bird flies, while the vis source is 0.5 mile further west on the mountain.)
Hm. Might still be Dominion - I was under the impression that the Dominion aura spread as far as you could hear the churchbells; a mile and a half isn't that far for a decent-sized bell. However, at that range, it might just be a Dominion 1 aura competing with a Magic 2/3 aura.
