Let's put this in terms of Covenants boons and hooks:
Difficult access (minor boon)
Seclusion (minor boon)
Urban (major hook) - city
Road (minor hook)
Urban (minor hook) - small market town
Thanks for all the details. To elaborate further, a couple of related questions:
Does the Hermetic specialization count towards the requirements for reading and writing texts?
Could one take the Hermetic specialization in conjunction with ones birth language of Romaic Greek?
Either way, that could free up a nice chunk of points if everyone agrees that we will focus on Greek texts.
- Yes, it would
- No, you can't specialize in something that is an attribute of anther ability, or which would come up very infrequently. If I take craft:goldsmithing I cannot specialize in swords.
I think that having Greek-only books would be a bad idea; it would certainly prevent "western-educated" magi from feeling welcome here, even if they are pro-Greek. Having said that, it sounds like we'll end up with a covenant that'll support multiple languages, at least as far as books goes; that will be costly in xp and limiting on what we can learn, but I'm actually perfectly fine with that. Collecting our library, though, will needs to be done carefully to prevent half the mages from being annoyed at a lack of reading material. There's a very good reason the Order went for latin as the universal solution!
Well, one of our specialists could be a translator. Or perhaps a companion specializing in this. Hmmm... that might even give us a nice niche for trade.
This will turn into interpersonal conflict, which I am glad to play out in such a way that will be creative and not disruptive.
Where I am at...
Don't care about Latin or making Latin speaking magi comfortable. They can bugger off and go back to France.
I favor Morena because of the lower Latin influence.
Stealth is another option besides politics. If I grant a Latin lord "sweet sleep of forever" (that is, murder him in a way that seems like natural causes), then there is no implication nor chance of bringing ruin on my sodales. Not saying that is what I plan, just that I could do that.
Sparta still exists. It was never a grand city, just a town of scattered buildings. Vresthena exists near Sparti, that is where my great grandfather is from. That is the site of the mines from which the stone to build old Sparta was quarried from.
So I vote not wilderness, not urban, but not the wild.
And I am really not planning secret assassinations. Do not worry.
:mrgreen:
[size=85](but that option is always on the table)[/size]
If we put our initial resources into books translation could be a purpose of the covenant, at least officially since it sounds a lot better than "We Young Turks wish to go out on our own and see what trouble we can get into"
Given I plan to make my Mercere a member of the milivi antiquiti (spelling probably not correct) book translation would be appropriate.
Book translation (and "book rescue" from those uncaring savages yonder) wouldn't upset my character. In fact, preservation of knowledge and art would be pretty high on his agenda, so I'm happy with the direction we're thinking so far.
I was planning a "bookworm" type magus who can read both Latin and Greek, so a book translation/book rescue covenant would suit him very well.
And we are outside of town because old manuscripts tend to be fragile and we want to keep them in a more controlled environment? Or do we want one of the Urban flaws?
Also we can presume our first source of income is as a scriptorium (where mundane scribes copy mundane texts).
At this point, there seems to be little desire for the covenant to be urban.
As for source of income, being a mundane scriptorium is an option, although there are many other possibilities. A farm of some sort (silk, goat/sheep, wine, olives) is always an interesting option, as it provides for some of our needs at the same time. Manufacturing tradable goods, whether for mundane or hermetic uses, is also interesting and can be improved on using magic. Book copying is only one if those. Others might include pottery, fabric from raw materials, metalwork, parchment, inks and pigments, furniture, and the list goes on.
Some are more innocious than others. No one investigates a prosperous farm too much, while smithies are ften watched carefully by mundane lords to make sure they don't sell to enemies.
We also don't have to be strictly one source of income, and a scriptorium fits well with the purpose of seeking out books, especially if there are magical texts which may be hidden within more mundane texts.
Yeah, we could always build in the Secondary Income virtue into the covenant. I think what that income should be would be based on the region the covenant would be in, and what the easiest would be there. A Scriptorum would be easy to transplant most places I would think.
It seems to me the key features would be
- ability to transport books in and out (especially fragile documents in) and
- availability of ink and either vellum or parchment
Both parchment and Vellum are made from animal skins (vellum from calfskin), ink has a wide variety of formulations, so having a dual income of scriptorium and some form of ranching/animal husbandry would make a great deal of sense, then we primarily need a location which is conducive to the safe transport of manuscripts.
And of course aura- a lot of "less than ideal" (commercially) locations can be justified in terms of getting a stronger aura.
For transport, anything within a few miles (say up to 20) of a coast would do the trick. So this could be a valley somewhere, where we either establish a sheep-raising farm or gain control of it in some way. The aura could be in a cave, a grove of trees, around a magical spring or in the ruins of a temple. The labs and scriptorium may or may not be at the same place as the farm.
While looking at some of the suggestions for location I came across a description of a roman aqueduct that flows out of the city of Patras about 6.5 km...what would that be? Four or five miles?..out into the countryside.
' One of these works was the Roman aqueduct, necessary in a populous city like Patras. It was the time that Patras was going through the most flourishing period in its history, occupying its position as Greece's gate to Italy. Romans constructed a large water reservoir at the sources of Romanos river, where Diakoniaris torrent rises. The reservoir was constructed in the form of an artificial dam at the beginning of the glade, at ten meters distance from the sources. A part of the initial wall of the dam is incorporated today at the base of the contemporary reservoir, while 20m away, inside the river's bed, there are large pieces of a strong wall. At the sources of Romanos River, as it derives from an inscription discovered last century, they worshiped Nymphs, deities of water. Patras' aqueduct, from the reservoir to the fortress, was 6.5km long. Water was transferred at its biggest part through a built ground pipe, passing through valleys and gullies on well-looked-after arches, parts of which survive till nowadays.'
Anyway, I thought that might be a nice compromise on location. It's close enough to a major port for the scriptorium but still exists at a bit of a distance from the city. The river would provide irrigation for the farm. A nymph could stand in for the covenant's patron.
Seems like the city was the seat of a Latin Archbishop ... has interesting political implications.
It would also be somewhat ironic to have a pro-Greek covenant located at the site of a Roman aqueduct.
But I think that in Greece, almost every river and stream would have nymphs at its source. Most nymphs are aligned to the Faerie realm rather than Magic. Would we find a faerie patron acceptable?
do rather like the tensions associated with a Greek-oriented Covenant, sponsored by a water-oriented faerie, located at a Roman Aqueduct, and under the supervision of a Latin-oriented bishop. Ought to make for some good stories.
Yours,
Joel
PS: I have a friend who teaches in the University at Patras, so I could ask for some tidbits about the area.