For development of the as of yet unamed covenant.
Some suggestions for hooks that seem fiting.
- Minor, Erratically Mobile
- Major, Demonic Interest (For interdict areas)
- Minor, Heretics (For interdict areas)
- Missing Aura/Other Aura Hook
- Minor, Public Vis Source (Appropaite for Roman Tribunal)
For boons I suppose it would depend a little on how we imagine it. What our source of income is will determine a lot (Crime? Merchandise? Sponsorship?). How we move between regions could also affect things (Caravan? Magical means?). And what sort of magi we create as well.
Minor, Boon: Informants
Major, Boon: Exceptional Book
I think heretics or demonic interest is getting ahead of ourselves. Public vis source implies we have a vis source. I was thinking we should probably take struggling as a beginning flaw as we are just starting out. We might want to base a lot of elements of the covenant around the characters. I don't think we need to go defining a whole host of virtues and flaws for what will be a covenant just starting out- erratically mobile and no aura are going to be the essential ones in my opinion, which means we should figure out about four points in virtues that are appropriate before we go off loading ourselves down with more flaws.
Not sure where we would have gotten an exceptional book... informants within the Vatican would certainly explain how we keep up on where to move.
I think a papal bureaucracy informant is a great idea, as it would make a lot of sense for how we are moving about knowing about the interdicts. Looking at the lists of boons, it seems hard to find some ntil we know what form the covenant takes.
I suggest a trading group as our mundane cover, to be a merchant caravan and trading house or something similar. Gives us a reason to have stuff we move about and to have weirdos and non-settled people without being automatically hated everywhere we set up shop.
That could be difficult, the trading culture of 13th century Italy is very Insular, and probably has redcaps already woven throughout. Also we want a cover that can come in, stay a while, set down roots and then move on without raising eyebrows.
A troupe of entertainers could do that.
Alternatively, if we wanted a stranger cover, we could masquerade as religious pilgrims, supposedly working to rehabilitate those placed under interdict, and that would explain why we move on once the Divine aura is back on.
A kind Parens could have gifted his/her apprentice a copy of a book.
A troupe of entertainers would be another interesting option!
Entertainer does seem like the easiest to fake. It would translate to a source of income as well. Pilgrims seems hard to make financially available. But you could have a source of income removed from the façade I suppose.
So, traveling players? A very quick look at 12th-century entertainment seems to be that jesters did travel around and provide entertainment, but I admit it is an area of vast ignorance to me.
According to Wikipedia "It is also known that mimes, minstrels, bards, storytellers, and jugglers travelled in search of new audiences and financial support."
This is a good excuse to have a number of wagons as well, which makes moving much easier. One might even be a very tiny lab. Good opportunity to influence a society as well. Put on plays that subtle mock the Pope or promotes noble pagan heroes etc.
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I like the idea of being something like this. We could even set up just outside towns and cities as a semi permanent fair and entertainment, allowing us to have a little more room
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There are a few downsides, namely:
- having to perform: having the Gift makes it hard to be a popular performer, and legitimate performance skills are a drag on what we would rather be doing
- performers were often seen as being little better than criminals at best, and sometimes were assumed to be criminals or in league with them
- traveling performers were certainly a thing, performers sticking around for a while, especially if audiences got thinner, was generally not.
I think we need to consider what kind of professionals would legitimately be attracted to or in demand in a city that was under interdict, since that is the one thing we will be responding to anyways. I have read a number of accounts of cities constructing artwork (especially religious artwork) while under interdict, but I don't know if that is common enough to warrant having a group travel in response. Additionally, architects would be known to travel since they didn't generally work on day-to-day buildings but focused instead on grand buildings which could take years to construct. The downside there is obviously we would need to persuade one of the powers that be in the area to spend money building a new building wherever we went. The obvious and ironic possibility is "as long as people aren't allowed to come to church might be a good time to rebuild". Another option is if we arrange for churches to fall around the same time an interdict is laid and then take the work to restore them... it could even give people the feeling there is no rush to get the interdict lifted since they don't have a church anyways.
Architecture means at least one person is heavily invested, as it requires several skills. And/or Hermetic Architecture.
Plus, it might have that person tied to a location long after the interdict is lifted. Since some structures take decades to build.
I was thinking of switching to an architect and mason verditious, so could cover that and the craft skill is something I was going to be nvesting in heavily anyway.
- I imagine we wouldn’t perform ourselves, rather have a few covenfolks do it. Its probably not something we would be trained in after all. We might write the plays or take other administrator roles.
- Plays were often performed by clergy (until 1210) I am not sure they would have the same sinister reputation.
- This is obviously true and nothing you can do about.
Masons isn’t a bad suggestion, but I can see many downsides to it as well.
- There is an international mason guild which we would quickly make our enemy and must directly compete with.
- Secondary it’s a very large number of worker activity. Logistic thus becomes difficult.
- Masonry needs loads of other guilds to work with us. Stonecutters, blacksmith, carpentry.
- As @Red-Shadow-Claws says it’s an awful slow progress. And workers would usually settle down in the area where they constructed whatever building. This would mean we need a constant stream of recruitment of laborers. Which would further put us in conflict with the mason guild.
If you go architect, we can have either one of us be Gentle Gifted with social skills to get you hired, or, maybe have a companion do that.
One could become a member of the guild