Covenant Development

Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Base Camp
369

If it weren't for the Aegis, I'd go with keeping the botch dice, since having rituals be risky seems to be about the right flavor. However, it just doesn't work for botches to be that likely with the Aegis--and I'm guessing most other rituals aren't even used often enough for anyone to bother mastering them.

I tend to think of it as being most useful in non-emergency situations, where you've got time to recover the fatigue.
[/quote]
Yes, I guess so. Not being a proper munchkin, I've never used it--but then, Viola has a way of avoiding casting spells...or engaging in Certamen...or pretty much anything else magical. :slight_smile:

Scott

370

Bah! What's the point in being a magus if you don't cast spells? Looks at the shear number of spontaneous spells Gregorius cast in the Barrows thread. I'm slightly amazed he didn't botch at all during that - he barely even rolled any zeroes. He'll probably start being a bit more cautious once he has a few nasty botches under his belt.

371

Here's my draft for a revised version of Tasia's lab.

Weirdly, the errata'ed lab Build Points rule makes it very difficult to buy a lab worth 10 or 20 points, unless it has a positive Refinement: if you balance the Virtues with Flaws, you get 0 points, and if you need an extra point of Size to install a Minor Virtue, you get 30 points, 20 for the size and 10 for the Virtue. Gregorius's lab doesn't have that difficulty because one Minor Virtue has already been paid for as a Magic Item. Viola's doesn't have that problem because she's leaving one point of space unused. It looks like Tasia went a similar route, leaving all the extra space vacant, so I'll just go with that--that'll make each of the three member labs 20 points.

Wow, there's something I missed before: Superior Equipment and Tools give Safety bonuses, while the Flawless varieties don't. I'm going to go ahead and start Tasia's out as Flawless, since it's easier for a new magus to downgrade than to upgrade.

Size: +1 (0)
Refinement: 0
General Quality +2
Upkeep: +2
Safety: 0
Warping: 0
Health: +2
Aesthetics:: +2

Specialtizations: +2 Vis Extraction, +1 Cr, +1 Ig, +1 Te

Minor Virtue: Spacious (+2 Safety, +1 Aesthetics)
Free Virtues: Flawless Equipment (+2 General Quality, +2 Upkeep, +2 Vis Extraction), Flawless Tools (+1 Upkeep, +2 Items), Magical Heating (-1 Upkeep, +1 Health, +1 Aesthetics, +1 Ig), Spotless (+1 Health, +1 Aesthetics, +1 Cr)
Minor Flaw: Awkward Shape (-2 Safety, -1 Aesthetics)

Scott

EDIT: I should probably add Subterranean as well. I'm trying to figure out if Viola's lab should have that, too (I PM'ed amul to see if I can get a better idea of the temple's layout), though I think she plans to add Magical Heating and Lighting in any case, which would make the underground location moot.

372

Aside from being older and wiser, Viola has a different perspective on botching, because she has a longer natural lifespan, which she'd rather take advantage of, instead of falling into an early Final Twilight. :slight_smile:

Scott

373

Agreed on adding subterranean to Tasia's lab. I don't think it's necessary for Viola's - there's nothing indicating it's underground.

374

Yes, it seems to be underground. One post places the mosaic basin in the ruined temple three feet below the current ground level; it would have been closer to the original surface, given the accumulation of layers over time, but it would still have to be recessed in order to act as a basin: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/escort-quests-after-death/304/1. The basin itself may or may not have been below ground, but the point is, that level of the original temple (the temple proper) was the ground floor. I'm sure it had steps leading up to it, in the normal Greek style, and so I suppose it might be more accurate to say that the temple proper was a few feet above ground level.

The room that Viola wants to use as a lab is downstairs from the main room of the temple: https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/escort-quests-after-death/304/1), and you have to walk through it to get to the stairs, and there's no mention of turning around behind the waterfall. That would allow the light to shine down the stairs. However, that would also place the underground floor at a point not underneath the ground floor, which is strange architecture, to say the least (it is a faerie regio, but it's supposed to be a copy of the original temple).

Scott

375

Apparently, as a result of plinth construction, the basements of Greek temples were typically at least partly above-ground. Of course, that doesn't necessarily imply windows for light and ventilation.

Scott

376

I've uploaded new maps of the cave levels. I adjusted the scale downwards to match the surface map, and then made the caves larger (the smaller scale made them too small), and added living quarters.

I tried embedding the images rather than linking to them, but in my browser at least (Firefox), that crops them on the righthand side, and anyway it clutters up the thread.

Note that we've actually got equipment for 11 labs, not 10--that lab on the second level of the caves was intact.

Scott

377

BTW, I found one more tidbit by accident when searching old posts: amul intended the fair in the children's regio within the barrows to be a source of a Secondary Income. He asked for suggestions on what product(s) might come from there. Any ideas?

Scott

378

Okay - agreed. I wouldn't insist on subterranean, but it looks reasonable that Viola's lab might have the flaw.

The obvious get a Secondary Income from the regio is to buy goods with a currency the fae value and we don't, and then to sell them on. There's several ways I can think of for that to go horribly wrong:

  • Goods could disappear after a time (can't be right after leaving the regio, obviously).
  • Goods could warp their purchasers (e.g. if we start selling faerie food).
  • Possession of goods could attract the attention of small fae, or lead to the spirits of children who die in the vicinity of the goods travelling to the regio and getting faeified.
  • It turns out that maybe we should have valued that thing we were selling...

Did I mention I'm paranoid when it comes to fae? The market is in a barrow.

The things in the fair seem to be mostly things on interest to children, which rules out something dull like firewood. Puppets is one option, but I'm not sure they'd have enough general interest to generate an income source. Food is almost certainly a bad idea. So...dunno?

Presumably whatever the source turns out to be, Viola has found it after being pointed at the regio when she gets back.

379

Viola will have to deal with it, yes, which mean someone else will have to SG. However, we can rule out the possiblities that the goods are illusory--this is supposed to be one of the two Secondary Income sources we purchased at startup.

Scott

380

If the covenant was on-selling fae crafted toys, games, board games, etc I could see those being worth silver to the right market. Say we assume the workmanship is wonderful, then artisan (or better) quality dolls would be worth a very high price, and were a common "toy" of the wealthy. Materials alone make them valuable.

What about more intangibles like songs or stories?

aelflaed.homemail.com.au/doco/to ... nmake.html

381

There wouldn't be enough rich people locally to make toys a useful source of income, but they could be traded to distant locations.

Songs or stories, in medieval times, don't have monetary value in themselves: people pay the person who sings or tells one, not the author.

Scott

382

I don't have any ideas for a story to run on this at the moment - either someone else can, or we can just assume it happens in the background?

383

We could just make some Faerie Lore and Bargain rolls, if that's what you like--I'm not sure there's much of story to tell there. (Actually, amul had somewhere he was going with the regio, but I'm not sure how well his original idea would work.)

Scott

384

I lied: I'll do it tonight. How does this sound for Fray's lab?

Lab Stats:

Size: 0 (0)
Refinement: 1
Base Safety: 1
General Quality: +1
Upkeep: +3
Safety: +2
Warping: 0
Health: -1
Aesthetics: +1
Specializations: +1 Items, +1 Vis Extraction, +1 Mu, +1 Ig, +1 Te

Minor Virtue: Lesser Feature (Still) (+1 Aesthetics, +1 Mu)
Free Virtues: Magical Heating (-1 Upkeep +1 Aesthetics, +1 Ig)*, Superior Equipment (+1 General Quality, +2 Upkeep, +1 Safety, +1 Vis Extraction), Superior Tools (+1 Upkeep, +1 Safety, +1 Items)
Free Flaw: Subterranean (+1 Upkeep, -1 Health, -1 Aesthetics, +1 Te)**

Lab Enchantments
None

  • Note that there's no Health bonus for Magical Heating in this case, because the hypocaust already gives a +1 Living Conditions modifier.
    ** Magical Lighting will remove the Subterranean Flaw.

Scott

385

Lab stats look good. Thank you.

386

You're welcome. If I were designing a lab for Viola, I'd want to take a few Flaws that give bonuses to useful Arts, but those tend to cause Safety penalties--being able to deal with those is actually one of the big benefits of having a familiar.

Scott

387

Playing catch-up atm here - any place particular I should start? At the beginning (26 pages back!)?, or somewhere more practical you'd suggest?

Anything I can do to help in any way?

388

If you look at the "Covenant" page, that should summarise most of the final decisions made in this thread. The story threads affecting the general course of the covenant are, in approximate order (some of them happen in the middle of others), "Journey to Nowhere", "Relations with the Locals", "The Haunted Covenant", "Fixing the Plumbing" (ish), and now the current "Still Caverns Run Deep".

There's also a separate plot of Viola's that runs through "A Faerie Regio in the Temple to Neptune", "The Palace under the Waves" and the current "Crafting a Song". This has occasional repercussions to the rest of the story, but is largely self-contained. The grog story I just posted a query for interest in is spun off from this plot, but it's entirely plausible for the grogs not to know most of what's been going on (although that said, Bogdan and Godzimir were in Faerie Regio and Theodoric was in Palace. Their knowledge in these cases can be more of less summed up as "The maga wanted to capture a horse, so we spent several days trekking round the countryside" and "We went to an undersea Palace in a swimming dolphin submersible which Viola had a bad reaction to".