Covenant Discussion

Another update of the covenant build points, to include the preliminary list Kilgs provided.

I will repost an update as other players chime in and/or review their contributions.

If you decide on the magical animal trainer, the secondary site might be just right for that magus. It is an old Roman farm (or villa) overlooking the Rhine river, about 1 mile northeast from the main site. There would be more space to keep and train animals than at the main site, and is where the aerie for travelling Bjornaer may be sited (although that remains to be decided).

The same could be said of a magus who wants to build a flying ship -- you'd need more space to work, so the secondary site might be better for you.

Here is what I am proposing to do with my allotment of build points:

Vis Sources:
[list]3 pawns Mentem vis from the cobwebby remnants of the area’s ghosts (15 bp)
4 pawns Imaginem vis from a pool (details to come) (20 bp)

Library:
Mentem Summa (L15Q10) On Ghosts and Those Left Behind (25 bp)
Auram Summa (L15Q12) World’s Breath (27 bp)
Rego Summa (L18Q12) Understanding Movement and Stillness (30 bp)
Terram Summa (L15Q10) Uncovering the Earth’s Bones (25 bp)
Enigmatic Wisdom Tractatus (Q10) On Questioning (10 bp)
Three Volume Arcane Tractati (Q10 x3) On Fluid Interactions (Magic Theory); On Subtle Manipulations (Finesse); On Sharp Insinuation (Penetration) (30 bp)

Lab texts for 100 levels of spells (20 bp)
Lab texts for 20 levels of enchanted items (8 bp)

Personal Items:
Enigmatic Wisdom Summa (L5Q8) Circles in Infinity (23 bp)
Dominion Lore Tractatus (Q11) Angels in the Architecture (11 bp)
Enchanted Item: wooden candlestick with Lamp without Flame (Base 4, +1 Concentration, +5 item maintains concentration = Level 10 effect) (4 bp)
Lab texts for 50 levels of spells (10 bp)
10 pawns of vis (2 bp)
[/list:u]

Added to the list. There was a discrepency between the number of levels for lab texts of enchantment and the number of build points, so I used the number of build points as the correct number.

I've noticed that some areas are over-covered in the build points (mostly in the library), so I thought I would post a second list of the resources, but consolidated by type.

Vis sources:

Laboratories:

  • Minor Virtue "Extensive Stores" (+2 Safety) on the shared lab.

Library:

  • Art Summae:[list]
    [*]Creo summa (L20Q11) The Fundaments of Creation (31 bp)
  • Intellego summa (L9Q11) Investigating the World (20 bp)
  • Rego summa (L18Q12) Understanding Movement and Stillness (30 bp)
  • Animal summa (L15Q11) The Beast Within (26 bp)
  • Auram summa (L15Q12) World's Breath (27 bp)
  • Corpus summa (L20Q11) The Human Body (31 bp)
  • Mentem summa (L15Q10) On Ghosts and Those Left Behind (25 bp)
  • Terram summa (L15Q10) Uncovering the Earth’s Bones (25 bp)
  • Terram summa (L23Q8) The Chains of Solidity (31 bp) -- Petronius private resource
  • Vim summa (L12Q10) The Manipulations of Mystical Forces (22 bp)
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Arts Tractatus:
  • Creo tractatus (Q10x2) (20 bp)
  • Intellego tractatus (Q11) (11 bp)
  • Perdo tractatus (Q11) (11 bp)
  • Rego tractatus (Q10) On Displacement (10 bp)
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Abilities Summae:
  • Enigmatic Wisdom summa (L5Q8) Circles in Infinity (23 bp) -- Aedituus private resource
  • (High) German summa (L4Q8) (20 bp)
  • Magic Lore summa (L5Q8) A Compendium of Magical Beasts, Spirits and Sites (23 bp)
  • Magic Theory summa (L8Q11) Fundamental Advances in Magic (35 bp)
  • Penetration summa (L5Q11) Ultor ("The Avenger") (26 bp) from HoH:S p.9
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Abilities Tractatus:
  • Artes Liberales tractatus (Q10x2) (20 bp)
  • Dominion Lore tractatus (Q11) Angels in the Architecture (11 bp) -- Aedituus private resource
  • Enigmatic Wisdom tractatus (Q10) On Questioning (10 bp)
  • Finesse tractatus (Q10) On the Interactions between Forms and Techniques, Volume 2 (10 bp)
  • Magic Theory tractatus (Q10x5) (50 bp)
  • Magic Theory tractatus (Q10) On the Interactions between Forms and Techniques, Volume 1 (10 bp)
  • Order of Hermes Lore tractatus (Q8) An Early History of the Order of Hermes (8 bp)
  • Penetration tractatus (Q10) On the Interactions between Forms and Techniques, Volume 3 (10 bp)
  • Philosophiae tractatus (Q10x2) (20 bp)
    [/:m]
    [
    ]Lab Texts:
  • Lab texts for 475 levels of spells (95 bp)
  • Lab texts for 50 levels of spells (10 bp) -- Aedituus private resource
  • Lab texts for 95 levels of spells (19 bp) -- Petronius private resource
  • Lab texts for 235 levels of spells (47 bp) -- Hippocrates private resource
  • Lab text for 74 levels of enchanted item (15 bp)
    [/*:m][/list:u]
    Enchanted Items:
  • Wooden candlestick with Lamp without Flame (Base 4, +1 Concentration, +5 item maintains concentration = Level 10 effect) (4 bp) -- Aedituus private resource

Specialists:

Money: 100 pounds.

One thing I've noticed is that for Magic Theory, we have a L8Q11 summa + [strike]8 different[/strike] 6 different Q10 tractatus (EDIT: 2 of the Magic Theory tractatus were replaced by 1 Finesse and 1 Penetration). That seems like a lot to me. I would suggest replacing some of those tractatus (and/or lowering the level of the summa) to add some different Arcane Abilities like Code of Hermes, Faerie Lore, Finesse, Infernal Lore, Parma Magica* or Penetration.
[size=85]* I'm not a big fan of Parma Magica books, for secrecy reasons, but depending on how this is treated here it may be appropriate.[/size]

We also have a duplication between a private and shared resource regarding Terram. I may change the private resource for something else since this impacts only my magus.

We have some very high-level summae. Covenants (p.20) describes the "Exceptional Book" Major External Relations Boon as a Art book with a Level+Quality of 35, with a max Level of 20. We have 4 different books with a Level+Quality of 30 or more. Does this make sense for a Spring covenant?

We have 8 different vis sources, many of them fairly small. Do we want to consolidate some of them into stronger sources? For example, the Ignem source (Gemlight) could changed to Imaginem and merged with the other Imaginem source for a total strength of 7 pawns a year. It all depends on how many sources are appropriate. Right now we have 32 pawns per year for 4 to 6 magi (2 have not specified their build points). That makes for 5 to 8 pawns per year per magus, before the Aegis and other covenant needs.

[
Thank you!
Hopefully this will help me spend my allotted points.

Agreed, more or less.
I think I'll just spend the points to get Ultor (from HoH: S) though.

Which is actually 'low Vis' :wink:
I plan to buy spend ore points on Vis sources (I will need Vis to spend).
However, I generally favour having a wide spread of Vis sources, rather than consolidating.

Wow.
When listed like that, we have quite a library for a Spring covenant. I'm not too worried about that, as some of us have several years of experience already, and we do get gifts from other covenants in the tribunal. I'm thinking about changing a couple items I listed, just to diversify.

Arthur, I was thinking about taking a lab improvement (communal as well as personal) if possible, but I could not find any build point conversions. How did you determine that the Extensive Stores was worth 10 bp? Is there anything else in particular that we would want for the shared lab?

I'll also fix the bp total for Aedituus. The 220 was an accident. :blush:

What's Ultor? I browsed through HoH:S but didn't find it.

Well, we are in the Rhine Tribunal, where the Great Library is accessible. So it makes sense that covenants have easier acces to books in order to build their libraries.

Covenants quotes the following prices for labs:

  • Extra labs: 50 bps each;
  • Non-standard lab: [list][*]Size x 20 bps;
  • Major Virtue: 20 bps;
  • Minor Virtue: 10 bps
    [/*:m][/list:u]
    Note that we currently have extra space for sancta and labs, but no extra lab as such. So any visitor would be without a lab.

In theory, we should pay the shared lab -- 50 for the extra lab, plus 60 to 100 pbs for its size (+3 if only using ground floor space, +5 if using the balcony).

No problem! :smiley:

Arthur, I re-added my points, and I get 175 for the library, not 185, so I think I am okay.

I'll pull back two volumes of the Magic Theory Tractatus, and add one on Finesse and one on Penetration; the idea is still a three volume set.

Actually, I think it was my fault. When I initially added your section, I did so by copy-pasting mine, where there was a Q10 tractatus that I forgot to remove. I later removed it, but forgot to recalculate the total.

Updating both the by-character and by-type posts.

Just a thought, but...

Where do all of these Q10 and Q11 tractatus come from? Remember that tractatus quality is Com +6 (with another +3 for Good Teacher). So either there's a lot of Com +4 people out there, or many Com +1 Good Teachers. I would expect to generally see a lot of Q6 to Q9 tractatus, with a few Q11 to Q14 ones.

...just saying. :wink:

Or they could be degraded copies of original works. Retired copies from the Great Library... We would just need to (for my anal retentiveness) establish the original quality... And I wouldn't be averse to having some stories that we go back and correct/repair a tractatus (a few, not all) up to original source quality.

HoH: S, p. 9, box.
Summa on Penetration (L5, Q11) by the second apprentice of Flambeau. A classic. :slight_smile:

Added to both lists. If you decide to swap it out when you finalize your build points, I'll remove it. :slight_smile:

I signed up for Obsidian Portal a little while ago, so would you like me to add some stuff on it? Like the build points, boons and hooks, maps... I assume you need to authorize me or something (my sign-in is "Arthur210").

Note that unfortunately that site won't be accessible to me from work, so that will limit my ability to update stuff. As previously mentioned, I would have preferred a plainer wiki like Referata (which is not blocked). But I can certainly live with O.P. so if you still want to use it that's perfectly fine.

I am okay with either direction. I have a 4ed character slug for my OP campaign, located here, if that is helpful.

We can host this wherever. I have an ascendant membership at Obsidian Portal, so I wanted to use that. My main point of issue is that I don't want to have to set up a wiki somewhere else. I'll use one, but someone needs to set it up if Obsidian Portal is too much of a hassle for others.

I can set up a Referate wiki if you want. It doesn't take much time and it support Semantic MediaWiki (which makes searching easier).

That sounds fine.

I'm going to highjack the chamberlain and personal teacher with two of my own concepts... Those belonged to Kelloppy, so I don't think it is an issue.

Laurent will be our chamberlain, recommended by Henri De Tours.
Luca, is a local boy enamored of Praxiteles and his Art. His father is a glass maker, who recently relocated to the area since the beech trees in this area have restored themselves, and their previous location had exhausted its supply of birch.
Sophronia will be a loremistress, brought from Thebes by Praxiteles, indeed everyone else will be Greek, and so learning the local language will be key to a large contingent of people upon arriving.
Demetrius fancies starting a vineyard, but couldn't find backing in Thebes. His production efforts have been stellar, but his quantities have been minuscule. He will be preparing wines for the covenant, only, but they will be spectacular.
Leon, as his name implies is as brave as a lion and was given to Praxiteles as a shield grog. Unfortunately, Praxiteles is adept at avoiding situations calling for combat, and the two have found that they share a love of good food and wine and seek to outdo the other.
Monica is the personal cook and maid for Praxiteles and Ailips. She is beautiful and shy, a brilliant cook but humble. Visiting Jerbiton will attempt to steal her away from Praxiteles...