Covenant Discussion

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Via Experimenta
381

Here is my list... I'll put it on the wiki, but I don't forsee any changes.

I will be cleaning this up/fixing formatting, etc when I post these to the Wiki. These are printouts from MetaCreator. And I do have a fairly comprehensive listing of everyone's build points in the file, although some of the recent changes of vis sources haven't made it into the file, yet. I can share this with whomever is interested.

Enchanted Items
Stone-Cutting Knife 15
Effect Name: Cut Stone: ReTe 15, R: Touch, D: Mom, T:
Part (GL 2, +1 stone, +1 Touch, +1 Part, +10 unlimited uses);
Magical Laborers: 3
Total: Build Points: 6 15

Library
The Subtle Perturbations of Vim 25
Type: Summa; Total Quality: 10; Quality: 10; Level: 5;
Topic: Finesse; Language: Latin; Author: Mathieus of
Constantinople
Another Face in the Crowed 20
Type: Summa; Total Quality: 10; Quality: 10; Level: 10;
Topic: Imaginem; Language: Latin; Author: Mathieus
Excersies of Self Defense 11
Type: Tractatus; Total Quality: 12; Quality: 11; Topic:
Finesse; Language: Greek; Quality Bonus: +1
Excersies of Precision 11
Type: Tractatus; Total Quality: 12; Quality: 11; Topic:
Finesse; Language: Greek; Quality Bonus: +1
Exercises in Elegance 11
Type: Tractatus; Total Quality: 12; Quality: 11; Topic:
Finesse; Language: Greek; Quality Bonus: +1
Exercises in Embellishment 11
Type: Tractatus; Total Quality: 12; Quality: 11; Topic:
Finesse; Language: Greek; Quality Bonus: +1
Total 89
((As a covenant warming present for his filius's new covenant in the Rhein, Mathieus has translated his own work, and this is th e only known copy of the text in Latin, all others are in Ancient Greek. Praxiteles then went on to collect the commentaries from those who had written tractatus on Mathieus's work, but those are in Greek, and will, at some point, be translated by Praxiteles.
Another face in the crowd will be received at some point later, either before or after resolving the Favor flaw involving Mathieus and is not related to the idea I have for the favor flaw.))

Lab Texts Level
The Leap of Homecoming ReCo35
Seven-League Stride ReCo30
Burning Issue of the Day ReMe30
Cloak of the Duck's Feathers ReAq5 (Greek)
Coils of the Entangling Plants ReHe20
Curse of the Unruly Tongue ReCo5
Ward Against Flame ReIg15
Aegis of the Hearth ReVi30
Ominous Levitation of the Weighty Stone ReTe15
Comfort of the Drenched Traveler, PeAq 5 (Greek)
Aegis of Unbreakable Wood MuHe15
Ritual Communion MuVi20 (Greek)
Total: Build Points: 45 225

Vis Sources:
Corpus, 8 pawns, to be determined later ((since we don't have a corpus specialist until Gulla resurfaces, I figured what better way than to woo an LR specialist to help us than with a rather large vis source. I see this source being the primary method of payment for advanced LRs, and we don't actually harvest much of any of the vis ourselves. Things could change if/when Gulla resurfaces.))

Money
Approximately 300 pounds worth of items. 150 pounds of which is raw slabs of stone of various types and sizes Praxiteles has acquired and had transported to either his home or Laurus Argenti. Another portion is his home, as well, as soon as I can figure out what a reasonable price would be for a large home in Koblenz is...

I'll try putting things on the wiki tonight. But you know me... :smiley:

382

We'll already have lab texts for these in the library, thanks to spells known by Petronius.

Is this a version for rituals (aptly renamed Ritual Communion)? If so, we'll already have a copy because Petronius knows that.

Still haven't from Archimedes regarding his version of Wizard's Communion, but his veriosn was lvl 20 right now, so if he doesn't change it to a D:Sun variant, we'd also have that one.

Just let me know if you want me to do part of it.

383

Well, the easiest method to resolve duplicates for Cloak of the Duck's Feathers and Ritual Communion 20 is to say that they are in Ancient Greek, so that's pretty straightforward to solve. :smiley:

The Aegis 20 can be put into the pool of points of undeclared lab texts, which is rather large, IIRC.

384

We can do that. :slight_smile:

Actually, all the lab texts from active players have been declared, so we no longer have an undeclared pool. :smiley:

I'd suggest something like Aura of Rightful Authority (ReMe 20) or The Weightless Menhir (MuTe 20, from ToME p.12).

Or that version of Aegis could also be in Ancient Greek.

385

Ok, I'm sure I can come up with something.

I don't have ToME (that's Tales of Mythic Europe, if I'm sussing it out, correctly) Can you detail that spell at all?

386

This item could actually be made less expensive if enchanted as a single effect (PeTe with Co and He requisites). It is, after all, basically all the same effect (destroy something). Increases the level of the effect by 10 (for 2 requisites) to level 20. You can raise the number of uses per day to 24/day, for a total enchantment level of 25 (instead of 45). With the lab text, you only need a lab total of 25 to be able to enchant it, so this could be a lesser enchantment and save many pawns of vis.

387

So I reviewed my purchases on e23 and (read, I went to e23 to buy ToME, but) I discovered I had purchased it already. Id probably be more inclined to pick a PeTe spell that does this, and therefore doesn't need a requisite. IMO, the spell The Weightless Menhir should actually turn the stone into a feather (requiring a requisite), and therefore no better than the PeTe guideline. I can see howmthismwould be favored by Petronius, but it wouldn't be favored by Praxiteles. Nice try. :smiley:

388

Well, actually I don't have ToME, so I didn't have the spell description. I was strictly going by the spell's name and figured this could be something useful to Praxiteles to move his pebbles around. :wink:

And indeed, a PeTe would do the job just as well, as would ReTe with a more powerful version of Unseen Porter. That last would be my choice, actually. :smiley:

But it's not a pre-defined spell from a book, and I understood that we were trying to avoid non-canonical spells at saga start. So I'll just wait until we start play to have Petronius invent something like Levitating the Massive Boulder. Will be useful to Petronius as well to move things around when exploring dark caves and ruins. :slight_smile:

389

For moving bigger rocks about, I recommend Ominous Levitation of the Weighty Stone (HoH: S. p. 38) - it's not just for killing people, and since it's targetted, it works well with a finesse specialist.

390

Indeed, OLofWS is a better match. I was just trying to suggest a spell of the same level. :slight_smile:

391

I added Ominous Levitation and Comfort of the Drenched Traveler, renamed Wizard's Communion to Ritual Communion, and then identified which texts are in Greek.

392

Copied over to the wiki.

I'm a bit confused by the Quality Bonus. Is the Quality 11 or 12? For the wiki I went with 11 since that's the build points cost, but I can change it.

Anything that would be considered private build points? I assume the "money" (house and stones) is private, but that's just 30 bp.

393

I actually haven't spent his private build points, yet.

Commentaries (page 90) are books about other books. They get a +1 quality bonus which doesn't affect build point cost. They may not be read (for benefit) until the book (summa) they rely on has been studied for at least a season.

The printout from MetaCreator doesn't properly label those books, and I didn't edit the list before I posted it, but I did detail that these books on Finesse are Commentaries on the Finesse summa. They are Quality 12.

I'm still ruminating on personal build points. Get off my back! :smiley:

394

I'll adjust the wiki to reflect this.

What? No storyguide rodeo? :laughing:

395

Well, like I've alluded to before, my opinion is we're all story guides here. Primarily for our own characters. I think of this as being something closer to collaborative story writing rather than a true game. We each have much more control over our characters... Except when we don't and then we can go to each other for something closer to a gaming experience than a story...

396

That just means that a storyguide rodeo would that much more... contorted. :wink: :laughing:

397

It's a group thing... :smiley:

398

I think we now have all the resources of major import to begin planning out our major arcs for our characters...
So, do we want to have the discussion IC or OOC?

399

I think a mix of the two might be best.

We'll need at least a first council meeting to establish priorities for the covenant.

  • The title of disceptator is by Hermetic seniority and lasts for 7 years, so for now I think the order would be Aedituus, Petronius, Praxiteles and Titus Aurelius.
  • What constitutes "sufficient" stores of vis in each of the Arts.
  • What kind of tasks the covenant would need to be accomplished (such as setting up visitor labs, enchanting items, etc.)
  • The Aegis and how to cast a more efficient one. Do we cast it only at the primary site or do we want to protect the secondary site and/or Praxiteles' house?

This does not have to be in character, but we will need to know. It could be OOC with a few IC quotes inserted here and there.

I would think that the magi may share their short-term study goals, to better coordinate the use of some resources like books and teachers.

Re-reading Jonathan's message, I guess he is also talking about planning the stories...

400

Note that if we find that the duration of a term as disceptator is too long, or if we'd rather have a different rotation, we can always change the Charter. This would have been discussed by the magi before the Charter was finalized.

I may also me wrong about the rotation order. As far as I understood, the Hermetic seniority of the magi at saga start (1184) are:

  • Aedituus (10 years pg)
  • Petronius (7 years pg)
  • Praxiteles (4 years pg)
  • Titus Aurelius (3 years pg)