Covenant name

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Prestige of Thebes
1

It occurred to me that we're missing something very important for the covenant - a name. Any thoughts about that?

Thoughts off the top of my head:

Arethusa (the name of a nereid of a spring)
Hippocrene (the name of a magic spring)
Patras (dull, but relatively descriptive)
Pelion (the home of the great centaur educator Chiron)

In addition, as I was skimming through TSE and noted that every Theban covenant is publicly dedicated to a specific role or purpose. What is our purpose? The study of the spring? Education? Something else?

2

I like the idea of the name being Pelion and the purpose being education, for both mundanes and magi.

3

That has the added bonus that Pelion was a mountain, and we're situated on a mountain.

4

Pelion, and id love for us to be an educational center in our tribunal, especially considering the 7 year rotation we could polish an apprenntice to be or two while they wait.

5

Except the Pelion is the name of an actual place located elsewhere and really has nothing to do with us? We could use the name of our mountain (Panachaikon), or something related to the spring or the aqueduct.

Many covenants of Thebes use a name of their patron, but I don't find Charmion very appealing. No offense. :wink:

EDIT: The highest peak also has a name, Palavou Pyrgos, that we could use.

6

We had discussed a purpose earlier, that was essentially the discovery, transcription, and translation of books on magic. While we could convert that to education please keep in mind given the universal education of the Theban tribunal our own school is not (especially to begin with) really that exceptional.

7

Curse those Greeks for using real place names for their mythical place names!

That's not bad.

Does the spring have a name?

Agreed.

Also not a bad name.

I like the purpose silveroak mentions. It's more focused than simply education. And it explains the great book we have.

8

It was also called Vodias (Βοδιάς) in the middle ages.

Agreed. We might extend that to a specialty in recovering losts texts and restoring them.

For example, recovering texts written by Daedalus would certainly fit into my Verditius' theme.

9

Considering my Bonisagus's desire to break the limit, restoring and uncovering losts texts would be quite agreeable, considering SOMEONE cough cough Viea cough cough stole some of our shit.

10

I like Vodias and Pyrgos (shortened from Palavou Pyrgos) as names.

11

i bote Pyrgos

12

Pyrgos alone just means tower in Greek. Palavou Pyrgos is "Palavos' tower".

Personally, I like Panachaikon, though Vodias would also do.

13

I don't mind Panachaikon. It's a bit of a mouthful, but it's not bad.

14

It's Greek to me...
but really, being Greek, shouldn't it be a mouthful (this approach tends to frustrate my players in the game set in Ireland a lot...Gaelic names are both a puzzle and a mouthfull)

15

Better yet, try a Welsh game. The lack of vowels could confuse anyone not born in Wales.

16

So, should we put it to a vote? Or are there more proposals?

At the moment we have (I fixed some spelling):

  • Arethusa: The name of a nereid of a spring
  • Hippocrene: The name of a magic spring)
  • Patras: The name of the city
  • Pelion: The home of the great centaur educator Chiron (although this is an actual place located elsewhere)
  • Panachaiko: The modern name of our mountain (Greek: Παναχαϊκό, from παν-, "all" and αχαϊκόν, "Achaean")
  • Vodias: The period name of the mountain, it is also the modern name of the highest peak
  • Palavo Pyrgos: The name of one of the peaks of the mountain (roughly means "madman's tower")
  • Pyrgos: Which simply means "tower"
17

I voted. Thanks. I can live with any of the answers, so having a poll seems very much the right thing.

18

I agree. None of the names are awful. So it's just a matter of the best of a pretty decent lot.

19

Palavo Pyrgos looks like the winner. Even if the two remaining people pile votes on alternate favorites, it will have the most votes.

20

As one of the two remaining people I am quite happy with Palavo Pyrgos.