Covenant of the old North - Discussion

I agree that an exceptional book is difficult to justify story-wise, but this is really true for many virtues and all the build points. During fifteen years of apprenticeship our characters have had no personal economy or facilities whatsoever. How could they suddenly get the resources to found anything resembling a covenant? OK, I grant you that the four virtues you list are relatively easy to justify, but given the build points I consider the exceptional book to be only a minor stretch of plausibility at worst.

The exceptional book is also independent of poverty, which really concerns mundane resources. Making money out of an exceptional book is possible, but it takes some skilled diplomacy to make a reliable living. Play it badly, and the whole world has copied the book within a few years. I don't think exceptional book is going to soften the poverty.

However, your proposal is a fine selection too. It is one minor boon short of John's calculations.

I can't find the thread where you asked the question on Magical Memory and Art of Memory. I have a character with Magical Memory and it is of little use and was more for the campaign setting. In that campaign, the Magi are isolated from the Order and could be on the run.

Art of memory works well if we could travel to other Covenants and read in their libraries.

I think we would not have the exceptional book for long. Considering we are in a war zone and not terribly far from Horsingas.

I will go with the majority on the book.

We do not fit the description of Difficult access. Seclusion might work( minor site boon). I like Strong Community( minor residence boon). If we want to have fun we can go with Inhuman residents ( minor residence boon).

Unless we found one. Which defending it as a bunch of young Magi could be fun or a headache. I'll go with whatever.

For those who get lost in the discussion, I'll attempt a new summary. Emelric, please comment. We do not know what is even feasible in your plans ...

  • Hooks
    Roman ruins (Surroundings Minor hook) -1
    Ruined covenant (Surroundings, Major hook) -3
    Vis salary (Minor resources hook) -1
    Poverty ( minor resource hook) -1
    Centralized Kingdom (minor relations hook) - this just makes sense. -1
    Faerie Court(minor Surroundings hook) - i like this one but it can go. -1
    Tribunal Border (-3). The location is spot on,
    -11 totol

  • Virtue
    Aura x2 ( minor boon) +2
    Aura ( major boon) +3
    Hidden ways (+1)
    Hidden resources x2 ( minor boon) +2
    +8 total

Compared to the previous list which was proposed and seconded with no objections, I have added Hidden ways and the major aura, which have been high proposed by the three of us who have engaged in the discussion (John, jebrick and myself). Apologies if I have missed posts in the summary. If I have, please send a PM, and I'll edit this post. This avoids cluttering this thread.

For the remaining three boon points, there is still discussion.

Alt 1.
Exceptional Book +3. Powerful, but is a young covenant able to protect it?
+11 total

Alt 2.
Criminals +1. This goes well with the Hidden Ways.
Local ally +1. It's a harsh world and we need friends
+10 total
A minor boon to spare ... existing suggestions
Difficult access (+1). Probably does not fit the description.
Seclusion (+1). Might work
Strong Community (+1). Nice, but do we have a community of covenfolk?
Inhuman residents (+1). Sounds fun.

Alt 3.
Powerful ally +3. Is there a plausible story for a powerful ally?
+11 total

For remaining Boon points, there are several sources of allies:
For a powerful mundane ally, the Sherriff of Cumberland, Robert de Veteripont, is also lord of Carlisle castle and builds Brougham castle. If he decides he wants to support a covenant for some reason, we would have a very powerful ally but be in danger of breaching the code. The Bishop of Durham is also known as a "Prince Bishop" - in order to protect lands in county Durham he has his own armed forces, so combines military, religious, economic and political might in one person.

We could always have a mystical ally (a major boon) - if there's a spirit or magical creature in or near the covenant that favours us, or would like magical assistance. Maybe a spirit or daimon worshipped by a Roman cult on the wall, or a powerful faerie? There's nothing in the code about molesting or dealing with magical creatures, and entering a peaceful contract with a faerie may not count as molesting the fae. We could go for a dragon - northern England has a lot of them, and maybe one wanted to sleep near the firth.

A dragon or at least Ignem based creatures were vetoed pretty early.

We could go for a fae ally, river or sea one. We do have a Merinita Magi if I remember correctly

Selkie perhaps.

I've aligned the Hooks and Boons discussed in the thread with what I had in mind. I won't go into details, to keep at least some things a surprise, but there was one Hook that I didn't include: Ruined Covenant. I hope this isn't too disappointing, but I'd like the site of the new covenant to be on land not yet occupied by magi. Your magi will be the first to uncover its secrets. Besides, we can place Caernos' ruined covenant relatively close by (maybe in the northern fells of the Lake District?), to capture most of the story potential of that Hook.

Also, regarding Local/Powerful/Mystical Ally - these are all Boons that can potentially be earned through stories later on, once the magi have met the locals.

This has been discussed in another thread, but since Emelric pointed out that this is where it ought to be discussed, I'll summarise here.

Income proposal: salt extraction

Salt sells at £120 per metric ton [Cov], and it is a very convenient merchandise in the high price/weight ratio and the fact that it does not go bad. The main obstacle to mundane extraction is the fuel required to boil seawater. (Elsewhere in the world, sunshine may solve that problem, but we are in Cumbria.) Secondly it is regarded as labour intensive. This is a good case for using magic. Here are a couple of alternatives. I am assuming seawater with 3½ kg salt per 100l water.

  1. Spell casting.
    ReAq4 (touch range) evaporates the water, leaving salt behind. Let the grogs fill a 1000l basin with seawater, and a magus can quickly cast the spell for about 35kg salt. Repeat this ten times a year for 350 kg or £40 worth. Grogs can scrape out the salt for shipment.

The down side is that Dex+Finesse 12+ is required to get proper quality. We may have to make 100 attempts to get 10 of salesworthy quality. Although the exact mechanics can be negotiated according to Emelric. Second downside may be the potential botches if the spell is spontaneous, but inventing it is only a season.

I have not scrutinised all the magi's stats, but my impression is that none of us have the Dex+Finesse to make this worthwhile. If anyone thinks their magus could do it, we should make the calculations.

  1. A simple magic item
    This requires some seasons invested to get started, but can then be run by the grogs.
    Magnus crafts a leather bucket with the same effect as described above (ReAq10 for 50x/day).
    Lignarius reads finesse for a season to raise from 2 to 3.
    Lignarius takes a season to teach finesse to a dexterous grog.

Assuming the grog has Dex +1 and get Finesse 1, he will roll 12+ 10% of the time.
Fifty bucket per day would give five good buckets on average, or 1¾ kg.
This is only about 2h work per day (comfortable living for a grog), and repeating it six days a week year'round gives more than ½ton or £60 per year.
I am not sure what we would do about the 5 tons of bad salt, but as the grog improves his finesse, this amount will be reduced.

  1. A mundane craftsman with magic items
    If we can recruit a salt crafter, maybe in France, we can create magic items to speed up his production.
    Magus can create
    a. A barrel similar to the bucket above, but evapourating only 90% of the water, to get concentrated brine. If we need an extra magnitude to do this, we can drop to 24 uses and it is still level 10.
    b. A self-heating open pan (CrIg10) which the craftsman can use as if it were heated on open fire.

I reckon the hard part of this would be to recruit the craftsman. This does take more man power than alt. 2, but probably better quality salt if it matters. I do not really know how much salt one could produce per day, but I would be surprised if we cannot match the £60 of alt. 2.

** Scalability

Personally, I would aim to make £40 per yer on this trade. That makes a low footprint, with little risk to inflate the market. We can almost certainly produce more, but that would take a bit of research into plausible salt consumption and probably stories to make contacts to sell further afield. We really do not want to sell so much that we attract attention. Diversifying income is a help to go under the radar. If we go for a large operation it should be built up gradually.