key scenes ! This is Ars Magica, not Market & Bargainers !
That's great. I had forgot about that one. Japik is good at Creo so after some Corpus studying he could be a decent witch-doctor 
Let's see what Arthur thinks first but if it's ok I can play a merchant. The problem is how to get him to accept working with the magi but as you say greed is a common way to lure merchants. Japik could rescue him at sea and get a bond that way but then I don't think I would be ideal to play him.
Oh yeah! Key scenes here as well 
About the merchant, I would simply use a heligoland young merchant that wants to improve his chances in life. A bunch of new suppliers and patrons with cash to invest and goods to offer is certainly a blessing fir such a character. Most would jump at the opportunity despite thinking that we are a bunch of cut-throats and crooks. He will not trust us, but almost everybody trusts silver. Making him less of a paragon of virtue is more interesting as well IMO. But up to you, of course
Regarding companion characters, what I think I said (can't find the quote) is that I have a problem with companion characters that are only there as a resource for the covenant and don't get played.
In a PbP saga, almost all of the game time tend to be spent on the magus, because it is easy to manage multiple stories at the same time. So companions tend to end up just being assets instead of actual people. A merchant companion to act as a front for the covenant, well... he would need to have actual interest that are at cross-purpose to the covenant's, otherwise he ends up being simply another asset.
So if you want to create a companion-level merchant, be aware that if he ends up simply being a front for the money-generating business for the covenant, I will use him much as I would a magical animal companion -- to create stories for the covenant. Usually, that means he will get himself or the covenant into trouble. 
That last bit is not necessarily a bad thing. We need to generate stories for the covenant anyway
Yeah now i remember that's what you said and I agree on the main parts. I'm not sure I want to play a companion-level character either with all that it means so there is a big risk he will just be an asset we use when needed. What if we make him a grog then? I think the magi could agree that they need someone to take care of their mundane social issues and trying to recruit a Jerbiton is out of question. 
Yes, a grog-level character is less of an issue as an asset for the covenant. He still needs to be located and hired, with a good reason why he wants to work with a bunch of weirdos, but grog-level is much more of a background character that is only played as needed.
What if he is the son of Frisian merchant who was killed by pirates that happens to come from Waddenzee. He doesn't know anything about the magi there but he hates them nevertheless and if someone offers him an opportunity to rebuild his father's trading business and maybe a chance to revenge the pirates later on he might be willing to join our cause even if some of us are a bit weird.
I know this ties in with Japik's hatred, but as a grog it shouldn't be a problem I think. And I have a feeling we will get in touch with Waddenzee at some point 
I see you also noticed the "here is your arch-enemy" neon warning that Arthur placed over that covenant.
I would suggest passing over the wadenzee connection in this case. Not everybody needs to be linked to hermetics. Otherwise it starts being too convenient for us. A plain merchant that is not very influential/rich/has enough resources, and that is Ambitious (minor or major) would jump at the opportunity as well, and he is bound to be way more common than a merchant that has previous contact with the OoH.
Merchant, Ambitious, puissant bargaining, social contacts, gossip, educated, self-confident, intuition, luck, all go well for such a character
I never suggested any contact with hermetics as I guess they make raids without magi involved as well. But I see your point so let's go with someone with simpler ambitions like you suggest. I can get him some stats later tonight and post him in a separate thread. That is if everyone is ok with this idea.
You may be reading more into my comments on Waddenzee than I intended. I did write about them because it is certainly a covenant you may butt head with, and it is part of Japik's background, but calling it your "arch-enemy" is perhaps too strong.
But I'm not denying, nor confirming, that covenant's involvement in the saga. 
Ah, I thought you were referring to an hermetic link for the merchant. Maybe it can be combined. What about him being in a delicate situation because he lost his last cargo shipment to pirates? Again. So he is having trouble raising credit from the local moneylender(s). There are more pirates than Waddenzzee around, so it might be them, or not, or the contrary
I am thinking that a meddling herbwife (older woman) might work well for the house of convalescence project (calling it a hospital might be too much). I will not stat her up yet, but sounds like the suspicious middle aged woman that will accept it for the good of his patients, nit because he thinks we are not trouble. She might get along well with the Dietlinde. Or they might hate each other.
I concur with this assessment of our short-term plans. No need to RP beyond the beginnings & complications.
Although the villagers begin gathering stone for construction as soon as an agreement is struck between the village and the "scholars", the process may seem slow to the magi. Not all of the villagers will participate in this, and even those who do will not devote all of their time to it, since they have to take care of their livelihood as well.
A few things become clearer as work begins.
First, there is the matter of time. It quickly becomes obvious that work will proceed slowly if using only villagers. When asked, those involved think they can complete the two small houses by the end of summer, or perhaps mid-fall at the worst. This will obviously not be fast enough for the magi, as they will probably want to have at least one (if not both) of the large houses up and habitable by that time. But the villagers do not have the tools nor the skill to dig up cellars in the stone of the plateau. The villagers also seem a bit uncertain about building two-story houses. So it seems that outside help will need to be hired.
A second thing that needs to be decided is the layout of the buildings. Take a look at the sketch of the area around the oak and let me know where you'd like to put the houses and garden. Remember that the elders need to agree to the location, but this does not seem like something that will cause problem. Once the location has been agreed to, I will add the houses to the sketch.
A third problem may quickly crop up, that of money. From what I can see in the Pooled Resources thread, the magi have about 36 pounds of silver. Of that, a bit over 1 pound has already been spent in temporary accomodations and food since arriving on the island (there are 4 magi and 12 mundanes to feed). If the accomodations remain the same, 5 more pounds will have been spent by the end of summer for that, leaving 30 pounds.
As building materials are purchased and workers hired (including villagers), it looks like the cost of construction will look like this. Each of the small house will cost about 4 pounds to build. The villagers don't need much outside assistance for these, so most of the expense is from wood brought from outside of the plateau (or even the island).
The large house may prove much more expensive, for the structure cannot be that of the simple village houses, which does not work well for a second floor. So more outside workers are needed, much more lumber as well, and specialized workers/tools to dig up the cellars (it is preferable to do this before putting up the structure of the house). So each large house may end up costing 20 pounds or more.
Compounding the money problem in the short term, Trond and his crew needed some the magi's silver to purchase their first cargo. This immobilized about 15 pounds, leaving only 15 pounds for the construction itself. Of course, the merchanting business will bring back money over the course of the summer, in the order of about 5 pounds per month of profits. But that still leaves only 30 pounds available, by the end of summer, for the construction. Money will keep flowing in over time, but there is initially not enough to construct and outfit all of the buildings.
In short, the magi must make some decisions about what to prioritize, or how to make work less expensive, or how to raise more money. Note that Bernhard will stop by a few times over the summer, so he may be consulted about this if needed (e.g. if you decide sell raw vis for silver).
The goal here is not to get bogged in details. I gave you some numbers to work with just so that you would get a sense of scale regarding the construction and living costs at this time.
I take it that the villagers want to have their animals graze the area northwest of the oak and the hill in that direction so we can't block the path between the two southernmost hills by building a house there for example?
How far east to the edge of the cliff can we/do we want to build?
How much magic can we use in the building process? Perdo Terram to excavate for the cellars for example. What are we capable of?
Indeed, the villagers would like to be able to move their flocks between the hills towards the tip of the plateau. But there is enough space between the two hills bracketing the oak and the one to the south for a path around the covenant's building. In short, you can set up your buildings on either side of the oak without any problem. The buildings should probably be clustered together, so that a single enclosure around them can serve as the boundary when casting the Aegis of the Hearth. Whether you want to also enclose the oak within the same enclosure is up to you.
You can probably build safely (over the long term) up to 5 paces to the edge of the cliff. ANything closer and you risk damage (in a few years or decades) from the cliff being weathered down. Also, the closer you are to the cliff, the riskier digging below the covenant becomes.
Note that the eastern side is sheltered from the winds by the hills, and has more shrub and small trees growing there. On the other hand, the soil on the western side seems a bit more fertile, with the grass growing thicker.
You can use as much magic as you like, but anything too obvious will certainly be noticed by the villagers working on construction. Even having the cellars excavated overnight, for example, will raise questions. So it is a matter of the magi being willing to deal with such questions.
The small houses need to be wooden? IIRC the construction sysrtem in this area and place is basically low long halls half sunken to the ground, and mostly built from the local terrain and wood. Quercus can speed things up sensibly making the wood easier to work here (easy Moon duration Rego ro Muto spells cast during the night), and the costs should go down if we do not build base don stone but on wood and local materials. Wood is necessary for the base of the pillars and other similar stuff, but think viking long house here, not city dwelling. I think this kind of construction might also help us to resist the weather, so it is not a stupid thing here.
House models
Large houses (dry stone foundations this time):
Something like this for the larger houses might work: stone foundation, but the upper part can be wooden, not pure stone.
The smaller houses can be pure wood (minus a layer of stone at the bottom of the walls to prevent moist to ruin the wood beams too fast.
So not that much stone needed. They will not be constructions lasting for centuries, but we do not pretend them to be. Not for now at least. We want dwellings and this design should be enough, don't you think? Shouldn't that decrease the costs? Dry stone and wood should be good enough. Quercus can go with a few of the grogs of the covenant (Fresse, Morlaer and Hjalmar can go to the forest and fall quite a few trees in a couple of hours if we have permission to do it. I assume we can do it without being seen paying some attention. That should decrease our costs as well.
The more I think of it, the more I think that some accommodation would be good: maybe larger floor plans but allowing the sheep to graze ON THE HOUSES since otherwise the construction might progress more slowly than we pretended. Grazing on a house should not be problematic if the roof is covered in a wide strip of earth and grass, making it effectively into an artificial hill. I am sure we can make the interior wood roof waterproof between Pytheas and Quercus.
So, the idea is more or less to build hobbit holes :mrgreen:
Having the large houses near the cliff would be a good idea. this will allow us to have windows in the cellars when we expand them eventually.
The houses in the village are mostly stone, because of the scarcity of wood on the plateau (and on the island in general).
The typical house in Ober village is more along those lines, although many of them use stone tiles instead of tatch and their roof is not as steeply sloped:
The walls are made of uneven stones piled together and held together by crude mortar. Wood is used mostly for the structure of the roof (a lattice of small branches for the most part), which is completed either by tatch (grass bundles layered) or stone tiles. This allows the villagers to collect more of the rainwater, since there are no wells on the plateau.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the soil layer of the plateau is fairly thin -- about a foot or two in most places. That makes digging much more difficult because you hit stone very quickly. And since few of the villagers have the iron tools required to dig into stone, they mostly make do with lose rock provided by nature.
How large is the house you put there, Arthur? Like one of the small houses we can build?
What about importing wood from the mainland? Would that decrease our costs? A structure for the beams, + stone slate to respect construction methods. It would be the first design I put in my previous post.
I think we can aim for 1 large house + 1 small house. That would be enough. then we can dig and get the stone for the second house easily and get a second large house that is better built (larger, more regular stones). What about that? We need more beams than what can easily gotten in the island, I guess.
Which forest? There are not that many forests on the island itself, and it is a tightly controlled resource because there is so little of it.
In the period, forests belonged to the lord of the land, and the right to cut down trees was something that was paid for by those who made a living of it. To just go and illegally cut down some trees in the forest can be done, but if you get caught that usually means you got punished -- anywhere from a steep fine to being hanged, depending on the period and place. It was treated very much like poaching. Just for your info.
Some farmers had their own private wood lot attached to their lands, but most made do with access to "common land". There, they would be allowed to bring their swine so that they could feed on acorns and roots, collect fallen branches for fuel and wild fruits to eat, but not cut down trees or even branches.
The cost I gave previously is based on importing wood (purchasing it), as well as hiring some stone workers to dig up the cellars and building the walls for the 2-story large houses. As the constructions methods of the villagers are fairly crude, they would not be able to build a 2-story house.
What about the stricture about not collecting stone yourself from the plateau? The villagers might notice if you start taking out large, regular stone from the cellars of the existing house...
Would the first large house be a single-story affair? The design you propose would not work on a 2-story house, as the roof would be much too high for animals to graze. In any case, the roof would probably be too steep for the small sheep and goats that the villagers raise. Not to say that you couldn't use those roof as additional surface to grow stuff on. But do you want the villagers' livestock moving freely within the covenant's enclosure?
Just thinking out loud and providing information as much as possible. Your grogs would provide such feedback, as might some of the villagers. I'm not objecting to anything. 8)