Hehe, excellent ideas. Thank you.
Also
YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
I can see most mundanes in both sides dying REALLY fast when blows start to fly around, so it will end up being a verditius vs verditius conflict. And one without magic items, I would say. Why? because items do not have magic resistance, and they will be neutralized quite easily with the senior magi in each camp.
The alternative is artillery duels. Arcane connection artillery magic like PeCo or MuMe or stuff like that. Animating forests, collapsing buildings.... In the end, the island will be quite torn up. If you have not defined this yet, you might want to have Corsica and Sardinia be a single island BEFORE the conflict starts, only becoming 2 islands after the war. Can make for a few awesome scenes of magic craft.
Xavi
Given the House in question, I don't think it will come to war at all. This looks like Vendetta rite large, and I think, would play out much the same way, with the Order "picking the winner". Verditius do not go to war, they make themselves very useful while other people do the fighting.......
Did you mean the Order, or the House would pick the winner? If you meant the Order, I'd say no. The Grand Tribunal's decades off, and the local Tribunal had an emergency meeting and sent an emissary from the Guernicus to find out what the eff was going on, but were politely told "mind your own business, these are House affairs."
In my saga: bonds between houses are weak, relying on traditions and laws that haven't been tested properly in a while. The Order as a whole needs a shake up, there's a cabal that's moving to drop (or significantly dilute) the order's restrictions on dealings with mundane folk. So far they have good dealings with senior clergy. The Jerbiton are very much the driving force in the Roman Tribunal. For now.
As for the Verditius themselves picking a winner. I see this current situation arising out of a failure to do that. The Theban Verdi have "won" but a small contingent have remained behind to spite them, which I figured was more in the spirit of the house. Maybe you're right though, maybe they'll pretend to capitulate after a short period of symbolic protest, choosing not to risk their covenant, their treasures, their history. Then, when things have smoothed over, in a decade or two, fabricate a reason to take down all those that stood against them.
I do mean the Order, not the House. I am not talking about a formal vote, but about which side the Order in general will favor. It's going to be a fight over and about Reputation. Very shadow fighting. There will not be attacks on Covenants, no. "Shame the magic item you were commissioned to make for the Archmage went missing on the road. Just what you might expect from someone so thoughtless they support the false Primus. That was a lot of Viz too. Need a loan?".......
1st Politics:
Diehards defending his covenant, honor, valor, bravery.... That call hands down for flambeau allies. Search them and you will find them
2nd guts:
How many are you? If enough be like pralix, fundate your own house like to the order or not.
3rd left hand:
Convince how many you can to stipullate that; if we are marched the primus will recieve a lot of redcaps charging letters with the words "wizzard war" on it.
4th Nuts:
https://forum.atlas-games.com/t/weaponising-hermetic-architecture/7827/11
I did nothing, but i have nothing to lose.... Have you?
I can think more if you want 
The other obvious question: are the Theban Verditius declaring Wizard War on the rival faction? If not, then inevitably the Rome Tribunal will become involved in cases of slaying, deprivation of magical power, or attempts to do the same, as a Magus renounced by their house does not immediately cease to be a member of the Order (and may simply be deemed to be Ex Misc anyway).
I'd also worry about the Tremere. This has the potential for wide-scale disorder and lawlessness, and that is exactly the sort of thing which would cause them to take action within the Code to restore order to the Order. If the two sides cannot keep a lid on their differences, the Tremere may step in and resolve them by force.
That's just what the Theban Verditius did, the problem isn't that the Old Guard (I'm calling them that because Verdi Verditius is making my mind bleed) have been renounced, it's that they are squatting in the covenant, refusing to leave even though they've been renounced. The Tribunal has already become involved
A good point. The Tremere haven't quite gelled together in my head and I've rather left them out of things. For now the problem is contained to the Roman Tribunal, as messengers from other covenants/tribunals have been gently rebuffed with statements like "this is a Verditius problem, please respect our right to control our own affairs." As soon as it spills out into open war, then the Tremere will dirty their hands.
Actually it's a good opportunity for them to step in and make the Guernicus look bad. "See, I sorted this problem, what were you doing?"
Please do!
Except that a covenant belongs to its members, not to the House, even if it used to be the Domus Magna of that House. If the magi of the "Old Guard" were members of the covenant before the trouble started, they are still members of the covenant now. It doesn't matter whether they are still considered part of House Verditius or not. They are still magi and members of the covenant. It's their home, legally recognized as such.
Now, the new Primus may request that they turn over all of the items that belong to the House -- provided it was clear that these actually belong to the House and not to the covenant. Otherwise they don't really have a leg to stand on. They'd get opposed by the Tremere, as previously noted, but also by the Guernicus (who don't want to see another Schism War weaken their position). Bonisagi of the Trianoma's tradition would try to broker a peaceful resolution, for sure. Flambeau magi could join each side, as would Tytalus.
Now, if the "Old Guard" were not members of the covenant when the trouble started, then they are indeed squatters and have no legal ground to remain there.
It gets interesting if, from the members of the covenant, half are "Old Guard" and half are "Upstarts". Still, that would be an internal covenant matter -- anyone else getting involved (including the Primus) would have no legal ground.
Just to clarify terminology. Renounced means membership in the Order of Hermes is revoked, and you're being hunted by hoplites of the Order, and any magus is free to kill you on sight. It's usually an exit the character from the saga maneuver, or leave them as a foe being hunted by the PCs...
This sounds more and more like the Primus declared them orbus from the House, which means they typically have a year to find membership in another House, and if they haven't, they are considered renounced. Now the Roman Tribunal may consider this an internal matter, and decide that these Verditius aren't to be marched. Other Tribunals, especially the Theban Tribunals may consider them marched. Issues of cross Tribunal strikes, and so on.
If the orbus issue is a problem, meaning the Roman Tribunal recognizes that they are no longer part of House Verditius, they could easily be absorbed in to ex Misc, as was mentioned earlier, just need to find one magus to sponsor them. Some Flambeau might be willing to sponsor them, too, same with Tytalus. What's more they probably have enough numbers to continue passing on the Verditius mystery as part of the tradition of whatever House they join.
I troubleshoot for what I think of as a youth team of gamers (most of them are young enough to be my kids!), helping when they have issues with their stories, and (hopefully) helping with the actual mechanics, as well as plot ideas and pre-gen NPCs.
About 9 months ago, their campaign had the Verdi conflict. Which, "due to player intervention, and character incompetence" turned into an all-out open war within the house. I got called in to help, and my first piece of advice to the SG was to start playing AC/DC while thinking about how the Verdi would behave...
(Back In Black comes on the computer) "Is this from Iron Man?" /facepalm...
Anyway...
With EVERYTHING they have at their disposal. The group I'm talking about, having incited all-out war by botching, triggering Hubris, and generally negotiating peace like arms dealers, ran messages across the entire order calling in favours, debts, and even blackmailing people to attend Verdi to assist the defenders. Both sides sent messages to Houses Tytalus, Flambeau and ex Misc.
The Guernicus turned up, and were told to leave before things got dangerous. (about 2 minutes later, one got flattened by a deliberately triggered lab explosion)
Iron Man 3 is a good viewpoint to start from, but remember, that's one magus with a theme. There are a bunch of them here, and they all have their own specialities.
A few highlights from the battle :
Power Armoured grogs doing a suicidal frontal charge on the attacking encampment, while wrapped in Parma, invisible, silent, and armed with the best mundane weapons the mage could find. ably represented by Lego men.
Spider automata mounts (think wild wild west) firing AoE BoAF into any clumps of targets. represented by a real tarantula until it got bored, thereafter by a plastic glass.
Hover-Tanks firing lightning.
Summoned Eleentals, fiery humanoids and similar.
Automata Cavalry.
Awakened Automaton "Marauder" - player controlled, represented by a teddy bear. (no BattleTech mini available)
Air Cavalry (Griffins, broomsticks, flying boats etc.)
Static defense cannons, mines, barbed wire.
A One-man five drone team, controlled by a player. (Star Wars Ep 4 training drones in a backpack, set to point defense).
Ritual spellcasting team (Mercurians) acting as artillery.
Hoplite mage hunters doing what they do. (Only live captures were by them!)
An NPC Verdi who arrived late to the battle driving his mobile laboratory straight through the attackers lines, running several over before parking, and deploying a heat ray wielding war of the worlds war machine.
A dragon, an automata dragon, an awakened device dragon, an illusionary dragon, and a shapechanged grog-dragon.
Giant moles and badgers attacking from beneath.
House Tytalus reps from both sides meeting on the battlefield and stopping for a chat.
and of course, rabid squirrel attack.
Lots more, but it took about 6 hours to run.
They are currently (9 months on real time) still dealing with the backlash and political ramifications. They lost >40% of the house, most of the non-Verditius recruits, and the entire Primogeniture lineage (due to a mis-communication with the Merenita ritual combat team).
It's being referred to as a min-Schism war.
K.
OTOH, one has to wonder how you'd attack a covenant.
There's the obvious: target the Aegis.
But, especially against verditius, there's a very effective thing to do: Perdo (form) structure effects, with added magnitudes if the structure is pretty big.
This can be frighteningly effective, especially as, if this is cast from inside the Aegis, Penetration is irrelevant for all those items that aren't protected by a Magus Parma. Instilling this in a item is relatively easy, and devastating.
PeTe base 3 (destroy), +2 earth, +2 voice, + 3 struct, +2 size = lvl 40*
Unless I botched my MT roll, this destroys all metal inside the target Structure. Swords and armors, of course, but also portcullis. And including metallic magical items... Which sucks big time, especially for verditius.
Now, a clever magus will vary his items as much as possible. Some will be out of human bones, some of wood, animal bones, Ice, and, assuming that PeTe targets either earth or metal or gemstone (which ain't unreasonnable, is easier to adjudicate and allows for these kind of loopholes, which, imo, is great), stones, metals and diamonds. Still, this is cheap, and can be devastating for most of a covenant's items and defenses. Mostly, all that the defensors can hope is that the attackers don't want to destroy their future loot, which can be quite reasonnable anyway.
- Note that a troupe would be perfectly within its rights to decree that such a spell needs to be a ritual, which seems reasonnable (IMO, one you begin to add size magnitudes to targets equal or higher than group, you should ask yourself the question)
OK, this question came up during a discussion in our Ars game today: in context, the ReVi specialist (my character) wanted to create a giant ring around the covenant, and cast a low-level Demon's Eternal Oblivion effect on it (lvl 10 DEO, modified with a lvl 10 MuVi effect to change it from T: Individual to T:Ring), in order to deal with a minor demon infestation.
Is this possible? If it is, my thought is that the defenders of a covenant as described in this thread are at a heavy disadvantage, as their general location is known. Using all the spells laid out in Hermetic Projects for wizard's war, and using the aforementioned MuVi spell, you can pretty much target everything in the covenant with R:Touch, T:Ring.
Of course, you have to trace the ring around the covenant - but with some pretty low-level CrHe spells, you can create a 1000 paces of ivy or cotton thread. Then use a ReHe effect to shape it into a giant ring, and float it in the air. Use a low-level Wizard's War spell (as described above), and use a low-level ReVi spell to delay the effect for an hour or two. Move the ring around the covenant, and let it go off.
Using the above example, the "destroy all the dirt around the convent" spell only would be a lvl 5 (PeVi, Base effect 3, R: Touch, T: Ring, Earth +2). And it doesn't need to affect the convent itself - just the dirt around it, as when the spell goes off the covenant will find itself in a perfectly spherical, 1,000-pace pit.
The only real limitation I see on this ability is the Concentration roll necessary to get a Ring effect off - a 1000-pace ring would require 100 concentration rolls. But in reading the rules on Ring, it SOUNDS like you only make the concentration check if you're creating the ring while casting the spell (AM5, pg 112)- if the ring already exists, you don't need to make the check. Is that the case?
The RAW is pretty clear to me.
I'm of two minds on the need for concentration checks, to be honest. I dislike the idea that any magus can cast a ring/circle spell as large as they want, without penalties. But then the penalty for automatically botching if someone breaks it is also a pretty huge penalty/risk. So, I would go with the alternatives outlined for maintaining spells in the Concentration section. Or, if it is a spell mastered with ceremonial mastery skip concentration checks if the duration of tracing extends beyond the ceremonial casting time.
If I'm a demon, and I know the magi are planning on doing this, I'm breaking that ring at an inopportune time. I would instead confine covefolk and grogs to their homes/quarters, and cast multiple ring spells around he individual buildings. There is much less risk that something bad will happen..
Re: the RAW - my issue is with the description of the second case. To me, it sounds like the first case is describing the magus creating the circle (with the concentration check). The second is describing the magus simply tracing the circle (without a concentration check.)
Because if you need a concentration check for both, the rules are identical - and thus there's no reason to split out the two possibilities. Alternately, the author would say "If the circle already exists, the magus can trace out the circle. However, all other rules, including the need for the Concentration effect, still apply."
But it doesn't say that - it just says you need to trace it out. Admittedly, the rules COULD be simply confirming that you don't need to physically gouge a ring into your stone floor in order to cast a Ring effect: the permanent inlaid ring is enough. (and I certainly agree.) But the fact that it doesn't mention the Concentration roll, to me, makes it unfortunately unclear.
Re: the Concentration roll itself - I actually don't have too much of a problem with that, as the scenario I'm describing is not stressful - that is, it's being done well away from the actual location of the covenent, no one is trying to shoot the magus with an arrow, etc. - As casting magic is not, by definition, a stressful situation, it falls under the standard rules for defining a stress roll. Which means as long as your magi has an Int+Concentation of at least 6, there's not going to be a failure.
And if the GM is going to say "no, something that large is going to be stressful" - well, OK. If that was the case, then the magi would know how large something would have to be before they started rolling for stress - which your solution (using the Concentration rules) would likely indicate: 15 minutes/level of Concentration.
Which, actually, is pretty big. 10 paces/turn = 5 feet/second = 4500 feet per level of concentration. Which is probably more than enough to cover a whole covanent. A magus with Concentration(spellcasting) is going to be able to cover a 9k circumference circle, which has a radius of ~1400 feet. Again, that's pretty darned big.
Re: breaking the ring - sure, that seems to be an issue. But in this particular scenario, the ring itself is being prepared well away from the covenent, using a ReVi delay effect. If the demon were to come out and try to break the ring, it will have to both know that it is being done, and will have to leave the covanent to do so. But getting the demon out of the covanent is the point of the effect anyway, so that's actually a success.
You could go the opposite way. Differences have to be spelt out, which I believe is saner.
I don't consider them cases, to use your term. Sometimes circles exist, sometimes they don't. Whether or not the circle already exists doesn't have any effect on the fact that you may be casting a non ritual spell for more than a round, so a concentration roll for this is reasonable, if it isn't being cast ceremonially.
I don't understand how this is defending the covenant, if the demon exists within the covenant, and the spell is being cast elsewhere. I'm missing something there. Regardless, no, the EF for the concentration roll isn't that high. Magi tend not to invest a lot into concentration, though, unless it's their concept, so it's probably not assured.
If it's stressful, I'd be inclined to say you are distracted, in which case the continuing roll is every two minutes.
Depends, a covenant with a conventional Aegis is pretty small. A standard Aegis covers 100 a bounded space of 100 paces in diameter, which is a circumferenace of 314 paces. It's not large. If any of your buildings are outside of that location, then I, as the demon/SG, am existing outside of that boundary, to cause harm there.
I still don't understand how you're moving the ring to the covenant while keeping it intact. Whether or not you're going to be successful in this endeavor is a function more of the SG, rather than a strict interpretation of the rules.
It's more of an issue that it's an Int roll, and the magi in question has an Int of +5, Concentration (Spells) +2.
The effect is delayed using a standard ReVi "delay cast" effect. (Gen ability: create a magical "container" that puts a spell on a timer. You cast the spell into the "container". When the timer runs out, the spell is let out, and it takes effect.) So, you cast the spell on the ring, move the ring over to the covenant, and when the timer runs out the spell goes off.
The issue is that the demon is inside the Aegis (it got let in by a PC, thinking that it was a fairie). Even when its permission was revoked, it is still inside the Aegis, causing mischief. So if it saw the ring coming, and decided to leave the Aegis, that would be considered a success. (It's a lvl 20 demon, and the Aegis is lvl 25 - so it can't penetrate the Aegis by itself once it is outside. But with permission, it got in, and was able to stay in. But once it leaves, the full-powered aegis can keep it out again.)
Don't forget that, even with the change to to the Target, you're still going to need a Casting Total of at least 30 to affect the demon once. And if you're hitting it with a Level 10 DEO, you're going to have to hit it twice to destroy it.
I'm still not getting it. I think the approach is flawed. This isn't casting DEO with a circle target. DEO with a circle target affects everything within the circle at the time it is cast. And suppressing spells is supposed to work with spells that have a duration greater than momentary...
Why not just find it and kill it with DEO, or does no one know it?