Hello, I am laying out the Triamore covenant for our upcoming saga. One of the things I never felt OK with the covenant of triamore as described was about it having a magic aura of +2 "just becase". Tramore is a great setting, but such a castle would not have a magic aura readily available IMS. There is no particular reason for it having one. No specific good (resonant) layout, no specially beautiful, no special features....
As such I am removing the aura or downgrading it to +1 only. And the later only because magi have lived there for a while and the environment is starting to react accordingly.
Now, most magi would cringe at living in such mystically-dreadful conditions. But they do not have much say about that, being an imperial grant et al: they HAVE to be there. And they do not want to discard that wonderful library that their imperial charter grants them. Still, they would certainly be looking for a better place where to conduct their rites, experiments and stuff.
(Disclaimer: after writing it, I might have read a similar story seed in another game, since it sound too familiar to me)
I have had this idea of a temple of Sucellos in a (relatively) nearby hill that was occupied by the romans when they conquered the area. it was turned into a temple of Silvanus by the Romans and they built a roman building over the old shrine. The hilltop is specially lush. Few people come here regularly, and the temple has fared remarkably well; only the wooden and tile ceiling is caved in in a few places, so some repair work would be necessary, but not major works. The temple has been covered in ivy and vines and quite a few ravens live in the nearby area. The temple is a "standard" classic temple with 2 rooms, one for the devotees and an inner sanctum for the priests. Inside the inner sanctum observers would find a wooden statue of what appears to be Silvanus, but with some elements that are somewhat odd for the roman god. The statue seems old and remarkably well conserved. Greeting the Maker would not show anything due to age.
Obviously since it interests us, the temple has an aura of +4 and would be a great place to build a lab.
However, there is a drawback that explains why nobody goes to the temple regularly. There is a guardian in the hilltop. When darkness falls (of at any point if there is a storm) anyone in the hilltop will start to feel that he is being observed. After a while they will start to hear footsteps behind themselves but nothing will be there when they turn around. After a while they will feel a real dread of the hilltop and will try to flee. When they start moving they will start feeling they are the quarry in a chase. The more they run, the more they feel hunted and the nearer the hunter is. They still cannot see him. This will last until they leave the hill. Or until they turn mad.
The guardian is a magical being. It is incorporeal most of the time, but can turn corporeal if he wants to (appearence to be decided with some reasearch).
Now, the thing would be that he is fairly powerful, and mostly not interested in people, only in nature. If Silvanus/Sucellos is adored in the appropriate manner in the temple, the guardian is calmed and grants gifts in return: the statue produces Creo vis (how still to be determined). That vis will grant fertility for a year if sprinkled over a field. If it is not adored, it becomes way more savage and brings the fear of the wild to interlopers.
Or he cannot be calmed and at night the area is just plain dangerous
How would you model this creature?
I guess he is a hook, but I am unsure if it should be a one shot thing or a recurring hook.
- Guardian?
- Enemy?
- Restriction (lab can only be used during the day)
- ....
