Elizabeth ex Misc

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Solitude
1

Starting sheet. Partially done. But, I got notes on the virtues and her House ex Misc tradition.

Name: Elizabeth ex Misc
Gender: Female
Age: 21
Traits: Carefree+3 Cheerful+2
Faerie Sympathy Traits: Dogs-3
Characteristics: Int+3 Pre+4, Com+3, Per+0, Dex-2, Str-3, Qik-2, Sta+1
Virtues: Greater Immunity (Piercing Damage) (Free), Imbued with Spirit of Vim (free), Puissant Cult Lore: Enlightened Ones, Cautious With Cult Lore: Enlightened Ones, Affinity With Cult Lore: Enlightened Ones, Independent Study, Great Presence, Unaging, Gentle Gift, Personal Vis Source (Me),
Flaws: Waster of Vis (Free), Incompatible Arts*4 (Perdo with everything except Corpus and Vim), Chaotic Magic, Faerie Antipathy (Dogs, Major)
Abilities [148xp]: English 5, Athletics 2, Folk Ken 2, Brawl 2, Charm 2, Latin 4 (Hermetic Usage), Magic Theory 3 (Lab Set Up), Parma Magica 1 (Corpus), Code of Hermes 1 (Apprenticeships), Penetration 1 (Vim), Concentration 1 (Arrows), Teaching 3 (Grogs), Artes Liberales (Ritual Magic) 1, Philosophiae (Ritual Magic) 1, Finesse 1 (Craft Magic), Order of Hermes Lore 0 [+3xp] (Grand Tribunals)

TeFo [92xp]: Cr 5, In 3, Mu 0, Pe 0, Re 7, An 0, Aq 0, Au 0, Co 0, He 0, Ig 0, Im 0, Me 5, Te 0, Vi 7

Spells:

Eject Vis - ReVi - 15
R: Touch D: Mom T: Ind
The maga transfers any vis stored in herself to the object she touches. If the object does not have enough "space" to hold all the vis, as much vis as can be stored is transferred.
Base 10+1 touch

Aegis of the Hearth ReVi - 20
pg 161 Core

Maintain the Dying Light - ReVi - 15
R: Touch D: Ring T: Circle
The caster's spells that are within the circle will not expire. This only affects spells which were within the circle when casting Maintain the Dying Light and have not left the circle since.
Base 4 +1 touch +2 Ring

The Dying Light - Creo Ig - 5
R: Touch D: Diam T: Ind
The touched object glows like a torch flame.
Base 3 +1 touch +1 Diam

Ear of the Maga - InVi - 10
R: Per D: Sun T: Hearing
The maga can hear vis. The more vis the louder it is.
Base 1 +2 Sun +3 Hearing

Call to Slumber - ReMe - 15
R: Voice D: Diam T: Ind
The target falls asleep. For the duration the target will not wake naturally. If not well rested they may continue to sleep after the spell has expired, but can be awoken normally.

Circular Ward Against Demons - ReVi - 10
Core pg 162

Mutate the Useless Grog - CreoVi 10
R: Touch D: Mom T: Ind
The touched target gains a warping point.
Base 5 +1 touch

Last Resort of the Cornered Maga - CreoVi - 10
R: Per D: Mom T: Ind
Gain two warping points and immediately enter Wizard's Twilight.
Base 10

Fumigation of the Righteous - PeVi - 5
R: Touch D: Mom T: Room+1
Any infernal creatures in the target room immediately and permanently lose 3 points from their might score. If the score is reduced to zero the monster is destroyed.
Base 1 +1 touch +2 Room +1 size

Erasing the Unholy Name - PeVi - 5
R: Arc D: Mom T: Ind
The demon targeted loses 3 Might Score.
Base 1 +4 arcane

Cult – Enlightened Ones
As of now, this is only an idea at the edges of Elizabeth's mind. A belief that the Gift allows greater understanding of the true nature of the world, and that in turn that understanding can give them great power.

Personal Vis Source: Mentum Vis builds up in Elizabeth's head. If allowed to build up for several years, she starts to suffer from increasingly nasty headaches, visions and intrusive thoughts. However, such problems were why her parents originally brought her to the Order. To extract the vis either a spell can be used or she can write stream of consciousness. The later choice can take several hours and then the phrase which has the vis needs to be located, so the first option is much more convenient.

Unaging: Elizabeth's age is frozen at the age of 21.

Ex Misc Tradition – Deathless: Similar to House Tytalus this tradition has a book, this one called “The Book of the Deathless” to guide apprenticeships, but the similarities end there. To start with the apprenticeship is much more pleasant. More importantly, the tradition gives all its members the same immunity to piercing damage. The Gauntlet is plunging a dagger into your own heart and survive. Surprisingly, every single apprentice of this tradition has passed their Gauntlet. Well a couple of Apprentices have managed to not get the dagger through their rib cage, but they all got it the second time around.

According to the people who have researched this none of the idiosyncratic traditions of their apprenticeships actually have any mystical power, and much of “The Book of the Deathless” has to be fantasy, but they haven't convinced anyone to experiment.

Greater Immunity (Piercing Damage): The weapon will still penetrate flesh, but the wound doesn't impair or kill Elizabeth. The storyguide will need to decide what counts as piercing. The main thing I'm concerned about is arrows. I imagine it working on most spears, and some other stuff like picks. If you stab yourself with a dagger you need to be careful not to slash yourself.

2

Extra slot

3

Anyway, comments on the Death Prophecy, or tradition, or cult? Death Prophecy is one of the more powerful virtues, on par with The Becoming, or "Transformed (Being)". They can all prevent death by old age.

4

I've never used it, as personally I've felt that PC's have an implicit death prophecy of "will not die unless the player feels that it is narratively and dramatically appropriate". But that's just the kind of troupe I tend to play with. But beyond that, I interpret Death Prophecy to mean that each time a character will potentially die, they instead pick up a major flaw (physical, mental, magical, or social) that is now part of that prophecy.

And because it's part of the prophecy, they can't just fix it with magic - if they try to, the injury/change will just come back somehow, in often gruesome, ironic, or grimly hilarious ways. Instead, they'll have to burn it off the hard way. (ie, via storytelling.)

Alternately, the death prophecy results in your character being unconscious for a year or three, or trapped under a boulder underwater for a decade, or something.

In other words - it's very often that DYING may actually be preferable to what happens to your character.

(Kind of like the game mechanic that Buffy the Vampire Slayer had for it's major PC's - no one would permanently die, but if you got knocked down low enough, you'd be taken out of play for a set amount of time - that time was dependent on how many Fate/Willpower/Widget points you could spend to pull yourself out of the coma/jail/whatever the GM put you in.)

So, with that interpretation, I really don't have much of a problem - as you're asking to be mutilated, outcast, and emotionally crippled if you ever actually USE the Virtue in question.

5

Character looks fine. She's a one trick poy, but her trick is teaching herself new tricks.

I've never had a death prophecy in an ars game. This one is certainly okay. Kevin is worried about her neding up a mutilated husk of herself, but she can always damn herself by suicide.

6

I'm pretty sure that Kevin's interpretation isn't the RAW one.

This is certainly possible if not rescued and given medical care. Even if we are generous and assume that "dying" from an incapacitating wound is the same as recovering and knocks them all down to heavy wounds it would take a long time to recover even from a heavy wound. I think a stable chance of 25ish percent? Plus deprivation could set in?

Honestly, the benefit I was thinking of was not dying of old age.

Honestly, how about we change it to "Greater Immunity (Piercing Damage)"? That way I can keep 90% of the fluff I like, and keep her safe from arrows. Seriously, a trained group with decent Bow ability and leadership? You can really drop stuff hard.

Also how much vis/year does her personal vis source produce?

7

Well, I agree that it's certainly not written like that, and certainly doesn't HAVE to be played out like that. Rather, what I describe is a way (that doesn't violate the text of the virtue) to address issues that some folks have with the Virtue as being overpowered.

Like I said - I've never used it.

But beyond that, it seems to me though that a Death Prophecy is a Big Deal(tm) - and as such, is likely to be one of the central themes of the character. Or failing that, to explicitly NOT be the central theme, even though you'd think it SHOULD be. ("Oh, yeah. I can only be killed by a one-armed man. Anyway, I'm going off to volunteer at the amputee's hospice. See ya next week!")

That being said, if the GM is fine with it, I'm fine with it. However, I do like the idea of being immune to Piercing damage as well - as that sounds like a mistake in the Initiation script. That is - whoever wrote it up was TRYING for a death prophecy, but rolled "alternate Initiation" when they made the attempt, and got Immune to piercing, instead.

8

The idea of a death prophesy ex misc tradition is fun!
Change it if you want to. You don't have to though.

9

vis source mechanics:
vis source yield is 1p per season. -1 to all activities per 4 p of vis stored in her head (round down). Elzbeth can use it without extracting it. The extraction process is whatever you want it to be.
Objections?

10

I like it too, also creating a new mystery cult is something I'd love to see in the saga.

11

Bam! I think the character is done except for picking out specializations. Also catching things I screwed up. If anything is unclear please ask. If I made a mistake please tell me. Also I have the Aegis. Also I can cast it without any vis. Take that Waster of Vis! Its effectively a bonus four pawns of vim a year.

12

Fairie antipathy? Which book is it from?

Gather the essence of the beast? Take a hair, or a bodily fluid. Spit it out?Well, guess your spell is more elegant.

Aegis of the Hearth ReVi - 20
pg 161 Core

Spell, singular, unless you add group

The Dying Light - Creo Ig - 5
R: Touch D: Diam T: Ind
The touched object glows like a torch flame.
Base 3 +1 touch +1 Diam

What sound does it make? Music? mad whisper? Farting noises?

Call to Slumber - ReMe - 15
R: Voice D: Diam T: Ind
The target falls asleep. For the duration the target will not wake naturally. If not well rested they may continue to sleep after the spell has expired, but can be awoken normally.

Circular Ward Against Demons - ReVi - 10
Core pg 162

Mutate the Useless Grog - CreoVi 10
R: Touch D: Mom T: Ind
The touched target gains a warping point.
Base 5 +1 touch

Last Resort of the Cornered Maga - CreoVi - 10
R: Per D: Mom T: Ind
Gain two warping points and immediately enter Wizard's Twilight.
Base 10

Interesting. Does this also work for beings if she is unaware of their nature?

Great spell. Unbalanced like most PeVi spells, but that's the game. Add three or so levels of mastery (penetration, multiple casting,...) and demons melt like ice in the sunshine. Fun.

13

...I'll disagree with the interpretation of Circle, but I agree with the end result.

Target: Circle affects everything in the circle. (Core rulebook, pg. 112). For example, you don't need to add Group to affect multiple people with T:Circle - if they're in the circle, they get affected automatically.

HOWEVER - for Maintain the Demanding Spell (MtDS), you cast a spell with D:Conc, and then you cast MtDS. At that point, the spells link up, and you've got an extended-duration spell. With a circular spell, you'd cast your D:Conc spell, hold it, and then cast the circular spell. As long as the circle remains (and as long as the spell remains inside the circle), the spell continues.

As such - it's somewhat difficult to have more than one spell maintained by the same ring. It's POSSIBLE - you could have multiple magi in the ring, all with D:Conc spells going, all waiting to link up with your MtDS. Or alternately you could have multiple D:Conc spells going on yourself - however, that's a really hard roll to maintain. Frankly, it would probably just be easier to cast the circular MtDS multiple times - one for each spell, using either the same physical circle, or else slightly smaller circles, each inside the other. But in generally, yeah - you're only going to have one spell maintained per circle, due to the difficulty of actually having multiple Conc spells up and running at any given time.

Pretty sure that's how all spells work - they TRY to affect whatever has been targeted, but they only actually affect things that they are designed to affect.

For example, a "levitate all rocks" effect (ReTe 3), +1 Touch, +2 Room - will allow a mage to touch the outside wall of a room, and levitate all rocks inside. They don't need to know how many rocks are inside - the thing they're targeting is the room (and implicitly, everything inside it.). If there are any rocks inside, they'll start to levitate. If not, nothing happens.

Similarly, a ReVi "levitate Demons", +1 Touch, +2 Room - will levitate all demons in the room, even if the maga isn't aware of any demons in the room to begin with.

So, yeah - it's an indirect way to discover if there are any demons nearby - cast a spell that only affects demons. (Normally some variant of Demon's Eternal Oblivion). If something starts to smoke and scream, it's a demon....or else a farie pretending to be a demon.

And yes - if the storyline ends up being a "demons in my shorts!" style of game, then the PC's will probably be developing wide-area, low-level DEO's with lots of penetration, just to detect the demons. Which is to say - if it ever gets to that point, either the point was to make the PC's paranoid, or else the demon's plan has gone off the rails and its too Proud to admit that it's lost.

14

That's my interpertation too. Although I would tend to interpret things in favor of demons staying hidden. So a demon wouldn't have to smoke and scream. Of course, the demon would probably flee or attack because sitting and being slowly obliterated is too stupid even for a demon.

RoP: Faerie.

15

Yup, its a little more elegant, but its also useless for most people.

Spell, singular, unless you add group
[/quote]
There's the circle thing. I was considering singular, but having individual target and ring duration seems weird.

Hmm... that probably depends on the sigil of the caster. Umm... let's go with a ringing noise.

I think that's how room targets work. But she needs to be aware of the room.

Yup~ Well, I should probably get a sight range version too, since getting arcane connections isn't always easy. Really, just a single level of mastery is enough though. The idea is to use it when the demon is far away.

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Well, if you post your development thread (including seasons 1-6), we can start.

17

Will do!