Eve ex Verditius

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: Oppidum of Héviz
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Notes on Eve's theology: its heterodox as all hell. Shouldn't be surprising though. Here are some key points though:

  1. The world was created by the impure demiurge, not really evil, but certainly not the Divine. Worthy of neither honor nor worship. The Divine, a.k.a Ennoia would be source of Light and goodness and all that. Why worshipers of the demiurge get Divine auras? Eve doesn't know.
  2. The world is filled with evil being made by the demiurge. One of the things you can do to rectify this is form good out of it anyway. The demiurge is of course, imperfect and ultimately an emanation of Ennoia, so its more than possible to find good in the world.
    2a) This means you should enjoy life. Things that the corrupt Church would call debauchery, gluttony and lust. Still don't over induldge. Destroying your body and succumbing to the temptations of alcoholism or overeating is another failure. Feast, but don't eat yourself to death. Feel the ecstasy provided by exercise. But also do good deeds. And don't hurt other people in your indulgence. Be good to yourself and your neighbor.
  3. The secret knowledge of the Gnostic cult will help you reach "heaven" after death, but so will good deeds. And of course, the desired "heaven" is more of a purification and expansion of your soul and nothing like what the corrupt Church preaches. Their heaven is simply a trick to lure souls away from enlightenment.
  4. One of the great expansions of the soul is what Eve calls Apotheosis. It isn't the end of the road, but even seeing the next step requires even more enlightenment than one could hope to achieve on the mortal coil.
  5. This part is more or less purely linguistic and leads to a lot of confusion. Ennoia is not a god. It would be insulting to compare her to a god. "Worship" Ennoia, "revere" gods. This is similar to the Church's distinction between God and Saints, although since Eve won't use the same words... more confusion.

Design notes: This is a combination of stuff pulled from the gnostic, and Philosopher of Rome sections in mystery cults, wikipedia, RoP: the Divine, and the Church book. The main change I intended from the Philo of Rome given orthodoxy is the "reckless pursuit of wine, women (and/or men), and song" is replaced with the "informed, possibly poorly, pursuit of wine, women (and/or men), and song". I also made the assumption that magi are somehow able to believe say: Muslim's infidels and definitely not followers of God while the Church is totally working for God. When evidence would point to both being followers of God.

Thoughts comments suggestions?

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Of course it's not against the Code. But when the term of Eve's service is done, she can be ushered out of the Tribunal. Or they can trump up some charge and ostracize her and kick her out. Against the Dark talks about the residency requirements of the Tribunal not being brought up at a Grand Tribunal because no regional Tribunal wants its own residency requirements challenged. I don't think the House is concerned with any particular Philosopher of Rome achieving their goal. The concern would be about using up scarce resources that could be better used in some other way. Eve may have to deal with renegotiating her contract and the House plays hardball with her, too. Any number of things that Eve may have to deal with. As far as being concerned about annoying/ticking Eve off, well, Eve has a long way to go. At a minimum she has to get a TeFo of 40. She has to get Gifted followers to learn and cast the necessary spells for transformation. There are a lot of items that need to be completed before she's there.

You're not really familiar with the Tremere in 5th Edition, if you call them assholes as a standard. That's ok, they don't need Eve's opinion. Tremere believe their methods are the best, that they have the best ideas, and they have about 100 members that pretty much all believe the same. They also have some allies that tend to see them favorably. All Tremere fall in line when the Primus directs action. They are the Minbrari, if you will. When they move, they move together. If you've gone through Against the Dark, they won't waste their resources on a magus with a Wizard's War. Corrupt legal maneuvers are for the Guernicus and their corrupt Quaesitores. Mons Electi (Bibracte saga) was founded by a Tremere who left his house and became a Jerbiton under a new identity, giving up his House to protect his House. It may not seem like a sacrifice, but it was. Jebrick is taking my premise over there and extending it here. There's a storm coming, and if someone gets in the House's way Poena will crush whomever that is.
Generally, as far as the SG being best placed to decide what is right and proper, well, that's not Ars method at all. It's the troupe. And jebrick may even want to play here eventually, so he might bring a character into the saga and ask someone to BSG stories involving his character(s). I don't think jebrick is a "my game, my rules" kind of SG, but he might prove me wrong. :smiley:

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She's probably not going to be using resources in what the House sees as the best practice. A lot of Vis hoarding for her final step. A lot of silver being spent on inane rites. (From the Tremere perspective.) That's on top of the generalized heresy/paganism. (Again Tremere perspective.) I think on the balance from a pragmatic point of view she is a plus in the Tremere books. From a more human perspective its "Why? What the hell is wrong with Eve? Everything she does is backwards!" Her actually getting anything out of the cult probably won't make that part better.

Yeah, like I said. Assholes.

Eve has no intention of getting in anyone's way. Some people might think she could do more, but she would never want to get in anyone's way.

True, but when you get everyone's opinions you sort of need a final call. Still, I think we are getting some out of the discussion before hand.

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Okay, I added the changes to Tommy's Gone to the list of spell and added the suggestion from J.L. about a flight spell. We also now have links to the B.P. and spells in the first post for easy location.

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Have to agree there, that's a pretty good definition of assholes :slight_smile: Yes, yes, I know that's quoting you out of context, but I couldn't resist :slight_smile:

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Very well, call them assholes. Both of you and your characters agreed to live in their home and do the work that they have asked you to do.

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And in both our cases, we agreed to do so as a cover for the real work we're doing. Eve is trying to become a god, Diotima is trying to revive the Byzantine Empire, and in the meantime we are acting all meek and nice and sugar and spice.

Well, okay, Eve probably is not acting meek.

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Eve is acting cheerful and on the balance helpful! With just a touch of hubris. If a Verdi is acting meek, especially if they have been into any of the inner mysteries, they are lying to you.

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Finding a Magus
Jane, had been hiding out for weeks after starting on her quest for a magi, the ones who showed up at the zoo were sort of lame. Baptism, such a powerful weapon, broke the wards. Stupid priest didn't even know what he did. Seriously get ultimate power from the Divine and not even know what he had? Seems rude on top of that. Then Jane ran away with her arcane connection. Eventually corrupted it. Which made her good and free. Now, she was on the part of getting a magi. She had picked one out, Eve. Reasonably confident, cheery, and she sounded like was going places. Had fun, not some stuffy girl who sat in a lab. Wasn't turning all old and ugly either. Plus Eve looked like a proper magi should with her staff and book. It would definitely make everyone else jealous.

So she pounced. Landed right on her back. "Gotcha! You're gonna be my maga!"
The maga grabbed Jane and took her off her back "Creator Cursed! A talking cat. And you are going on about..."
Apparently, the maga wasn't too bright. "Your a maga, and I caught you. Now you make that bond to me. I'll be the familiar and you'll be my maga!
"That's not how... wait you're one of those escaped creatures from Tictocus's zoo."
Maybe she wasn't too stupid. "Duh, what else would I be. I'm obviously not one of the uncultured beasts who grew up in the forest. So vulgar. Do you have mice? Your supposed to feed me. Live ones preferably."
Eve pulled one, dead, out of her pocket "I mean I was going to negotiate a contract with Tictocus to try and befriend one of his cats... look I don't think this is how I'm supposed to find a familiar."
Maybe I do need to explain everything. I thought magi knew how this worked. Jane paused from chowing on the mouse "This will do. So now that we're friends back to the lab!"
"I still don't think this is how its supposed to work."
Jane finished with the mouse. "Eve, I'm a cat. We're experts on the whole bonding process. Lets just go to your lab and forge those strings. Another mice."

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Hey. I like the alternate perspective on this little story, it's from the cat's point of view and it established Jane's personality and methods (catty) and shows some backstory which wasn't ignored or neglected. I'm glad to see that, I'm glad to see that you're using some of the various background, story and personality traits that are made. Using the alternate perspective was a good idea, it's an excellent device to catch the attention of the audience.

Now, if I can, I'd like to encourage a bit more period language where possible. That is not easy. We're not in a fantasy medieval world and only really have a small amount of literature to base any kind of conversations. From there our main source of conversation is from Hollywood, which is notorious for using more modern language and colloquialisms so as not to lose the audience. But if you can try and add some of that medieval flavor it will bind well to your narrative.

Now then, take that with a grain of salt, authenticity in language is highly subjective, different readers are bothered more or less by it. It happens to be one of my nitpicky things. Writing in your comfort zone can be far more important.

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My thoughts on period language: I don't know it. I speak modern English. Not middle English. This is similar to how I don't speak Latin. Everything gets translated into Modern English. Now I could totally through some random "thee" and "thou" in there, but it certainly wouldn't be remotely authentic.
This from my internet searching is middle english:

I can't bloody well speak that. I can try and add some flavour if everyone wants, but the authenticity is zero. This goes double for at the actual covenant when we aren't using English. Its all translated from Latin. I can translate it into faux-olde-tymey-English, or I can do Modern English.

So I guess what I'm saying is... do you want the translation to be in faux-olde-tymey-English? I can totally do that.

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No, I don't think he was suggesting that.

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It's a difficult balance, it really is. With Alexei for example, I tried to basically keep a stiff formality with a bit of Shakespearian tone. Which is not authentic; I love Shakespearian dialog, but no one ever actually spoke like that, even in Shakespeare's day. What it did though was show a certain nod to period. So, in the end, the effort to speak and write with a bit less modern English and bit more formality maybe is what I'd like to see.

And again, effort and enthusiasm can be more important.

And of course these are translations, but that is not an issue, we're reading them in English, so trying to make it more like old fashioned English would work well.

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Easiest way to include a medieval touch would be to change 'What the bloody.', a modern curse, with something more period soundings. 'Saint Christoph protect me !' (patron saint of travelers) is a possibility, although perhaps not the most appropriate for Eve. 'Hermes (or Mercury) protect me !' might work better.

Changing Tick-Tock to something Latin-sounding might help in that department too, even if it's only Tictocus.

That said, I love the story !

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I see what you mean. Tictocus is a great name consider it stolen. I'm going to go with "Creator Cursed". Not medieval in the least, but it sort of fits Eve. I may also use "Divine protect me" or similar. "Hermes X" would work too, or "Saint Christoph protect me". These would be sort of in the sense an Atheist says "God Damn it!" I could totally sprinkle random saints in with the same logic.

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I often use phrases 'By Jesu!' "Swounds!" "If ye please." "Shan't"

To be honest those are not likely too authentic. But faking it like this helps immerse the reader.

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I think this needs a free Rego requisite, to chuck the spears. The spears target an area, so anyone in the area has a chance of being hit. The recipient becomes the area of effect, the "T"arget is the metal created. This isn't like multiple casting, where each spell can be individually targeted for a recipient, IMO. If it were treated that way one could create spells similar to this (Pila of Fire) with T:Group and individually target the recipients, this becomes a far more effective way of multiple casting in this saga, or any saga, really. Add 2 magnitudes to a spell and target 10 opponents or 5 opponents 2 times, or some combination yielding a total of 10. Yes please, sign me up.

Also, in the same spirit of some authenticity or flair, let's try something more evocative of what the spell really does. I'm offering a suggestion below, but I'm not entirely happy with the name. The description which explains how Eve came across it, though, works with Eve's character.

Tomas's Invisible Pikemen Cr(Re)Te 30
R: Sight D: Mom T: Group
Invented by the reclusive Tomas, Eve found this lab text in the wreckage of his sanctum during her quest for gnostic secret knowledge. It was apparently overlooked or ignored by those who had been there before and looted the sanctum. Primarily useful against an angry mob without any magic resistance, Tomas used this spell to run away when the mobs came looking for him.
The spell creates 10 metal spears and throws them at a a designated general area. The spears fan out and have a chance of hitting anyone in that spot. It's a pretty good chance Dodge EF of X (9 maybe?), and some people may be hit more than once.
Base 5, +3 Sight, +2 Group, free rego requisite to throw the pikes.

Not entirely happy with it, it's trying to do some things that Ars isn't really good at doing...

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This is not multicasting, and it is inferior to multicasting in a lot of ways. One it is only for targeting people in a group. Multi-cast spells can hit pick three people out of a crowd. Two, it can't hit someone repeatedly; yes, its subtle but its in the spell. "Different" person. Three pillum's of fire can target one person three times. Again subtle, but I did call out "group", although I suppose I could make it more clear. Four its only rolled once. This is not a benefit, at least with decent levels of mastery. Multiple rolls mean a better chance of getting a higher penetration to actually do something. Five this is ten levels higher which means ten less penetration. Six, its only one spell. While not a lot of defenses work by countering spells, one counter spell stops the whole lot of these.

So no this is not mutli-casting, not by a long shot. Its hitting a group. Its what the group target is for. I see what you mean about the requisite and I can add that if it makes you feel better.

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If the form was Corpus, you might have a valid argument about a Group spell affecting multiple people in a group. In the case of this spell is Group of the form of Terram, the spears/pikes/rods/whatever that are created.

You're creating a Group of spears with this spell and trying to affect a group of people. There is no mechanic in Ars that does this. There are of area of effect spells, but they are indiscriminate with respect to whatever is in the area of effect. This spell creates 10 metal spears or pikes, it then chucks them at something or place. They might fan out and hit targets (you can't really target them at all on an individual basis, which we both agree).
One, I disagree with, the Group is the Group of spears created. Not the recipients of the spell.
Two: I know, this spell is doing what, trying to hit 10 people? What if there are more? Less?
Three: Yes, I'm aware of this. Why can't this spell hit one person with all 10 spears? There's nothing in the rules to prevent it, in fact, that is easier to see, for me, than 10 spears hitting an area. Since it's technically a targeted spell, and can be resisted.
Four: What's rolled once? The casting sure, but again, there's no mechanic to determine who gets damaged by this barrage of spikes. Maybe in Lords of Men, but I'm not 100% familiar with that book. If 10 people are in a group, and each person gets hit once, there are 10 rolls for damage, and 10 rolls for soak, so no, it's not just 1 roll.
Five: Penetration only matters when facing beings with Magic Resistance. This spell is pretty devastating against a mundane mob, which is why I thought Eve had it. If Eve is concerned about going up against beings or creatures with MR, she really needs a lower level spell with more penetration than this.
Six: I don't understand this point you are trying to make.

I didn't say this was multiple casting, I said that it was better than multiple casting. If you can create 10 items (this is the Group target at work), and then target (small "t" target) each of those individuals, inflicing +10 damage. Apply the same method to Wielding the Invisible Sling, and make it T:Group, it's 20th level, inflicts +10 damage, and by your reasoning, as I understand it, affects 10 people/creatures/ small "t" targets. In order to multiple cast such a spell to the same degree it needs to be mastered to an ability score of 9, which is 225/112.5 xp.

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Hmmm. This one is tricky. The target is a group ( 10 individuals) but you are right in that the Creo would create the spears but not give them force. If it were non damaging he could create a wall or iron chains but those would need to last longer.

ties that bind

CrTr 40
Base 5 Sight +2 Group +2 Diameter +1 + 1 complexity.

Creates iron chains which binds the targets capturing arms and legs.

Sight and group are going to do you in when working with metal. THat makes it mag 6 without adding anything else. If you dropped them on the target then it effects the area but the group may not be big enough.

If it is a duck and cover spell for Eve to run away just do a bigger pit of gapping earth and get everyone. Or earthen wave. Those are great but again, target an area. But you would be safe. :smiling_imp: