Amusingly, my group has mooted out covenant to be on the coast side of the Via Domintia from Ara Maxima Nova, and also contains a Gifted Mercere. How unlikely!
I thought we were being a bit precipitous. I suspect there will be discussion of whether to relocate or try to get along with the older covenant. I suspect we'll try to get along, although we do have a seeker in our ranks.
Perhaps I will try to recruit my cousing, Guillermo, into our covenant. We're partly sponsored my our Family/House to provide a second Mercer House. (Yes, odd place for it - it should be on the other side of the tribunal.)
On the other hand, maybe we will relocate to Port Ventres, or to the crossroad of the Via Domintia and Tolosana.
Looks like a great tribunal book. I've barely started and it's already useful and full of material!
I originally had a concept for "Eastern" ie. Arelat / Coenobium aligned Redcaps and "Western" Basque / Aedes Mercuriae aligned Redcap factions but this was dropped in early drafts and the Pyrenees was assigned ot Marko and then Ben who were already doing amazing things in the area. In my original concept the western Mercer House would have been at Saint-Jean-Pied-do-Port (ie. St John at the Foot of the Pass). There's a Basque folk hero that sounded like an ideal Mythic Companion / Cult of Heroes candidate and they have these wild folk sports that I wanted to make use of but maybe another time...
There were so many bits that we all worked on, but I think we referenced an old Aedes Redcaps site there until it ran into trouble with the mundanes (and specifically King Richard)...
One of the early books, probably True Lineages, mentions that there is (or was) a famous Mercer House in Barcelona called Yuval's. That may be close enough to the Pyrenees that the Aedes Mercuriae wizards usually just deal with them instead of the Coenobium, but I can see them running into the political trouble of being considered an Iberian covenant if they officially receive their mail in Iberia, so maybe to get around that accusation they would help sponsor an independent Mercer House on the north side of the border?
My current thinking is that this is a somewhat dangerous stretch of road, the southern end of the Via Domitia, a link between two tribunals, a decent place for a mansione, a good place for a way station, and if on the coast road a good place for a Mercere finger in a local deep port. Port Ventres and Couilliere are good ports, and I think most of the mundane shipping of Mercere is done mundanely. Also, it would be novel to have a Mercer House in this stretch of coast that isn't in a brothel - although that may be a lost cause.
I am also thinking that Mercere may have an interest in marching some mercenaries on this road, and possibly base a pirate-suppressing effort out of here.
It's also an excuse to set up their newly Gauntleted mage, who is interested in commerce and trade; I have the impression that House Mercere is very accommodating to their Gifted members, so long as they remember their duties and produce children.
And it is an excuse to lend a place for Guillermo to flee to when whatever it is he's up to over in Ara Maxima Nova. Furthermore, Luc of Merinita has two eligible daughters, and their bloodline seems to run true - his sister Jeanne of Merinita is also a mage.
So, a Mercer House mansione is a thin excuse, really.
I have a question about the Rituals for enchanting roads and road networks.
The rules are clever and well written but I have trouble understanding what you actually do with them. I suppose they are great if you want to flatten an army riding down a particular road or an enchantment that lasts while you are on the road but what else?
These are a set of legendary rituals from Ancient Rome, but what do you with them?
They were written a long time ago and co-opted into this supplement as they seemed to fit the Mercurian concepts well.
I was initiated into the Mystery of Non-Hermetic Ritual creation by David Woods who wrote the original Fenicil Rituals rules and the House Guernicus section of HoH:TL. I like the concept of using non-Hermetic rituals to perform feats that Hermetic magic finds difficult and stretching the existing Neo-Mercurian Magic options was the intent. The backstory about House Mercere's plans for the rediscovered magic is something I didn't have chance to develop - maybe I link to more travel magic ideas on my blog sometime as it's something I find interesting. The recent discussions in TME were quite inspiring so I'd like to revisit these some time.
Well, as I'm in Oz I won't receive my copy of the book for another few weeks so I'm not sure exactly what made it in and what was cut.
These are meant to be the remnant of the original Road magic of the Mercurians, some of the magic used to help the legions defend the Empire.
These parameters are of particular relevance to Redcaps and House Mercere but also of potential military interest to House Tremere (or to mundane lords actually). Given the war-torn nature of the Tribunal and the presenc of mundane armies in the area, the ability to target anything along a road or road network is a powerful defensive ability (or potentially a significant offensive one).
I agree that for an individual magus, there is less use except rediscovery of this magic may garner significant acclaim and be a potential long-term goal. It's a great project for a Bonisagus - there are the remnants of Roman roads all over Europe but it's in the more peripheral places (Africa, Levant, Stonehenge) that the more intact roads remain, prompting travel stories.
In the Provencal Tribunal, as a potential Story Seed it is the Hero Cult of Ara Maxima Nova that stand the most to gain - if they can reconstruct the Via Mercuria along the Via Domitia (Perthus to the Col Genevre and thence into the Piedmont and on to Harco) would not only improve their standing but have practical use in terms of the movement of magical resources and aiding their policing of "their road". The covenant would probably consider sponsoring research into this, potentially aided by the Coenobium (as the road passes through their territory and past many of their "lost sites" eg the Portus Cottiae chapter houses). Politics may be the issue - this would require the Mercurians to allow the Hero Cultists access to their knowledge and the cooperation of the Redcap dominated Coenobium, not to mention the ultimate blessing of Harco. Is it possible for House Mercere to convince these disparate elements to cooperate?
As I divine, by close attention to the signs (yes, it's unclear) the ancient Priests of Mercury used the Set the Stones of the Via to create a magical matrix - they could affect ranges, targets and durations in relation to the Via, affecting perhaps all the legions on the road, or a given legion on the road. I'm not sure how cool this is, given that with a significant arcane connection modern magi can do this sort of thing to someone on or off a road. Perhaps the Priests of Mercury did not have the Arcane Connection feature in their magic in general.
Once Hermetically integrated the Via Mercuria Range, Target, and Duration become available, p. 27.
One of the ideas our collaboration uncovered was that a Mercere mage in the not-very-recent past, probably right after the Schism War, had a plan to build a Mercere Portal between the Via Domitia and the Way of St. James. If the road continued through the Portal on either side, because of the way the Portals work, the two roads would be joined and create a network that covered most of Mythic Europe. The Order could then easily set up magical beacons at each mile marker that could be activated by Redcaps or other magi in trouble and for which Intellego magic could quickly and constantly scan. Magi can also use the Arcane Connections to leap to those points in an instant. It's up to you how far this former mage could have gotten with this plan, and why it didn't happen.
She might not have a profile block, since she is kind of between covenants. I remember thinking at one point that we would describe Beatrice living between two regions so that players could put her in the one closer or further from them as they preferred.
There was never any intent to have formal statistics for Beatrice.
Looks like this paragraph may have been cut somewhere along the line...
(she kept moving between Hermetic Culture and Gascony IIRC)
Beatrice of Guernicus, (Presumed) Chief Quaesitor
A troubled woman, Beatrice is genuinely determined to do right, but with the crusade and all the deep hostility in the Tribunal, it is not clear any more what that is. Her pater was the previous Chief Quaesitor, Tibaut, and it is assumed that she will take over for him. She is young for Chief Quaesitor, since her predecessor died of old age just last year (as did his predecessor five years before, though he was even older than her pater), and would probably like to pass her authority to another member of her House if a better candidate appears. She is registered as part of the covenant of Castra Solis, but she has taken to spending all her time in the Arelat of late, possibly because of a falling out with the Primus of House Flambeau or the leaders of one of the Hermetic organizations based there.
At one stage I planned to detail Glanum (site of the next Tribunal, where Beatrice is located) as part of Arelat but decided to leave it undetailed. I have some maps and ideas for it which will probably end up somewhere useful at some stage - Glanum is quite a cool locaiton IMO.
I also cannot find a profile / description for Tres and his band (and now everybody give a big hand for ... Tres and the Rusticani!), although there are a couple or three references to one. As with Beatrice, there are some clues scattered in various places.
I've emailed David for the errata. I can't seem to find anything on Tres looking through the drafts... Erik?
I did come across something we cut early on: Ben's Legacy of Himinis material... sorry to be tantalising but hopefully that will make an appearance in Sub Rosa soon? (hint, hint)
So has to actually got to anyone yet?
