fates of the founders

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

I was thinking that darn near none of the founders were explicitly dead and that bothered me. upon doing some research I see that the situation isnt as bad as I feared.

Bonisagus: left on a secretive mission in or after 836 and was not heard from again
Pralix: disappeared in 863, under suspicion of foul play, yet , suspiciously, she purposefully left the robes of dusty dawn behind when she took her last trip.
Jerbiton: Died in his sleep and is buried next to his wife
Bjornaer: Departed last instructions to her house in 831 then took the form of a giant bear and left forever (presumably final twilight)
Criamon: First founder to pass, sacrificed himself to become the axis mundi
Gurnicus: final fate never revealed. Wild rumors suggest that he found a path to immortality and waits for the order to fall just to say "I told you so"
Mercere: died and his body was cremated at Harco, yet some witnesses say that instead of his body burning at the cremation it was carried away to the hall of heroes.
Verditious: Was slain and had his heart removed as a result o a Corsican vendetta.
Merinita: Disappeared prior to 799 but people have claimed to have seen her intermittently since (1158) this could be consistent with the Guardian of nature mystery virtue. Alternately Myanar reported that Quendelon had bragged of killing her himself.
Tytalus: in 807 he left carrying only his staff with no familiar in sight. He visited every member of the house and spent a good bit of time with Hariste, then went of to win his heart's desire from the queen of the Faerie.
Tremere: died in 862
Flambeau: left his covenant alone in 820 for one final meeting with the Moorish wizards or alternately to live out his final years in a monastery.
Trianoma: Became a ghost. She's been haunting the forest around Durenmar since the top of her tower was blown off (but she unambiguously died in her sleep in 832)
Diedne: no information at all
Quendelon: disappeared in the mid 900's perhaps returning to Arcadia, it is entirely likely that he under went the ritual of Becoming and became a faerie

So for the fifteen founders or founder-ish folks we have only six bodies and of those six we have a ghost, a Genious loci, and a possible ascension to the hall of heroes.

In the category of "can be brought back for your 13th century saga to at least have a conversation without even the slightest disturbance of cannon we have 7 (Criamon, Trianoma, Tytalus, Qundelonm, Merinita, Mercere, Bjornaer).

In the category of apparently dead but there's no body so something could have happened we have 5 (Diedne, Flambeau, Gurnicus, Pralix and Bonsiagus)

That only leaves three, verditious, Jerbiton, and Tremere who died like men.

There was a point to this but I seem to have forgotten it.

2

Hmm I suppose this state of affairs isn't that unusual given the likelihood of Final Twilight.

Nevertheless, if you remember the point of this post, please do let us know. :smiley:

3

Lots of epic story fodder there.

4

In my saga...

When Verditius was captured and murdered by his Corsican enemies, his ship having run aground during a storm, his body was torn apart and fed to the crows. His companions shared a similar fate, but their ship and its magical cargo were spared. In particular, Verditius' powerful enchanted rings, now the symbol of the House, were kept by the Corsicans.

Two of the rings have since been recovered. The other three remain lost but the House had proxies made of the finest alabaster by the finest sculptor in the House. An unwritten law of the House ensures that the alabaster rings are never enchanted as to do so would be seen as a vain attempt to better Verditius' own original enchantments.

These five rings, the two originals and the three alabaster proxies, have been kept in the deepest and most secure vaults of Verdi and are used for ceremonial purposes including the investiture of a new Primus, worn by the Primus when attending the Grand Tribunal, and during the Great Verditius Competition. The most solemn vow a magus of the House could swear is sworn upon the five rings and both the originals and the alabaster proxies are considered equally revered in this respect.

5

Yes, lots of fun stuff there :slight_smile: Really interesting list.

Quendalon is not a founder. Just an imposter that drove the house out of its true path to become faerie tools. he should be renounced post-mortem. Merinita was a tree hugger, but a proper Roman tree hugger, at least. And we wouldn't be able to bind drakes as familiars if she had not been around.

We all know Flambeau died fighting a djinn, and took an infidel army with him with his final spell. :wink:

Diedne was probably taken to hell by her demon minions.

Cheers,
Xavi

PS: this post is boring without passionate opinions :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Which is why i like our idea of letting Myanar and the "nature"-faction live on and become a separate house instead of going out with a bang(choosing to fight with politics instead of with violence and getting a nicer end result).
And i´ve made their house mysteries almost totally based on familiars, being able to get several familiars and easier access to additional cords...

:unamused:
Pft... :mrgreen:

7

I agree with all of the above, especially the middle one :smiley:

8

What Marko said, except especially with the last one.

9

I think that is pretty reasonable given that a magus who can make a decent Longevity Ritual is much more likely to undergo Final Twilight than death.

10

Corollary: How old was each founder when they joined the Order?

This might make me change some of my picks for the Ars Magica movie casting thread...

Vrylakos

11

Flambeau was 69 when the Order was formed, and was 90 years old when he died in battle in the year 788

12

[quote="DIREWOLF75"]
Which is why i like our idea of letting Myanar and the "nature"-faction live on and become a separate house instead of going out with a bang(choosing to fight with politics instead of with violence and getting a nicer end result).
And i´ve made their house mysteries almost totally based on familiars, being able to get several familiars and easier access to additional cords...

[quote]
Anything you'd like to share? This sounds interesting. In my old 4th ed saga the Nature Merinita managed to split from the Faerie ones.

13

Yes certainly. Im trying to get the time for doing a serious writeup of as much as possible of our houserules and stuff but i never seem to make it happen, so i keep getting a few bits and pieces out like this occasionally instead... sigh

Im not much for doing fluff though so its mostly game mechanics, and since most of its been changed multiple, even many times, i have more versions around than i can count, so it often gets more than a little bit messy(if something looks very odd in writing its quite possible that it IS odd, because i might have taken something out of house rule contexts).

Anyway, the basics is that the basic Myanar gets an Ability "Nature Magic" which adds to any He and An totals(and anything else that can be convincingly argued to be "nature magic", we found it impossible to do a clearcut definition(affecting weather in a natural way for example(making a cloud release rain earlier), while creating strange weather wont get the bonus(trying to create rain in a desert)). Double that ability score is added to any total for handling familiars(including those of others(meaning they can act as assistants with Int+MT+Nature Magic when familiars are concerned)).
They also get to add Presence score to lab and casting totals.

Additional mystery allows Myanar to use ALL Arts once each for binding familiars, first 5 with one TeFo each, then the final 5 Forms can used for binding "lesser" familiars or to add one each to the previous 5 to improve them further.

Then, another mystery allows Myanar to include one additional Familiar Cord for free, exchange the regular ones for nonstandard ones for free and add additional cords beyond that for half the normal cost.
Nonstandard Cords gives bonuses to one Characteristic as if paying for the during character creation(ie to raise one Characteristic from 2 to 3 you need a Cord strength of 15), add to Arts at a rate of 1 per 5 Cord strength(standard rate), a bonus to interacting with creatures from the different realms or mundanes or animals, bonus to aging roll, bonus against aging crisis, bonus to Magic Resistance, bonus vs fatigue, bonus to healing, bonus vs poison, bonus to teaching and writing quality... The list is quite long, and not necessarily in harmony to the materials bonuses in 5th edition, but in short we just went and found a list of minerals and what they´re traditionally used for/against on a legendary/mythical level.
For example:

[code]Cat´s Eye, add to Perception, Magnitudes adds like if purchasing characteristics
Emerald, add to Presence
Turquoise, add to Dexterity
Phosphor, add to Quickness
Tiger´s Eye, add to Strength
Amethyst, add to Stamina
Sapphire, add to Intellect
Topaz, add to Communication

Platinum, add Score*3 to casting total
Whetstone, adds cordscore to XP whenever mastering a spell
Mercury, twilight rolls[/code]

Anyone CAN make use of the alternative Cords(though without Myanar assistance, they get an additional -5 penalty), but for most its not very effective because adding or changing a cord reduces the useful Cord total too much.
So, any powerful Myanar becomes VERY valuable to hire in for assisting with binding familiars.
With Myanar having 5-10 Familiars and a free extra cord and free to exchange, to them its a big and VERY effective bonus.

Oh and my base for each house starting bonus is that its equal to up to 4 points of Virtues and 3 points of Flaws instead of 1(and Ex M. is the only RAW with +4/-3). This is why especially the initial house mysteries looks more powerful than the RAW ones(which are rather weak i think).

14

It'd be a little difficult for Bjornaer, Pralix, or Trianoma to die like men without the help of a little Muto Corpus.

15

:mrgreen:

16

Flameau dies in an epic pitched battle. How is that not dying like a man?

17

A real man would have left a corpse or at least a verifiable pile of ashes, (and thereby leave no room for his convenient re-insertion into the story centuries later because he's too much of a whiner to get killed like an adult.

(The original post was a collation of the fates of the founders and founderish characters in fifth edition. You may despise the insertion of ambiguity into the previously unambiguous end of Flambeau but, whether you choose to deny it or not, the ambiguity was really inserted.)

18

No it wasn't. That was a Fnjord :laughing:
But still, the revised story does allow for the "proper" ending. Ad maybe there was a body or spirit left behind and some sort of coverup that followed. Or maybe that final spell of his was so powerful that it pushed him over the edge into Twilight. Who knows? Flambeau may indeed return someday :smiling_imp:

19

defense rests

20

Piffle!!

With the exception of Jerbiton, give me a fixed AC and a good necromancer and the buried (or burnt) dead are all free game anyway. An explorer of the Twilight/Magic Realm could stumble across a few Founders and a very fortunate trip in Arcadia/Faerie could find the others.

Shame that House Jerbiton cannot call on thier Founder from time to time...

If someone wants to have a Founder hop into the game, it can be done, done inside the rules, and totally flip any player's plans. Dead just ain't dead enough in ArM.