Fiona ex Miscellanea

A maga from the Loch Leghlean tribunal (I might be using some stuff from Lion of the North, even though it's 3rd edition...if I do, I'll be sure to post the relevant passages to get input from everyone).

Basic concept: a member of the line The Daughters of Circe, magae who are rather proficient in transformation (particular man-to-animal) and in potion-making...doubly so when the two are combined.

This is more or less a placeholder post, which will be expanded when i get a chance to sit down this weekend and go over the Ex Miscellanea section of HoH: Societates and maybe Lions of the North and Mysteries.

(The name might get changed, but not unless I come up with a much better one)

The Daughters of Circe is an ancient, albeit minor, cult that dates back thousands of years. In spite of the sect's age, it has always been very small – in fact, it is believed that there are now as many Daughters of Circe within the Order (four) as there are without. The Daughters (who are always women) have focused on the twin arts of transforming others and of crafting potions, as well as their knowledge of drugs and herbs (reflected in their Mythic Herbalism virtue). They have made their homes in secluded areas along the coast of the Aegean, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas (either islands or hard-to-reach beaches or caves).

Shortly after the Schism War, the Filii Pralicis actively sought out new traditions to bring into the Order, in an attempt to rejuvenate it after losing so many magi in the War (and if the new traditions just...happened to bolster the House, so much the better). In the middle of the eleventh century, they were able to track down one of the Daughters of Circe on an island in the Adriatic, off the coast of Bulgaria in either the Theban or Transylvanian Tribunal. The Pralixian took almost three years to explain the Order to Mirella (Fiona's mater's mater) and the benefits of membership before Mirella joined. Mirella feared that the other Daughters would not take kindly to her joining an order that, by definition, was sworn to kill them and thus decided to move far, far away, eventually settling in the British Isles.

Major Non-Hermitic Virtue: Mythic Herbalism (reflecting the Daughter's extensive knowledge of drugs and herbs)

Minor Hermetic Virtue: Minor Magical Focus – Transformation

Major Hermetic Flaw: Rigid Magic

Required Virtue: Inventive Genius (reflecting their skill in making potions)

Well, let's see...she's got the Major Non-Hermetic Virtue, the Minor Hermetic Virtue, and the Major Hermetic Flaw for being a Daughter of Circe, on top of the 10/10 that she gets normally. Can't have more than five Minor Flaws - she has Hedge Wizard, Ambitious, Secretive, and Mentor, so that's four. One Hermetic, two Personality (which maxes her out), and one Story. She also has Weak Spontaneous Magic (because I see her, if not her whole lineage, as being not so much on the "make things up on the fly" as the "be prepared" type, and I'm fine with rarely casting Spontaneous spells). And the Difficult Longevity Ritual gives her the ten points in flaws. Mainly because I don't see really many other options that she's still allowed that fit the character concept.

For now, all I can do is take your word for it... :stuck_out_tongue:

Okay, I've gotten her through apprenticehip, and this is how she looked 26 years ago.

Int +1
Pre +1
Str +1
Dex 0
Per 0
Com +2
Sta +3
Qui -1

Virtues: The Gift, Hermetic Magus, Minor Magical Focus (Transformation of Others), Affinity with Muto, Flawless Magic, Good Teacher, Mythic Herbalism (HoH: S, p. 125-6), Giant Blood, Inventive Genius, Root-Cutter (HoH: S, p. 126)

Flaws: Rigid Magic, Ambitious, Difficult Longevity Ritual, Hedge Wizard, Mentor, Secretive, Weak Spontaneous Magic.

Early Childhood (≤5) (45 pts)

Area Lore: Highlands 2
Awareness 2
Scots Gaelic 5 (native)(Highlands dialect)
Survival 2

Later Life (5-9) (60 pts)
Athletics 1
Charm 1
Folk Ken 1
Guile 1
Music 2
Sewing 1
Stealth 1
Weaving 2

Apprenticeship/Abilities (9-24) (120 pts)
Artes Liberales 1
Distilling 2
Latin 4
Magic Theory 3
Mythic Herbalism 2
Parma Magica 1
Penetration 1
Survival +1 (to 3)

Apprenticeship/Arts (120 pts)
Creo 2
Intellego 4
Muto 10
Perdo 3
Animal 4
Corpus 6
Herbam 4
Imaginem 3
Mentem 1
Terram 3
Vim 4

(all other Arts were 0 at this time)

Apprenticeship Spells
Aura of Ennobled Presence (MuIm 10)
Cloak of the Duck's Feathers (MuAn 5)
Disguise of the New Visage* (MuCo 15)
Doublet of Impenetrable Silk (MuAn 15)
Eyes of the Cat* (MuCo 5)
Herb of Virtue* (MuHe 15)(from Grimoire, which has it mis-calculated as level 10)
Hunt for the Wild Herb (InHe 5)
Preternatural Growth and Shrinking* (MuCo 15)
Revealed Flaws of Mortal Flesh (InCo 10)
Sight of the True Form (InCo 15)
Taste of the Spices and Herbs (MuIm 5)
Touch of the Pearls (InAq 5)

  • Spells to which her Minor Magical Focus apply.

Holy cow, that took longer than I thought it would. But I got Fiona's character sheet up.

I don't think I missed any of the spells that fall under her Minor Magical Focus, and I'm not sure about the sigil effect on her Aegis of the Hearth.

But let the nitpicking commence! :laughing:

Was working on her Prologue, Part I, and realized that I had forgotten to give her Concentration. So I added Concentration 3, and dropped her Survival and Weaving down from 3 to 2.

Was the battle helpful in that regard? :smiley:

Actually, it was a protracted stare-down with the Criamon Princeps of Insula Canaria. Realized she probably needed Concentration to continue staring while the Criamon's perception was...elsewhere, looked at her character sheet, and went "Um...whoops?"

After discussion with Jonathan.Link, I've tweaked her Aura of Ennobled Presence, since it didn't click that the base size for Imaginem is human size (defined somewhere as up to Size +1...which wouldn't work on Fiona, who is Size +2). Reduced the range from Touch (+1) to Personal, and added +1 Size Modifier to keep the spell level at 10.

In line with what JL was saying about Fiona's Longevity Ritual and consultation with him, I made the mistake of rerolling her aging rolls. Note to self: never do complicated die rolls en masse ever again...it was confusing. The rolls are here, here, here, and here. The results, in a long nutshell:

34: no apparent aging
35: 1 Aging Point in Sta
36: apparent age increases by one year
37: 1 Aging Point in any Characteristic (Quickness, I Choose You!)
38: apparent age increases by one year
39: apparent age increases by one year
40: apparent age increases by one year
41: apparent age increases by one year
42: apparent age increases by one year
43: apparent age increases by one year
44: no apparent aging
45: apparent age increases by one year
46: apparent age increases by one year
47: apparent age increases by one year
48: apparent age increases by one year
49: no apparent aging

p.s. This is why the Difficult Longevity Ritual kinda sucks. Even with jacking up the Longevity Ritual lab total from 55 to 70 over 16 years, it had no effect on her apparent age from the original set of rolls...in fact, it worked out worse for her, since she now has two Aging Points she didn't before. Ah well.

And speaking of Fiona's Flaws.

I know it's been over a year (in-game) since she was introduced, but for some reason I'm just not feeling that whole Ambitious thing. To be what? The best transformer? (Magebots, roll out!) The most famous giant mage?

What I think I would like to do is swap it out for Driven, to bring about peace and understanding between men and giants.

Is that acceptable to everyone? Ambitious hasn't come into play yet, and they're both Minor Flaws.

Thinking ahead on stuff I'd like Fiona to do, and I'm thinking that her talisman should be more than just a walking stick. So, I've got a couple of ideas that I'd for her to do, and I'd like comment/feedback.

Both are going to be done as "Invested Items" enchantments, and both are doable (although, at her current levels, neither one can be done in one season and the one might take a bit longer than the other)

[u]Idea the First: Accio Talisman[/u]
This would be a Rego Herbam effect, which enables Fiona to summon her talisman to her from anywhere, up to six times a day. This is not a Teleport-type effect.

Base Effect is 3 ("Control an amount of wood"), Range: Arcane Connection +4, Duration: Concentration +1, Target: Individual. Final effect level is thus 20.
Lab Modifiers: 6 uses a day, +3; Maintain Concentration +5 (which enables the Talisman to keep moving until it reaches Fiona's hand), for a final Modified Effect Level of 28.

Her current Rego Herbam Lab Total is Re 5 + He 10 + Int 1 + Magic Theory 6 + Aura 5 + Lab (Superior Equipment) 1 + Lab (Dedicated Building, Specialization: Rego) 1 + Lab (Idyllic Surroundings, Specialization: Herbam) 1 + Inventive Genius 3 + it's her Talisman 5 + S&M Bonus (Staff: control things at a distance) 4 = 42. If she experiments, she gets another +3 from her Inventive Genius, and an average of 5 on the die roll, so call it 50 per season, so she could currently do it in two seasons (regardless of whether she Experiments) at her current skill level.

My only concern is whether the whole Rego thing would work, as I would like there to be some kind of Strength roll involved if someone's holding her talisman when she summons it. The closest analog in the core rules would be The Treacherous Spear, which requires a Qui - Encumbrance Stress roll of 9+ to hold on initially, and a Str stress roll of 6+ in subsequent rounds.

Also, if I'm understanding the Talisman rules correctly, every season that she instills effects into the talisman, she gets to Attune it to something, using the Shape and Material Bonus charts for ideas. Since her Talisman is a Staff, it automatically gets "repel things," "project bolt or other missile," "control things at a distance," and "destroy things at a distance." But she could, say, attune a +3 Corpus (from Amber) in one season and +3 Perdo Vim (from Frankincense) in the next?

[u]Idea the Second: Restoring the Body Transformed[/u]
This is probably a Perdo Vim effect, more or less a restricted form of Unraveling the Form of Corpus which is limited to only undoing transformation spells (e.g., if someone is transformed into a wolf, raven, tree, stone, bucket of water, what have you).

Unraveling the Form of Corpus undoes spells of Level + 10 + Stress Die. Looking through the MuCo spells, all the non-Ritual spells have levels ≤ 35, so I'm looking at a spell level of 25 to be sure to get all of them. Unraveling the Form of Corpus has a Range of Voice, but I want the effect to be Touch range, as she would need to touch the target with her Talisman to undo the spell. So that would drop the Effect Level from 25 to 20 while still keeping the same strength?

So, I'd be looking at a Base Effect Level of 20. Usable 3x a day for +2. I'm thinking I'd like to add some Penetration in case there's Parma or some kind of MR involved. So...say Penetration 12 for +6. That makes the final Effect Level 28.

Her current Perdo Vim Lab Total is Pe 5 + Vi 6 + Int 1 + Magic Theory 6 + Aura 5 + Lab (Superior Equipment) 1 + Inventive Genius 3 + it's her Talisman 5 + Attunement (Perdo Vim, above) 3 = 35. If she experiments, she gets another +3 from her Inventive Genius, and an average of 5 on the die roll, so call it 43 per season. So, she can probably do it in two seasons, at her current skill level. It might behoove her to increase her Pe and Vim enough for her to ramp up the Penetration, because I think that could be an issue when she goes to use it.

And she would probably give an Attunement: +5 Muto (from Mercury) in the first season and maybe +5 Lycanthropes (from Silver) just in case in the second.

Ok, couple of things going on here. Let's talk about compound items first.
It looks like you want a staff with multiple items, consistent with your magical interests. Your limit to the number of components is your score in Magic Theory, which in your case is 6.
Preparing the item for enchantment will require the lesser of all the components in the item OR the individual component with the highest single value. So your largest vis capacity item can require no more than 12 pawns of vis to prepare for enchantment. That's season one.
Season two, you attune it as your talisman, and you have to pick one of the bonuses that you'll activate.
Further attunements can be awakened in subsequent seasons when you either increase the capacity of the device, or add an enchantment to the talisman.

Does that make sense?

For Accio Talisman, I'd say a strength + size check of 9+ would be reasonable, if you want it more difficult, make an addition for complexity, for lack of a better word.

For the Restoring the Body Transformed, sure that's fine. I would caution experimentation with your talisman, however...
Better off making the effect into an item first, and then instilling the effect into your talisman based on the lab text you now have...

I actually thought she had already made and attuned the talisman, since it's on her character sheet and I've referred to it as her Talisman several times.

I didn't realize that you add one of the bonuses when you attune it. I'll have to figure out which one to choose, then.

Sounds good.

Yeah, experimenting with your Talisman would be on the cover of Bad Ideas Quarterly. I can probably do another item first, maybe with experimentation, and/or increase her Perdo and/or Vim first.

Also, should we create like a Hermetic Sandbox thread for people to throw out their ideas/plans for spells, items, etcetera for review/comment, or keep putting it in our character creation threads?

Moved Fiona's 1220 Aging Roll here from the Seasonal Activities thread.

Age (50/10) 5 - Living Conditions Modifier 2 - Longevity Ritual Modifier 7 + die roll of 4 = 0: No apparent aging.

Jormungand and Fiona have invented her new Longevity Potion, but she doesn't have the eleven pawns of vis to do it yet. She will after the council meeting, will run off to make the potion slash perform the ritual directly afterward, and then probably grab Jormungand to...erm..celebrate :wink:

So, for 1221, she is still using her old Longevity Potion.

Age (51/10, round up) 6 - Living Conditions Modifier Modifier 2 - Longevity Ritual Modifier 7 + die roll of 3 = 0. No apparent aging.

Laetitia has extra Creo vis she could lend Fiona.

[color=blue]"Thank you, again, Laetitia." Fiona currently has 2 Muto and 4 Rego...so...um...yeah, she needs 11 pawns of Creo/Corpus/Vim. Just for a couple of days.

"Here's 11 Creo; I'll accept your 2 Muto and 4 Rego, and you can give me five pawns whenever you come into more. Don't postpone your ritual; that's silly. Whenever you pay me back, any type of vis is fine, although when possible I do prefer Intellego."