Gardenia covenant management

With current costs and income the covenant will run out of money mid winter, unless savings somewhere extend this or funds can be raised before that point. The total overage for the year is 13.5 MP. Possibilities for saving money include: not supporting the empty lab or the alchemists lab prior to it being converted to alchemist usage (this would save 1.5 Mythic pounds, at the cost of those labs suffering potential deterioration), cutting wages for inhabitants (there is a total of 17 pounds in wages, lowering these can adversely affect loyalty- fortunately the special properties of the aura give you a significant boost in loyalty). Also if people who ave not yet posted their seasonal activities use their labs less than two seasons in 1228 this will drop costs- anyone using the lab for 3 or 4 seasons will increase costs.

  1. The following characters were created by players who did not join the game since you launched and may need to be removed from your covenant finance tracker, since they are also in the season tracker: Agatha Gatling, Simon the Medic. That is, unless they are treated as NPCs.

  1. Anastasia finishes developping the circle of homecoming during the fall season and will start assisting with the recruitment from Winter 1229 depending on what her time allows without compromising her lab or study activities. This will allow her to start onboarding new covenfolk to try and contain the costs of the covenant. She would like the traveling companions (Guida, Giovanni, etc.) to refer her potential covenfolks they encounter during their travels. She's not necessarily looking for locals, so as not to give away Gardenia's location by recruiting everyone from nearby villages. The emissaries are instructed to bring her an arcane connection she can use for a discrete teleport, names, background and that kind of stuff. They have to be willing to relocate and enter the service of a wealthy patron, and single or married to someone who also has valuable skills. They are not told about Gardenia itself, Then Anastasia teleports together with the companion who will handle the social aspect, while she discreetly vets them for magical influence with Comprehend Magic, and for allegiance (spies, etc.), extreme piousness, and possible major personality problems with Posing the Silent Question. If she's satisfied and they accept, she will relocate them to Gardenia with her circle teleport.

It seems we already have a pending cook, so that's on the recruitment list. After that, unless other players want to put in a character or suggest something, priorities go to:

  • Carpenter;
  • Stonemason. perhaps we can use some of those bricks to make space for covenfolks if we don't sell them all;
  • rare craftsmen that can help lower lab expenses and support enchantment projects, such as a Glass-Blower, Goldsmith, Lapidary and Silversmith;
  • An illuminator and bookbinder, but not before Touch of Midas has been completed.
  • Laborers up to the number the covenant can benefit from;

For a total of maybe 10 covenfolk, depending on the referrals she gets and what the space allows. She doesn't want to onboard too many people at once.

Mingus already had 21 laborers which is optimal for your current population for reducing expenses.

Are those laborers basic peasants or are there craftspeople among them?

basic peasants, aside from the fact they are all literate and speak Latin.

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Sure, but it's a dynamic formula. Anything increasing the population of the covenant will increase the need for laborers.

Yes, this is true, though not necessarily at the first inhabitant. Laborers are relatively easy to come by compared to skilled craftspeople and specialists.

As he discussed with his colleagues on their journey to Gardenia, Bartomeus commences his first season of work once he has settled in to the new laboratory: writing a set of laboratory texts to add to the covenant library. With competent knowledge of Latin and sufficient experience (Latin 5 + 1 * 20), Bartomeus writes out the following laboratory texts:

Aura of Rightful Authority (ReMe 25) (ArM5e p 151)
Eyes of the Eagle (InIm 25) (p 145 ArM5e)
The Ear for Distant Voices (InIm 20) (p 145 ArM5e)
Perception of the Conflicting Motives (InMe 15) (p. 149 ArM5e)
The Invisible Eye Revealed (InVi 10) (p 146 ArM5e)
Words of the Unbroken Silence (CrMe 10) (p 148 ArM5e)
Notes of a Delightful Sound (MuIm 10) (p 145 ArM5e)
Taste of Spices and herbs (MuIm 5) (p 145 ArM5e)

I know Kriegeist's lab is an outlier with upkeep +8, a relic of character generation before we knew of Gardenia's deficit. I don't see us changing that at this point and the Fist of Midas should last us a while. That being said, how comfortable is the covenant with increasing the upkeep of the other labs? Do we discuss a limit on upkeep before installing virtues in labs? I haven't decided what to do yet with Anastasia's lab, but I'm considering raising Lena's upkeep for sure.

A normal 0 upkeep lab costs 1 MP per year. A +3 costs 6, +5 costs 15, +8 cost 36.

With 8000 pounds of gold, which is multiplied by the gold to silver value, I think we could all have +8 labs and not be too concerned even with a major running deficit with the tribunal rules over wealth creation. Thoughts?

keep in mind that an alchemical lab has an intrinsic -3 to upkeep due to not bein magical.

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Yeah, I think a +8 Upkeep, limit, for now, until we have a regular income source, would be enough.
Plus, I think Kriegeist has installed most of the virtues he's interested in, for now. It will be years till the rest of us can get to even +8.

It won't necessarily be years to get a high upkeep level if we get some free virtues that increase upkeep (such as the Ingredients, Equipment and Tools series), since while minor/major virtues require a season or two to get in place, the free virtues normally don't require any sort of construction or seasons - it's a purchase up front kind of deal.

While that's true, remember that we will also need to up our Refinement to install virtues, unless you have a flaw you want to install with a virtue. And this in addition to research, adventures, and other things that our Magi do.

Some of the expensive virtues are actually free - the ingredients and tools and equipment ones.
Though they may take a story to find a supplier for. But no time or space to install.

But of course I can't object to anyone else's upkeep, and we're fine for a long time with the new pile of gold.

Sorry, didn't mean to repeat what temprobe said.

I don't know the conversion of gold to silver, but I don't think we really need to cap upkeep. Vis is tight, but money is not anymore.

Found the conversion rate from Silveroak on discord: 14 to 1. So if we had 6 labs at 12 upkeep that'd be 468 MP silver or 33.4 pounds of gold.

Even at 50 lbs of gold a year we have over a century. Though some initial expenditures are required, we don't need to worry.

I'm sure Silveroak will give us other things to worry about besides money.

Right. So unless there's a sudden boom in the number of played magi having labs, we essentially don't need to worry about lab upkeep. Got it.

Fall 1229 outcome - Guida will approach the magi to ask about healing to help her and Fiore recover from their heavy wounds after the adventure.

She'll also ask whether any magi has an interest for the dried blood on her sword - an arcane connection to an annoying griffin that could yield vis plausibly (or components such as griffin feathers).

Or be a badass familiar?

The griffin was in a faerie aura and is presumably a faerie rather than a magical animal.

Elia will be more than happy to brew you each a potion that will give you a +30 or so on your Wound Recovery rolls. And add a +12 from a spell, if you don't mind a bit of warping.

Well Merinita can bind faerie familiars. But he may be too ornery.