There are no later versions of Iberia, ToH: Iberia is the only one so far. It states that there are 10 covenants in the tribunal, and goes on to detail four of them: Barcelona, Duresca, Estancia-es-Karida, and Jafariya. Jafariya was marched when it was discovered it was a front for an Infernalis cabal. Estancia-es-Karida is in Granada and consist primarilly of Criamon sufis and Ex-Miscellanea Sahir. Duresca is a Quaesitor stronghold, and in my sagas the Q's are the good guys (mostly). Barcelona covenant has juristiction over the territory of the city it is named for. It had long been an exclusively Jerbiton covenant, but times change and they have a Mercere Master Redcap and a Falmbeau Guardian as members. Covenants I have added include Campomartes (a Tremere/Flambeau military covenant), and some others that I forget because they never really stood out and I think I swiped them from the Prospecus Locus saga website back in the 90's. It is posted somewhere in the saga notes.
As for history, the year is 1230 and these are indeed interesting times. It has become a four-way struggle. The Iberian Christians and Almorvid Muslims have a stable relationship of animosity and political alliance. The Almohads have been invading and think that the Almovids are soft and decadent. I need a refresher on Cordoba, but I think that the Almorvid tafia is allied with Castile for protection against the Almohads. Much the same is happening in Valencia, and King Peter of Aragon-Catalonia is about to get involved in a major way. The Christain kingdoms are themselves devided, but they still constitute a single side in this competition. The fourth element is influence from the outside, Frankish crusaders that are bringing the culture and tactics of the Levant with them. That is a new development.
Also, I seem to recal that Barcelona once metioned they favored forming a separate Catalonian Tribunal along with Andorra. This would require reviving Valencia and establishing at least one more in the area (Ibiza?).
What is it you wish to contribute to the covenant? If you have a large number of books in mind, the ones you purchase with your vis belong top you and it is your decision what to do with them. The Vis Sorce virtue gives you more vis to buy stuff with maybe. Or just spend some time copying books as a Seasonal activity during CharGen. Don't ask me what books you can find to copy. Just make something up that you feel is resonable and other players agree as such.
I might just end up copying books, it seems suitable and makes good use of my profession: scribe and illustrator. Of course, I have no idea whether anyone else would like to actually read all that stuff, but we'll have a well-stocked library .
By the way, is anyone planning to play a Tytalus mage? If so, I may have an annotated copy of the Analects I could share
If using seasons to write, a rule of thumb might be to use the "mustering out" options.
Since 1 season earns 3 pawns of vis (as extra vis wages), and that these can be be spend on books, that'd give you 12 points per season, enough for either:
A Q12 tractatus
A lvl 05, Q07 summa (note that adding seasons make this very worthwhile. Just 3 seasons can give a lvl 21, Q15 book!)
60 lvls of spell.
You could then use your prof: Illustrator to improve any copy you make, or enhance existing books.
As a slight HR, instead of taking MT exposure for these, you could take Scribe exposure.
Of course, copying your spells, or writing your own books should follow the normal rules.
In fact, I wasn't planning on playing a Tytalus - although they may not agree with that, of course. Silly Tytalus gauntlet rules! My character, though, enjoys philosophy, which makes the Analects a nice book to have. And there's another reasons I was polling. cough Beloved Rival cough
Thank you for that overview of the mustering rules for books. Since I was planning on picking up mundane books, it seemed only fair to actually use the published stats of various books. A lot of those are around level 4-5 with Q around 8-10. I know it's hardly optimal for mundane works, but I guess the great philosophers of the world weren't always expert authors.
Well, not really. It’s all a question of perspective.
First, we're accustomed to hermetic books, which often have insane qualities, or so we assume. This comes in part because some people assume that stat-increasing rituals are readily available (and, if they are, it effectively makes little sense that writer magi don’t all have Com +5) and that Mythic Teachers are relatively common (which is purely a mileage issue).
(Note that the RAW itself isn’t very clear cut on this: On the one hand, the guidelines for these are in the corebook, which implies that they are well known, whereas True Lineages speak of these more as a Mercere Secret.)
=> We have a high benchmark to begin with.
OTOH, following only the Corebook, a lvl 04 Q08 book implies someone with Com +2 and a mundane skill at 08 (IIRC and if I'm not sprouting nonsense. I'm very sleep deprived), which is quite good, considering that Com +0 is the average, and that, if you're an expert on, say, Philosophiae, Com is more of a dump stat than, say, intelligence.
Note that, in a way, to be famous, a philosopher need 2 things: A good enough score in a skill, so that people know he's good, and a good enough Presence to impress them
Now, 3 seasons of "vis mustering" would give you 26 points, enough for, say, 2 summas of lvl 05 and quality 08, exactly what you want
Be sure to review the covenant's current library before you start buying. We don't have many mundane books, but we have do very good summae for Artes Liberales and Philosophiae. Not that it's a terrible idea to double up for the next time someone flies in and nukes our library, of course.
Actually I would say that this comes from the RAW statement in Covenants that quality 6 is really bad for a tractatus, a tractatus only writen by vain magi: Quality 6 is a tractatus written by your average (Com +0) dude, so that statement is already heavily biassed towards the high quality extremist books.
I've been presuming that my character would become part of the presumed upcoming sister covenant, and would thus contribute to a brand new and rather empty library.
Nope. These are the books that remain
The old library was larger and had more redundancy and a wider variety of non-Art texts.
As for what an "average" book looks like, while it is true that the average magus has an average Com score of +0 and on the average no special V&F's, no one really cares about that guy's book. It is a vain tractatus. It is the above average books that get copied and recopied. The exceptional authors with high Com scores and maybe even the Good Teacher Virtue. I have a list somewhere of around fifty famous authors (names I made up mostly) whose books have stood the test of time. Guys with good scores and interesting insight.
I imagine that the mediocre and crappy books do not often get traded or copied, with the exception of those by an author famous for other reasons maybe.
I've been thinking about this and I'm more and more convinced that it may be better to break the shackles and do away with those presumed Com+5 mythic companion scribes. Let's look at some realistic numbers for Com+scribe skill:
+3 - a journeyman, probably not too gifted (say, Com +1 and Profession: scribe +2. That's most mages, right there.)
+6 - a skilled and/or gifted professional (Com +2 and Profession: scribe +4 is quite solid. Only specialist Jerbitoni pr Bonisagi are going to top this in most cases)
+9 - likely the maximum a mundane expert can reach - they don't get old enough to develop much more skill!
+12 - Legendary. This might be something like Com +4 and a Profession skill at +8. Even assuming puissant scribe, that's still a lot of dedication. Probably the very best mundane monks - and most of those do NOT write about Hermetic Theory!
+15 - Only mages willing to accept lower spellcasting abilities can reach these levels before they are several decades post gauntlet and even that assumes well above-average Com scores from the start.
+18 - Com +6, Puissant scribe +2, profession: scribe +10 - this is the absolute maximum in practical terms.
Now, in my experience (mostly several editions old, granted, but...) permanent stat increases are actually rarely allowed, for good reasons; they can be quite unbalancing in most cases. [Elevating all your grogs to have Int +0 isn't too bad, but going beyond +5 is another kettle of fish entirely]. Very few people actually go beyond +3. Presuming this applies to NPCs just as much, that limits the above a little bit more. So should we limit the rules for books? It seems very unrealistic, given the assumptions they make on available scribing skills. That's not even going into the fact that those most elite scribes ALSO need to have the skills they are writing about.
I would personally like a system where lower-level/quality books are of similar cost to the current rules, but once you go beyond Level 6 and Quality 12 or so, it should get quite pricy - perhaps double the build points? And you could triple if beyond Level 9 / Quality 18. How does that look to you all?
My point is quite different.
If you have a Com of +0, your book last a generation and is soon forgotten
If you have a Com 0f +3 and are a Good Teacher, your book gets copied and handed down through the generations.
I entirely agree with that of course! But how many authors have there been that actually have been capable of writing those superior tomes? Is it realistic that they exist - and how do we explain the discrepancy with the mundane tomes, who seem to have been written by relative morons compared to the hermetic works? Last but not least, do we feel it is balanced that even a brand new covenant can easily stock up on L 15 Q 20 tomes in all the arts.
in 1220, the Order has 1500 members. Let us estimate that, all through history, there have been 5000 Hermetic magi. That is not that many really, a fraction of one percent of the human population.
So out of all magi, say 1% are uber exceptional authors. That's an easy 50 right there. Now say another 3 % anre just really good (150), and 6% are decent. That's 10% of the Hermetic population, 500 authors. Possible, probable, and feasible. Indeed, it would be unrealistic to presume less than that.
As for game balance, I for one really don't worry about it. Not at all. Versimilitude is many times much more important than game balance to my tastes.
I'm with Marko on this. The Order's had plenty of time to produce some truly epic works on basically every subject, especially arcane abilities and Arts. As for what makes sense for a new covenant, I look at it this way - a group of magi is unlikely to attempt to found a covenant without a certain level of available resources. You can make up any story you like for where those resources come from, but it ultimately doesn't matter. The system skims past it and gives you a realistic collection of resources in the end. And I think you'll find that a standard spring covenant will have very few, if any, L15/Q20 Art summae, for example.
On a related note, I was neglecting the fact that your character's book collection is intended for a new chapterhouse. The Andorra library certainly wouldn't need to be a limiting factor in that case. However, I'm expecting Marko (or whoever takes on the SG duties) to give the players of that covenant standard build points to start with. Making everyone build a library out of character creation build points kinda goes against Marko's 'playing with power' theme. So it wouldn't be up to the individual magi to actually 'buy' the library, but the library will presumably be much smaller and books you bring in personally could have a significant impact. Which I guess is a very long-winded way of saying 'I was wrong' and 'good idea!' :mrgreen:
That's a good way of looking at it. It's also telling that I'm used to low-powered games - I clearly recall the uproar we had when someone proposed a new character that started with a magnitude 6 spell.
Anyway, do you feel that the quoted stats for mundane books (some, such as the Analects, were written by experienced mages), are fair compared to the Art books? It seems, in general, that they have roughly half L and Q, which makes little sense if they are from the same authors.
I wrote a pretty long post about this a while ago on the Ars Magica board. I forget the specifics, but with the lifetimes of magi and the interest in books, it really doesn't take many to supply a plethora of books for all but the most focused elder magi.
I think I found the reason for my confusion. The increase to Q is per point in the ability after halfing the level, so even with Puissant (abiluty) you'd need a base skill of 10 (+2) to get a Level 6 Summae. I feel less dense already! Only took me reading it three times. Ugh!
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