Hiems and Cygna

Knight-sense tingling!

Hiems is pained to see his love cry and feel like this. His chevalrous instincts taking over, he quickly puts his arm over her, and pulls her close. After she has cried a little
No. Don't say this. We did our best, and no one would ever reproach you to fail, given improper directions.
...
Anyway, we can't go on like this. We're going nowhere, and wasting time. So you are right, we should head back to barcelona. Hopefully, we can do this quickly enough. Don't despair, Katerina, we haven't failed yet! And he'll kiss her, a light, tender kiss. And kiss her again, a little longer. And again. And... No, this is not the time for this! :laughing:

JL, you forgot Hiems has his Legion Flight ring! The two of them can fly back to barcelona! :smiley:

A man and a swan flying across Spain. Nah. Nothing to see there. That seems to be a bad idea to me...

Swan seems (relatively) normal, especially when seen from the ground. Hiems, on the other hand, will probably need a PeIm spont cast on him. Cygna has no chance (barring a couple of 1s and something) to get one off on him. Hiems has a chance ((Sta 2 + Pe 11 + Im 5 = 16 + die roll, halved is probably 10, vs. a target of Base PeIm 4 ("Destroy an object's ability to affect sight"), R: Personal, D: Sun (+2), T: Individual, for a final level of 10)). As long as Cygna doesn't touch him, he might be fine.

He already has such a spell. "Sidestep the sight", a personnal range Veil of Invisibility.

Someone should of thought of flying sooner. :stuck_out_tongue: They were too busy being in love. :laughing:

The base on that ring is not descriptive of "quickly" but I'm going to gauge that it is probably 15 miles per hour (~24 kph), which in the mythic paradigm is quite quick, but not as fast as Cygna can fly. This makes some sense (to me) in that it leaves the Auram spells superior for flight speed. And it's still a heck of a lot faster than walking.

[strike]As far as how the ring really works, it's not without problems. First use gets the person airborn at a certain speed, but once desired altitude is achieved, then a course correction to level out flight and direction is needed, so take off takes two uses. Further, touchdown requires at least one use, to slow down and aim for the ground, so three uses need to be reserved for take off and landing, IMO. Of course, one could choose to not make the suggested course corrections at take off and landing, but that's a personal choice.[/strike]

The trip to Barcelona takes two days of flight (about 6 hours each day, Cygna could probably fly it all in one, but require a day of rest afterwards, so time stays the same). In the evening of the first night she ends the trip at a body of water and feeds for about an hour or two, leaving Heims to make camp. Sound reasonable? Second night finds them arriving to Barcelona Mercere House in the afternoon...

Cygna smiles wickedly as Hiems reluctantly breaks the kiss, then looks up and down the road to make sure they're alone. She then grabs him by the hand, whispers [color=red]"Come with me," and pulls him behind a nearby tree. She kisses him deeply as she pushes him against the tree, breaks the kiss with a bawdy grin, then drops to her knees, pulling his robes over her head, and gives him a quick yadda yadda yadda.

Someone figured that Cygna, flying solo, can hit about 35mph/55 kph for short bursts of speed, but it's normally about 20/30 for sustained flight (accounting for both exertion and crosswinds).

As long as carrying Cygna's clothes, or putting them in his pack, doesn't trigger his Vulnerable Magic, he should be fine. Once they decide on this course of action, Cygna will slowly and deliberately disrobe, fold her clothes carefully, hand them to him to do whatever, and kiss him quickly before taking her Heartbeast form. Preferably near a creek, pond, or something so she can take off. ((Swans apparently need a permanent body of water to take off and land. Landing, I'm not sure if, since she had a human mind, she can try to land on dry land with a stress Dex roll or something, or if she would have to become human while landing, which may require a Heartbeast roll to do it right without doing herself an injury)).

Cygna will try to fly close enough to Hiems to be able to talk to him while they travel, but being very careful not to touch him (since, I'm assuming, she's figured out that her touch causes any of his magic to be dispelled)...which, since he's got the Sidestep the Sight up, could be a problem. She's almost afraid to ask, but she does have that Friendly Voices spell she could cast on him, with Sun duration. Down side is that it's level 30, which would give him a Warping point. She would like to cast it, so they can remain in contact for the duration of the day, but she would understand if he doesn't.

Vulnerable Magic needs to transform... And the power of Heims and Cygna's love does make it transform.

Cygna and Heims touching is no longer uncommon. Make it happen, or I'll make it happen. You've been warned, people. :stuck_out_tongue:

I usually take "quickly" as being as fast as a fast horse, whatever that is.

I very much disagree about the Auram flight spell being necessarily better at it, I see it as a clever workaround, but, well, this is purely a PoW, and neither your nor mine is backed up in any way by the rules (they only state the speed of the auram spell). So whatever.

For the ring, it works with concentration duration, which usually means that you can vary and control its effects on the fly. It is applied through the rules whenever you need variable control of something instead of maintaining the same effect over and over again, such as with The Unseen Porter
Otherwise, it means that, if using Rise of the Feathery Body on a grog so that he can go up and, say, look out for the countryside, you can't bring him down, unless you rise to his height and cast a second, "descend" spell while still concentrating on your own.
Likewise, you have to apply that very same ruling to Wings of the Soaring Wind. It means that a magus using the spell, and not an item, must cast it once to go up, cast a second instance of the spell while still concentrating on the first to fly horizontally, and then manage a final casting to land.

...
I am under the impression that you don't understand what happened here.

The "uncommon circumstances" isn't "being touched by cygna" or whatever. It is "being burned". The love bit was suggested as an addon, nothing more, nothing less.
Let me quote myself

You know that warping sucks? If they travel for 6 days, that's 6 warping points!!!

If she can spont a lvl 10 spell, she can cast a Sun duration spell at touch range to form words into his mind (base 3), unless JL rules that it means something like it's the same sentence being repeated over and over again, or it just stays stuck in his mind for a day*
And he can cast a MuCo spell base 2 (minor ability) for sun duration, so that he can speak loud enough for her to hear despite the wind/speed

  • Actually, no, I just see that The Far Speaking Voice allows 2 minutes of speech, and this is a touch range, sun duration version of that spell.

A fast horse doing what? Walking, cantering, galloping? Is it a race horse? 15 mph is pretty reasonable, it's faster than a person can run, and we are dealing with Corpus here. The Auram spells, specifically Wings of the Soaring Wind pushes you along at 40 mph.

[strike]Yes, and since the item maintains concentration, if the user varies the control it counts as a use.[/strike]

[strike]By that logic the spell Rise of the Feathery Body shouldn't continue working after the target is no longer at touch range of the magus. I don't think that's the case, either.
I think you're missing the point, see my comment above. The item maintains concentration, and it goes in the direction last configured by a user of the device. If the user changes direction with the ring, it counts as a use of the ring, because you're changing the direction or perhaps the speed of how it flies, where it starts concentrating on the new direction. If you don't want to worry about uses, build a better ring with unlimited uses. I'm telling you how the parameters of that ring work in this saga. And if you don't agree with it, take it to the table.[/strike]

[strike]No, the magus is always in control of that spell, he is maintaining concentration, he is not handing it over to a device. If you want a device to do Wings of the Soaring Wind and you build in concentration, you lose some amount of control. Devices aren't always better. They usually are. This is an example of where a device has limitations but a magus concentrating continuously on a spell is better. It is certainly true that a person could fail their concentration roll, and the results would be bad. That's where a device is better. The choice between a spell and an item is the choice between which problems you're trying to solve. The ring solves the problem of failing concentration checks. It doesn't make adjustments without taking up another use (otherwise why does it have more than one use?). If you don't want that limitation in the ring, make it with unlimited.[/strike] And if you don't agree with my interpretation, again (and you do this often) take it to the troupe, and not to me. If you do take it to me, please point me a spot I can see where I'm wrong in the main rules, and don't go into extensive examples.

Perhaps I'm not the one who is mistaken. I'm responding to events and comments that two players are making towards each other. It appears Cygna/Peregrine thinks that this is how Heim's magic is Vulnerable. If that isn't the case, that's really between the two of you.

For a "B" character in this saga, I want the virtues and flaws to balance. So it cannot be simply dropped, it must be transformed into something. I don't care what it is, really. What I want is Heims and Cygna to be happy, to have virtues and flaws that are consistent with the characters and where the players want to take their story. If being touched by Cygna is a problem for Heims, it needs to transform sooner or latter. If it isn't a problem, then I'm not the only one who thinks that it is, which is what precipitated my comment that it needs to be transformed. If Heims fear is that Cygna will leave him, then maybe he has a Restriction, Whenever Cygna isn't present. I don't care; it's up to the players within the parameters I've described. Maintain virtue and flaw balance, and make it consistent to whatever the virtue or flaw describes as reasonable behavior, and make sure you both understand what the triggering behavior is.

So, he has this deeply rooted fear that Cygna will desert him (just as My Lady did), and because of that, whenever they touch, his magic "shuts down," dispels every spell he has going? Including his tower's wards and what not?

Which is why she asked :smiley:

Easily. ((Her CrMe CT is Sta 0 + Cr 6 + Me 18 = 24 + die roll, halved.))

[hr][/hr]
That night as they snuggle (in an inn if they can make it to a city, or in the woods if not – Cygna has Survival 1, with a Specialization in Woodland), Cygna asks Hiems what the plan is when they make it to Barcelona.

Ignore my stuff about the ring and uses and concentration. (I'm going to strike it through). I re-read the Concentration moficiation under the Laboratory rules, I was mis-remembering it. It says plainly that the wielder needs to concentrate to change how the effect is used, and makes no mention of whether it requiring a use to do so, so it doesn't.

The max speed on it though is still 15 mph. That's pretty darn fast for the paradigm. It may not be as fast as a fast horse, but it doesn't tire, either. And it's relatively close to Cygna's comfortable cruising speed as a swon.

In the future (and this is for any and all players paying attention). If you know I'm wrong, and can show me the rule, point that out to me. Going into examples when there's a pretty clear explanation in the rules text just wastes time (and if I'm grumpy makes me grumpier. Note: I'm acknowledging I'm grumpy right now).

I'm pretty much basing Cygna's actions and reactions on Hiems's statement that when Cygna touched him, the wards he had cast at his tower came down, followed by (I believe) the Fixer's statements that his Vulnerable Magic has two triggering effects: being burned, and the touch of his love. His love was, at one time, The Lady, but since she hadn't come into play before the second Phoenix died out, we never got to see how that went. His love is currently Cygna; her touch causes his Wards to end, and (as far as I know) he hasn't cast any lasting spells until this trip, when he cast that Sidestep thing.

Is it possible that, when Hiems said that his wards came down, that he was speaking metaphorically and that Cygna misunderstood him to mean it literally? It's possible. But I can also see that so much of Hiems's magic is tied up into his self image (the whole cold thing), that anything or anyone that gets past his defences, that forces him to be something other than this ice-man who is apart from everyone around him, causes cracks in his image, which in turn causes his magic to crumble.

Mechanics-wise, it makes more sense for his Vulnerable Magic to only have the one trigger – being burned. But story-wise, I prefer that Cygna is also a trigger for that particular Flaw. The whole star-crossed lovers thing that I have such a weakness for.

Not sure how we want to approach "fixing" the problem, mechanics-wise. Technically, if we keep the Vulnerable Magic and just have it be the original "when burned", nothing needs to be done – merely cross out the "love's touch" portion. But that just doesn't feel right to me. Vulnerable Magic is a Major Flaw, so it logically needs to be replaced with another Major Flaw. Does it necessarily have to be a Major Hermetic Flaw? Or a Personality Flaw somehow related to Cygna? (Glancing through the V&F Index, I see Overconfident, and maybe Cygna's love for him fills him with so much confidence that he can't imagine failing at anything if she believes in him? She's already given him (or soon will) Dependent in Livius and Lucius...perhaps his sons serve as an anchor for both him and his magic so that his magic won't fail like it used to? And JL's suggestion about Restriction, I can almost see, too. Perhaps not just physically there, but he must be aware of her in some way so that he knows that she's there for him and believes in him and that's what gives him the strength to go on?

Just throwing stuff out there.

Well, are they star crossed lovers still? That implies that one or both of them will end up dying... Do you want a happily ever after for this pair, or not?

I like the Restriction (when not in Cygna's presence) because it goes totally the other way. He gave in, and the love he finally acknowledged (to himself and Cygna) he felt for Cygna transformed him, and now he needs her, more than he could have ever thought possible. And it's not necessarily a good thing. If the two plan to never separate (and as an SG I have no plans to deliberately separate them, except for the possibility in the Footsteps thread), then this is reasonable. If this were chosen, I'd be inclined to treat presence as being the same general location, such as at Phoenix, although maybe not across regio boundaries. So the pair could maintain separate labs in a common sanctum.

Love and relationships change people. Vulnerable magic and being burned...that's a bit rare, IMO. Unless he goes fighting a lot of Flambeau. I think the idea may have been to pick to rather rare events and equate that to uncommon. Keep in mind that Ra'am's Restriction basically happens to him once per week on the Sabbath when walking to Temple and back. But his piety makes it worse, since he generally doesn't cast magic for the entire day. You could argue that Restriction in that sense is a flaw without being a flaw, but it can happen at other, inopportune times. In any event, this is more of a discussion between the two of you, I just need to know what the flaw is, in case it comes up at a later time. Right now, it seems ill-defined.

I may have mis-used the phrase. I meant that they are lovers despite the circumstances, despite all that they've had to go through to find each other. In Hiems's case, coming to love Cygna and overcome the psychological damage that M'Lady did to him; in Cygna's case, fear that her love for him was inevitably doomed by Hiems's past and her fear that he would never be able to love anyone, let alone her.

Aaaargh!

I dunno where you get this idea that I want him to drop a flaw. I want him to drop the added bit to his flaw!

Try again?

  • Vulnerable Magic states that your magic is dispelled in uncommon circumstances.
  • As you can see here, I took "Magic dispelled when burned". NOT "Magic dispelled when touched by his love".
  • JeanMichelle suggested (it's clearer here) that this cover also being (figuratively) burned by the touch of True Love (I had forgotten the True bit, and I'm not the only one).
    => I like the vulnerability to being burned. It is fitting and is "uncommon". What I want to drop is the True Love bit.

It's like taking a RAW vulnerability to touching Iron, with the DM suggesting that this also applies when touching people with an Iron Will, and wanting to get rid of that last part. Is it clearer?

Yes!

I don't like the dependants bit, simply because, well, I want it to be a "free" flaw. That is, IMO, he gets it for free just for having strange children and being who he is. Things should happen to them, and he should worry. Does this makes sense?

Restriction
Major, Hermetic
You cannot cast spells at all under certain uncommon conditions. These might refer to your state, such as touching the earth directly or having no beard, or to the target, such as birds or glass, or to your location when you use the magic, such as on a small boat or in a storm. The Restriction also applies to effects generated by any enchanted items you create.

I wouldn't exactly call "not in cygna's presence" an uncommon circumstance. In fact, IMO, it is a whole lot worse than having his spells and enchantments dispelled by her mere touch since it means that, should she be trapped or captured, for example, he is helpless to save her.
Compare to Restriction (True Feeling), for a RAW take on this.

A combo of Baneful Circumstances and Deleterious Circumstances (although one is "uncommon", the other "relatively common") when not with Cygna could have done the trick, too, but that's only 2 minor. Maybe with True Love? Bof...
I'm just dismayed that you want him to get rid of his vulnerability, I like it.

I don't care what it is, as long as it is roleplayed consistently.
I'm not carefully tracking what these characters do (now). Peregrine said something about Cygna not wanting to touch Heims, dispelling his magic. So, that's what I'm tackling. Define it how you want. But if it's be burned...how often does Heims get burned?

Quoting yourself doesn't help me, when I don't understand the entire context of what you mean, so I can only take it at face value. Keep in mind, you're going back into deep back story that I was never really involved in or commented on. So, is being burned, as in being spurned by a love or something, or is it being burned with fire? Regardless, I don't care what the flaw is, I just want it dealt with and understood between the players. If Cygna is constantly worried about touching Heims and dispelling his magic, the flaw isn't adequate, and the love must transform it. That's what I'm saying. If that's a commentary that Cygna is having with herself, not understanding that she can touch, then that wasn't clear to me.

Heims and Cygna's capabilities and limitations may come into play, so having them clearly defined is important, unless Heims and Cygna take themselves out of the picture immediately and go back to Phoenix. Player choice. Make sense?

Yup.

It was being burned with Fire. A very comic-book like vulnerability, for a manga-like character.

In fact, this all comes down to what happened with Arya. The additionnal "love" bit JeanMichelle suggested concerned only True Love. And when frantically backpedalling against Arya, since she had done this for #%ù&$!, I did it too with cygna, in order to have Hiems go back a little towards her. And here, I had entirely forgotten that this wasn't just love, thus my error. Cygna shouldn't have dispelled nothing.

How many times has Hiems beeing burned? It comes down to how many times he's been played :wink: :-/

I think I'd very much like to keep the vulnerability to physical burning (look at Iceman in X-men, or Johny Storm in the FF. They seldom get burned/doused in water, but when it happens, it sucks big time), get free dependants, and get a free, "psychological" Baneful Circumstances for when he's not in the same place than cygna. Very appropriate to have him let himself wither and die. And it plays well with his Lost Love, too, in a fashion.

There's one problem with this. Well, 2 actually.

First is, I'm senile, so although I remembered how exemple Conc spells worked, I didn't recall that bit in the rulebook :blush:

I could have searched, but then...
I'm posting from work, or, when I'm at a friend's house, from his computer.
At work, I can be on 6 different computers, only one of them being "mine", with the downloaded pdfs stored on it.

This means that I'm either working from memory, or need to take a post with me, go to home, sort through the books, type my answer, and then post it when back to work. Something I seldom do, because it adds delays and I have too much other things to do at home. So when answering directly a post, I can't directly look at relevant bits of info :-/

Perhaps, or perhaps not, what you say below says much more about the number of times he's been played.

Seldom is less often then uncommon. It's a subjective word, uncommon, but it suggests some undefined quantity that is between common and rare. What you're describing is rare, IMO. What would have happened if Cygna was the True Love and the flaw was being dispelled by the True Love would have been common (happens too much, daily even). What might have happened if Phoenix progressed beyond 3 days of actual time is that The Lady would have played a bigger part in stories, and whenever she did touch Heims would have been uncommon, but not rare, since she was relatively close by to the Covenant.

There's one problem with this. You're arguing with me at worst, or debating the ruling at best, and not trying to convince the table of your point of view, ok? When I make a ruling, it's final. There are two ways for me to be over-ruled. Please do not convince me without the rules. You can enlist other players to take your side, and some of them may even find a rule that is in your favor. And that's fine. I just don't want arguments about my rulings on an individual player-SG basis. If everyone else thinks I'm wrong, I'm wrong, and I'll move forward. If someone can point out a rule that contradicts my understanding, then I'm wrong and I'll move forward. Take it to the table talk thread, state your case, and build consensus with the other players. I don't care two shakes about the troupe picking my rulings or decisions apart. I do have a problem with individual players trying to convince me that I'm wrong and they are right, without rules behind their assertions, or everyone being on their side.

On any given issue, someone can come up with an example, and someone else can come up with a counter example. If it's not in the rules, I'm only going to listen to the whole troupe. If you've presented a case and the troupe doesn't disagree with you, it's done, I'm over-ruled and we move on. If someone disagrees with you, then you either need to find more compelling evidence to convince them or move on yourself. I think it's a pretty easy concept to grasp, and it fundamentally puts a lot of power into the players, and it stops the potential bickering and it really informs me as to the shape of the game that the players want to play. Keep in mind that a lot of these decisions have repercussions above and beyond the player's consideration. I'm looking at the world, and if you want something bad enough, and I say no, it's probably because of the world implications, the saga cosmology as I like to call it. Amul said it elsewhere, my responsibility is the world, and to some extend he was right. And as much as my saying no to something might inconvenience a player in the short term, it is probably because the long term, or saga implications of what's being proposed could seriously impact the players. For almost everything that I'm asked to rule on, I go through a calculus on what is necessary, how it could influence the shape of the game to come, and why it didn't influence the back story until this point in time. I use the rules to shape and inform my stories. I try very hard to work within the rules, and I've told you all of this before.

So too late to cut to the chase, so I'll bottom line it. Being burned is not uncommon. Heims needs to come up with some circumstance that is uncommon and not rare. If Heims gets burned 20+ times a year, that's probably uncommon. I find that possibility to be extremely remote, though. My decision is final, if you don't think it's right, take it to Table Talk and convince the other players, and I'll accede to that view.