[size=150]House Rules and clarifications:[/size]1. As long as your character has personality and depth, all the published books are available to you. Don’t abuse my trust by minmaxing.
- Player Magi are 20-25 years old, have recently finished their apprenticeship and will not have Lab time before the game starts.
- You only need to stat out your Primary character (Magus or Mythic Companion). All others are optional, and can be added later.
- Magi: Choose a Characteristic (except Intelligence) to use in all your mage’s Casting Scores. This Characteristic cannot exceed +5 for this purpose unless it permanently alters your Essential Nature. Changing shapes with spells or Virtues does not change your Casting Totals. The exception is Bjornaer, for whom the Heartbeast truly is their natural shape. For them, the characteristic is the higher of their Heartbeast or human form. They’re +5 cap still applies.
- Gentle Gift does not count as your only Major Hermetic Virtue, though it still has to be balanced with Flaws.
- House Virtues may be substituted, as long as they are thematically appropriate and similar in power.
- Secondary Insight is now a Minor Hermetic Virtue. You get slightly more points than from other such Virtues, but in return, you can only invest 1 point per season, which is a limitation they do not have.
- Characters with a Might score begin with either 120xp (if replacing a Companion) or 360xp (if replacing a Magus/Mythic Companion).
- Custom starting spells must be level 5 (magnitude 1) or lower. All other spells must be from official, published books.
- On any simple or quality die roll, rather than rolling, you may choose to "Take 6." You must make this decision before you roll.
- Every player gets 1 free re-roll per year, no questions asked.
- Gain one Confidence Point per season until the number of Confidence Points equals the Confidence Score.
- You may swap Specializations any time you increase the relevant score.
- Languages will be grouped for simplicity. E.g. "Norse" covers Old Norse, West Norse and East Norse. "English" covers every variety of English (Norman English, etc). Primary languages: English, Norse.
- Any significant character who drops from healthy to Dead in one attack, instead drops to Incapacitated and sustains five Heavy Wounds.
- Enchanting Items: Item Expiry does NOT give an Excess multiplier, it merely ensures that wayward magic items eventually lose their potency. Penetration can be increased by 1 point (not 2) for each level increase spent on it.
- Dual wielding: You get an extra attack, but all your attacks (including the first one) suffer a cumulative -3 penalty to Attack and Damage.
- Shields have double their normal Defense bonus.
- You may reflexively allow any spell through your Parma Magica / Magic Resistance, but you must be aware of it.
- XP earned by creatures with Might cannot be reduced to negative numbers.
- Adventure XP is roughly doubled. You’ll get roughly the same from a season of adventuring as a season of lab work. Lab work is still safer, but if you want to play a magus who travels, you won’t be penalized for it.
- Magical Focus: In addition to the usual thematic foci, you may choose either one whole Form [Major Magical Focus] or one Technique+Form combination [Minor Magical Focus]. Examples: MMF(Corpus), mMF(Creo Corpus).
- Personal Vis Source: Amount generated is 10% of the base income of the Covenant. This updates automatically at the end of each season to remain relevant.
- Boundary is defined twice in ArM5, p.113, and the two definitions contradict each other. Disregard the definition in the box.
- XP for starting PCs ceases to accumulate from age beyond 25. So you can play someone who's in their 80s, but you'll still only begin play with the xp of a 25 year old.
- No Gruagachan characters of any sort.
- Starting characters may already be initiated into inner mysteries if the following criteria are satisfied:
[list=a][*]You have my approval. - It could actually happen. E.g. you have to take all the relevant Virtues, Flaws, Abilities etc.
- You have a good reason/concept.
Example: A Bjornaer who wants to begin with a Great Beast as their Heartbeast.[/*:m][/list:o]
[size=150]New Virtues:[/size]
Potent Whisper.
Hermetic. Minor.
When casting a Range: Voice spell silently, the effect carries as far as if it were spoken aloud. This has no effect on spells cast at normal
volume, or when using a Booming Voice.
Flexible Technique.
Hermetic. Minor.
Choose a second Characteristic to use for casting scores. Always use the better of the two. All other limits still apply.
[size=150]Advice:[/size]
- I’m very open to tweaking characters over time, for example if you didn’t understand some mechanic of the game initially.
- Anything you put on your sheet WILL come into play. There are no “free” Flaws or “wasted” Virtues.
- Online combat slows down the game, so if you’ve ever wanted to play a non-combatant, this would be a good opportunity.
- I will post roughly every 24 hours. If I have to step away for a few days, I’ll let you know in advance. Feel free to leave conditional instructions for me in private to post in your absence. In cases of prolonged absence, your character will be "ghosted" (i.e. I'll control it, and try to keep it out of harm's way).
- I’d prefer posts be short and frequent rather than a monthly novel.
- In the event that too many players apply, I will choose the first 6 players who contacted me, and add any others to a waiting list (if they wish).
- Only things described in forum posts actually happen. I fully encourage you to get together and dicuss things on Discord, but that's non-canon until it's posted here.
Change Log:
Jan 20 2019: Removed Adventurous Virtue, since it's mechanically too similar to Independent Study (HoH: MC 85).
Jan 22 2019: Added rules about Secondary Insight, Might XP penalty and starting XP for Might characters.
Feb 16 2019: Added rules about Companions, Gruagachs and Boundaries.