Further Development
_____You may play a magus fresh from their gauntlet, or you may choose a more advanced age. Developing a few years allows you to start off with a few accomplishments. However, younger ages are also encouraged, and will be treated with generosity. Encounters and opportunities will be scaled to be fitting for your character's age and power.
_____Advanced magi are divided into four categories, though new players are limited to the first one only. They are as follows.
- Spring (Years of Growth): 0 to 15 years post Gauntlet (up to three cycles). This is the suggested limit for new magi entering the game.
- Summer (Years of Power): 10 to 35 years post Gauntlet (up to five cycles). This is restricted to NPC's and characters that have been in the game for awhile and are grandfathered in under former rules.
- Autumn (Years of Prestige): Undefined. These are NPC magi that hold prominent positions of fame and power and prestige.
- Winter (Years of Dotage): Undefined. NPC magi, who may still powerful, but are in decline due to age and twilight.
Cycles of Advancement
_____Development is based upon Season, Year, and Cycle.
Season
_____In a Season, you may...
- Take 10xp Advancement (average quality of the average abstract source is 10)
- Work in the Lab (normal rules, including gaining Exposure xp)
- Earn extra Vis Wages (3 pawns per season of any Form)
- Do anything else that requires a season's worth of time (write a book, copy texts, run errands, go on vacation, visit your relatives, etcetera). You gain Exposure xp for this as well as for the results of your activities.
Year
_____In the four Seasons of a Year (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall), you may...
- Take up to 3 seasons Advancement
- Work up to 3 seasons in the Lab
- Earn one extra season of Vis Wages
- Do whatever else that fits
- You Must take a point of Warping if you are on a Longevity Ritual.
_____This is to be viewed as a ratio when extended to a Cycle. So you could, say in the course of a seven-year cycle, spend twenty consecutive seasons in the lab and study the rest of the time.
Cycle
_____A Cycle is an average of 7 years of abstract development (the actual length of a cycle may vary between four to ten years). Regardless of the adjusted length, each Cycle you may...
- Draw a Vis Salary of 21 pawn of any Form of vis. You may spend or use this vis at any point in the cycle.
- Gain one new Virtue from a Mystery, Adventure, or other appropriate source (see below)
- Describe a Major event in your life (the frequency of Major life events may serve as a guide to vary cycle length).
- You Must loose a season somewhere due to miscellaneous whatever.
- You must take a point of Warping for some reason that is certain to happen sooner or later. Take more if there is a good reason (such as a related Flaw).
Other Considerations
- If you possess a Virtue that affects how many xp you gain from a study source (such as Apt Student or Book Learner), add 30xp per Cycle of Development. This is invariable no matter how you tweak things. If you have two such virtues, add 45xp. If you have three then you are really pushing it, but that would add 52xp per cycle. For further consideration, there are certain Virtues & Flaws that may not mesh well with this advancement system. Though they operate fine in regular play, for pregame development they are modified as follows…
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- Secondary Insight: The bonus xp are gained whenever the relevant Art reaches a score of 4, again at 6, and again at each point of increase beyond that.
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- Free Study/Unimaginative Learner: Because study from vis requires a roll, it is treated as an independent seasonal activity, much like lab work.
- As a young developing magus, it is presumed you have access to a Standard Lab in a Magic Aura of 5. No further concern is needed unless you wish to tinker with this.
- During Development, it is presumed you have access to Lab Texts for spells from printed cannon or another approved source (such as the Andorra wiki). It is not that you had access to every spell, just the ones you happened to be researching. Other spells and variants will need to be invented from scratch. The same shall apply for texts concerning Charged Items and Lesser Enchantments, provided they qualify as a Similar Effect to a cannon or approved spell (e.g. a Lab Text for a charged PoF wand or a constant effect Doublet of Impenetrable Silk is fine; a wand that shoots bees or a doublet of steel silk are too original for a text).