How do magi show off?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
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My troupe is starting a second spring covenant and want to become the coolest magi in the tribunal. What could they do to impress their elders? What’s cool in your sagas?

I like the concept of honest signalling from evolutionary biology and want to apply it here. A honest signal is a behavior that sends a message about yourself that is hard to fake, usually because it would be impossible or prohibitively expensive or risky to send if untrue (in terms of some resource).

Exempli gratia: Using Haunt of the Living Ghost through someone's Aegis signals you posses strong magical powers because you evidently can cast a 7th magnitude spell with lots of penetration on top. It’s also likely an instance of countersignaling: You invest relatively little in overt signaling because the degree of the quality to be signalled is so extreme that it is obvious you have it. Less ‘‘Behold my awesome powers!! I demand you return my vis or else!’’ more ‘‘I saw you accidentally harvested my vis, it’s fine though, bring it by my place tomorrow, kthxbye’’.

Wealth is also a classic thing to brag about. A king may show off with colorful furniture and clothes: more color variety means more expensive but not really more useful, indicating that you have resources to burn, aka conspicuous consumption. Mundane wealth is quite easy for magi to get though, so it’s less useful for signaling. Then again several covenants seem to be proud of e.g. their vineyard or impressive buildings so I guess some things are harder to get? Still, vis and books seem more interesting.

But how do you show off you have more great tomes than you can read?Burning books seems very crass and wasteful. Just giving them away is better but you might reasonably expect favors in return, so it’s saying less about your wealth than it could…

For vis, I imagine that making useless but clearly expensive enchantments could be a thing. Not necessarily high levels of effect, just a lots of them (though you may of course show off your skill and/or that you have seasons to burn with high level effects). Maybe things like turning a spit by magic instead of having a servant do it.

Of course you can fake signals and get away with it sometimes, especially if you don't overdo it. Perhaps your talisman only has three components because you’re not that good at Magic Theory, but why not add a few rings of copper, iron, and bronze at the end? I also love the character in the Semita Erebunda supplement who uses magic without words or gestures to fake high warping side effects because they are associated with high power, although that would backfire on many of my characters who value care over courage.

What are other ways you can honestly signal you are a smart, rich, dangerous, fashionable, virtuous, sexy, pious, and reliable magus?

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Generally for a large library you would send out a list of titles via redcap, seeking anyone who will pay a nominal fee for the right to copy individual works.

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HoH: Soc pg. 50 talks a little bit about gift-giving practices among magi:

Magi cannot impress other magi with items that are mere expressions of wealth.
Magi may find or procure rare and relevant items during stories. They frequently
store items suitable for Etiquette check bonuses for many years, waiting for the
perfect moment, and perfect recipient. Some Jerbiton magi barter these items with
each other, or leave these items as gifts to their filii at death. A gift of this type
grants a bonus of between +1 and +5 to the Etiquette check, with the highest score
representing unique items that perfectly match the desires of the recipient.

There are also some ease factors to use Intelligence + (Intrigue or Order of Hermes Lore) + Receiver's Reputation in order to give appropriate gifts.

It's not specifically mentioned as a display of power, but much of Wizard's War comes down to knowledge of your opponent. A perfect gift says "I have a really good intelligence network, and I know exactly what you're good at and how you spend your time."

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The amount of vis a magum can expect to receive annually from their covenant varies widely by tribunal, from as little as 1 in Normandy to as much as 10 in the Greater Alps. You might write, into your covenant charter, that every magum is entitled to some exorbitant amount of vis and then “recruit” at tribunal by saying “we’re looking for a new member and can promise X.” The recruitment does not need to be real. The point is to publicly state how crazy rich you are.

Outfit your grogs with enchanted items. All of them, with conspicuous ones. This is not difficult but most covenants don’t do it because it requires time and vis. And every magum is jealous of a shield grog with +15 Soak and a shield that automatically blocks weapons.

Especially potent or rare familiars are a great way to impress other magi. Give it powers that defy subtlety. I once had a talking eagle familiar and sure, that was okay, but when I enchanted it to grow bigger than an elephant and rode it around everywhere, well. That’s another story.

Nobles would show conspicuous consumption of books by making the books large and illustrating only part of each page, thereby leaving the very well prepared and very expensive parchment blank. Magi might animate books, so (for example) the painted Bonisagus comes to life on the page and explains details. This doesn’t necessarily make the book higher Quality, it’s just expensive and time consuming to make.

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Now I’m wondering how crazy it would be to use the proper declension on this forum.

Magus Alpha killed magum Bravo. The dog of magi Charlie barked at mago Delta.*

*or however dative / genetive is actually used.

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Friends at Tribunal?

Being able to casually name drop the powerful and well respected Magi of the local Tribunal might prove very impressive for a Spring Covenant.

But how to cultivate, or perhaps fake/forge these connections could possibly be the basis of a Saga.

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The challenge is you mention Spring Covenant. You are not rich if you are in Spring. Dangerous? While one can optimise a mage for combat, even the most optimised 25 year old will likely be stomped by a 60 year old magi.

The others are easy.
Smart - Spring Covenants should abound with adventure. Have a writer travel with you and write stories of your adventures. The writer emphasises the smart solutions and glosses over the brute force solution, or the session where the SG is thinking “How much more obvious could I make this? If I was statting my players. they would not have +3 Int like their character does.”

Fashionable - Spring covenant should find this easy. Being fashionable is about setting trends. If you have a mage with travel powers they could even go to Paris/Milan (or whatever the time equivalent is) and get fashions ahead of even the nobility.

Virtuous, Pious and Reliable - These all require long term actions. be good neighbours, and the Virtuous and Reliable follows. Pious, regularly go to church, and display pious behaviours.

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Showing up with a Faerie Queen/King as your consort.

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And keep in mind that which your characters do not know- the words of Sun Tzu- “Appear strong where you are weak, and weak where you are strong”

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I suppose my first question is: To Whom?

Yes, the elders, but which? Who do they care about impressing? Elders of their own houses? Elders of the Tribunal in general? Which Tribunal? Of much lesser concern, in what era (most games are set in 1220, for good or ill, but not all).

Elders of House Flambeau will be impressed by different things than House Bonisagus, and in Iberia will be impressed by deeds against Sahirs, but in Normandy by chivalry mien.

In general, though, magical knowledge and ability, which often translates to power. Think mating strategy: widely speaking males want to demonstrate resources and females want to demonstrate fertility and survival, usually through shows of secondary characteristics, and competitions tend to be in standard formats dictated by available secondary characteristics. Which resources and characteristics vary by circumstance: horned animals compete by horn contests, for example.

A Tremere mage wants to show off through certamen, performance of assignments, and skill. A Bjornaer through transformation. A Merinita by interaction with and knowledge of faeries (possibly defensive).

If you show that you are good at what you do to people who appreciate that, you’re doing well. Otherwise, you’re out of the social circle.

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From Covenants p111, it says that the Aesthetics characteristic of your laboratory gives you experience points towards an appropriate reputation. Therefore, if you really want to show off in rules-as-written, have your lab be its own dedicated building with a golden archway, fine decorations and a guard of honour outside at all times. Before you know, every redcap who visits your covenant will tell the order just what a show-off you are.

I suppose becoming an Archmage (covered in Guardians of the Forest) is all about status-seeking.

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A relatively scalable thing you can do is have a highly educated populace. If you can arrange for a teacher for your grogs (doling out 8xp a season) you can theoretically make sure everyone in your covenant can read and write (two seasons spread out over ~2 years to get Artes Lib up to 2, rotating your covenfolk out so that no job goes undone). At the same time, recruit other very talented specialists - perhaps with offers of longevity potions. Maybe you free some glassmakers from Venice, or ensorcel/pay some fine architects from France. Go from “We commandeered this ruin” to “We have a beautiful, modern palace, where everyone can read and write” in a few years, shows that you’re a covenant with an eye for a strong foundation, you mean to be someone, and don’t you want to get in on the ground floor of that?

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If you use A&A, artwork is very useful for both training craftspeople and showing off your patronage.

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Big flashy spells?

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Thanks for lots of great ideas.

Thinking about who you want to impress specifically makes a lot of sense and may lead to fun conflict between magi with different inclinations.

I also love ideas to highlight things that say this covenant is in spring, but it will pay of handsomely to get on their side early!

I especially like having your grogs be cool in some way, because that cannot be done so easily with magic, it takes organizational skill and leadership. Reminds me of how many scientists I know tend to judge journal papers by the quality of the figures to a surprising amount, at least when skimming them (in terms of craft, not just content). If they have time to and knowledge to make the figures nice, it’s seemingly much more likely that the science is done well. “Even the grogs speak better latin than my apprentice! I wish just my lab was as well organized as their covenant …”

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Hosting. Throw a big reception with all the people/creatures you can muster.

W

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