How Many True Names can a character know?

Games Discussion Ars Magica
1

So. True Names - show up The Mysteries, RoP:I, C&C and some others I can't recall. But nowhere have I seen any really definitive rule on how many True Names a PC knows based on his knowledge scores, and was looking for some guidance. I have some PCs with some Realm Lores that are high (Infernal Lore, Magic Lore of 6 and 7 respectively) who have been leafing through books and are all "Hey I want to summon something badass and do something awesome." both currently have a magical aligned version of the Summoning power from RoP:I that they were previously using for Demon hunting/killing.

Now, please do recall that this is a high power game I run, but I don't want to to be silly either. Unfortunately, as many already know a MM50 critter/spirit is ridiculously easy to deal with as RAW by PCs who are built right. Which they are.

In RoP:I there's a rule that a character can opt to learn True names at 5xp a pop instead of taking XP in the Ability. That's great if the PCs have been using this rule since day one... But I have not, having never had any inclination previously to look this stuff up.

I don't want to do too much of "It's a story!" to find out True Names, unless it really is something epic and awesome like a full Daimon or Titan that is an unstattable macguffin creature. We game 3 hours a week which is barely enough to do much of anything without even more sidetracks.

I do realize this is pretty much "do whatever you want" kind of house rule territory, but I really hate it when I'm either way too strict or give stuff out way too easily and then have to re-rule on a previous ruling I've handed out.

So, I'm wondering if I should limit the maximum might by the highest level of their ability? Should I give out True Names based on some function of their Ability score? i.e. # = A(A+1)/2 gives a pyramid value of names, but how should I then distribute the True Names across the various might scores?

The "They look them up in a library!" Just feels a bit wishywashy to me.
Any other suggestions/ideas would be awesome. :slight_smile:

2

That's the rule you're going to get, really. It's also in RoP: M, btw.

Generally, lesser spirits do no have True Names at all, so those are the ones to quest for. :-/

Short but frequent session. Maybe use a few of them for a glorified "look it up in the library"?
Not every story has to be very long, perhaps spend a session (or even less) to let them visit a master who has a collection of such Names?

3

Put them in tracti, a single tracti should be able to have a name (5xp) or 2 (10 xp) depending on the author.

4

I've done this before

5

So if you've done it before, how did it work out?

Here's the problem - my PC's have already read all of the current tracti to get to their current score. What do I say, reread tracti for true names? That seems silly.

Maybe a solution is to have "True Name" Tracti separate from regular Tracti?

6

It's not like every single tractatus has every True Name in existence. Certain specific books contain certain specific True Names. None of the tracti in the covenant library have any of the required info, and finding a book withe the information they want will require a story from them.

7

I was thinking separate true name tracti. Asking around through the redcaps might turn up something... depending on how generous you want to be as a GM.

8

Depends. Nobody will care if you're asking around for the True Name of, say, a Daimon, but you'll get rumors spread about you that you do not want spread if you go talking to Redcaps about finding what is basically the easiest route to summoning and commanding an angel or demon... Though you might have some luck if you can turn a demonologist or somesuch in the church into an ally.