How much vis in your covenant?

Hi there!

On friday, after discovering a blood-activated portal in Carnac, in on our post-game discussion in the pub we discussed the curent status of our vis sources. One of the players thought they were OK, while 2 thought they were too low.

Right now the magi are 8 years out of apprenticeship, we are well settled, but not yet into summer (too low hermetic resources and political influence). The covenant would be in the 500-ish build points area. We have 5 sources with a yearly income of 26-30 pawns of diverse arts (creo, herbam, animal, terram, aquam). There are 4 magi in the covenant, but one of them is a kind of mad hermit, since it is my magus and hardly ever leaves his hut in the forest.

IMS it comes down to 6-7 pawns per magus/year. The vis is not evenly spread, since we have different vis needs, and most of the vis is still being pooled for covenant ussage, but hey.

How about yours? How much vis do your covenant get and how powerful is the covenant itself? That might give me an idea if I should run a pair of stories to increase the vis sources of the covenant. I am willing to go for a "Yes, increase", specially since doing so allows me to use the ant-bee war idea and the last part of Calebais (convent controls vis source) which I love, but that is me :slight_smile:

Cheers,

Xavi

We've got 4 magi (originally 5) in our covenant.

There are 8 sources of Vis, producing stress die / 2 (max 5) Vis/year.
Some Diedne bribe us for 5 Vis per year
We hardly find Vis in adventures, this should increase a bit.
Book/item buying selling has been neutral up till now.

So we basically gain 6 Vis per magus per year. However, there's the Aegis, some rituals and covenant defence/items to be paid.
The older magi (18 years out of gauntlet) have about half a queen of Vis per magus.

In the early years this was too much and that's why the older magi have nice savings, but the last few years there was a 'break even' between income and covenant expenditure.
If you want to give out some Vis on adventures, don't increase the regular income above 8 Vis per magus, keeping it at 5-6 is best. If you want other presents/rewards for adventure: go to 8-10 Vis / magus for a summer covenant IMHO.

You can check our covenants Vis status at:
arsmagica.wik.is/Covenant/Vis_bronnen/
Which describes the Vis sources, in Dutch. Or at:
arsmagica.wik.is/Covenant/Vis_br ... s_voorraad
to see the Vis stocks (also in Dutch, but most is ArM lingo anyway).

We have 5 Magi in the covenant and currently 82 pawns of vis. This is much due to not using any for some years, except for the Aegis.

Our income is 16 pawns per year.

This is not a problem except that noen of the magi are particulary interrested in the techniques and forms we have. So we do vis-trading to get what we need/want. And we probably will need a lot more vis in the next few years as Talismans and Familiars get increasingly interresting.

HÃ¥kon

We've 5 permanent magi and 2 visitors... we have an annual revenue of about 27-32 pawns, a requirement of 6 for aegis costs...

We'd found a few decent caches of vis; after about 12 years our stocks are at 188 pawns.

It seems like a lot, looking at that number, but there a few forms and techniques we've got surplusses of and several we could really use more of. We're positively short of creo, and have pretty infrequent redcap visits to conduct trading.

Most of us have a cache of personal vis, but not too much? A rook or two? We're also in Stonehenge, so we seem to see far more vis than we see good texts. I think our library's maybe gained... six books? Ok, twelve if you count some of the mundane ones with important plot knowledge in them.

I think part of it really depends on the tribunal you're in. I expect Normandy, Rome, Thebes, and probably the Levant to have less vis than the more remote tribunals. But then I expect them to have far better texts.

-Ben.

Lough Caillte has a decent amount of vis in stocks, and a good selection to be harvested. As Lough Caillte is a late summer covenant, there were some build points that went to "unknown resources" (An assortment of Magi have come and gone from Lough Caillte; Things are actually in disarray, due to either Mab's Help, or lack thereof from Deirdre, and various portions of the covenant need to be re-organized). The only thing done regularly is gather the vis, which Mab does in the absence of anyone else). Should be fun when they actually start in on the mess...

Steve

Both as a SG and a Player I prefer covenants to start out just a little short on Vis income. How much is that? Well, just a little less than they typically spend in a season!

If they've just got a Level 25 Aegis, only a few magi and no one is a real lab rat, 15/year might be more than enough to meet their needs. If they've got a half-score sodales, a half-dozen additional large year-duration rituals they need to maintain, and a general penchant to use vis in the lab, then 100/year may not keep the coffers full, not after personal "adventure" use.

But "not quite enough" keeps the Players/Characters hungry, and any find is a victory. To find a new source when you're short is huge - to find a new source when you're already swimming in it can be fairly lackluster. :wink: