[In Your Sagas] How has your covenant made money?

I'd also venture to say, in terms of wards and in terms of hooks, that mines are one of the places I'd both expect folks to find/make new exits/entrances within, and one of the places I'd imagine the circle of the ward might be more likely to be damaged and thus nullified.

If I were a mundane and had to "break a circle", a nice mining pick would be on the short list of options. 8)

(Not that there aren't then solutions to that, I'm just sayin' a ReCo ring ward isn't the full solution.)

I just had an idea to boost Triamore income using faeries - part of the Bois de Haillot income comes from swine herding operations in the Hog Wood. Let's have a magi use some simple CrIm and ReMe magic and appear before peasants as a good, beneficial Swine Faerie Lord from Triamore that promises to take care of the pigs in exchange for some traditional sacrifices (strips of bacon or something) and minor folk rituals. When the stories about such meeting start to circulate, it won't take long before an actual faerie appears and takes the role. Pigs in a faerie custody will grow fat and be abundand, moreover, some faerie auras can raise and even vis can materialize (tasty Creo lard). However, if church learns about new 'pagan' customs, some trouble can arise, new faerie can turn out to be malignant, not beneficial... So we get money, vis, auras and Stories! Seems nice :slight_smile: Comments and critique, please :slight_smile:

Most commonly the covenants have had farm lands and peasants to oversee.

One fairly successful game they had a fleet of merchant ships.

A game I ran a few years ago had the magi without any covenants due to catastrophic spell failure on part of some NPC's. In this game the PCs rounded up a whole mess of rodents, used Muto Animal spells to turn them into dairy cows for the spring summer and early fall. They then let the mice and such go and grabbed a new batch the next spring. This way they didn't worry too much about warping and they had no need to feed their animals over the winter.

Farmlamd and sheep. The pater has been specially prominent in quite a few sagas.

Trade by sea, generally coupled with a local industry (fur hunting, felling trees, fishing, the said wool sheep...)

Raiding. Iberia is a good place to work out this; just leave no witnesses and remember to raid both sides of the border.

Rule an island yourself, and run everything there, from trade to agriculture. The precedent of Magvillus itself makes this feasible as a policy.

Cheers,
Xavi

My current offline covenant has the following:

  1. Furs and meat from animals in the forest
  2. Herbs and other plants that grow in the forest
  3. A decent brewer
  4. a little in way of logging but not much (just enough to round things out)

Together they add up to just enough by covenants. We need to come up with a better income source soon though since we are adding a fifth magi to the covenant. our covenant is in the southern Black Forest though that they are close to the greater Alps tribunal border (the nearest town/city, Basil, straddles the border).

One of the Magi in my saga is mind controlling medical doctors ... and assisting them in enriching their practices. Doctors make mad money, especially with a little magical help. The downside of warping from constant magical effects is lessened (perhaps slowed is a better term) as the doctors are living in major towns and cities rather than in a magic aura - not that this particular magus really cares. In his view a few decades of good income for him per agent is just fine, as mundanes are disposable. As far as the doctors are concerned, they are sending money to support relatives on pilgrimage, living abroad, etc. Long term he's really not sure, but cloistering them and using them as experimental philosophers, scribes, etc. in their "retirement" seems to be an option.

Another magus in the same saga is creating gold, but making sure to be very careful about it. Not only using shroud magic, which is in itself disguised (probably overkill, but he's no quaestetor and is erring on side of caution) ... but also trading the commodity across a wide enough area to avoid inflation, employing mundane intermediaries (he's not gentle gifted), sell amounts well within the norm for traders who sell gold. Gold not being currency, but rather being a commodity, he is being very careful to stick to the same hermetic legal practices/precedents that apply to other commodities sold.

Moneylending, services (we have a very good inn on a well travelled route, and we also run a school).