Japik's Grogs

Retired Play by Post Campaigns Ars Magica 5th Edition: The Price of Freedom
1

[size=150]Hjalmar Torstensen, Danish sailor/warrior[/size]

Characteristics: Int 0, Per 0, Pre 0, Com -3, Str +2, Sta +1, Dex +2, Qik +3
Size: 0
Age: 27
Confidence: 0(0)
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0(0)
Virtues and Flaws: Covenfolk, Warrior, Luck, Fear (of thunderstorms), Incomprehensible
Personality Traits: Brave +2, Talkative -3, Loves Yulia +3, Loyal +2
Reputations: None
Combat:
Dodge Init +3, Defense +7
Fist Init +3, Attack +6, Defense +7, Damage +2
Knife Init +3, Attack +8, Defense +8, Damage +4
Thrown Knife Init +3, Attack +7, Defense +7, Damage +4
Longsword Init +5, Attack +12, Defense +10, Damage +8
Longsword and Round Shield Init +5, Attack +12, Defense +12, Damage +8
Hatchet: Init +3, Attack +10, Defense +8, Damage +6
Soak: +4
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20)
Abilities: Area Lore: Helgoland 1 (known warriors), Area Lore: Southern Baltic Sea 3 (coasts), Athletics 3[2] (rowing), Awareness 2 (in combat), Brawl 4 (knife), Carouse 2 (staying sober), Craft: Carpentry 2 (boat repair), Hunt 2[5] (fishing), Low German 3 (Friesian), Profession: Sailor 5 (small boats), Single Weapon 5 (longsword), Survival 2 (coast), Swim 3 (close to boats), Thrown Weapon 3 (throwing knife), West Norse 5 (Danish)
Equipment: Longsword, hatchet, knife, 3 throwing knives, round shield, heavy leather armor
Encumbrance:

Appearence: Blonde shoulder-length hair, broad-shouldered but with a graceful way of moving.

Hjalmar is the son of a Danish fisherman from Zealand. He took service with the Danish king and was part of several raids along the southeast Baltic coastline. His ship wrecked in a thunderstorm and as far as Hjalmar knows he was the sole survivor as he was found at the shore of Rÿgen close to Crintera. Some women from the covenant found him and he basically had no other option but staying there if he wanted to live. He served as sailor and warrior and actually fought against his kinsmen a few times when they got too close to the covenant. He doesn't speak much and when he days his German is so difficult that most people understand less than half of it. Yulia is the only one that has learnt it and she is the only one he speaks with for any length of time.
He was shipping supplies to Ardea and Japik where they stayed at the cove a days sailing west of Rügen a few times and the dolphin Bjornaer showed some interest in the silent Dane and when it was time to assign a shield grog to him Ardea suggested him. about the same time Hjalmar and Yulia married and they both moved to join Hjalmar at the cove for the last few years of his apprenticeship.

Advancement
1210: 5 xp in Area Lore:Helgoland, 5 xp in Hunt, 2 xp in Athletics.

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[size=150]Yulia, the washerwoman and daughter of a blacksmith[/size]

Characteristics: Int +1, Per 0, Pre -1, Com +1, Str +3, Sta +1, Dex 0, Qik -1
Size: 0
Age: 29
Confidence: 0(0)
Decrepitude: 0
Warping Score: 0(0)
Virtues and Flaws: Covenfolk, Piercing Gaze, Strong-willed, Covenant Upbringing, Obese
Personality Traits: Boisterous +2, Jealous +3, Loyal +1
Reputations: None
Combat:
Dodge Init -1, Defense +3
Fist Init -1, Attack +5, Defense +4, Damage +3
Knife Init -1, Attack +5, Defense +3, Damage +5
Soak: +1
Fatigue Levels: OK, 0, –1, –3, –5, Unconscious
Wound Penalties: –1 (1–5), –3 (6–10), –5 (11–15), Incapacitated (16–20)
Abilities: Area Lore: Helgoland 1 (craftsmen), Area Lore: Crintera 2 (covenfolk), Awareness 3 (alertness), Bargain 1 (dealing with craftsmen), Bjornaer Lore 2 (magi), Brawl 4 (fist), Carouse 4 (power drinking), Charm 2 (male grogs), Craft: Blacksmith 3 (making small iron objects), Craft:Wood 1 (logchopping), Etiquette 1 (magi), Folk Ken 4 (magi), Guile 2[3] (lying to men), Intrigue 2[4] (gossip), Latin 1 (magi smalltalk), Low German 5 (Pomeranian), Profession: Washerwoman 5 (furs), West Norse 3 (Danish)
Equipment: Washing gear, sewing kit, simple metal cutlery, wooden bowls and an iron cauldron, knife, axe (mainly for chopping wood).
Encumbrance: 0

Appearence: A large stocky woman, she is fat but there are lots of muscles interwoven with it as well and she knows how to use them. Long darkbrown hair that she usually keeps in a braided ponytail.

Yulia belongs to the Swan clan of Crintera. Her father was one of the most prominent blacksmiths of the covenant so she spent some time in his forge when she was young. Even if she is strong and big there are many stronger and even bigger men at Crintera so she had to take care of the more menial tasks. She was known for her strong will and boisterous laughing and some of the younger women and less willful men of the covenant was almost afraid of her. They were quite relieved when she married Hjalmar and joined him to live with Japik.

Advancement
Autumn 1210: 5 xp in Bargain from hiring stonemason.
1210: 5 xp in Area Lore:Helgoland, 4 xp in Intrigue, 3 xp in Guile.

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Rescued sailors

Trond
25 year old Norwegian. Rescued after a storm in 1206. Son of the captain of a merchant ship.
Characteristics: Int 0, Per +1, Pre +1, Com +1, Str +1, Sta +2, Dex 0, Qik 0
Personality traits: Dutybound to Japik Dolfinus +3, Stubborn +2
Abilities: Carouse 3 (powerdrinking), Charm 2 (tavern wenches), Guile 2 (harbour officials), Profession: Sailor 5, Leadership 3 (sailors), Speak West Norse 5 (Norwegian), Speak Low German 3 (Friesian)

Mikolaj
19 year old Polish. Rescued together with his brother after a storm in 1208. Fisherman.
Personality traits: Dutybound to Japik Dolfinus +3, Reliable +2
Abilities: Profession: Fisherman 4, Speak West Slavonic 5 (polish), Speak Low German 2 (Friesian)

Stanislaw
21 year old Polish. Rescued together with his brother after a storm in 1208. Fisherman.
Personality traits: Dutybound to Japik Dolfinus +2, Egoistic +1
Abilities: Profession: Fisherman 5, Speak West Slavonic 5 (Polish), Speak Low German 2 (Friesian)

Fearghas
33 year old Scottish. Rescued in 1209 from a merchant ship after a pirate attack where he jumped overboard.
Personality traits: Dutybound to Japik Dolfinus +2, Grumpy +3
Abilities: Profession: Sailor 6, Speak Gaelic 5, Speak English 3, Speak Low German 2 (Friesian)

2

They look good! I would only point that the specialization for "profession: washerwoman (small boats)" sounds somewhat weird :laughing: She is strong, but scraping a boat with a stone, making a ball of it, beating it against the rocks and extending it again to dry at the sun might be a little bit extreme, even for her!

3

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
I copy-pasted from Halancar's grog thread and missed that and perhaps some other things. I updated that but will go through details and add some stats tomorrow.

4

By my calculations Hjalmar is missing 20 xp (15 of those is my fault if you copy pasted from my grog as I had him one year to old for his xp).

On the other hand Yulia seems to be one year too young for her xp. Oh, and I take it that Woodcraft means Craft: Wood and not Survival (forest) ?

5

I was in a hurry when I had to finish the first post here yesterday so there were some mistakes obviously.

First I missed the 50 xp Hjalmar gets from Warrior so I put them into Thrown Weapons and Single Weapon.

For Yulia I changed Woodcraft to Craft: Wood and I took that just because I had 5 xp left at the end and in the description of the covenfolk at Crintera (in GotF) it says all of them are trained in fighting and woodcraft.

Hjalmar's native tongue is West Norse and Yulia's is Low German. That means they understand each other at -3 ranks. Now comes the question, if I want to raise the second language for each them (i.e. Low German for Hjalmar, do I raise it from rank 2 or from scratch)? I have done the former but now I realize it might be they just understand at level 2, they can't speak it themselves. However it can be argued that it's also easier to learn a related language but I don't want to make things more complicated.

6

I think in context that means 'trained in living in forests', which would translate as Survival, rather than 'trained in crafting wood'. But put your xp where you want :slight_smile:

You raise it from scratch. Eventually it will pay off, even if at first it seems to make no difference. Also if you give Hjalmar the same dialect in Low German as Yulia they will have an effective rank of 3 when speaking together.

7

You are missing your washerwoman specialization. I would suggest "furs" given her place of origin.

8

Oh I see. I didn't know woodcraft could have that meaning, but I think Craft:Wood suits her better.

I changed to Low German 2 (Pomeranian) for Hjalmar. Yulia also speaks West Norse (Danish) at 2 which she has learnt from Hjalmar even if it was difficult due to his Incomprehensibility, but that's what you do for love!

Hjalmar speaks very difficult and it's hard for anyone to understand him completely unless you have spent some time with him. Especially since he doesn't speak much at all around any other than Yulia and possibly Japik. The Incomprehensible flaw is mostly about teaching difficulties but I thought it could be broader for him as a simple grog. Maybe -1 level to understand him? Yulia negates this penalty due to their love.

9

Taken! Thanks!

10

Looks good. :smiley:

One quibble, how does Japik gives him any form of complex orders? With them speaking different dialects of Low German, they are at -1 to understand each other. Which but their effective language skill at 1.

Not a huge problem (and opportunities for role-playing), but if Hjalmar has been assigned to Japik long enough to have gottent used to his Gift, then it would usually means that they can at least understand each other a bit better than that.

11

That did cross my mind but then I forgot about it. Yulia can't be around to translate all the time either.

I will raise Hjalmar's Low German to 3, taking the xps from Hunt.
Then I wonder if i can change Japik's dialect to something else, maybe 'nature terms' or 'sea-related'. Japik has been away from Frisia for quite a long time so he might have lost his dialect. Then there would be no dialect penalty between them, right?
Then since they have spent some time together he has also learnt to understand him better than most others so the Incomprehensible penalty I gave him doesn't apply to him and Yulia.

How does that sound?

12

I'm not sure Japik would have travelled widely enough -- and interected with mundanes -- during his apprenticeship to have replaced his native dialect to something else. On the other hand, Hjalmar's specialty may have changed from Pomeranian to Friesian due to his exposure to Japik. But that may force you to increase Yulia's knowledge of Danish, so that she can understand Hjalmar just as well as Japik does. This can be done rather easily.

Incomprehensible has no mechanical penalty for day-to-day communication, so would have no bearing on Japik's and Yulia's understanding of Hjalmar as they know him well enough.

13

Then let's say Hjalmar beached close to Japik and Ardea's cove after he was shipwrecked so he has spent more time with them, Japik in particular, rather than with the covenfolk at Crintera. That will give him Low German (Friesian).
Japik, Ardea and Hjalmar travelled to Crintera once in a while and later on Hjalmar went there on his own more often with a small boat to get supplies. That's how he met Yulia, they fell in love and Yulia decided to learn Danish to understand him better.

I'll change the language stats to represent this.

14

Sounds good. And then you can have a nice scene with Yullia cornering Hjalmar and (basically) assaulting him when he was running some errands for Ardea in Crintera :mrgreen:

15

I have added the sailors in the first post with names, origin, when and how they were rescued, some personality traits and basic abilities.

I liked the idea of a foreign "legion" where everyone has learnt to speak Friesian as their common language. Could be useful since they know a broad range of languages.
The knarr will be named 'Baltrum' after Japik's home island. We could rename it later if you like, to suit our new covenant.